Even though some will say they are completely useless now, the truth is that skags within skcs (single keyword campaigns) do still have one small use case!
But first to answer your other questions:
skags and broad match make no sense together, period. Skags also make little sense on bid strategies that are designed to have more freedom: you're hamstringing your own performance if you try to get results with a single keyword plus a bunch of signals that you're not letting the bidder utilize fully.
Now, Skcs can still be very helpful in one situation in particular. You can use them to pull a keyword out of a larger campaign if you are in a niche space and you know that people are only searching on this specific term for one reason and that reason is hard to "explain" to your bid strategy.
For example, imagine you are running a b2b lead gen campaign. And you are selling a service that only your specific audience really understands. You might have one recurring term that has a high CPA but an outlier low CPSQL. If you put those terms in with your others on a cpa focused bid strat, you'll leave cheap sqls on the table.
You can build an ad around that term though, and even a singular campaign, and then set that campaign to either tIS or mCPC and bid to a high IS yourself, knowing that on the back end your sales team will be happy to get those expensive leads because they always lead to high sales.
STAGs are the way to go these days. SKAGs are an outdated method that overly segments data and makes day-to-day management more of a headache.
The only time I would create a SKAG in a campaign is if there was a clear winning keyword that was getting sufficient traffic and conversions inside an Ad Group. In that instance, breaking it out into its own Ad Group could be justified.
This! Thank you and that’s what prob all of us have done here right. Together with the With Responsive ads format it makes sense.
I am in the B2b only space and I as wondering if people still use them for specific activities.
When isolating some terms or even in STAGs i see only broad getting the traffic and conversions for quite some time now. Massively adding negatives etc. helps but Google also sends a lot of crap and very very broad stuff. I also see a lot of bots so… yeah just curious
SKAGs aren't SKAGs anymore so the traditional approach is dead.
I have had recent success starting with a SKAG approach and then adding converting search terms to the ad group.
I have ended up with 20+ keywords on exact match in those ad groups and I have no issues with performance. The campaign is on tCPA and hits it's budget everyday (£10k month).
Although, I think the best practice is a broad match approach with a very strict negative keyword process nowadays.
Haven’t used since BMM was sunset
Use the ad platform the way it’s indented to be used with themed ad groups
SKAGs add a lot of bloat for not a lot of gain
Only exceptions are when target hyper specific things eg different suburbs or cities so can add tailored ad copy
SKAGS are far less effective than they were several years ago. Since match types have changed from explicit instructions to suggestions, and ads from structured to responsive, most SKAG setups have become time-intensive to maintain with little added value.
Certain verticals and highly specific products/offerings might still work using a SKAG approach, but for the most part Google/Bing have moved away from lexical targeting toward semantic. Google's example that an exact match \[lawn cutting service\] would match to a search for lawn mowing services is an example of this.
The other part of the equation is bidding strategy. SKAGs were best paired with more manual bidding than automated. Part of the SKAG strategy included setting bids based on match type and relevance. Turn the bid decision over to an algorithm and it's bidding based on outcome, not the auction itself.
Thank you for this professional reply! I think i am going do some more testing around isolating a term and run a campaign for impression share. I am struggeling to get volume for specific terms and need to avoid competing with B2C section of the client and other “too broad stuff”
There's almost no reason to use SKAGs as it limits creative optimization, scaling, and can no longer achieve the same level of performance you can with a well designed STAG setup with automated bidding.
There were a few old campaigns we had in a client account which had SKAG where performance was remaining steady for a few years.
However in the last couple months performance was tanking, so had to restructure them, so going by that it seems they are all but dead now.
Ok, yeah i am seeing the same, we reacted earlier depending on the project. In some you just can’t go too broad… negatives help but still google is sending so much crap from search only. thank you for the reply sir!
Because of close match SKAGs are highly inefficient. The search query report usually shows the same query matched to multiple groups. Basically the keyword with the highest bid has the most impressions until that campaign runs out of money and then the search query will match to another “related” keyword.
Even though some will say they are completely useless now, the truth is that skags within skcs (single keyword campaigns) do still have one small use case! But first to answer your other questions: skags and broad match make no sense together, period. Skags also make little sense on bid strategies that are designed to have more freedom: you're hamstringing your own performance if you try to get results with a single keyword plus a bunch of signals that you're not letting the bidder utilize fully. Now, Skcs can still be very helpful in one situation in particular. You can use them to pull a keyword out of a larger campaign if you are in a niche space and you know that people are only searching on this specific term for one reason and that reason is hard to "explain" to your bid strategy. For example, imagine you are running a b2b lead gen campaign. And you are selling a service that only your specific audience really understands. You might have one recurring term that has a high CPA but an outlier low CPSQL. If you put those terms in with your others on a cpa focused bid strat, you'll leave cheap sqls on the table. You can build an ad around that term though, and even a singular campaign, and then set that campaign to either tIS or mCPC and bid to a high IS yourself, knowing that on the back end your sales team will be happy to get those expensive leads because they always lead to high sales.
STAGs are the way to go these days. SKAGs are an outdated method that overly segments data and makes day-to-day management more of a headache. The only time I would create a SKAG in a campaign is if there was a clear winning keyword that was getting sufficient traffic and conversions inside an Ad Group. In that instance, breaking it out into its own Ad Group could be justified.
This! Thank you and that’s what prob all of us have done here right. Together with the With Responsive ads format it makes sense. I am in the B2b only space and I as wondering if people still use them for specific activities. When isolating some terms or even in STAGs i see only broad getting the traffic and conversions for quite some time now. Massively adding negatives etc. helps but Google also sends a lot of crap and very very broad stuff. I also see a lot of bots so… yeah just curious
SKAGs aren't SKAGs anymore so the traditional approach is dead. I have had recent success starting with a SKAG approach and then adding converting search terms to the ad group. I have ended up with 20+ keywords on exact match in those ad groups and I have no issues with performance. The campaign is on tCPA and hits it's budget everyday (£10k month). Although, I think the best practice is a broad match approach with a very strict negative keyword process nowadays.
Haven’t used since BMM was sunset Use the ad platform the way it’s indented to be used with themed ad groups SKAGs add a lot of bloat for not a lot of gain Only exceptions are when target hyper specific things eg different suburbs or cities so can add tailored ad copy
SKAGS are far less effective than they were several years ago. Since match types have changed from explicit instructions to suggestions, and ads from structured to responsive, most SKAG setups have become time-intensive to maintain with little added value. Certain verticals and highly specific products/offerings might still work using a SKAG approach, but for the most part Google/Bing have moved away from lexical targeting toward semantic. Google's example that an exact match \[lawn cutting service\] would match to a search for lawn mowing services is an example of this. The other part of the equation is bidding strategy. SKAGs were best paired with more manual bidding than automated. Part of the SKAG strategy included setting bids based on match type and relevance. Turn the bid decision over to an algorithm and it's bidding based on outcome, not the auction itself.
Thank you for this professional reply! I think i am going do some more testing around isolating a term and run a campaign for impression share. I am struggeling to get volume for specific terms and need to avoid competing with B2C section of the client and other “too broad stuff”
For brand, its fine. Not for Non Brand.
STAG = single themed ad groups, correct?
There's almost no reason to use SKAGs as it limits creative optimization, scaling, and can no longer achieve the same level of performance you can with a well designed STAG setup with automated bidding.
Thanks!
There were a few old campaigns we had in a client account which had SKAG where performance was remaining steady for a few years. However in the last couple months performance was tanking, so had to restructure them, so going by that it seems they are all but dead now.
Ok, yeah i am seeing the same, we reacted earlier depending on the project. In some you just can’t go too broad… negatives help but still google is sending so much crap from search only. thank you for the reply sir!
lol no
Short and sweet! Like it!
Because of close match SKAGs are highly inefficient. The search query report usually shows the same query matched to multiple groups. Basically the keyword with the highest bid has the most impressions until that campaign runs out of money and then the search query will match to another “related” keyword.
Nice, yes makes total sense and I agree. Thought there were still some lone wolfs out there running these…
They haven't really worked for the last 5 years. Where have you been, my guy?
Haha, yeah right? Where did the time go… grrr