Google Search is the highest-intent traffic available, and the easiest place to spend money on people who will never buy. The difference is mostly Google Search campaign structure, decided before the first click.
Google Search campaign structure: split by intent, not by product
The instinct is a campaign per product. Better is a campaign per intent stage, because intent determines what you should be willing to pay:
| Campaign | Example queries | Bid posture |
|---|---|---|
| Brand | your company name | Cheap, defensive, always on |
| High intent | "modular kitchen gurgaon price" | Highest bids |
| Category | "modular kitchen designers" | Moderate |
| Research | "modular vs carpenter kitchen" | Low, or content only |
Keeping these separate means a research query cannot quietly eat the budget you meant for buyers.
Run brand as its own campaign
Two reasons. It is cheap, and if you mix it with everything else it inflates your reported performance — brand searchers were already coming. Separating it is the difference between knowing your acquisition cost and flattering yourself.
The same logic is why brand exclusions matter so much in Performance Max.
Match types, practically
- Exact for your proven money terms. Tight control, predictable cost.
- Phrase for expansion, with negatives maintained weekly.
- Broad only with good conversion data and smart bidding, and only once negatives are disciplined. Broad without maintenance is the fastest way to fund Google's experiments.
Fewer ad groups than you think
The old advice was single-keyword ad groups. With modern matching and automated bidding, that fragments data across groups that each learn too slowly. Group by theme, keep enough volume in each to be readable, and let the ad copy match the theme.
Write ads that qualify
A search ad should filter as well as attract. Put the price range, the service area and the constraint in the copy. Clicks you avoid are cheaper than leads you disqualify later.
- Include the city if you serve one.
- State the starting price if you have one.
- Use sitelinks for the questions people ask before enquiring.
- Pin the essential detail so automation cannot drop it.
A search ad that repels the wrong clicks is doing half the job of a negative keyword list.
The maintenance that keeps it working
- Read the search terms report weekly for the first month, then monthly. This is the whole game — details in the negative keyword audit.
- Build a shared negative list so you maintain it once.
- Check location settings are on presence, not presence-or-interest, unless you genuinely want people researching from other cities.
- Feed qualified-lead data back so smart bidding optimises towards customers rather than form fills.
- Review ad schedule once you have data. Many Indian lead-gen accounts get materially better answer rates at particular hours.
Budget reality
Search rewards concentration. Three campaigns at a workable budget beat eight that each sit below the threshold where bidding can learn. If the budget will not cover your full keyword ambition, cut keywords rather than spreading thinner.
The wider version of this, including where Google accounts usually leak budget, is on our Google Ads page.
If you are weighing up whether to run this in-house or pay someone, what Google Ads management actually costs covers the three pricing structures and what moves the number.
Questions people ask
How should I structure a Google Search campaign?
Split campaigns by intent rather than by product, keep brand in its own campaign so it does not flatter everything else, and use fewer ad groups than feels natural so each one gathers enough conversions to optimise against. Structure decided before launch does more for efficiency than any bid adjustment afterwards.
Should brand terms be a separate campaign?
Yes. Branded search converts at a far higher rate and will otherwise inflate the efficiency of the whole account, hiding whatever is wrong elsewhere. Separate it and you can judge non-brand performance on its own.
Which match types should I use?
Phrase and exact for the terms you know convert, broad only where you have solid conversion data and negatives in place to contain it. Broad match without a negative keyword habit is the fastest way to buy irrelevant traffic.
How many keywords per ad group?
Few enough that the ads can speak directly to all of them. Over-segmenting starves each ad group of the conversion volume Google needs, which costs more than the relevance gain is worth.
Want this structured properly rather than by default? Tell us what you sell.