In May of this year, I attended my first Pubcon. Specifically, I attended the Adwords workshop at Pubcon. Below are my thoughts from attending this event. Sorry, if they are a bit random, but its the best I could do while trying to collect and store all the instructions.
Ad Testing Ideas
Want to know the best ad for a targeted audience? Use Single-Ad Group Testing.
Segment your Ads: Brand vs Awareness.
Learn how to use Pivot Tables. (youtube videos on Pivot tables). It is an essential skill.
CTR is not a good metric for Ad Testing. It ignores the Bounce Rate entirely.
Favorite Metrics : Conversion Per Impression (CPI) or Revenue Per Impression (RPI).
Use Ad Extensions.
Keyword Changes
Semantic vs Syntactic Match Type
Phrase Match is a syntactic match type
Exact Match is a semantic match type.
Download your query data before 9/6 and 1/1. Do a Pivot Table, Match Type. Compare the exact match: did it improve or same or get worse?
Broad Match Type is a Semantic Match Type. Suggestion is to use a Broad Match Modifier like “+word” so the ad triggers only when “word” is contained in the search query.
Negative Keyword
Negative keywords do not match plurals. If the negative keyword is in anywhere in the search term, ad will not show.
Phrase Match Type vs Broad Match Type vs Exact Match for Negative Keywords.
Use Filters extensively
Cost $25.00; Coversions < 1, Added/Excluded – None – Terms that are not-converting and need to be removed.
CPA < Target CPA, Conversions > 3, Added/Excluded = None – > Make these keywords.
Tools To Use
- Adwords Scripts – This is one of the most useful takeaways from the workshop. Since I attended the workshop, I have worked on improving my scripting skills. This has immense value at cutting down the manual effort and time needed for day-to-day maintenance.
- Excel (Pivot Tables help you visualize the data and turn it into insight)
- Adword N-Gram Analysis Tool (this is something new that I need to learn)
Expand Query Ads
Dynamic Search Ads – You do not write headlines, you tell Google to generate the headline based on the content of your website. Basically, match search keywords to landing pages automatically. DSA’s are useful for finding new search terms. It is dependent on good organic schema markup. Website structure will be an important factor for these DSA ads. You can also make negative dynamic targets.
Then, look at the Search Terms that are converting with DSA’s.
What’s New in Google Ads
- Average Position in deprecated. It will disappear in September.
- New Top IS Metrics: Abs Top Achieves, Top IS Achieved, Top IS Missed & Abs Top Missed. Conversion Rate is generally steady independent of position. CTR is higher for higher positions.
- Advertisers should use conversion based bidding. For brand terms, you want to be in absolute top position.
Closed Variants
Closed variants work across all Match Types (Broad, Modified Broad, Exact Match, Phrase Match.
Responsive Search Ads
You should use a lot of variations. Mix the length of the headlines. RSA Ads: You give google headlines and descriptions, google will create ads.
Segment your analysis. Use Fred’s script to get the data. If the top performing ads are different for computer vs mobile vs tablet, then you should split the ads across different devices.
Use Landing Page screen to see which pages take longer to load. Work on optimizing page load time to increase conversions. Time To Load > 3 seconds is considered slow.
Uee Promotion Extensions to distinguish your ad from the competition.
Look at Giant Carousel Ads.
Look at ConversionLagBucket Added to Reports. Ignore the last 5 days of data because the conversion numbers have not been processed, if the average conversion lag is 5 to 7 days.
Google Shopping Campaigns
- Use of smart shopping campaign is encouraged.
- Item ID is used for correlating Quality Score. Try changing the product ID for improving CTR.
- Recommended to place each product in its own product group. (think of it as Ad Group for non-ecommerce applications).
- Single Product Ad Groups
- SPAG – Each ad group has exactly one product group.
- You can split the products by Product Category or Brand.
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