Google Ads strategy
How to structure, bid and land Google Ads (and Microsoft Ads) per product so spend turns into qualified midsize+ pipeline, not cheap form fills.
When to use
When launching or rebuilding a product’s search account, setting quarterly budgets, or when paid pipeline drops while spend holds. On an existing account, run the ads account audit first.
Goal and metric
Qualified pipeline at a cost each product’s pricing model can carry, measured from CRM offline conversions, plus demo and trial sign-ups.
Who does what
| Role | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Paid search lead | Structure, keywords, bids, optimization |
| Product marketing | Messaging, landing pages, competitor angles |
| Sales ops | CRM stages and offline conversion import |
| Claude (via MCP) | Reads performance, mines search terms, drafts changes. Any change to spend or live campaigns is proposed as a list and a human approves it in chat first (MCP and tools) |
Steps
1. Account structure (per product)
| Campaign | Purpose | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Brand | Protect brand queries | Low CPC; exclude brand from all other campaigns |
| Category | “embedded analytics platform”, “e-signature API” | Biggest budget; split by theme |
| Competitor | “{competitor} alternative”, “vs” | Positive copy only; follow trademark rules |
| Migration / use case | “SSRS migration”, “Office Online Server replacement” | High intent where it exists |
| Remarketing | Pricing, demo and docs visitors | RLSA on search plus Demand Gen/YouTube |
One theme per ad group.
2. Keyword match strategy
- Start with exact and phrase match. Use broad match only with Smart Bidding, solid conversion data and a full negative list.
- Shared negatives: free, student, tutorial, jobs, salary, course, crack, download-only terms (unless a free tier is the goal).
- Mine search terms weekly.
3. Midsize+ signals
- Layer audiences in observation: company size, industry, in-market and customer-match lists from the CRM. See ICP.
- Speak to the buying committee (personas): security, SSO, deployment, SLAs.
- Geo: “Presence” only, not “presence or interest”.
4. Bids and CPA tied to the pricing model
Read the product’s section in pricing and licensing before setting targets.
- Affordable entry tier or self-serve trial: bid for trial or sign-up volume at a low target CPA; send traffic to the pricing page or trial.
- Enterprise or server-licensed deals: bid on qualified opportunities (value-based, from offline conversions); accept a higher CPA; send traffic to demo or contact sales.
5. Landing page rules
- Pricing intent (“pricing”, “cost”, “license”) → pricing page.
- Evaluation intent (category, competitor, migration, “enterprise”) → demo or contact-sales page with trust proof above the fold.
- Developer intent (“API”, “SDK”, component names) → docs or trial.
- Headline matches the query theme. Check pages with the website buyer-fit audit.
6. Offline conversion import
- Pass GCLID (and GBRAID/WBRAID) into the CRM on every form.
- Import CRM stages (qualified lead, opportunity, closed-won) daily; make qualified stages the primary bidding goals and form fills secondary.
7. Budget split (starting point, tune monthly)
Fund brand fully, then category and migration, then competitor, then remarketing. Shift weekly toward the lowest cost per qualified opportunity in the weekly GTM review.
Checklist
- Campaign set built per product; brand excluded elsewhere
- Shared negative list applied
- CPA targets match the pricing model
- Landing pages mapped by intent
- Offline conversions importing; qualified stages primary
Talk track / messaging
Pull claims and keyword themes from each product’s positioning file in _reference/positioning/. Competitor copy stays positive; see competitive selling.
Assets
- Ads account audit
- Shared negative keyword list (TBD)
Examples
TODO: add a real example
Common mistakes
- One CPA target across products with very different pricing models.
- Sending every click to the home page.
- More pitfalls: see the ads account audit.
Product notes
- Microsoft Ads: import Google campaigns, then fix: LinkedIn profile targeting (company size, industry, job function) is the main midsize+ lever; turn off or review the Audience Network; recheck negatives and geo after import.
- Per-product campaign sets, keywords and CTAs: see each GTM plan for Essential Studio, Bold BI, Bold Reports, BoldSign, BoldDesk, BoldCreate and BoldDocServer.
- bolddesk: never use the 90% automation goal in ad copy (TODO: source).