15 ways to optimize a paid search campaign

15 ways to optimize a paid search campaign: -

There is a lot to consider when optimizing the PPC efforts.

Here are the top 15 things professionals check when working on account performance.

Managing paid search can spoil marketers.

It's deeply ingrained in data, and this data comes in quickly after launching a new campaign.

Before starting to optimize campaigns, one should have a good understanding of what the number one goal of paid search campaigns is.

Let's look at 15 ways to optimize a paid search campaign.

1. Channel and campaign:

When someone is advertising on multiple channels or campaigns, it is important to see which channel is performing the best for the top KPI (key performance indicator) and also what could be playing a supporting role.

For example, paid search will always show a higher conversion compared to YouTube, but that doesn't mean YouTube isn't playing a role in the final sale that paid search is getting credit for.

Take the time to understand which channels and campaigns are performing the best, and budget accordingly.

2. Budget and impression share:

Another aspect to optimize is the budget and the percentage of search impressions.

This is largely based on the offerings on the terms of the brand itself.

Review the impression share for areas where someone is defending brand keywords as well as terms that typically convert.

If someone is falling behind in participation due to a limited budget, re-examine how someone has allocated the budget.

3. Time of day and day of the week:

Offer adjustments can be made at several different levels.

Traditional manual bid management is done at the keyword level.

However, there are many different aspects of a paid search campaign where bid adjustments beyond that can and should be applied.

Adjusting bids by an hour of the day or a day of the week is one of those options.

Another to consider is excluding certain hours of the day or days of the week based on performance to ensure to maximize results.

Even if someone works 24 hours a day, it gives someone an easy-to-see visual picture for performance, rather than having to generate a report each time.

4. Bid adjustments by location:

Performance by location is extremely important and is often overlooked.

Some locations just work differently than others

By continually reviewing and making adjustments towards goal number one, one can make campaigns more efficient.

If someone is applying nationally, it's also important to look at how much budget big cities consume compared to how well they convert.

Reports showing performance can be accessed in Campaign> Locations> User Location Report or Geographic Report.

Similar to optimizing for an hour of the day, someone can downgrade the bids on the lower performing locations or even consider excluding them altogether.

5. Analysis of search queries and negative keywords:

Looking at what users are actually searching for to match keywords sheds a lot of light on how the paid search match type logic works, but it also helps to identify queries or parts of queries that someone doesn't want to appear for ( as they are less relevant or not relevant at all).

This is where negative keywords come into play and are crucial to avoiding wasted expenses.

6. Exclusion of search partners:

Unfortunately, Google search partners are one of the few elements of paid search where bid adjustments cannot be applied; it is an all or nothing option.

Includes or excludes Google search partners.

Regardless, look at the performance between Google Search and Search Partners on a campaign-by-campaign basis.

7. Keyword:

Keyword bid adjustments were already mentioned, but the other aspect of keywords to review is simply performance relative to the target.

Certain keywords just don't work despite reviewing search queries, making bid adjustments, testing landing pages, and testing on different match types.

If so, these keywords may need to be removed from the campaign.

8. Landing pages:

Landing pages are often overlooked when it comes to performance because they are not part of the ad account directly, but they are crucial to the performance of an account.

Well, for one thing, landing pages can't be adjusted as easily as the other elements.

Brands are sometimes unwilling or unable to invest in landing pages, but landing pages tend to be the most responsible for converting users.

Keywords and ads lead users to the website. Landing pages close the deal.

9. Ad text:

Ad text is another aspect of paid search that needs to be tested and optimized.

• Which ads have the highest click-through rate?
• Which has the lowest cost per conversion?

Google has created new ad types like RSA and features like Experiment to help make testing easier, so take advantage of them!

10. Device:

Device performance is also an important aspect to review.

• Are the pages and landing pages even optimized for mobile devices?
• What is the performance of the campaigns on mobile devices, computers or tablets?
• Do need to make adjustments to a particular device or even exclude it from a campaign?

11. Hearings:

Review the performance of the remarketing lists in search and make adjustments to them as well.

Or, if someone uses demographics for search, how does a particular demographic (i.e. age range) perform compared to others?

Add as many audiences as someone wants at the watch level and see how each one compares to the reference users.

Then adjust bids based on relative performance.

12. Conversion count:

What counts as a conversion influences the performance of the final bid mechanism.

Google offers the option to monitor a large number of different types of user actions, but there is a difference between having those actions considered in the bid/conversion formulas and having them there only as supplemental information.

Over time, old conversions may not matter or someone adds a conversion type that is counted twice because it is part of an existing conversion type.

Make sure to review them periodically to ensure that only the correct user actions are counted as a conversion.

13. Match type strategy:

One has multiple options on how the keywords to bid correspond to the actual search queries.

Broad, phrase and exact match types can all play a role in the account, so take a look at what they do to choose the campaign structure.

• Does Exact work well in some terms, but is it just too expensive in others?
• Is Phrase Match doing something Modified Broad wouldn't do for cheaper?

Examine how the different iterations of the same keyword work and make some decisions to maximize cost against conversion metrics at each instance.

14. Keyword matching:

Something related to various points above is also looking at how Google is choosing to match keywords with what are bidding on.

This is not exactly a match type method, but it is a higher-level assessment.

• What ad groups do Google match search queries?
• Do they go where they want?

If Google matches a search term across the account, some ad groups may simply perform better for that term than others. (Or it could match in a way that they don't want at all!)

Be sure to add negative exact match versions as needed to funnel those searches the way one wants them done.

An easy way to do this is to export the search terms and create a pivot table that shows the count of ad groups where that search term appeared.

Instances, where it matches multiple points, can be quickly identified:

15. Use experiments

One great feature of Google Ads that is often overlooked is the Experiments feature.

If someone wants to try some optimizations but is nervous that it could negatively affect the results, the experiments will help!

This tool allows to duplicate a configuration, change the areas want to test, and run it so that it runs alongside the original.

Someone can tell Google what percentage of searches to send, controlling how much traffic is affected by the test.

• What areas should optimize first to get the best PPC results?
• First, it depends on the overall goal.
• Second, it depends on the current state of the campaigns and their performance.
• For example, are the campaigns getting a lot of clicks with a high click-through rate but few conversions?
• Look at search queries to make sure they are relevant.
• Take a look at the landing pages to make sure they follow best practices.
• It is recommended to look at the performance of the device to see if there is a significant difference depending on the device the user is using.
• There are several different aspects of paid search that need to be reviewed, analyzed, and optimized on a regular basis.
• The data will give clues as to where to look first, so pay close attention!