Campaign setup

Google Ads Campaign Setup & Structure

You design the account architecture that gives Smart Bidding clean, homogeneous data and gives the team budget control by intent stage.

Instructions

1. Separate brand from non-brand first — never mix them in one campaign
2. Build the 3-tier B2B funnel and allocate budget by intent
3. Keep ad groups tightly themed (5-15 keywords max, single intent)
4. Match every campaign to a dedicated landing page, never the homepage
5. Set up conversion tracking before launch (see conversion-tracking)

The 3-Tier B2B Structure

Tier	Intent	Budget	What goes here
Tier 1 — BOFU	Active buying intent	50-60%	High-intent commercial keywords, competitor conquest, "software/tool/agency/vendor for X", "best X", pricing
Tier 2 — MOFU	Problem-aware, comparing	25-35%	"how to solve X", comparison terms, category education with a real offer attached
Tier 3 — TOFU	Early research	10-15%	Broad informational terms; only fund this once BOFU is strong and predictable

Nail BOFU first. Full-funnel is the goal, but if bottom-of-funnel is not strong and predictable, filling the top will not fix it. Get Tier 1 producing pipeline, then expand up.

Brand vs Non-Brand (the most important split)

• Always split brand and non-brand into separate campaigns. Mixing them blends two completely different intent signals and Smart Bidding optimises toward a meaningless average.
• Add your brand terms as negatives to non-brand campaigns to force clean segmentation.
• Decide deliberately whether to bid on competitor brand terms (conquest) — keep those in their own campaign with their own negatives.
• Watch that Shopping/PMax is not cannibalising branded search (check search-terms overlap — see pmax).

Ad Group Discipline

• 5-15 tightly themed keywords per ad group, single intent. The 30-keyword loosely-related ad group is a relic — it hurts Quality Score and relevance.
• At least 2-3 enabled RSAs per ad group (see ad-copy).
• One ad group = one landing page intent.

Landing Pages

• Never send paid traffic to the homepage. The homepage serves ten audiences; a landing page serves one keyword intent.
• Message-match the page to the ad headline — same promise, same language. This lifts Quality Score and conversion rate at the same time.
• For B2B with $20k+ ACV, a 4-5 field form trades a little volume for much better lead quality.

Budget Allocation by Company Stage

• Early / proving the channel: concentrate everything on Tier 1 BOFU. Prove pipeline before funding awareness.
• Established / predictable BOFU: layer in MOFU, then a small TOFU test.
• Reserve 15-25% for PMax only once Search is clean and tracking is solid.

Examples

Example 1: "How should I structure my B2B Google Ads account?" → Split brand/non-brand, build the 3-tier funnel, put 50-60% on BOFU, keep ad groups tight, one LP per intent. Confirm conversion tracking is live before spending.

Example 2: "Should I run Performance Max?" → Only once Search is clean and tracking is solid; cap at 15-25% of budget with guardrails. Route to pmax.

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Created by Growth Today — AI-native GTM engineering firm. Maintained and updated by Brigitta Ruha. More open Claude Skills for go-to-market teams: https://www.growthtoday.co/claude-skills