SKAGs are an advert group that targets just one key phrase. They had been all the craze just a few years again, however at present’s PPC advertising panorama calls for a broader concentrate on single subjects as a substitute.
Right here, you’ll discover:
- What SKAGs are
- Why they aren’t as effective as they once were
- How single-topic ad groups (STAGs) bring more ROI
- The importance of negative keywords in every PPC campaign
Identify a marketer who isn’t suffering from nightmares of wasted advert spend.
And let’s be actual: Nothing blows extra money than advert campaigns concentrating on too many unqualified leads.
So Google got here up with single-keyword advert teams (SKAGs) to make adverts simpler, related, and worthwhile for manufacturers. These SKAGs dominated the advertising scene up till just a few years in the past.
However now? The heyday of their efficacy has come and gone. We wished to know extra, so we tapped into the experience of HawkSEM CEO and PPC advertising veteran Sam Yadegar to elaborate.
Under, he offers us the lowdown on the SKAGs vs. STAGs (single-topic advert teams) debate and shares why efficient digital advertising methods have moved past SKAGs.
What are SKAGs?
SKAGs are single-keyword advert teams. Which means an advert group should goal just one key phrase, irrespective of what number of adverts are inside that advert group.
Advert teams are collections of particular adverts categorized by a typical theme. Whereas advert teams can goal a number of key phrases throughout completely different adverts, SKAGs contain solely utilizing one key phrase per advert group.
For instance, you might need an advert group with three adverts crafted inside one advert group to advertise your new services or products.
(Picture: Adobe)
However your SKAG can solely goal one key phrase throughout all three adverts. You may choose the most well-liked key phrase. On the flip facet, single-topic advert teams may goal a wider vary of topically associated key phrases.
As for his or her performance…
How do SKAGs work?
With SKAGs, every key phrase will get its personal advert group.
Let’s say you provide immigration authorized companies for each People and Canadians seeking to work within the reverse nation. You may create one broad advert group with a number of key phrases underneath the same theme like “American visas for Canadians” and “Transfer to the US as a Canadian.”
However if you happen to go for a SKAG technique?
You wouldn’t goal a number of key phrases inside the identical group of adverts. As an alternative, you’d create a number of adverts inside one group that focus on just one key phrase, even when the key phrases are shut variants.
- Advert group 1: American visas for Canadians
- Advert group 2: Transfer to the U.S. as a Canadian
Seems to be fairly organized, proper?
The thought right here is that SKAGs converse extra on to particular person searcher intent, making adverts extra related and thus selling higher clickthrough rates (CTRs), high quality scores, and conversions.
In SKAG campaigns, you’d goal “precise match key phrases” to make sure your particular key phrases and respective adverts present up on the search engine outcomes web page (SERP) of whoever varieties them into the search bar.
Nonetheless, each marketer is aware of that PPC methods have a restricted shelf life. That is very true if you work with a platform like Google Adverts, which consistently releases updates.
That stated, their use has dwindled over time.
Are SKAGs nonetheless related? 5 drawbacks
The brief reply? No. They’re too costly, time-consuming, and danger you lacking the mark on a certified viewers.
After all, this wasn’t at all times the case. As talked about above, SKAGs had been as soon as used to seize extra related audiences and enhance CTRs and conversions.
However today?
Just a few elements deem them inefficient for ROI and common operational effectivity.
Let’s break it down:
1. SKAGs are extremely time-consuming
Take into consideration how lengthy it takes you to arrange an account construction on Google Adverts. When you plug in every key phrase, bidding technique and quantity, and all of your adverts? It simply consumes chunks of time in your advertising schedule.
However if you happen to make separate advert teams for each key phrase?
Hours will flip into days as you scramble to create new search adverts for every key phrase. And don’t neglect to think about your headline, meta description, touchdown pages, and advert copy.
No marketer has the time, and even when they did, all these hours spent to create the SKAGs would eat into potential ROI.
2. SKAGs lead to duplicate key phrases
Say your ecommerce model sells 100 completely different feminine attire merchandise. So that you make separate advert teams for every class of clothes, in addition to every merchandise, all the way down to the final colour.
We predict two points right here:
- You’re human, and it wouldn’t be unusual to miss a replica key phrase or two.
- SKAGs create separate adverts for key phrase variants, which implies you’d bid in opposition to your self. This additionally duplicates your advert teams.
All of this mixed will trigger key phrase cannibalization, which entails too many duplicate or related key phrases throughout your advertising property that negatively affect your rankings.
Due to this fact, testing your SKAGs is a should. However…
3. SKAGs are costly to A/B take a look at
Everyone knows the significance of A/B testing, proper?
In case you don’t, it’s a PPC technique that exams advert components for sure metrics, like touchdown web page expertise, advert copy effectiveness, visible consumer expertise, and extra. The aim is to see which components are most profitable earlier than you decide to it for the lengthy haul.
Now, a candy spot for A/B testing is normally a few weeks for every ingredient.
However what if it’s essential to take a look at lots of or hundreds of adverts? Hastily that A/B testing price range grew exponentially. It’s because you’d want to check completely different components inside every advert in one among manner too many advert teams.
And that may get messy.
4. SKAGs are chaotic on your Google Adverts account
Right here at HawkSEM, our expert PPC specialists hold an in depth eye on all advert campaigns, all the way down to the final click on.
We do that with assist from our proprietary tech ConversionIQ, so we by no means miss a beat. The platform reveals us direct attribution figures for site visitors and conversions to particular advert property, together with key phrases. Plus, it shows all this information into digestible dashboards that HawkSEM shoppers can entry at any time.
However right here’s the factor: it’s simpler to overlook essential elements (together with high- and low-performing key phrases) with SKAGs since you want so a lot of them. Our well-equipped advertising company doesn’t use SKAGs for a lot of causes, together with this one.
Now think about how tough it’d be for small companies to handle every search time period report, or monitor search quantity, conversion charges, and bounce fee for every advert’s touchdown web page. SKAGs make it overwhelmingly tedious.
In actual fact, SKAGs disorganize your Google Adverts campaigns unnecessarily, making it tough to take care of a big-picture lens of your PPC advertising technique.
Nonetheless, the principle cause why SKAGs aren’t a great choice on your advert campaigns has to do with Google Adverts and its fixed updates.
5. Google Adverts broadened match varieties
In February 2021, Google Adverts expanded keyword targets that include phrase matches. For starters, they embrace variations of phrase order inside long-tail keywords—even when you choose “precise key phrase match varieties.”
It additionally began to incorporate extra key phrases as a match if its algorithm reported it had the identical which means as the unique.
“Google continues to study and higher match search intent [from search queries] with search outcomes,” says Yadegar. “It’s taken its personal liberty in serving adverts and being much less involved with match varieties.”
So, how can we tackle the brand new limitations of SKAGs?
Why STAGs win over SKAGs for PPC advertising
SKAGs mirror a choice for relevance in your advert teams, however Yadegar says Google’s modifications to match varieties name for a distinct technique, reaching the identical relevance with particular subjects as a substitute:
“Whereas traditionally we used to actually solely have one key phrase in every advert group, given the brand new match kind modifications from Google,” explains Yadegar. “We are usually a bit extra ‘single subject per advert group (STAG),’ which can comprise a handful of various key phrases versus simply having one.”
Take our instance from earlier. As an alternative of separate advert teams and adverts for “American visas for Canadians” and “Transfer to the U.S. as a Canadian,” these could be categorized underneath the identical subject: Canadian immigration to U.S.
However how are you aware which subjects your viewers cares about? And which subjects will lead to extra conversions and thus extra ROI on your model?
(Picture: Adobe)
“The reply is at all times on the SERP,” says Yadegar. “Our crew goes via a deliberate analysis course of looking a number of key phrases and figuring out whether or not they’re really separate subjects or only a variant of one another.”
However are same-variant key phrases a no-go?
Yadegar means that in the event that they’re a variant, it’s finest to place them in the identical advert group.
For an award-winning digital advertising company like HawkSEM, we subscribe to the most recent website positioning and key phrase software program to assist generate essentially the most correct key phrase insights for each shopper.
Two of our favourite instruments?
- Keyword Cupid: an website positioning key phrase clustering device that discovers related content material subjects and accompanying key phrases with with AI
- ConversionIQ: our agency-developed advertising software program, which exams and collects information on varied key phrases, subject clusters, and accompanying metrics from a variety of content material property over time.
However the course of isn’t with out its challenges. What if we discover lots of of potential new key phrases for every subject?
What number of key phrases ought to every advert group have?
We’ve established that subjects trump single key phrases. However when is it an excessive amount of of an excellent factor?
In any case, you wish to keep away from the very subject that SKAGs had been designed to sort out within the first place.
“There’s no arduous and quick rule right here,” says Yadegar. “However if you happen to naturally nonetheless keep very tight and thematic, key phrases normally don’t have a considerable amount of variants.”
Ideally, you wish to keep between 5 and 20 key phrases underneath one key phrase subject per advert group.
The significance of adverse key phrases
Google thinks it is aware of finest in relation to matching search intent with search outcomes. The issue? Even the search engine titan can miss probably irrelevant key phrases.
“That’s why negative keyword administration has turn into extra essential today,” says Yadegar.
For instance, a swimsuit ecommerce retailer may promote all kinds of ladies’s swimwear. But when Google consists of “Speedo” in a broad match when the model doesn’t even promote males’s merchandise, then that model wastes valuable advertising {dollars} on concentrating on irrelevant leads.
On this case, the key phrase “Speedo” needs to be included in a usually up to date adverse key phrase checklist. Damaging key phrases are guide key phrase insertions you plug into your advert marketing campaign so it doesn’t goal these explicit search phrases.
Can’t see the ROI but?
Take a look at our instructional shopper, California State University – Northridge (CSUN), which witnessed epic outcomes after we revamped its adverse key phrase checklist.
The shopper wished to recruit extra college students to a greater variety of their program choices. Together with advert copy optimization and enhanced cost-per-click (CPC) bidding, adverse areas and key phrases helped us accomplish the next for CSUN:
- 50% lowered price per acquisition (CPA)
- 50% enhance in year-over-year (YoY) income
- 2X enhance in conversion fee
High advantages of STAGs
We chatted about some drawbacks to SKAGs, however what makes STAGs the higher choice?
- Heightened return on advert spend (ROAS)
- Decrease CPC and efficient advertising price range
- Much less intimidating Google Adverts account buildings
- Minimal probability of key phrase cannibalization
- Elevated attain and internet site visitors with broader key phrase targets
As you may see, STAGs pose much less danger and boast greater ROI, which is why HawkSEM prefers them to SKAGs.
The takeaway
SKAGs simply don’t reduce it in at present’s developed PPC world of automated key phrase inclusions and Google Adverts concentrating on.
However that doesn’t imply you need to cost out of the gates and goal each key phrase underneath the solar. Advert relevance remains to be an important requirement for efficient advert teams and campaigns, and single-topic advert teams assist manufacturers obtain it.
Nonetheless, the key phrase analysis required for an efficient key phrase checklist for a selected subject have to be chiseled to perfection.
And most manufacturers don’t have the software program, horsepower, or distinctive skillset for efficient key phrase analysis. That’s the place a top-3% digital advertising company like HawkSEM steps in.
Our roster of seasoned PPC specialists brings years of expertise with Google Adverts campaigns. Collectively, we’ve structured hundreds of campaigns with related key phrase subjects that generated game-changing site visitors and conversions.
Want an ally in your facet to dive into the analysis and formulate a technique that raises your backside line?
We’ve bought the approach (and results) to again all of it up, which span numerous shopper industries like finance, training, SaaS, ecommerce, and extra.
Able to convey your marketing campaign conversions from zero to hero? We’re your caped crusader and STAGs are our sidekick.
