A new Google Ads campaign needs deep data, not wide data

A brand new Google Ads campaign needs deep data, not wide data. 100 clicks on 100 adverts tells you nothing. 100 clicks on 1 advert and a picture starts to emerge.

I met with a fellow PPC person who was tearing her hair out because a new campaign wouldn't get traction. After two weeks she'd had no leads and she was beginning to panic. The client trusted her, but if she couldn't generate leads...

The campaign was extensive. It covered every facet of the client's business. It had 50+ ad groups. Each ad group had two fully-loaded responsive ads, and broad, phrase and exact match keywords. She was targeting the client's entire geographic footprint.

It was superb work. But it was too much for a brand new campaign.

When you launch a campaign you trade money for data.

The hope is that you can gather enough data to learn what works before you run out of money, or your client runs out of patience.

The problem with this campaign was that the data was spread too thin. There was not enough information about any one keyword or ad to be able to learn anything useful.

It's counterintuitive, but you get useful data faster from a smaller campaign than you do from a bigger one.

I suggested to her that she structure the campaign for learning:-

• Advertise only one facet of the client's business which would reduce the number of keywords.
• Use only the exact match keywords.
• Limit the ads to one city.
• Run one responsive search ad per ad group.
• Schedule the ads to run only when the client could respond to the leads.
• Increase the daily budget even if it means having to pause the campaign later to prevent overspending.

This will concentrate the data she's buying so she - or a bidding algorithm - has something to work with.

None of these changes are permanent. Once the campaign gets some traction she can expand it to cover different parts of the business, locations and so on.

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