If you're a developer-founder running your own Google Ads instead of hiring an agency, the biggest early mistake is dumping every keyword into one ad group with one generic ad. Google's Quality Score rewards tight relevance between keyword, ad copy, and landing page — so structure matters more than budget when you're starting out.
Here's a practical structure for a first SaaS search campaign.
1. Split into 5-7 themed ad groups
Don't group by feature alphabetically — group by buyer intent. A typical SaaS campaign might look like:
- Brand (your product name + close misspellings)
- Category terms ("project management software", "[your category] tool")
- Competitor terms (if your ToS/legal allows it)
- Problem-aware terms ("how to track team tasks", "[pain point] solution")
- Alternative/comparison terms ("[competitor] alternative")
- Free trial / pricing intent ("[category] free trial", "[category] pricing")
- Integration-specific terms if you integrate with popular tools
Each of these behaves differently in terms of cost-per-click and conversion rate, so they need separate budgets and separate ads, not one blended group.
2. Keep keyword sets tight per group
Aim for 10-20 closely related keywords per ad group, all phrase or exact match once you have data. Broad match early on burns budget on irrelevant traffic — especially risky when you're bootstrapping ad spend yourself.
3. Shared negative keyword lists
Build one shared negative list across all ad groups for the obvious non-buyers: "free", "jobs", "course", "tutorial", "reddit", competitor names you don't want to borrow traffic from accidentally, and your own brand name excluded from non-brand groups. Apply it at the campaign level so you're not duplicating negatives seven times.
4. One strong ad per group, not five mediocre ones
Early on, write one responsive search ad per ad group that speaks directly to that group's intent — a "free trial" group ad should lead with the trial offer, a "competitor alternative" group ad should lead with the differentiation. Resist the urge to A/B test five variations before you have enough volume to read results; one focused ad per group beats five diluted ones.
5. Match landing pages to intent
Send problem-aware traffic to a page that addresses the problem, not your homepage. Send pricing-intent traffic to a page with pricing visible above the fold. Mismatched landing pages quietly kill Quality Score and inflate CPCs.
If you want a shortcut for the planning step, I work on AdeptAds, a free campaign brief builder that turns your business inputs into a draft campaign structure (ad groups, keyword themes, shared negatives) you can review and adjust before building the real thing in Google Ads. No credit card to start.
What does your current ad group structure look like? Curious how other founders running their own search campaigns are splitting intent.
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