How to Optimize Search Campaigns in Google Ads

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Askar Seitov, contextologist

In this article, we will analyze the logic of optimizing advertising campaigns. I am sure that it will be useful not only for beginners, but also for experienced contextualists. Sometimes even large agencies neglect these actions and receive applications several times more expensive than they could.

So, let's begin.

First, for each advertising campaign we create telegram china phone number an "action log" in Excel. This is necessary so as not to keep in mind all the actions performed in the account and, if necessary, to determine where a mistake was made.


Then, every week, we analyze how much the campaign has improved or worsened. To do this, at the group level, select the date and click "Compare".


The resulting picture will look like this.


The results will be shown in percentage terms in comparison with the previous period. This will allow you to see if you are going in the right direction. As you can see in the screenshot above, something went wrong: impressions and conversion rate dropped significantly, and the cost of conversion increased. We look at the "action log", think about what could have led to a deterioration in indicators, and cancel the actions taken.

Next, go to the phrase level and select "Edit columns", collect what you need to analyze campaigns. You will need the columns "Estimated bid for display at the top of the page", "Estimated bid for the first page", "Label" and "Percentage of impressions received in the top position". Do not forget to click the "Save column set" button, next time you will not need to re-collect, it will be displayed as "Custom option".


Previously, positions were controlled by the "Average Position" column, but from October 1 this indicator will no longer exist and you will have to analyze positions by the "Percentage of impressions received" column. To be in the top positions, keep the percentage of impressions approximately above 95. If you are not going to overpay for the first positions, on the contrary, try not to exceed the indicator of 90-95%. This can be controlled in the automatic rules.


As you can see in the screenshot, the price in the "Maximum CPC" column is different from the price in the "Estimated Top of Page Bid" and "Estimated First Page Bid" columns. If you don't add them, it won't be clear why your competitors are constantly outbidding you in price.

Here is the price adjustment Before and After adding the columns:


With a standard set of columns

After adding your columns
If with the standard set you thought that you had placed a sufficient bid for the top positions ($0.39), then after adding additional columns it turns out that for the first position you need to pay significantly more ($1.7).

Let's move on. Go to the "Audiences" section if you suspect that your competitors are clicking on you. The easiest way is to exclude everyone who has been on the site in the last 7 days and catch up with visitors through remarketing. In this case, they will only be able to click once a week, and clicks from remarketing are certainly cheaper than from a competitive phrase. If this option does not suit you, you can exclude those who clicked on the site more than 3 times.


We always ask the customer for the socio-demographic indicators of the clients. For example, there was a case when conversions were the same for both men and women, but in a conversation with the customer it turned out that mainly only men made it to the checkout. We excluded women and directed the entire budget to men, which allowed us to save significantly. If we had limited ourselves to data from Analytics, we would have thought that conversions from everyone were the same. The same thing with age - we managed to save in the cruise industry by focusing on the elderly. I hope the logic is clear.

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Let's move on.

Let's look at conversions by device. For example, here's a screenshot from an advertising campaign of one client who came to me after a fairly large agency. It was clearly worth either disabling the desktop or separating it into a separate group and looking for optimization options.


Many people get confused when choosing a bidding strategy.

At the beginning, it is better to select "Manually assign a price per click" and check the "Cost per conversion optimizer" box. This will allow you to control the price per click and position. If conversions are stable, then in the future you can switch to automatic strategies.


As for ads. To make it easier, add no more than 3 options. Once a week, go in and see which of them have a bad CTR, and turn them off, adding a new option to the vacated space.


Don't ignore emojis. It may seem frivolous to some, but it increases CTR. Always add everything you can to your extensions. You can't leave your competitors a single chance.

We do not adjust either ads or keys if they were clicked. It is better to duplicate and disable old ones so as not to lose the numbers. In the future, they will be needed for general analysis.

Don't be afraid to turn off ineffective phrases. Even if they seem targeted to you. There are phrases that hang around for years and don't convert. They are not turned off, thinking that they are worth nothing anyway, but in total these phrases can eat up to a quarter of the budget and still not produce an effect. Many recommend checking this through associated conversions, you can check for peace of mind.

Learn to work with labels. It makes the work much easier. For example, I mark the label "temporarily disabled" if I need to test campaigns without some keys. This will make it easier to find them among a bunch of disabled phrases. Or I mark ads ad1, ad2, ad3 to make it easier to change ads en masse. I structure them in adwords editor by label name and change, for example, all third ads in all groups.