Aori: Easily Create and Optimize SKAG AdWords Campaigns

Google AdWords is powerful.

It accounts for the vast majority of search marketing and a huge chunk of digital ad spend.

But are you optimizing AdWords for your business? If you aren’t using SKAG, you may not be.

The SKAG (Single Keyword Ad Group) concept is an innovative method to try with AdWords

We will show you how to implement SKAG in this article. If you haven’t tried SKAG, now may be a good time as a new tool is out on the market, Aori, which commissioned this write-up.

Aori is billed as an intelligent AdWords optimization tool.

AdWords is a marketplace based on a bidding system. Yet…the highest bid doesn’t always win.

The quality of ads is an important factor! Google would rather show a user a more relevant ad even if it’s not the highest bid. This increases long-term user satisfaction.

So where does SKAG come in?

The better a match between the search term and the ad, the higher the relevance. You want to get as specific as possible. Aori and SKAG help you do this. The SKAG method can improve click through rates (CTR) leading to a higher Quality Score which will lowers your cost per click (CPC). CPC saved is CPC earned. Real money you can add to the bottom line or right back into your ad budget.

What is SKAG?

SKAG is a way of structuring your AdWords campaigns to increase effectiveness by creating a separate ad group for each keyword.

Instead of often 10-20 keywords lumped together in a single ad group, each keyword gets its own ad group. This way, only one keyword (and its close variants) will trigger an ad. So the search term matches perfecting with the keyword in your ad copy. One-to-one matching of keywords and ads is super specific and good for relevancy.

What are the benefits of SKAG?

SKAG leads to a very high relevance for each campaign. And relevance is important.

Ad relevance along with CTR are two of the biggest factors in the Quality Score algorithm. The all-important Quality Score.

Improving your Quality score has massive benefits including better click-through rates and cost per click. Just think, if you reduce CPC, you would get more traffic for the same budget.

So with SKAG:

• You can get more granular with tracking performance and making adjustments
• You can pause keywords individually because each is its own entity
• Ads are laser-targeted
• Quality increase, reducing CPC, and increasing your ROI

When people search on Google they are telling what they are interested in. Many times it’s something they are buying. Use that information!

The major downside of SKAG: SOLVED!

But there’s historically been one problem with SKAG.

SKAG setup was cumbersome…like really cumbersome. Until Aori, that is.

Traditionally, SKAG campaigns required lots of work to organize and manage. Imagine setting up and tracking hundreds of ad groups in one campaign in AdWords. This is really hard to maintain.

That’s why I wanted to check out a new AdTech tool that addresses this: Aori.

What is Aori?

 Aori does all the work of SKAG campaign setup and maintenance. It takes care of the laborious process of creating an ad group manually for each keyword.

You get all the benefits of SKAG without the hassle.

I put Aori through the tests and, long story short, it’s legit.

Here is how it works:

Walkthrough of creating a SKAG campaign in Aori

Let’s walkthrough a campaign in the Aori tool from start to finish.

Step 1: Create Campaign

First, sign in through Google at Aori.com and create a new campaign in Aori.

Set up the AdWords campaign fundamentals like dates, budget and locations.

If you don’t see an advanced setting here, don’t worry. You can still adjust more specific settings later in AdWords itself (like enhanced CPC, dayparting, etc). What Aori does is create the complex structure and then imports it into AdWords. There you can tweak and launch the campaign once finalized.

Step 2: Identify Root Keywords

Here you can enter the main keyword or keywords phrase.  For our example, we will be running ads for a bicycle store. Therefore, we will add bicycle and bike as root keywords as they describe the main product we are selling.

By default, Aori includes three match types: +broad +match +modifier, “phrase match,” and [exact match]. You can turn Broad match on also but it’s off by default as it’s usually not recommended.

You can also utilize negative keywords. Negative keywords are words that will prevent your ad from showing if included in the search. Since our campaign is for regular bikes we will add a negative keyword “stationary” so our ads don’t show when people are searching for stationary exercise bikes.

Step 3: Add Descriptors

 This next step is optional but recommended. Here you can add modifiers or descriptors to your root keyword(s). These are words that further describe the product.  For example, we added a descriptor bank for colors (red, blue, and green) and for type (mens, womens, and childrens). Aori then adds these descriptors to the root keyword to create all possible combinations.  Long-tail keywords are key as they usually are less competitive and indicate a buyer close to buying. Both good for ROI.

One cool feature in Aori is the ability to re-arrange the sequences of the root and descriptors using a drag-and-drop interface. For example, the default is root + descriptor bank #1 + descriptor bank #2. But no one says “Bike Red Mens.” We willl want the order instead to be “Red Mens Bike.” So you can order the color description first, type second and root keyword last using Aori.

You also have the option to require all key phases to have at least one descriptor.

Once you set all your descriptors and the order, all of the keyword variations will be created. You can see them in the Key Phrase Preview window, which is searchable.  If any combinations shouldn’t be used simply click the “x” to delete them.

Each keyword phrase here will become its own ad group in AdWords.

Step 4: Create Copy in Ad Templates

The Ad Templates section is where you write the ad copy for your ads. Through advanced DKI (Dynamic Keyword Insertion), Aori lets you insert your various keywords combinations as variables using bracket {keyword} notation. Note: Google AdWords does not have this feature.

A useful aspect of the DKI feature is capitalization formatting. If it’s the first word of a sentence and you want it capitalized, capitalize the first letter in the bracket like {Keyword}. If it’s mid-sentence and shouldn’t be in caps, write it as {keyword}. {KeyWord} and {KEYWORD} are other formats.

Aori has the necessary fields for headline #1, headline #2, description, URL, and display path. You can insert dynamic keywords into any of these fields. As you fill these out, you see the ad copy populating the sample ad in Aori in real-time as if it were an actual AdWords ad. It helpfully counts the characters for you and turns red when you are over the character limit.

Step 5: Connect Account and Optimize

Next connect your Google AdWords campaign. There’s no limit to the number of accounts it can connect to.  If your account has access to other accounts, you can access those too.

You can also connect your Goggle Analytics accounts to get goal information which inform Aori’s optimization features.

Aori optimizes the CPC and CPA of your campaign. This means Aori will optimize the bids for you automatically!

Save and the campaigns will be sent to Google AdWords.

Step 6: Go Live

Now you can go into AdWords and see all the SKAG campaigns meticulously laid out with the help of Aori.

Under campaigns you will see your campaign created in Aori. By default, it is paused giving you the option to enable it and go live when ready.

When you click on the campaign name, it takes you to the Ad Groups tab, with all the combinations that Aori created in their own ad groups per SKAG best practices. You can now manage these ad groups the best way you see fit, making any tweaks per ad group.

If you drill down into the ad group further, you’ll see the match variants of the single keyword. You can even pause these individually if you wish. 

Step 7: Manage in Aori Dashboard

Coming back to Aori, you can now see the most pertinent stats in the Aori dashboard: Cost, Clicks, CTR, and CPC. The prominent graph visualizes these all for you in the dashboard console. You have the option to view these over many different day ranges like today, current month, and all time.

The dashboard also houses all your campaigns, ad groups, ads, and keywords. Here you can pause any underperformers at the flick of a switch!

As you can see, Aori streamlines the creation and management of SKAG campaigns very effectively.

Aori Pricing and Free Trial

If you want to try Aori, head over to Aori.com. SKAG campaign pricing is currently $30 per user per month with a 30-day refund. They also have a 14-day free trial, no credit card necessary.