An account structure that stays manageable

Account structure sounds like filing. It is actually the thing that decides whether you can ever answer the question "which of this is working", and whether your ads can be specific enough to be cheap.

The principle

Group keywords so that every keyword in a group could be answered by the same advert and the same page. If one keyword in a group would want a different headline than another, they belong in different groups.

That is the whole rule. Everything else people argue about is implementation detail layered on top of it.

• Campaigns hold budget, location and schedule. Split them where those need to differ, not where it feels tidy.
• Ad groups hold a theme. A handful of close keywords, two or three ads, one destination.
• Keep the number of both small enough that you can look at the whole account in one sitting. An account you cannot read is an account you will not manage.

A structure to actually start with

Concrete, for a small service business with one budget, using the stock ordering example that runs through these articles.

1. 01One campaign. Your country or your service area, your language, no schedule restriction until the data suggests one.
2. 02Ad group one, the problem: how to count stock in a restaurant, restaurant stock take process, stock count template. All answered by an advert about a routine that takes an hour instead of six, pointing at a page about that.
3. 03Ad group two, the solution by name: stock ordering system for restaurants, restaurant inventory setup. A different advert, a different page, because these people are shopping rather than learning.
4. 04Ad group three, the alternative: restaurant stock software, with its own advert that is honest about being a setup service rather than software, pointing at a page that makes the comparison.
5. 05Stop there. Three groups, four or five keywords each, two adverts each. That is an account you can read, and it is already more structure than most small accounts have.

Notice that the three groups want visibly different adverts, which is the test from the top of the article being applied rather than quoted.

Match types

Match types control how far from your keyword a search can wander and still trigger the ad. They belong here because choosing them is a structural decision, not a setting you flip later.

1. 01Exact match triggers on the search you named and very close variants. Tightest control, least volume, and the right place to start when you are learning what converts.
2. 02Phrase match triggers when the meaning of your keyword is contained in the search. A reasonable middle, and where most steady accounts spend.
3. 03Broad match triggers on anything the system judges related. It can find searches you never thought of, and it can burn a budget on searches that have nothing to do with you.

A sane progression: start tight, learn which searches actually produce customers, then loosen deliberately to find more of them. Starting broad with no negative keywords and no conversion data is the single most reliable way to spend a month's budget on nothing.

How much they have loosened

Worth saying plainly, because advice written a few years ago is still circulating and it describes a system that no longer exists.

• Exact is no longer literal. It matches close variants including word order changes, plurals, and phrasings judged to have the same meaning. You will see searches in the report that are not your keyword.
• Phrase absorbed what used to be a separate broad-match-modifier type, so it is wider than it once was.
• Broad now leans heavily on the system's own understanding of intent and on your account's conversion history. With good conversion data it can be genuinely useful. With none, it is a way of discovering how many unrelated things share a word with your product.
• Whatever you choose, the search terms report is what tells you what actually happened. Treat match type as a preference you express, not a contract.

Loosening on purpose

Once a tight account has produced conversions for a few weeks, widening is how you find volume. Done carelessly it undoes the structure.

1. 01Add the looser version of a keyword that is already converting, not of one that has never worked.
2. 02Put it in its own ad group or its own campaign, so its spend is visible separately rather than mixed into a group you trust.
3. 03Give it a budget cap you would be willing to lose, and read the search terms report twice in the first week rather than once a month.
4. 04Harvest: anything that converts becomes its own exact keyword in the tight structure. Anything irrelevant becomes a negative. The loose keyword is a discovery tool, not a destination.