WEEKLY OPTIMIZATION CHECKLIST

 

WEEKLY OPTIMIZATION CHECKLIST 

Step 1: Fix Low Click-through Rate (CTR) – Do any ads and/or keywords have a low CTR? What’s a low CTR depends on the niche and the position of the ad. If you are in the top three positions and your CTR is below 1% then that’s a problem. Quickly change or pause the ads/keywords or your Quality Score will drop. You can also review the “Auction Insights” feature to see how your ads stack up against the competition. 

Step 2: Monitor Split Tests – How are your split tests performing? One or more of your ads should be performing better within the same ad group. If you have conversion tracking installed then review ads that converted and also ones that haven’t but have received 100 clicks or more. If you don’t have conversion tracking enabled then review ads looking for low CTR.  

Step 3: Review the Search Terms – Review the raw search queries or search terms? To view this, click on the “Keywords” tab and then click “Keyword Details”. Are all of the search terms relevant and/or desired? If not, then consider adding negative keywords. 

Step 4: Add Negative Keywords – Have you added any negative keywords? Every week you should be adding campaign and ad group level negative keywords. Campaign level negative keywords are great for keywords that are not relevant. Ad Group level negative keywords are great for sculpting your ad groups to only trigger on keywords that you want that ad group to trigger. You want your ads to be triggering in the ad group that is most targeted to the search query. 

Step 5: Check Usability Stats – Review landing page usability stats such as bounce rate and average visit duration? Usability stats are great indicators of relevance. Landing pages with a high bounce rate and low average visit duration should be removed, swapped out or updated. Low usability stats can also hurt your Quality Score and can now be viewed directly within Google Adwords. Also review usability stats for different browsers. Your site may not look good on certain browsers which could be hurting your profitability. 

Step 6: Daily Budgets – Are any of your campaign’s daily budgets maxing out? If you are maxing out your budget then then try lowering your position. Usually, you will get more clicks for less money. 

Step 7: Average Position – Are any of your keywords below position 3 and/or not getting clicks or not getting enough clicks? Generally, you should always shoot for the top 3 positions to ensure your ads are getting clicked. Usually the third position is the most cost effective since you effectively pay one cent more than the fourth position advertisers bid. Tip – Create a Automated Rule to ensure your keywords remain in the top three positions. 

Step 8: High/Low Converting Campaigns & Ad Groups – Maximize the opportunity by working on the things that are working well and not working well? Check campaigns and ad groups getting the majority of the traffic. It’s usually easier to take a campaign or ad group that’s getting traffic and conversions and improve it to get even more. Likewise, campaigns or ad groups getting traffic and not converting should be reviewed to determine why they aren’t. You always want to try to work on the items with the greatest opportunity. 

Step 9: Keyword Match Types – Review “segments” for match type to find the winners and the losers. Consider adding match types for the winners and negative matching the losers.