When conducting a search engine advertising campaign, keyword management can be one of the most crucial and complicated aspects advertisers have to prepare for. During the San Jose SES conference, most, if not all, search engine representatives stressed the importance of relevant keyword selection, and how it can be the difference between profit and loss.
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Managing AdWords Campaigns 
While choosing the right keywords to use is probably the most important aspect when conducting a search engine advertising, managing keywords, especially large volumes, can be just as difficult as selecting them. With this in mind, this article is going to look at some tips for managing high keyword volumes within Google’s advertising program, AdWords.
When it comes to keyword management, WebmasterWorld poster, AdWordsAdvisor, an AdWords insider, offers this advice: “Group your keywords into focused Ad Groups, where all of the keywords are on the same subject, and accurately describe your actual product or service.” This is great advice and I would recommend reading more of AdWordsAdvisor’s posts by going to his profile page or by searching through the variety of WebmasterWorld Google AdWords topics.
Most successful AdWord campaign managers seem to follow the theme of AWA’s advice by separating effective keywords into their own Ad Group. Keywords that do not perform are either grouped together and/or are dropped from the member’s CPC keyword bidding list. However, what actions can advetisers with large keywords amounts take when it comes to managing their campaign?
According to Mikkel deMib Svendsen, a poster at the SearchEngineWatch forums, Google places the following limits on these AdWords characteristics:
– Max 25 campaigns in each account
– Max 100 Ad Groups in each campaign
– Max 1000 keywords in each Ad Group
These limitations mean that AdWord members can “only” have 2.5 million (25 x 100 x 1000) keywords under their control. However, because people want to divide these keywords into their own Ad Groups, the more keywords you have under your control, the less “storage facilities” you have to place them. If you are managing a campaign with a large number of keywords and you like to place each keyword within their Ad Group, these AdWords limitations can present a problem.
It is this very conundrum that Mikkel came across. To find a solution, he ventured out to the SEW forum and presented his problem:
“For the first time I am faced with a campaign of this size: There is 10k keywords, one specific URL for each of them and 3-6 creatives for each (title/description combos). Usually I set up all AdWords campaigns with one keyword (or very few close variations) in each AdGroup and multiple creatives for each How do you handle large accounts like this (with thousands of keywords and target URLs)?”
AussieWebmaster, a moderator at the forum, was the first to answer his question. To start, Aussie said, “You can group them by category that would have much of the same creative info and then use dynamic keyword insertion to have the specific term inserted into the creative.” However, Mikkel thought this approach would still limit his campaign because he has almost “60,000 different creatives for the 10k keywords.”
Ideally, it seems that Mikkel wants one Ad Group for each of the keywords under his management. And for those involved in campaigns with large amounts of keywords, this would be a great idea. But because AdWords places these limits, other options were needed.
Without missing a beat, Aussie responded with further advice for Mikkel to consider:
“Work from a base of say 2k of individual terms and use the 12k creatives for them the rest you are going to have to juggle into larger groups – and when terms show solid conversion and clicks then move them into separate and clear some of the deadwood from the single groups”
If you are going to start a campaign with large amounts of keywords to manage, keep in mind that your list may dwindle some. If you manage your campaign with the advice of others in mind, you should “prune” the keywords that don’t perform CTR-wise. However, if all the keywords you are bidding on do convert, organizing them in a logical and related manner will only help when it comes to analyzing their performance.
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest search news.
