Bringing in a consultant or making a new hire to perfect your sales funnel is great! You’re creating top-notch content, nurturing leads through campaigns, and your sales team is ready to close deals. But what does this have to do with Google Ads, you ask? That’s precisely the issue.

Are Keywords the Only Path to Purchase?

Many businesses limit the connection between their sales funnel stages and Google Ads to just the top. They rely heavily on broad, less-targeted keywords to drive traffic to landing pages that barely differ in content or offer. This isn’t efficient if your paid search goals involve profitability.

Your sales funnel and your offer should be fundamentally connected. In essence, this means using the right keywords, ads, and landing pages to attract the right audience. Simple, right?

While aligning ad and landing page copy (Message Match) is frequently discussed among SEM specialists (Duane Brown from Unbounce and I even did a webinar on this exact topic on it), aligning your account structure with your sales funnel is often neglected.

This is illogical because aligning your account with your sales funnel guarantees better lead quality and volume. In other words, Message Match shouldn’t stop at aligning website and ad copy; it should be the foundation of your paid search strategy.

Here are 5 ways to ensure your sales funnel stages and Google Ads account structure are in sync. But first…

Why is this Important?

Message Match significantly impacts Quality Score, which is crucial.

Of the factors influencing Quality Score (keyword relevance, ad relevance, click-through rate, landing page experience, historical performance, and the unclear “various relevance factors”), the three highlighted are directly affected by Message Match.

Here’s a breakdown:

• Keyword Relevance: How closely the keyword you’re bidding on matches a prospect’s search query.
• Ad Relevance: Whether the search query appears in your ad copy.
• Landing Page Relevance: Whether the search query is present in your landing page copy.

Logically, aligning your keywords and ad copy should improve your click-through rate. Over time, this leads to excellent historical performance, earning you a perfect Quality Score from Google.

Why is this crucial? Because Quality Score directly affects cost per click.

Lower cost per click means more clicks within your budget, leading to more conversion opportunities.

By designing your account to inherently maximize Quality Score, you maximize the return on every dollar spent.

Get it? Great!

Now, let’s dive into the list.

Tip #1: Mirror Your Sales Funnel Stages in Your Campaigns

There are three primary sales funnel stages: top, middle, and bottom.

(I apologize for using the ice-cream-cone-as-sales-funnel analogy again, but it’s effective and makes me crave Italian food).

At the top, you’re attracting new prospects unfamiliar with your brand or those conducting informational searches. They’re far from purchasing. In the middle, you nurture prospects during their decision-making process. Finally, at the bottom, you persuade a prospect familiar with your brand to buy.

Campaigns, the largest organizational unit in your account, are the ideal starting point for incorporating Message Match. Instead of grouping similar keywords into campaigns, go further.

Let’s illustrate. Imagine you own a haberdashery selling handcrafted flannels and leather goods. You’re launching a new line of woolen overshirts and want to promote them using Google Ads.

Create 3 campaigns: “Overshirts – ToF,” “Overshirts – MoF,” “Overshirts – BoF.” Each campaign has a different goal:

• Top of Funnel (ToF): Introduce your shirts to those doing pre-purchase research (searching for “winter shirts” or “jacket alternatives”).
• Middle of Funnel (MoF): Establish your product and brand as the authority.
• Bottom of Funnel (BoF): Target long-tail keywords indicating purchase intent (synonyms of “purchase” or highly specific searches showing the prospect is ready to buy).

Utilize Dynamic Remarketing and Google Shopping Ads to enhance this system (they can even replace your MoF/BoF campaigns depending on your industry).

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This structure takes longer to build than a single campaign per product or service, but it grants you granular control over ad spend. You can tailor ad copy to keywords and searcher intent.

Tip #2: Embrace Single-Keyword Ad Groups (SKAGs)

Nothing beats the precision of a single keyword (with multiple match types) per ad group. SKAGs offer peak granularity.

With only one keyword to focus on, integrating it into your ad copy becomes effortless. Cramming multiple terms into a single ad is challenging, even with expanded text ads. Inevitably, in large ad groups, ads are displayed for loosely related terms, which is counterproductive.

Sadly, the AdWords UI often leads advertisers to overlook SKAGs.

Remember “Keyword Relevance” from the Quality Score factors? Achieving synergy between search queries and ad copy is nearly impossible when a single ad serves numerous keywords. Dynamic Keyword Insertion, while helpful, takes control away from you. And you don’t want that.

Google’s suggestion of grouping “10-20 keywords” contradicts their own advice to “be specific.” Specificity requires granularity, which demands SKAGs. Lots of them.

Let’s see what a Single Keyword Ad Group looks like.

Despite being called “single keyword,” SKAGs should contain three keywords: one term with broad, phrase, and exact match types. In the example, “adwords keyword pricing” is in the same ad group as its broad, phrase, and exact match counterparts.

Besides seamlessly incorporating keywords into your ad copy, a tiered bidding strategy (lowest bid for broad match, highest for exact match) prevents broad match terms from cannibalizing impressions from phrase and exact match variations.

In Short:

Tip #3: Keyword Intent is Key

I’ve stressed this repeatedly, but it’s worth reiterating: keyword intent is paramount.

There are three main search query types: navigational, informational, and transactional. Navigational queries have minimal commercial intent and can be ignored. However, informational and transactional searches are your primary focus.

Grouping keywords with similar intent within a campaign allows messaging control. This is crucial because someone searching for information seeks something different than someone ready to buy.

For instance, a prospect seeking information responds better to a whitepaper or webinar than a purchase opportunity. Conversely, someone ready to buy doesn’t care about general information; making the buying process easy is key.

Understanding searcher intent helps you craft a message (through keywords, ad copy, and landing page copy) that addresses their needs.

Grouping informational keywords with transactional terms dilutes their effectiveness.

Tip #4: Eliminate Irrelevant, Non-Converting Traffic

With your account maximizing Message Match, ensure you’re not wasting money on search queries with no conversion potential.

Negative keywords are the easiest way to minimize and potentially eliminate the impact of irrelevant searches. But how do you identify them? Through intent.

Negative keywords can be applied at three levels: Account, Campaign, and Ad Group.

Account Level…

In the image, most red-highlighted search queries contain the word “free.” If you’re a retailer, negating “free” at the account level prevents broad and phrase match keywords from appearing for low-intent queries. Consider adding terms irrelevant to your business or those you find ethically objectionable.

Campaign Level…

With campaigns structured for Message Match, your campaign-level negative keywords should include terms you’re bidding on in similar campaigns targeting different funnel stages. For instance, in the ToF overshirts campaign, negate keywords used in the BoF overshirts campaign. This prevents broader terms from overshadowing high-intent long-tail keywords you want to convert.

Ad Group Level…

Lastly, the ad group level is where you add daily or weekly negative keywords – individual search queries your keywords match to. This routine activity, while tedious, ensures you’re monitoring paid queries and can spark new keyword ideas.

Implementing negative keywords at each level eliminates unnecessary impressions, ensuring your ads reach users more likely to click.

Tip #5: Utilize Advanced Targeting Features

With billions of internet users, not everyone is your target audience. That’s where geo-targeting comes in.

However, targeting on the Search Network goes beyond selecting a city or state. Google allows demographic targeting based on age, gender, parental status, and household income.

Why is this valuable? Because tailoring your ad copy and offering becomes more effective when you can control your target audience.

Let’s explore targeting options that can help you dominate local SERPs.

Income-Based Targeting

Local businesses heavily rely on location-based targeting. National or global businesses likely use bid adjustments to allocate spend based on geographic performance.

If you’ve profiled your ideal customer, you’ve likely considered average household income. It influences what and how you sell. Now, you can leverage this data from Google to make informed advertising decisions.

Demographics for Search

Demographics for Search enables bid adjustments for specific audiences based on gender, age, or parental status. You can even exclude entire groups and create parallel campaigns targeting different demographics. Cool, right?

A word of caution: don’t forget the “Unknown” group. Google doesn’t possess demographic information about everyone. Overlooking this segment means ignoring a potentially significant portion of your target audience.

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Aligning your Google Ads account with your sales funnel ensures that every search query is met with compelling ad copy and a relevant landing page offer.

Thoughtfully selecting your target audience based on region, income, age, and gender amplifies your structural advantage. This maximizes your ad spend without increasing your budget. What’s not to love?

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