How To Build a Successful Google Adwords Optimization Routine
To build a successful Adwords Strategy it is indispensible to have a optimization routine. You would be surprised by how many PPC Managers don’t have an actual process for their AdWords optimizations, but merely rely on notes or day-to-day management.
If you have a big account (+50 campaigns) it is impossible to keep track of what you have done without a optimization routine.
Below you will find a list of “To Do’s” of AdWords to start your new Adwords optimization routines. The AdWords optimization list won’t be exhaustive, but it will help you to spend your time smarter.
Before we start, you can divide your campaigns in buckets by Geolocation, Product or Type of Campaign and allocated a business day for each bucket. In my case I have 5 category products to promote on Adwords, with this I allocate each day of the week to one category.
Optimization a Weekly Basis
- Improve Campaigns/ Ad Groups performance
First, define your KPIs (e.g. increase CTR, Conversion Rate or Avg. Position) and set automated email for each bucket. For example on Monday you can receive an email with the worst campaings/adgroups with lower CTR on Bucket A. Next day you will focus on the next Bucket and so on.
For this I recommend the following rule: Check Campaing/Ad Group’s CTR is Lower than average with +/-5% of total Impression
With this, each morning you will know what are campaigns/ad groups that need your attention!
2. Control your Budget
On thing that is very important on an optimization routine is just making sure that everything is doing what it’s supposed to do.
If a Ad group moves from spending 50€ a day to 250€ day, I want to receive a alarm to check this.
To make sure fluctuations are no more than daily tweaks, set up alerts for yourself to identify any major fluctuations that may indicate a disturbance in performance.
3. Automated Rules
If you feel comfortable, instead setting just daily emails with “To Do’s” for each bucket, you can start using automated rules to improve your optimization routine. The logic is the same as inthe 1st point of the this list.
For this you should define your KPIs and set your rules (always with a email with all the modifications).
With this you can, for example, set up a rule that pause Keywords with a lot of spend and a low conversion rate ,or increase a Campaign/Ad Group bid when the Avg. Position is Above 2.5.
My recommendation is to start with few automated rules and increase this number when you feel more comfortable with this. Right now, my next step on my optimization routine is to start create and test some automated rules to avoid losing time in recurring actions.
4. Search Term Light Report
As part of your AdWords optimization routine, you should be evaluating search term reports as frequent as humanly possible, but you can very quickly get lost if you dig too deep. I recommend at least a light evaluation of search term reports on a weekly basis to harvest high level negatives.
Set a limit for yourself to make sure you’re spending time efficiently. Depending on the account size, I generally won’t worry too much about anything with a few clicks and impressions.
If you do find negative keywords, you can add them in the ad group or campaign level.
5. Review your Assets
You should review your Ads at least weekly to make sure the changes you made before are trending in the right direction. While you’re unlikely to have any data with statistical significance every week, you’ll be able to identify how things are going and how long you have to make a decision.
Same concept goes for Ad Extensions. You should review your sitelinks, callouts & snippets on a weekly basis to make sure there aren’t any surprise disapprovals, since those won’t show up in standard alerts.
Make sure that if you have an expiring or promotional sitelink, you’re checking i to replace it after it goes dark. Nothing is worse than only having two sitelinks for your amazing ads.
Monthly Basis
6. Super Search Term Report
While your weekly Search Term Light Report can catch a lot of things, you should run a longer term lookback to catch any issues that flew under the radar during shorter term AdWords optimization reviews.
Identify which new Keyword that are generating more clicks and conversions and add them to the current ad groups or even create new ones.
7. Bid Modifier Evaluation
On a monthly basis, you can conduct a in-depth review of the major available bid modifiers to see if you can isolate any poor performers to exclude them, or better yet any strong performers to maximize your returns.
Here you can divide your data in Geolocation, Devices, Days or even Audiences. Find your best segments and modify your bids according with your KPIs.
8. Explore new opportunities
With your Optimization routines in the right place, it is time to create campaigns or ad groups for new opportunities or new promotional campaigns that you will have. With this you can explore new parts of the market that your brand isn’t present in yet.
To finish this post I recommend to create a simple calendar with all your To Do’s in your optimization routine. You can follow the example below and adapt to your Adwords account.
Keep in mind that your routine can and should be updated all the time!
Share with what are your optimization routines are, I’d love tou learn more about them!
