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6a. Optimization Overview

Objective: Learn what an optimization is and why all advertisers should optimize from time to time. Then, get started by taking inventory of your website, account, and competitors' websites.

An optimization is the process of adjusting parts of your account — like your keywords and ad text — and your website to improve the performance of your AdWords ads. Optimizations might consist of adjusting:

Very simply, optimization makes your advertising more effective. In AdWords terms, this means a higher Quality Score, or higher ad quality. Since quality is directly tied to your ad's performance, position, and costs, optimizations can bring you greater advertising success and lower your costs. Every advertiser can benefit from regular optimizations.

Now that you know the basics about optimizing, where do you get started? How do you know what needs optimizing? Begin by taking inventory of all things that make up your online advertising campaign. Review the following, and take notes of what is and isn't working well:

• Your website and landing page quality: Look at your website from a user's perspective. Does the design flow well? Is it well organized? Is the information useful, honest, and clear? You want your website to be easy to navigate and to communicate your business clearly.
  
• Your account: Review the performance of individual keywords and ads across different campaigns in your account. Check stats such as your keyword clickthrough rate (CTR), costs, and ad position. If your CTR is low or if your costs are high, optimizations are in order. To learn different ways to check your account performance, visit the Quality and Performance Basics lesson.
  
• Competitors' sites: Browse your competitors' ads and websites to help you understand the similarities and differences in your products or services. You can also identify factors that make your business more compelling than the competition (such as special promotions or unique products), which you can then highlight in your ads.

6b. Your Website

Objective: Learn how to optimize your website and landing pages, and how to choose effective landing pages for your ads.

The landing page is what your site visitor sees first after clicking your ad. Therefore, it's imperative that your landing page works in conjunction with your ad text. If your ad describes a specific product, the landing page should display that product. If your ad describes a general category, that category should appear on the page. In short, your landing page should deliver on your ad's promise.

If users don't quickly see what they clicked on your ad to find, they'll leave your site frustrated and may never return to your site or click on ads in the future. Here are some quick pointers to ensure that doesn't happen:

• Link to the page on your site that provides the most useful and accurate information about the product or service in your ad.
• Try to provide information without requiring users to register.
• Create unique content that relates to your service or product and that can't be found on other sites.
• Clearly define what your business is or does.
• Deliver products, goods, and services as promised on your site.
• Treat user's personal information responsibly. Be honest and clear about why and how you might be collecting a person's information.

Landing pages should offer clear, simple navigation, allowing your site visitors to find product overviews and details easily. Remember, confusing landing pages will discourage your site visitors from taking the actions — such as making a purchase — you desire.

Let's say you sell printers from all major manufacturers, including the fictitious Acme printers. When a user searches for the keyword Acme printers, your ad appears as follows:

1. Option 1: Displays a list of all printer manufacturers. Since your site visitor entered the search query for Acme printers, this person is likely interested in Acme printers only. A page that includes all printer manufacturers isn't the most relevant to your visitor's interests.
   
2. Option 2: Displays the Acme 710c Printer. The user's query was for all Acme printers, not just specific models. Therefore, this page may be too specific for your visitor's query. At a minimum, you should offer clear navigation from this page to the rest of the site and to similar products within the Acme line.
   
3. Option 3: Displays Several Different Acme Printers: This page delivers content that is neither too broad (all printer manufacturers) nor too specific (a single printer model). It's the most relevant to your visitor's query, and is therefore ideal.

6c. Your Account

Objective: Learn how to optimize your account for optimal performance — from structuring your account to editing keywords and ad text. To review the basics about organizing your account, choosing keywords, and writing targeted ad text, visit the Starting Off Right lesson.

Maintaining organized campaigns and ad groups is important to the performance of your account. Organization helps you achieve your advertising goals, make edits quickly, and target your ads appropriately.

Your keywords and placements should relate to your ad text. Here are some optimization strategies for keyword- and placement-targeted campaigns:

The content of your ads should capture a user's attention and set your business apart. Strive for the following:

• Include keywords in your ad text. Include your keywords in your ad text (especially the title) to show users that your ad relates to their search.
  
• Create simple, enticing ads. What makes your product or service stand out from your competitors? Highlight these key differentiating points in your ad. Be sure to describe any unique features or promotions you offer.
  
• Use a strong call-to-action. Your ad should convey a call-to-action (such as buy, sell, or sign up) along with the benefits of your product or service. A call-to-action encourages users to click on your ad and action they should take when reaching your landing page.
  
• Choose an appropriate destination URL. Relate your ad to offers that you make on your landing page to help users complete the sales cycle.
  
• Test multiple ads in each ad group. Experiment with different offers and call-to-action phrases to see what's most effective for your advertising goals. If your ad serving options are set to optimize (the default setting), Google automatically shows the best performing ad more often.
  
• Try different ad formats. Google offers both text and rich ad formats, such as image ads. Incorporate different ad formats into your ad groups to entice a user to visit your website. To learn more, visit the Ad Formats lesson.

Objective: Learn about some advanced optimization features, available at the campaign level of your account.

Ad scheduling lets you control the days and times your AdWords campaigns appear. If you want to run an ad campaign only on Tuesdays, or from 3:00 until 6:00 pm daily, you can do it with ad scheduling.

Ads are scheduled on the campaign level, from the 'Edit Campaign Settings' page. Each campaign can have up to six scheduled segments per calendar day. Segments can be as short as 15 minutes or as long as an entire day of 24 hours.

Two steps are needed to set up ad scheduling for an AdWords campaign. First you must enable ad scheduling for that campaign. Once ad scheduling is enabled, you choose the days and times when you want your ad to run.

Here's how to enable ad scheduling:

• Sign in to your AdWords account.
• From the All Campaigns page, click the campaign you want to work with.
• Near the top of the page, click Edit Campaign Settings.
• On the next page, click Turn on ad scheduling.

If you have multiple ads in a single ad group, AdWords determines when to show your ads based on your ad serving settings. You can choose between two different ad serving options on your Edit Campaign Settings page, under the Advanced Options heading:

1. Optimize: This is the default setting for all your ads. Over time, our system determines which ad is performing better based on higher historic clickthrough rates (CTRs) and Quality Scores compared to other ads within the ad group. Based on this data, we'll show your higher performing ads more often. You can see which ad is being served more often by viewing the % Served column on your Ad Variations table.
   
2. Rotate: This option will serve all the active ads in an ad group more evenly on a rotating basis, regardless of their performance. Your ads will enter the ad auction an equal number of times, and our system will consider the ad's Quality Score when ranking the ad.
   
   We recommend that you stick with the default optimize ad serving setting for best results.

Objective: Understand how AdWords advertisers can set a position preference for their ads.

Position preference lets users tell Google where they would prefer their ad to show among all the AdWords ads on a given page.

If an advertiser finds that her ad gets the best results when it is ranked (for example) third or fourth among all AdWords ads, she can set a position preference for those spots. AdWords will then try to show her ad whenever it is ranked third or fourth, and avoid showing it when it is ranked higher or lower. If the ad is ranked higher than third for a given keyword, the system will automatically try to lower the bid to place the ad in the preferred position.

Position preference does not mean that an ad will always appear in the position specified. The usual AdWords ranking and relevance rules apply. If an ad doesn't qualify for position #1, setting a position preference of 1 will not move it there. Position preference simply means AdWords will try to show the ad whenever it is ranked in the preferred position, and to avoid showing it when it is not.

Position preference also does not affect the overall placement of AdWords ad units on the left, right, top or bottom of a given page. It only affects ranking relative to other ads across those units.

Position preferences are not guaranteed. An ad may still appear in other positions, though the AdWords system makes every effort to display ads according to preferences. When a user sets a new preference, it may take a few days for the AdWords system to begin delivering the ad according to those preferences.

The position preference feature uses pull-down menus for high and low position settings. 1 is the highest (top) position, and 10+ is the lowest available setting. Choosing a setting of 10+ means your ad will show in positions of 10, 11, 12 and beyond.

Advertisers can request that their ad be shown only when it is:

• Higher than a given position (such as above 7).
• Lower than a given position (such as below 4).
• Within a range of positions (such as from 2-8).
• In a single exact position (such as position 2).

Position preferences are set in two steps. First, position preferences must be enabled for a particular campaign. Then preferences can be set for individual keywords within that campaign.

To enable position preferences for a campaign, follow these steps:

• Log in to your account at https://adwords.google.com.
• On the 'Campaign Summary' page, select any campaigns you want to enable for position preference.
• Click Edit Campaign Settings.
• Find the 'Advanced Options' section.
• Select the box to enable position preferences.
• Click Save Changes.

Setting a position preference can sharply reduce the number of impressions and clicks a keyword receives. Targeting just one or two positions means an ad will not show at times when it otherwise might have. We encourage advertisers to choose as broad a range of positions as they are comfortable with.

There is no single "right" position for all ads. Many people want to be ranked #1, but some advertisers prefer the lower costs that come with lower positions. Others find that certain keywords get a better return on investment (ROI) when their ads run in a specific position. The more advertisers test different positions and results, the more likely they are to find the positions that best suit their needs.

If an advertiser doesn't set a position preference, their ads will continue to run normally in all positions. If they enable position preference but don't set individual preferences, their ads will also run normally in all positions.

Does position preference work with the Budget Optimizer™? No. The Budget Optimizer sets and adjusts bids automatically based on overall budget, and so cannot work effectively when the advertiser also sets position preferences manually.

Does position preference work with content bids? Yes and no. Advertisers may run both features in the same campaign at the same time. However, since position preference doesn't apply to Google's network of content sites, any preferences set will not affect the content bids.

Will the keyword tool suggest position preferences? No. The keyword tool is not affected by position preferences and does not suggest preferences.

Does the Report Center show my position preferences? Yes. Your reports now show your position preference, as well as the average position your ad actually received. (If you changed your position preferences many times in a given reporting period, the average position may not be very meaningful.) Keywords without position preferences are marked "any."

Does position preference work with placement-targeted ads campaigns No. Placement-targeted ads always take the entire ad unit, rather than sharing the unit with other ads.

Does position preference work with preferred CPC bidding? No. If you select preferred CPC bidding, the AdWords system automatically adjusts your ad position as it works to hit your preferred CPC bid. This position adjustment is incompatible with the position preference feature.

6d. Specific Optimization Strategies

Objective: Learn how to optimize campaigns to increase traffic by creating unique keyword variations and taking different steps to increase clicks on your ads.

Please note that the industry typically defines 'site traffic' as page views where webmasters can sell ad space. However, the AdWords definition of increasing traffic means increasing clicks on an advertiser's ad(s).

Let's consider the example of an advertiser selling a product line for 'Acme Printers' who wants to increase traffic.

You can also increase traffic by creating ad groups for more general keywords. Continuing with the 'Acme Printer' example used throughout this lesson, you could use 'printers,' 'color printers,' 'inkjet,' etc. Words like this will generate a lot of impressions and, if they're relevant, clicks. Just remember to find the most general terms that are still relevant to your product or service. If they're irrelevant, they can generate poor quality leads to your website. Also, general searches are generally performed by users who are early in the research stage of the purchasing cycle. It's important to have a presence at this stage; however, you may want to start with low CPCs to allow for clicks that may not immediately result in a conversion.

An important aspect of optimization is generating specific ads to go with new keywords you create. Consider the keyword variations 'Acme color printers,' 'Acme inkjet printers,' and 'Acme laser printers.' These keywords are more specific than 'Acme printers,' and would benefit from their own ad text tailored around the keyword. You may want to separate these keywords into their own ad groups.

If you'd like certain keywords to receive maximum traffic, make sure they're in campaigns whose daily spend isn't reaching or exceeding its daily budget consistently. To increase traffic on all keywords in a campaign, increase the daily budget for that campaign. To increase traffic for specific keywords only, move them into a separate campaign, then set the daily budget high enough to yield the highest number of clicks.

You can broaden your location targeting settings or ad distribution preferences to maximize traffic.

Objective: Learn how to optimize campaigns to increase conversions. (Advertisers define 'conversions' differently; however, for this topic, we'll assume a conversion is a product sale.)

Before you optimize for conversions, you should first understand the buying cycle. Consumers go through the following stages when buying a product:

Using negative keywords can help filter out users who aren't actually in the purchase stage. Here are some sample negative keywords to consider:

More specific keywords tend to convert at a higher rate than general keywords. For example, consider the following keywords: 'Acme,' 'Acme printers,' 'Acme 710,' and 'Acme 710c.' Usually a more specific keyword like 'Acme 710c' will convert at a higher rate than 'Acme.' Users searching for brand names, product IDs, or even SKU numbers have typically already researched their product and want to make a purchase.

You should experiment with including prices in your ad text. If a user sees the price of a product and still clicks the ad, you know they're interested in a potential purchase at that price. If they don't like the price, they won't click your ad, and you save yourself the cost of that click. However, if you omit the price and the user goes to your website before deciding it's too expensive, you pay for their visit.

Objective: See how your maximum cost-per-clicks (CPCs) can affect your return on investment (ROI). Learn how to identify certain factors before changing CPCs and adjust CPCs to increase your ROI.

The following two factors influence your keyword performance:

The bottom line for any keyword is how much value it generates compared to its cost. To determine the profitability of a keyword, you can track the conversions from that keyword with Google's free conversion tracking tool or another third-party system. For more information, see our Conversion Tracking lesson.

If your keyword isn't performing well and becomes inactive for search, you can increase your CPC to improve its performance. If your keyword is inactive for search, we'll list the minimum bid in the keyword status column in your ad group Details page. If your keyword is active and underperforming, you can find your minimum bid by:

• Creating a Custom Report for minimum bids through your Reports tab.
• Editing your keywords' CPCs or URLs in your ad group Details page. (Select the keyword(s) you'd like to view, and click the Edit Keyword Settings button.)