Many of you in the professional SEM world probably spend as much time as I do optimizing paid search campaigns, testing keywords and ads, and generally rolling around in all the data we have at our fingertips. As a firm believer in the mantra “test, measure, repeat” I was a bit peeved when I noticed that Google had changed the options for ad delivery in AdWords. My beloved “Rotate evenly” was replaced with “Rotate evenly: Show ads more evenly for 30 days, then optimize for clicks”. This small change has effectively removed our ability to do any longer term creative or other A/B testing.

The Real Issue
Some campaigns/adgroups don’t necessarily have enough traffic to do a legitimate test in 30 days. And even if there is enough traffic and conversion data to draw some meaningful conclusions, I never want my ads optimized for clicks. Google gets paid for the click, I don’t. What’s more is there is no obvious way to reset it for another 30 days. Selecting another option, saving, then re-selecting 30 days does no good.

After searching for an option on the Internet, I finally ended up calling Google directly. It seemed that the representative had no understanding of why this seemingly innocuous change was a very big issue for the advertiser. After a round of questions and answers with the rep, the issue was escalated. There was some lack of clarity on what the rotation rules applied to and didn’t. Here is the information I received back from Google:

1. The ad rotation 30-day clock applies to the Ad Group level, not the Campaign, even though it is a Campaign-level setting.
2. Modifying ads, adding them to the Ad Group, or even pausing and un-pausing will restart the 30-day clock.

An Annoying Dance
So, anyway you slice it, if you want to continue rotating your ads, you have some extra hoops to jump through. Keep in mind that any change to an ad does reset the metrics for that ad, so that one can be counter-productive. So that leaves us with the pause-unpause dance.

The Suggested Workaround

• Set up an extra ad in each of your ad groups to use as a ‘switch’ you can flick to reset the clock at any time.
• Use an identical headline or other element so you can easily sort it out using AdWords Editor.
• Then you just unpause, post, pause post. This will reset your 30-day clock on all Ad Groups and leave all the metrics on your “real” ads intact.

I know it sucks, but it is what we have until Google gives us our tool back. I would love it if someone came up with a better alternative, so if you have, please share it with the rest of us.

———————————– UPDATE ————————————————-

As of June 1, 2012 the power of the people has influenced Google to reconsider this change. A word from Google:

“Also, in response to your feedback, we’re planning to make two changes to the setting. First, we’ll expand the even rotation period from 30 days to 90 days to give you a longer window for testing new ads. Second, if you still wish to have your ads rotate evenly indefinitely, we’re going to offer an opt-out of this change. You can opt-out by filling in your information on this form or by contacting your account representative. Both of these changes will go into effect on June 11, 2012.

If we see a large amount of demand for the opt-out over the next few weeks, we’ll also offer the opt-out in the AdWords interface directly.”

Read the reasons as to why they made this update in the first place on Google’s Adwords blog.

This article first appeared on agencyside as A Day in the Life of a PPC Manager where Mike Swan, Director of Search Marketing Strategy at Liberty Interactive Marketing is a guest columnist as well as a panel speaker on topics for search marketing strategies.

Often when asked how I spend my day I answer “living the dream”. While I sometimes get a chuckle from those who are also fans of the movie “Wedding Crashers”, I usually get a look of bewilderment. While I get much satisfaction from this, sometimes there is an unlucky soul that asks me to elaborate on what dream I am living. It is those people who actually enjoy the “geek speak” to whom I am dedicating this post.

Professional PPC management has two facets; it is one quarter creativity and 3 quarters creatively analyzing data. Those with no aptitude for numbers need not apply; there is little chance for success without a highly analytical mind. Efficiency and processes are of paramount importance, especially as the number and complexity of the accounts increases.

Here are 5 things that must be attended to on a regular basis. How regularly depends on 1) traffic of the account and 2) industry.

1) Are All Systems Go – Rule number one, know what campaigns should be running and which should not. Realizing that a credit card was declined or the account balance has been depleted a week after it happens is never a glorious moment. Avoid it. I review two types of reports every morning. Both are Account Reports that contain the results for all clients. The first is the month to date. This gives me an overview of how the accounts are performing, what my budget utilization is and serves as my quick reference guide for broad inquiries on the health of the account either to the client or a team member. The other is the Yesterday report. This tells me what happened the day before, so if I see any weird results, like no traffic, it allows me to identify a possible issue within 6 hours or so of it happening. This can be a lifesaver.

2) Watch your Positioning – Know where your sweet spot is and manage to it. I also make sure the account average is in a narrow band. If it starts dropping, is it one aspect of the account or is it account-wide? This can help you identify competitive trends or Quality Score shifts before the account train wrecks.

3) Utilize Search Query Data – I like to keep a lot of broad match terms in my accounts to keep a good pipeline of search query data. This gives you a look at search volume, it helps you identify terms that you may want to go after. It also can show you some glaring holes in your campaign in both the opportunity sense and the negative sense. Negative keywords that is. This report will save your client many thousands of dollars of wasted traffic when you see some of the undesirable terms you are showing for. This is also a liability protector. The last thing you want is your client stumbling upon their own ad showing for an unsavory search. (Not to say clients ever search for unsavory things).

4) Budget Utilization – Due to the nature of PPC, there is no precise guarantee that you will spend your exact budget; in fact the guarantee is you won’t. What many don’t realize is that when you make a campaign budget change in Google, it is not a sophisticated system. It was explained to me by our Google rep (Do you like how I passed the buck on this one?) that when you make a budget change the system assumes it was made in the middle of the day, so the system will try to spend 50% of the newly set daily budget. What does that mean? Basically, if you make the change early in the day, you will spend less than you expect to, and if you make the change late in the day you can potentially spend quite a bit more than you expected. While over an extended timeframe it all evens out, if you are trying to make a significant end of month adjustment you could get burned. Moral of the story, watch your budget allocation.

5) Landing Pages – Is Conversion Code Tracking? – Often times we don’t have access to our clients’ web hosting server and more often server protocol is not in place, therefore leaving you vulnerable to getting tracking code overwritten, removed, deleted or your landing page throwing a Page Not Found error. Enter mayhem and dollars lost. Daily, check that your landing pages are up and running and that your conversion code is tracking (and still present on the page). If you don’t, this will hurt your bottom line, your credibility and your Quality Score.

This list is far from exhaustive, and does not address how to manage and improve PPC campaigns, just some of the things that you need to stay on top of.

We provide professional Pay Per Click Management Services, contact us today.

photo credit: fanginhoon

We wrote a similar article a few years ago on Why Aren’t My Ads Showing, and most recently we were asked to write a similar article for agencyside to help other agencies set client expectations for paid search. We’ve tweaked the original article a bit for our customers to provide a bit of insight and understanding into the workings of paid search from our perspective.

We often are asked “Why Aren’t My Ads Showing?”, so we are here today to provide a bit of insight into that question. There are several main factors that influence ad delivery. This list is not exhaustive, but it will provide you with knowledge to understanding the answer to the question.

1) Campaign structure – Remember you are paying per click, and generally have some sort of budget limitation. For example, let’s say you have a keyword with an average cost per click of $1 and a daily account budget of $100. This means you will receive 100 clicks per day on average. Because the paid search venues must stay within a narrow range of your budget your ad frequency will be directly related to your click through rate. If you have an average click through rate of 10% it will take 1,000 impressions to exhaust your budget. So if there is search volume of 5,000 per day for your keyword, your ad will show 20% of the time. Now consider if you have 50 to 100 keywords in your campaign all sharing the same $100 budget.

2) Quality Score is technically Google nomenclature, but all search venues have a method for determining something similar. Intended to be the great equalizer this determines what position your ad will show and at what cost relative to the other advertisers. This is what prevents us from buying our way into top placement for more competitive terms. Higher Quality Score means higher positioning, lower cost per click, and often greater frequency – all good things. The factors that affect Quality Score are well documented, but basically if you aren’t relevant, have poor ad copy or have some technical issues with your landing page you aren’t showing.

3) Age of Campaign – New campaigns can start off slow while the search venue is getting an understanding of the click through and user behavior relative to the account. This generally takes a few days depending on the size of the account. Larger accounts will take longer since there are more variables to assess. If you have a large account with a small budget, good luck. Better to start small and expand from there as the campaign picks up steam. See #1 for reasoning on this.

If you have a mature account that is losing visibility it may be time to reconfigure, redesign, or reassess to find another approach. Hopefully, you have some sort of ongoing optimization involving testing of campaigns elements in place so this won’t happen. Always watch for loss in visibility after a miscalculated major change in landing page design, site redesign or if you see your average cost per click increase substantially. Even with an unlimited budget your ads still wouldn’t show for every search. That is just the way it is. Google offers a tool to help diagnose certain problems related to ad visibility in the impression share component of its reports. This can tell you how much visibility your campaign is missing based on budget limitations or quality score.

Every impression (every time your ad shows) that doesn’t get clicked is detrimental to the account in some way. “Googling” keywords every day to see if your ads are showing is costing money, even if you never click on a single one.

If you are interested in understanding if your campaigns are performing to their potential, let us know. We can provide an audit and consultation to help you maximize on every dollar spent. Contact us today.