Google Ads Account Structure
skill: google-ads-account-structure title: Google Ads Account Structure oneLiner: Builds the campaign organization, match-type-by-budget plan, Smart Bidding ladder, budget allocation, and conversion-tracking audit for a paid search account. client: CGH Injury Lawyers
What it produced for CGH Injury Lawyers
A full paid search account build for CGH Injury Lawyers, a personal injury firm in Denver, CO. Personal injury is one of the most expensive verticals in Google Ads, so every structural choice below protects spend and concentrates conversion data where Smart Bidding can learn.
Number discipline note
CGH's actual ad budget and lead counts are not in the source files, so this build uses a 10,000 dollar per month working budget as a labeled personal-injury-vertical planning assumption. All CPCs are vertical benchmarks for Denver personal injury search and are labeled as such. Practice areas, cities, and URL structure are real CGH facts from the client folder and execution pack.
Structure decision: Hybrid by intent, practice, and city
PI lead value is high enough that splitting by practice (different case values) AND by city (different competition and budgets) is justified. The driver terms ("car accident lawyer") carry the spend, so they get their own campaigns. Lower-volume practices share a campaign to avoid fragmenting conversion data.
| Campaign | Type | Why it is its own campaign |
|---|---|---|
| Car Accident - Denver - Search | Search, Exact + Phrase | Highest volume and highest case value, carries the account |
| Car Accident - Secondary Cities - Search | Search, Exact + Phrase | Aurora, Lakewood, Centennial, Boulder, Colorado Springs differ on bid and budget from Denver |
| Truck + Motorcycle - Denver - Search | Search, Exact + Phrase | High case value, moderate volume, grouped to keep data dense |
| Premises + Slip and Fall + Dog Bite - Denver - Search | Search, Exact + Phrase | Lower volume practices grouped so each ad group still gets data |
| Wrongful Death - Denver - Search | Search, Exact only | Sensitive, low volume, tight control, exact match only |
| Brand - CGH | Search, Exact + Phrase | Defend the brand term cheaply, block competitor poaching |
| Remarketing | Display | Re-engage site visitors who did not call |
| Performance Max | PMax | OFF at launch. Turn on only after 30+ conversions per month exist to feed it |
Match-type campaigns and pure by-location splits were rejected: they over-fragment a budget this size and starve the algorithm of conversion signal.
Ad group + landing page map (real CGH URL structure, "lawyer" slugs)
| Campaign | Ad group | Landing page (live CGH pattern) |
|---|---|---|
| Car Accident - Denver | car accident lawyer denver | https://cghlawfirm.com/denver/car-accident-lawyer/ |
| Car Accident - Secondary Cities | car accident lawyer aurora | https://cghlawfirm.com/aurora/car-accident-lawyer/ |
| Truck + Motorcycle - Denver | truck accident lawyer denver | https://cghlawfirm.com/denver/truck-accident-lawyer/ |
| Truck + Motorcycle - Denver | motorcycle accident lawyer denver | https://cghlawfirm.com/denver/motorcycle-accident-lawyer/ |
| Premises + Slip and Fall + Dog Bite | dog bite lawyer denver | https://cghlawfirm.com/denver/dog-bite-lawyer/ |
| Premises + Slip and Fall + Dog Bite | slip and fall lawyer denver | https://cghlawfirm.com/denver/slip-and-fall-lawyer/ |
| Wrongful Death - Denver | wrongful death lawyer denver | https://cghlawfirm.com/denver/wrongful-death-lawyer/ |
Money pages are the destination, never the practice hubs at /practice-areas/, which stay as organic authority pages per the execution pack.
Match type by budget tier
At a 10,000 dollar per month working budget (vertical-benchmark assumption), PI sits in the Balanced tier, but the high CPC pushes it toward conservative control:
- Launch primarily on Exact match for the money terms ("car accident lawyer denver"), with Phrase on a small discovery set.
- Run an aggressive negative list from day one (see the negative-keyword-bank deliverable).
- Weekly Search Terms review to promote converting queries to Exact and bury waste.
- Do NOT open Broad match until conversion tracking is proven and Smart Bidding has 30+ conversions per month. At PI CPCs, Broad without data burns the budget in days.
Smart Bidding ladder for CGH
| Phase | Conversions per month | Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Launch (weeks 1 to 4) | Under 15 | Manual CPC or Maximize Clicks, gather clean conversion data |
| Ramp (month 2) | 15 to 30 | Maximize Conversions, let Google find the converting queries |
| Mature (month 3+) | 30+ | Target CPA, set from real CGH historical cost per qualified call |
Target ROAS does not apply: this is lead gen, not ecommerce. The gate holds: no Target CPA before the conversion volume exists to feed it.
Budget sizing and allocation
Sizing math (vertical-benchmark assumption, Denver PI search CPC roughly 45 to 90 dollars per click, click-to-lead roughly 8 to 12 percent):
- At a blended 250 dollar target cost per qualified lead and a 10,000 dollar budget: expected leads = 10,000 / 250 = roughly 40 qualified leads per month.
- This is a planning estimate. The real number is set once CGH conversion data lands.
Allocation, by-priority lens applied to the 10,000 dollar working budget:
| Campaign | Monthly spend | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Car Accident - Denver - Search | 5,000 | 50 percent |
| Car Accident - Secondary Cities - Search | 1,500 | 15 percent |
| Truck + Motorcycle - Denver - Search | 1,500 | 15 percent |
| Premises + Slip and Fall + Dog Bite - Denver | 800 | 8 percent |
| Wrongful Death - Denver - Search | 400 | 4 percent |
| Brand - CGH | 400 | 4 percent |
| Remarketing | 400 | 4 percent |
- Overspend fix: lower bids, add negatives, tighten geo radius around Denver.
- Underspend fix: raise bids, expand the converting keyword set, loosen secondary-city targeting.
Conversion tracking audit (the gate before any of this runs)
A call-driven law firm lives or dies on call tracking. Verify every item before trusting the data:
| Check | Status target for CGH |
|---|---|
| All conversion actions created (call, form, chat) | Required |
| Global site tag installed on cghlawfirm.com | Required |
| Event snippets firing on the right pages | Required |
| Phone call tracking enabled | Required |
| Call assets with forwarding numbers | Required |
| Form submission tracking verified | Required |
| Conversion values set (qualified call valued highest) | Required |
| GA4 linked, conversions imported | Required |
| Test conversions firing | Required |
| Conversion window 30 to 90 days | Set to 60 days for PI consideration cycle |
Phone tracking tier for CGH: do NOT run on Google Call Assets alone. Use Google Forwarding Numbers at minimum, and CallRail or CallTrackingMetrics for keyword-level attribution, which is mandatory for a serious PI lead-gen account where one signed case can be worth far more than the monthly ad spend.
YMYL and compliance guardrails
- No outcome or settlement guarantees in ad copy. No "best lawyer" or unsupported superlatives.
- No specific settlement dollar figures in responsive search ads.
- Ad copy stays factual: free consultation, no fee unless you win only if CGH confirms that fee language, local Denver presence, practice focus.
- All ad copy routes through the YMYL claims ledger before it goes live, same gate the content pipeline uses.