How do you manage and allocate your SEM budget across different campaigns and ad groups?

1 Understand your goals and KPIs

Before you start allocating your budget, you need to define your goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) for each campaign and ad group. What are you trying to achieve with your SEM efforts? Do you want to increase traffic, conversions, leads, sales, or brand awareness? How will you measure your success and track your progress? Depending on your goals and KPIs, you may have different budget priorities and allocation methods. For example, if you want to increase conversions, you may want to allocate more budget to the campaigns and ad groups that have the highest conversion rates and the lowest cost per conversion.

2 Segment your campaigns and ad groups

Once you have your goals and KPIs, you need to segment your campaigns and ad groups according to different criteria, such as keywords, locations, devices, audiences, products, or services. This will help you identify the most profitable and relevant segments for your business, and allocate your budget accordingly. For example, if you sell shoes online, you may want to segment your campaigns and ad groups by shoe type, size, color, brand, or style. You can then analyze the performance of each segment and decide how much budget to assign to each one.

3 Use the right bidding strategy

Your bidding strategy determines how much you are willing to pay for each click or impression on your ads. There are different types of bidding strategies, such as manual, automated, or smart bidding, that have different advantages and disadvantages. You need to choose the right bidding strategy for each campaign and ad group, based on your goals, budget, and competition. For example, if you have a limited budget and a specific target cost per conversion, you may want to use a manual or a target CPA bidding strategy. If you have a flexible budget and want to maximize your visibility and reach, you may want to use an automated or a maximize clicks bidding strategy.

4 Monitor and optimize your performance

Once you have set up your campaigns and ad groups, you need to monitor and optimize your performance regularly. You need to check your metrics, such as impressions, clicks, conversions, costs, and ROI, and compare them to your goals and KPIs. You also need to identify any issues or opportunities that may affect your budget allocation, such as seasonal trends, market changes, or competitor actions. You can then adjust your bids and budgets accordingly, by increasing or decreasing them for the campaigns and ad groups that are underperforming or overperforming. You can also pause or stop the campaigns and ad groups that are not meeting your expectations or objectives.

5 Test and experiment

Finally, you need to test and experiment with different budget scenarios and strategies, to find out what works best for your business and your audience. You can use tools such as Google Ads Experiments, which allow you to create and run different versions of your campaigns and ad groups, and compare their results. You can test different variables, such as keywords, bids, budgets, ad copy, landing pages, or targeting options, and see how they affect your performance and ROI. You can then apply the learnings and insights from your experiments to your main campaigns and ad groups, and improve your budget allocation and efficiency.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?