Your first Google Adwords Search campaign – The Optimization

I’m sure that after you’ve read ‘The Creation’, and that you’ve created your first campaign and you couldn’t wait to lose that ‘Under review’ to get started. But of course, you know that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Yes, the creation is tricky, but it’s merely a start.
Now comes the part of analyzing and implementation of what was ‘discovered’. The optimization, some would say.

In the beginning

In the beginning, no matter how small or big your campaign and budget are, you should check your campaign status very frequently, I would even say every day. I’m sure you’ll be excited to start advertising so you’ll do it anyway, but I’m still telling you.
The first thing you’ll notice is whether your ads are running at all. If they are disapproved, there are probably some problems with them. Google will be sure to tell you what the problems are. If you can fix them, great, if not, go on and create some new ones.

After few days, check if you are limited by your budget. Again, Google will tell you in big orange letters. If you are, and your average ad position is 1.0, it would be a good idea to lower the bids on all keywords, or maybe just the top spenders.  On the other hand, if you are not limited by budget and your average ad position is low, raise the bids. Also, there might be some keywords with strong competition that will have “Below first page bid”. If they are valuable to your advertising, consider raising the bids on them.

Go to search terms now and then. If your ads are showing for terms you don’t want, add those terms as negative keywords. But, there could be also some search terms that people are using that could be great to add as keywords. So, consider doing that. As I’ve said before, you can never know precisely how people are searching on Google, but you can predict it the best you can. That’s why we ‘let it run’ and see what happens. If you still have too few clicks, and you went through all of the search terms, go ahead and do a new keyword research.

Create a checklist!

And then some time passes…

When the middle of the month arrives, you should start with some major changes. There might be some „Low Search volume“ labels for some keywords. Delete those. You won’t need them.
Some of your ads may have low CTR. Pause them, and create new ones. And while creating the new ones, try to implement customer’s behavior (use search terms) into your logic. If some ads are under-performing but are ‘almost there’, consider changing only some of the words in the copy. For example; from ‘buy’ to ‘order’. You never know what could do the trick. Also, just like ads, pause all keywords with low CTR’s.

I know what you’re thinking. What is a good CTR?
Well, the word ‘good’ can’t be really used when we are talking about CTR, but I’ll tell you what a bad CTR is. Under 10%. Pause everything under 10%. It just isn’t profitable. If your CTR is 10.5%, that’s okay, but with some effort and good optimization, it can increase. Increasing the CTR means that you are spending your budget more efficiently and that your campaign is ‘growing’.

As the end of the month approaches, you should check all of the said things again. But now with changed ads, new keywords, new negative keywords and so on.

Summary

Optimization is a process. These are some simple tips for a simple Google Adwords Search campaign. What do I mean when I say process? I mean that you should continuously do all of these things in order to make your campaign more effective. Of course, it depends on the business you are advertising, but know this: every campaign can be optimized to the point where it can’t be anymore. You just have to make sure to reach that point. And little further. 🙂
Now, get to work.