TLDR;
- Stop thinking about a "broad audience." The most common and costly mistake is targeting demographics instead of problems. Your real target is a specific, urgent, and expensive "nightmare" your customer is facing.
- Your Google Ads campaign structure shouldn't be based on your products; it must be built around user search intent. We'll break this down into specific campaign types like Problem-Aware, Solution-Aware, and Competitor campaigns.
- The "no specific location" issue is solved by tiering countries into separate campaigns (e.g., Tier 1: UK/US/CA, Tier 2: Western Europe). This lets you control bids and budgets properly instead of letting cheaper clicks from lower-income countries eat your budget without converting.
- Your offer is probably the weakest link. A generic "Contact Us" or "Request a Demo" call to action is a conversion killer. You need a high-value, low-friction offer like a free trial, a useful tool, or an instant audit to get results.
- This letter includes a detailed flowchart for defining your customer's core problem and an interactive calculator to see how your landing page conversion rate impacts your cost per lead.
Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out! Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your Google Ads structure. The whole "broad audience" and "no location" thing is a common hurdle, but the way most people try to solve it is actually what causes their campaigns to fail and burn through cash. It's less about finding a broad audience and more about being incredibly specific about the *problem* you solve, so your ads find the right people no matter where they are.
I'll walk you through a different way of thinking about it, based on what we've seen work across countless campaigns, from B2B software to ecommerce. It all starts with getting the foundation right.
Forget "Broad Audience"—You're Targeting a Nightmare
Right, let's get this out of the way first. The idea of targeting a "broad audience" is a trap. It leads to generic messaging, wasted clicks, and a horrible return on ad spend. When you say "broad," Google's algorithm hears "find me the cheapest possible clicks to hit your budget," and it will happily serve your ads to people who have zero intention of ever buying from you. I've seen this happen time and time again. One client came to us after spending thousands on a "Brand Awareness" campaign that reached millions of people but generated precisely zero leads. The algorithm did its job—it found cheap impressions. But it didn't find customers.
You need to completely reframe this. You are not targeting "people". You are targeting a *problem state*. A specific, urgent, expensive, and maybe even career-threatening nightmare that keeps your ideal customer awake at night. Your customer isn't just a job title or a demographic; they're a person stuck in a frustrating situation, actively or passively looking for a way out.
Think about it. For a B2B SaaS product we worked with, their target wasn't "HR managers in companies with 100-500 employees." That's useless. Their real target was the HR manager who is terrified of losing top talent because their onboarding process is a chaotic mess of spreadsheets and forgotten emails. The nightmare is the potential loss of a star employee, not the lack of a software solution. The software is just the tool to end the nightmare.
For an e-commerce brand selling high-end cleaning products, which we helped scale to a 633% return, the target isn't "women aged 25-45 who like home decor." It's the person who feels embarrassed and stressed when unexpected guests are coming over because their house doesn't feel 'put together'. The nightmare is the social anxiety and feeling of being judged. The cleaning product is the path to confidence and peace of mind.
Getting this right is the absolute foundation of any successful campaign. Before you even think about keywords or ad groups, you must define this pain point with absolute clarity. Everything else flows from this.
1. Identify the Role
e.g., Head of Sales, Small Business Owner, Freelance Designer
2. Define the "Nightmare"
What is their biggest frustration? What problem costs them time, money, or sleep?
3. What's the Consequence?
What happens if they don't solve it? Missed targets? Lost clients? Reputational damage?
4. Frame Your Solution
How does your product/service directly end that specific nightmare?
I'd say you need to translate that pain into search intent
Once you've nailed the "nightmare," you can start thinking about Google Ads. The job of your campaign is to show up at the exact moment your ideal customer decides to search for a solution to their problem. Your campaign structure should mirror their journey, not your product list.
This means grouping keywords by *intent*, not just by topic. I see so many accounts structured by product feature, which is a massive mistake. The user doesn't care about your features yet; they care about their problem. Here's a structure that actually works, which we've used to scale software companies from zero to thousands of trial signups.
You'll want to build seperate campaigns for each level of user awareness:
- Problem-Aware Campaign: This targets people who know they have a problem but don't know that solutions like yours exist. Their searches are often questions. The goal here isn't a hard sale; it's to offer value and introduce them to your solution.
- Keywords: "how to improve team productivity," "ways to track project deadlines," "sales team collaboration issues."
- Ad Copy: Focuses on empathising with the pain. "Struggling with missed deadlines? See how teams are getting organised."
- Landing Page: A blog post, a free guide, or a template that solves a small part of their problem for free.
- Solution-Aware Campaign: This targets people who know solutions like yours exist and are now comparing options. These are your highest-intent keywords and where you should focus most of your budget initially.
- Keywords: "best project management software," "top CRM for small business," "asana alternative," "hubspot competitors."
- Ad Copy: Direct, benefit-driven, and includes social proof. "The #1 Rated PM Tool for Agencies. Try it Free."
- Landing Page: Your main homepage or a dedicated features/comparison page.
- Brand Campaign: This is non-negotiable. You must bid on your own brand name. It's cheap, converts incredibly well, and prevents competitors from stealing traffic that was rightfully yours.
- Keywords: "[Your Brand Name]," "[YourBrandName] pricing," "[YourBrandName] reviews."
- Ad Copy: Reinforce why they should choose you. "Official Site - Start Your Free Trial in 60 Seconds."
- Landing Page: Your homepage.
By structuring your account this way, you can tailor your ad copy and landing pages perfectly to the user's mindset. You can also allocate budget far more intelligently. The "Solution-Aware" campaign will likely have a higher budget because those users are closer to buying, while the "Problem-Aware" campaign might have a smaller, exploratory budget. This structure gives you control and clarity, which is impossible with a single, messy "broad" campaign.
You probably should fix your offer before anything else
Here’s a brutally honest truth: you could have the best campaign structure in the world, perfect keywords, and brilliant ad copy, but if your offer sucks, you will fail. This is the number one reason I see campaigns get lots of clicks but no conversions.
The "Request a Demo" button is the most arrogant, high-friction call to action in modern marketing. It screams, "I expect you, a busy professional, to commit 30 minutes of your valuable time to let my salesperson pitch you." It offers zero immediate value to the prospect and positions you as just another commodity vendor.
Your offer's only job is to provide a moment of undeniable value. It must solve a small problem for free to earn you the right to solve their bigger problem for money. I remember one B2B software client where we helped them get over 1,500 trials on Meta Ads not by pushing demos, but by offering an unrestricted 14-day free trial. No credit card required. The product sold itself. We just got people in the door.
If you're a SaaS company, this is your superpower:
- Free Trial (No Card): The gold standard. Let them experience the "after" state.
- Freemium Plan: Let them use a core version of your product forever. The value they get will make upgrading a no-brainer.
If you're not SaaS, you have to bottle your expertise into an asset:
- Service Business: A free, automated audit (e.g., a website SEO checker). A valuable checklist. A 15-minute free strategy session (not a sales call).
- E-commerce: A "first order" discount is standard, but what about a free gift with purchase? Or a useful tool, like a "product finder" quiz?
- Courses/Info-products: A free chapter of your book. A 10-minute video lesson. A valuable template. One campaign we worked on generated $115k in revenue for a course creator in just over a month because their offer started with a high-value free webinar that taught something genuinely useful.
The impact of your offer on your advertising costs is massive. A weak offer with a 1% landing page conversion rate needs an incredibly low cost-per-click (CPC) to be profitable. A strong offer that converts at 10% gives you huge flexibility to bid more aggressively and dominate the search results. Use the calculator below to see for yourself how much a better conversion rate can affect your bottom line. A small improvement on your landing page is often easier and cheaper than trying to halve your CPC.
You'll need to handle "no location" by tiering your countries
Okay, let's finally tackle your "no specific location" problem directly. The worst thing you can do is lump every country into one campaign. This is a classic mistake. What happens is that countries with lower costs of living will generate much cheaper clicks (e.g., £0.10 CPC) compared to developed countries (£1.50 CPC). Google's algorithm, tasked with getting you the most clicks for your budget, will naturally shift all your spend to these cheaper countries. You'll get a ton of traffic, but it will be low-quality traffic that rarely, if ever, converts into a paying customer. You'll feel busy, but you won't be making any money.
The solution is to be deliberate and structure your campaigns by country tiers. This gives you back control over your budget and allows you to analyse performance properly.
Here’s how we typically do it:
- Tier 1 Campaign: This is for your primary, high-value, English-speaking markets. Think United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. These countries often have the highest purchasing power and will likely be your most profitable customers. They also have the highest CPCs, so they need their own dedicated budget.
- Tier 2 Campaign: This is for other developed nations, often in Western Europe or parts of Asia. For example: Germany, France, Sweden, Netherlands, Singapore, Japan. The CPCs here are usually moderate, and they can be a great source of growth once you've proven your model in Tier 1.
- Tier 3 Campaign (or "Rest of World"): This is for all other countries you wish to target. Clicks will be very cheap here, but conversion rates are often much lower. This campaign should have a much smaller, experimental budget. You might find a few hidden gem countries here, but you need to manage it carefully to avoid wasting money. We often recommend excluding the 30 or so lowest-income countries entirely to avoid bot traffic.
By creating seperate campaigns for each tier, you can set a specific budget for each one. For example, you might allocate 70% of your total ad spend to your Tier 1 campaign, 20% to Tier 2, and only 10% to Tier 3. This ensures that your money is being spent where you have the highest chance of getting a return, rather than just chasing cheap clicks across the globe.
I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:
So, to bring this all together, ditch the idea of a single "broad" campaign. Your path to a profitable Google Ads account is through specificity and structure. It takes more work up front, but it's the only way to avoid burning through your budget with nothing to show for it. This is the difference between just 'running ads' and building a predictable customer acquisition machine.
| Action Item | Why It's Important | First Step |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Define Your Customer's "Nightmare" | This is the foundation of all effective targeting and ad copy. Without it, your messaging will be generic and ineffective. It's the most crucial step. | Use the flowchart from this letter. Write down the single biggest, most urgent problem your ideal customer faces. |
| 2. Re-structure Campaigns by Intent | Aligns your budget, bids, and messaging with the user's journey, dramatically improving relevance and conversion rates. Prevents wasted spend on low-intent clicks. | Create three new campaigns: "Solution-Aware (High Intent)," "Problem-Aware (Low Intent)," and "Brand." Start by building out the "Solution-Aware" one first. |
| 3. Create Country-Tiered Campaigns | Gives you control over your budget and prevents cheaper, lower-quality international clicks from eating all your ad spend. Allows for proper performance analysis. | Duplicate your new "Solution-Aware" campaign. Set the location of the original to your Tier 1 countries and the copy to Tier 2. Allocate budget accordingly (e.g., 70/30 split). |
| 4. Fix Your Offer | A weak offer is the most common point of failure. A strong, low-friction offer can drastically increase your conversion rate and make your campaigns profitable. | Replace "Request a Demo" or "Contact Us" with a value-first offer like a free trial, a free tool, or a valuable download. Make it the primary CTA on your landing page. |
| 5. Optimise for Conversions, Not Clicks | Tells Google's algorithm to find people who are likely to become leads or customers, not just people who browse. This is essential for getting an actual return on your spend. | Ensure you have conversion tracking set up correctly for your key goal (e.g., a form submission or trial signup). Set your campaign bidding strategy to "Maximise Conversions" or "Target CPA." |
I know this is a lot to take in, and implementing it correctly requires expertise and constant monitoring. It's not a 'set it and forget it' process. Getting the research, structure, tracking, and ongoing optimisation right is what separates the campaigns that generate a 10x return from those that just break even or lose money.
If you'd like an expert eye on this to make sure it's set up for success from day one, we offer a completely free, no-obligation consultation where we can review your specific situation and give you a tailored plan. It's often the fastest way to get clarity and start seeing real results.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh
