What’s Inside
How you structure your shopping campaigns can have a dramatic impact on the performance you see. Choosing the best structure for your campaigns comes down to:
How much time you have to setup your campaigns.
How much time you will have to manage the campaigns on an ongoing basis.
How much data you have when you start.
How much data you want from the campaigns when they are running.
Here are the most common shopping campaign structures I see in Google shopping and the pros and cons of each.
One campaign One Ad Group One Product Group
Who Is It For?
You don’t have a lot of time to manage the campaign and you can live with a lower ROAS. In reality with Smart campaigns now an option very few should select this shopping campaign structure unless you have a very small set of products and those products are all very similar. If you have a larger product catalog and limited time to work on your campaigns I would suggest looking at Smart shopping campaigns as a start.
Pros
One budget to manage.
Quick and easy to manage bids.
Simple bid modifier management. Locations, devices, and audiences.
Simple negative keyword management.
Easy reporting.
Easy visibility into all your product group segments (Google Product Category, Product Type, Custom Labels, etc). You can see all of you segments in one view.
Cons
You lose a lot of control of what products are served for search queries.
You can have a small group of products using all of or most of you budget.
Only one budget means you cannot allocate budget to top performing categories and products.
Negating keywords that are at the top of the funnel will mean you lose all visibility for those search terms.
If you have different types of products, then it will become difficult to manage negative keywords and filter certain search queries to specific products you want displayed for those search terms.
You can’t tailor your bid modifiers to certain products and product segments.
Smart Shopping Campaigns Only
Who Is It For?
You have limited resources and or time to manage your shopping campaigns. While putting your entire catalog into one shopping campaign will usually not be the best structure it is preferable over using the One campaign One Ad Group One Product Group campaign structure. With Smart campaigns you will benefit from machine learning, automated bids, and multiple placements (Search, Display, YouTube, etc.) without needing to put much time into management of the campaign.
Pros
The easiest way to run shopping ads. There is literally almost nothing you can do to manage these campaigns; you can view results and change the target ROAS if you have one set.
Automated bidding and machine learning should provide you with ROAS you can live with.
Easy reporting.
Cons
You have no visibility into what search queries are driving impressions, clicks, and conversions.
You have no visibility into where your ads are being displayed. For example, you will not know what % of clicks are coming from display vs. search. Update, look at a recent post on breaking down how Smart shopping campaigns are using display.
You might limit your visibility for high converting searches if you have a target ROAS set and your entire catalog is in the campaign.
You can’t allocate budget to top performing products and searches.
One campaign One Ad Group Multiple Product Groups
Who Is It For?
You don’t have a lot of time to manage the campaign and your products are similar.
Pros
One budget to manage.
Easy to manage bids.
Simple bid modifier management. Locations, devices, and audiences.
Simple negative keyword management.
Easy reporting.
Easy visibility into all your product group segments (Google Product Category, Product Type, Custom Labels, etc.). You can see all of you segments in one view.
Cons
Only one budget means you cannot allocate budget to top performing categories and products.
Negating keywords that are at the top of the funnel will mean you lose all visibility.
Multiple Campaigns One Ad Group Multiple Product Groups
Who Is It For?
You have a wide selection of products and product categories and you want to be able to allocate your budget to different product segments.
Pros
Control of budget for different product segments.
Control of negative keywords.
Ability to adjust bid modifiers for different product segments.
Drive new revenue from high performing products and search queries.
Cons
With only one ad group you will still be somewhat limited in how you use negative keywords. You might have to negate a top of the funnel keyword because of poor performance.
Multiple Campaigns Multiple Ad Groups Multiple Product Groups and Priority Settings
Who Is It For?
You have experience with Google Ads, shopping campaigns, and you have the resources to manage your campaigns on an ongoing basis.
Pros
By using priority level settings, you have the most control of search queries and bid levels for those searches. You can use low bids for top the funnel more generic keywords, mid-level bids for product searches, and high bids for product searches, branded searches, and top performing searches.
With the correct configuration and time, you should be able to maximize your ROAS.
You have complete control of your bids, bid modifiers, budgets, and negative keywords.
Cons
The initial configuration of this account structure will take more time.
You need to research past product and search query performance to create your negative keyword lists for different levels of your funnel.
There will be more campaigns and ad groups so ongoing management will take more time.
Reporting will be more time consuming. Hint use a consistent campaign naming structure and labels to make reporting easier.
When using campaigns that contain the same products and different priority levels if you change the structure in one campaign you will need to do the same in the corresponding campaign.