Should I target multiple countries with one campaign or separate them? And is it possible for me to oversegment my ad groups?

This week, we're answering more patient questions about Google Search and Youtube ads. Got a question for the PPC doctors? Share it here.

Q: I’m running Google Ads campaigns across EMEA. Should I target multiple countries with one Google Ads campaign or separate them?

A: There are several factors to consider, but the biggest one is budget. If your business requires you to have separate spend limits for each country, then separate campaigns will be necessary. With separate campaigns you’ll be able to set a unique daily budget and efficiency target for each country. If your business doesn’t care how spend is distributed across countries as long as performance is good, read on to understand if a unified campaign is the best path forward.

With a tight budget, combining countries may be the most efficient approach. It’ll pool your resources and allow Google’s algorithms to determine where best to spend your money across the different countries. Additionally, it’ll help your campaign have enough conversion and revenue data density so that Smartbidding can make informed bidding decisions. But keep in mind that language and geo targets can only be set at the campaign level, so ads in different languages will need their own campaigns.

If you have a large budget, creating a unique campaign for each country will give you better control over targeting and spend allocation. You’ll be able to customize bidding strategies and set a unique daily budget for each market, giving you more control and likely improving performance.

If you’re still unsure, start with a unified approach, then segment when you find it necessary. If a specific country outperforms others, break it out into it’s own campaign so you can give it focused attention. Good luck in EMEA!

Q: Is it possible to oversegment your ad groups? How should I think about segmenting them? With RSAs, does it even matter?

Absolutely, you can oversegment your ad groups. When you create too many small segments, you dilute your data, making it harder to gather actionable insights. This can lead to inefficient spending as you can't optimize bids effectively without enough data. Additionally, managing numerous small ad groups can be way too time-consuming.

It’s best to segment based on search intent. Let’s say you’re running marketing for a doctor’s office. It wouldn’t make sense to create separate segments for ‘doctors office’ and ‘physicians office’ because people searching for those terms have the same intention. But search terms like ‘doctors office’ and ‘pediatrician’ should be segmented into separate ad groups, as the info that searchers are looking to find with those queries is different. Segment enough to capture important differences in your audience or products, but not so much that you end up with minuscule, hard-to-manage groups.

With Responsive Search Ads (RSAs), segmentation becomes less important, but not obsolete. RSAs can handle a lot of variation for you by dynamically testing different combinations of headlines and descriptions. So, while segmentation is still important, RSAs give you some breathing room by optimizing performance across broader segments.

Q: I own a small fashion brand and am trying to drive more traffic to my online store. I recently launched an ad on YouTube that has a 35% view rate and over 2,000 impressions, but I’m hardly seeing any new visitors on my website. What am I doing wrong?

It sounds like your ad is engaging, but there might be a few things to tweak. First, make sure your call to action (CTA) is clear and compelling. Look at your ad placement and click-through rate (CTR). If your CTR is low, even with a good view rate, your CTA needs to be more enticing. Viewers need to know exactly what to do next, and why they should do it. Also, check that the messaging on your landing page matches the message of your ad. If it’s not relevant, visitors might leave right away. For example, an ad for a pair of pants should bring viewers directly to the landing page for those pants, not to your homepage.

Generally speaking, YouTube is more of a brand awareness platform. People who are in a Youtube binge aren’t super likely to stop watching videos and click out to your site. Also, lots of people put YouTube on in the background while they’re doing stuff around the house. Those background plays still count as views, but of course won’t drive clicks. So there may not be much wrong with your ad, it may be the platform that’s the issue. 

That said, Youtube ads can greatly improve brand recognition. Consider retargeting those who viewed your Youtube ad with follow-up ads on other, more user-engaged channels like paid search and social and see if that helps! Best of luck with your brand.

Check back bi-weekly to read our answers to the internet's burning paid media questions. Or, ask a question of your own here! We’ll email you the answer ASAP, and only share your question in the next edition if it’s okay with you. Now get out there and optimize those campaigns!