Single Keyword Ad Groups (SKAGs): How to Maximize Your Google Ads Performance

What Are Single Keyword Ad Groups?

Single Keyword Ad Groups — commonly known as SKAGs — are a Google Ads strategy where each ad group contains exactly one keyword (plus its match type variants and synonyms). Instead of grouping 10 or 20 related keywords into a single ad group with generic ads, you create one ad group per keyword with ads written specifically for that keyword.

This sounds like more work. It is — if you do it manually. But the performance gains are significant and well-documented.

Why SKAGs Work: The Quality Score Connection

Google's Quality Score is the single most important metric that determines your cost per click and ad position. It has three components:

1. Expected Click-Through Rate (CTR) — Will users click your ad?
2. Ad Relevance — Does your ad match the search intent?
3. Landing Page Experience — Is your landing page useful for the searcher?

SKAGs directly improve the first two factors. When your ad group contains only one keyword, you can write headlines and descriptions that perfectly match that exact search term. The result is higher ad relevance, higher CTR, and a better Quality Score.

The Math Behind SKAGs

Consider a keyword like "emergency plumber London". In a traditional ad group with 15 keywords, the best headline you can write might be "Professional Plumbing Services". In a SKAG, you can write "Emergency Plumber London — 24/7 Available".

The second headline is dramatically more relevant. Users see exactly what they searched for, which increases their likelihood of clicking. Higher CTR improves your Quality Score, which means Google charges you less per click and shows your ad higher on the page.

This creates a virtuous cycle: better ads lead to more clicks, which improves Quality Score, which lowers cost, which means you get more clicks for the same budget.

Building SKAGs: The Manual Approach

To understand why automation matters, let us walk through building SKAGs manually.

Suppose you run a plumbing business in London with 10 services and 5 locations. The manual SKAG process looks like this:

1. Create 50 ad groups (10 services × 5 locations)
2. Add the keyword to each ad group (in Exact, Phrase, and Broad match)
3. Write 15 unique headlines per ad group, including the specific keyword
4. Write 4 unique descriptions per ad group
5. Set the correct landing page URL for each ad group
6. Add negative keywords to prevent match type overlap

That is 50 ad groups × (3 keywords + 15 headlines + 4 descriptions + 1 URL) = 1,150 individual items to create. And that is for a small business with just 50 keyword combinations.

A larger business with 200 services, 30 locations, and 10 modifiers? That is 60,000 ad groups. Manual creation is simply not feasible.

Match Type Variants Within SKAGs

Each SKAG typically includes the keyword in multiple match types:

• Exact match [emergency plumber london] — Triggers only for this exact search
• Phrase match "emergency plumber london" — Triggers when the phrase appears in a search
• Broad match emergency plumber london — Triggers for related searches

The professional approach is to split these into separate campaigns so you can allocate independent budgets. Exact match gets the most budget (highest intent), Broad match gets the least (discovery traffic).

When using Broad match alongside Exact and Phrase, you must add negative keywords to the Broad campaign to prevent it from cannibalizing your Exact and Phrase traffic.

Common Objections to SKAGs

"Too Many Ad Groups"

This is the most common pushback. Yes, SKAGs create more ad groups. But consider: would you rather have 50 well-performing ad groups or 5 mediocre ones? The volume objection disappears when you have the right tools to manage the structure.

Google Ads Editor handles thousands of ad groups without issues. The real question is not whether Google can handle it, but whether you can create the structure efficiently.

"Google Recommends Fewer, Broader Ad Groups"

Google's official recommendation has shifted toward broader targeting and automated bidding. However, their recommendations are optimized for Google's revenue, not necessarily for your ROI. Professional advertisers who maintain tight SKAG structures consistently outperform those who follow Google's broadening advice.

"Smart Bidding Makes SKAGs Obsolete"

Smart Bidding (Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize Conversions) works at the keyword level, not the ad group level. SKAGs actually help Smart Bidding by providing cleaner conversion data per keyword. When each ad group maps to one keyword, the algorithm has clearer signals to optimize against.

SKAG Scaling: The Automation Solution

The only real limitation of SKAGs is the manual effort required to create them. When you decompose your keywords into atomic lists — services, locations, modifiers — and combine them systematically, the structure can be generated automatically.

This is the core concept behind keyword list combinations. You define your building blocks:

• Services: plumber, electrician, carpenter, roofer
• Locations: London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds
• Modifiers: best, affordable, emergency, 24h

The cartesian product of these three lists gives you 64 unique keyword combinations. Each becomes its own ad group with keyword-tailored ads. Add 10 more services and your 64 ad groups become 224 — with zero additional manual work.

Measuring SKAG Performance

Track these metrics to verify your SKAG structure is working:

• Quality Score distribution — Most keywords should be 7+ after 2-4 weeks
• CTR by ad group — Compare against your industry average
• CPC trend — Should decrease as Quality Scores improve
• Impression share — Higher Quality Score means more impressions for the same bid
• Conversion rate by keyword — SKAGs give you clean, per-keyword conversion data

The clean data is one of the most underrated benefits of SKAGs. When every ad group maps to one keyword, you know exactly which keywords convert and at what cost. This makes optimization decisions clear and data-driven.