“We want to help advertisers simplify their accounts and focus on keywords that drive results.”
Advertiser Options & Recommendations
You can unpause automatically paused keywords, though Google recommends only unpausing keywords that will receive impressions in the coming weeks.
Unpaused keywords will be automatically paused again if they fail to generate any impressions over the next three months.
Google’s email reads:
“If you decide that a paused keyword is necessary for your campaign, you can unpause it. However, we strongly recommend that you only unpause keywords that you believe will receive impressions in the coming weeks. Unpaused keywords will be automatically paused again if they don’t receive any impressions over the next 3 months.”
Why SEJ Cares
By automatically pausing low-activity keywords, Google aims to declutter advertiser accounts and encourage a more focused approach to high-performing keywords.
However, some advertisers may find value in maintaining low-activity keywords for various reasons, such as capturing long-tail searches or aligning with specific marketing goals.
What This Means For Advertisers
This change means advertisers need to review and refine their keyword strategies.
With Google Ads set to pause low-activity keywords automatically, advertisers must be more proactive in identifying and prioritizing high-performing keywords.
This may involve revisiting campaign goals, adjusting bidding strategies, and ensuring that keyword lists are up-to-date and relevant.
Use this update to reevaluate keyword strategies and consider new, relevant keywords with potential.
If you’re an ecommerce brand or retailer, then promoting your products through Google Shopping Ads is likely a large part of your performance marketing strategy.
But in today’s competitive market, how can you make sure you’re getting the most return on your ad spend?
Join us on May 8 for a live panel discussion with ecommerce experts on how to improve your campaigns and elevate your paid ad strategy.
In this engaging session, Bryan Butler, VP of Sales and Marketing at SearchLogic, Joshua Young, Director of E-commerce and Marketing at Mezlan, and Ben Riggle, North American Managing Director for Channable will share innovative ways to:
Craft compelling product listings using Google Merchant Center Next.
Strategically bid on keywords.
Leverage audience targeting to reach the right customers at the right time.
Measure your success using best-in-class metrics.
You’ll leave this webinar with a better understanding of how to:
Reduce Costs While Maximizing ROI: Learn ways to effectively enhance the cost-effectiveness of your campaigns and increase ROI on Google Shopping Ad Spend by utilizing the entire Google Ads ecosystem.
Target New Shoppers With Keyword Bidding: Expand your reach to new potential customers through strategic keyword bidding strategies, while maintaining engagement with your existing audience.
Seamlessly Set Up Google Shopping Feeds: Discover how to leverage Google Merchant Center Next, including advanced product bucketing techniques, to ensure flawless setup and optimization of your Google Shopping feeds.
Are you ready to start leveling up your ecommerce strategy through Google Shopping Ads?
Sign up now and access expert tips and insights to help you to improve your Google Shopping Ads campaigns and leverage the changes that Google has announced for its merchant center.
Plus, save your questions for the live Q&A session at the end of the panel, where you’ll get to ask the experts directly.
Can’t attend the live event? Don’t worry – simply register here, and we’ll send you a recording after the webinar.
Google Ads has introduced Customer Value mode, currently in beta, designed for purchase conversion goals.
This update allows advertisers to focus on high-value customers and optimize their campaigns accordingly.
Additionally, new customer acquisition goals are now available in Search Ads 360 (SA360), enabling businesses to target and attract new customers.
Winning Back Lapsed Customers
Google Ads has launched a customer retention goal (in beta) to help advertisers win back lapsed customers.
This feature enables businesses to re-engage with inactive customers, potentially increasing customer loyalty and retention rates.
Detailed Demographics & Audience Insights
Performance Max now offers detailed demographics, including age and gender groups, in its audience insights.
This update gives advertisers a more nuanced understanding of their target audience, enabling them to create more targeted and effective campaigns.
Budget Pacing Insights & Forecasting
To help advertisers better manage their budgets, Google Ads has introduced budget pacing insights.
These insights provide projected campaign spend and forecasted conversion performance.
This feature allows businesses to make informed decisions about their budget allocation and optimize their campaigns for maximum ROI.
Account-Level IP Address Exclusions
Performance Max now supports account-level IP address exclusions, giving advertisers greater control over their campaigns and enabling them to exclude specific IP addresses from their targeting.
Advertisers can refer to the official Google Ads blog post for more information on these updates and how to leverage them for improved campaign performance.
Testing Optimization Strategies
Perhaps the most intriguing update is the ability to run experiments testing optimization strategies directly within Performance Max campaigns.
The first strategy being tested is “Final URL expansion,” which dynamically points ads to the most relevant landing page.
According to Google data cited:
“Advertisers who use Final URL expansion with Performance Max campaigns see an average increase of over 9% in conversions/conversion value at a similar Cost Per Action (CPA)/Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).”
The experiments will split traffic, with a portion dedicated to testing while tracking performance against the original setup.
Data will “reveal how this change impacts your campaign’s performance.”
Why SEJ Cares
These updates demonstrate Google Ads’ ongoing commitment to providing advertisers with tools and insights to succeed in an increasingly competitive market.
The ability to optimize for different customer lifecycle stages, test optimization strategies, and detect audience opportunities are all valuable enhancements.
Performance Max is Google’s future for performance marketing, so staying up-to-date on new features and best practices is critical.
How This Can Help You
The new customer lifetime value and retention goals could open up strategies to better nurture customers through the entire marketing funnel from acquisition to repeat purchases.
More sophisticated audience insights about age and gender may highlight opportunities to tailor messaging better.
Running optimization experiments could unlock unique performance gains, especially if utilizing the dynamic Final URL expansion option.
Taking advantage of these new controls and insights within Performance Max could improve marketers’ efficiency and return on investment.
Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about Ad Strength in Google Ads, including debate about its value, how it works, whether it plays a role in the auction (it doesn’t), and how to think about it in your accounts.
Like almost everything in paid advertising, there’s nuance to Ad Strength. No, it’s not a perfect indicator of how your ads will perform nor do well-performing ads with lower Ad Strength mean it’s useless information.
And what’s up with Ad Strength decreasing with pinning? We’ll get into that, too.
What Is Ad Strength?
It’s first important to understand the fundamentals of Ad Strength and what it’s designed to reflect.
Ad Strength is a diagnostic tool developed with the introduction of responsive search ads (RSAs) to help advertisers understand how the diversity and relevancy of their creative assets can maximize the number of relevant ad combinations that may show for a query.
More ad combinations typically mean more opportunities to show relevant ads to more users.
Ad Strength has four ratings: Poor, Average, Good, or Excellent.
As you construct or edit your RSAs, you’ll see the Ad Strength rating adjust in real-time as you build out or edit your assets.
Having a variety of quality assets (e.g., ensuring your headlines aren’t repetitive) is not only helpful for the system to learn, but it also gives you the opportunity to serve relevant assets to subsets of searchers you may not have reached otherwise.
This is why you may see some assets perform well even though they have a relatively low number of impressions.
Why Does Google Ads Seem To Put So Much Emphasis On Ad Strength?
After years of building and testing static text ads, RSAs required a mindset shift in how to build, test, and optimize search ads.
The fundamentals of what makes a good ad haven’t changed, but the mechanics have.
Ad Strength was developed to give advertisers a tool to understand which attributes have been shown to correlate with the increased performance of RSAs.
You may have seen the stat that advertisers who improve Ad Strength for their responsive search ads from “Poor” to “Excellent” see 12% more conversions on average.
That’s a look across search campaigns globally, and of course, your actual performance improvements may vary from that average. However, it’s a statistically significant indication that Ad Strength can be a useful tool to consider as you build out and test your ads.
What Does Ad Strength Look At?
Ad Strength looks at four categories that have been shown to result in better performance through Google regression analyses (holdback experiments).
The categories Ad Strength looks at are:
Number of headlines.
Keyword relevance of headlines and descriptions.
Uniqueness of headlines.
Uniqueness of description lines.
The score reflects the variety and relevancy of your assets. Rating-to-rating improvements are expected to result in increased performance based on the factors we’ve seen lead to improvement.
Note that Ad Strength also now takes automatically created assets into account if enabled in your campaign.
This is probably the biggest misconception I hear about Ad Strength. No, Ad Strength is not a factor in the auction.
Ad Strength is a feedback mechanism for your creative assets. It is meant to be used as a helpful guide to improve the effectiveness of your ads. It is not used directly in the auction.
Ad Strength has no effect on bidding or the ability of your ads to enter the auction.
To quote directly from the “About Ad Strength” article in the Help Center:
“The Ad Strength rating of an ad doesn’t directly influence your ad’s serving eligibility.
Instead, the Ad Strength rating identifies opportunities (during the ad creation or editing stage) to improve your ads to optimize their performance.”
Does A Low Ad Strength Rating Limit My Impressions Or Prevent My Ads From Serving?
A low Ad Strength could explain a lack of impressions because it indicates that your ads likely don’t have the asset diversity or relevancy to be eligible for many auctions, and your ads are not resonating with users.
However, a low Ad Strength does not prevent ads from entering into auctions. Ad Strength is not a factor in the auction. In other words, the system doesn’t “hold back” or “promote” ads based on Ad Strength.
Ad Strength is a forward-looking tool that reflects whether you’re maximizing the number of high-quality, relevant ad combinations your ad can serve.
Is Ad Strength Related To Quality Score Or Ad Rank?
No.
The Quality Score that is shown in your account is a separate (and older) diagnostic tool that looks at expected ad click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience.
It’s worth noting that Quality Score is also not used in the auction. Keywords are given a Quality Score based on historical impressions for exact searches of the keyword.
Quality Score reflects some of the values in Ad Rank, which determines whether your ad is eligible to show and where your ad is ranked relative to other eligible advertisers’ ads.
Ad Strength is not used in Ad Rank.
Further, bidding plays no role in Ad Strength.
Why Does Pinning Change My Ad Strength Rating?
We know pinning can be necessary and valuable, but it restricts the number of ad combinations that can be matched to a query.
That’s why you’ll see an impact on the Ad Strength when you use pinning. A lower Ad Strength score shouldn’t stop you from pinning when needed or helpful.
It’s also why we recommend pinning two or three headlines or descriptions to each position when possible to increase the number of combinations available. We know many advertisers find this to be a successful strategy.
What Should I Do If I See A Low Ad Strength Notification?
When you’re creating new ads, you’ll see Ad Strength suggestions based on the categories covered above.
Are these recommendations hard and fast rules? No. Like any best practice, they’re recommended starting points based on observed past performance.
A low Ad Strength notice indicates that your ads may have limited impression opportunities based on the number, diversity, and relevancy of the assets you’ve provided.
Again, though, a low Ad Strength won’t prevent your ads from entering auctions.
And, yes, you may see ads with lower Ad Strength perform well and meet your targets.
However, there may still be opportunities to remove low-rated assets and test new ones, or to add new assets that could appeal to subsets of your target audiences, for example.
Does High Ad Strength Guarantee Strong Performance?
Across campaigns globally, we see better performance on average when there is at least one ad with Good or Excellent Ad Strength in each ad group.
However, Good or Excellent Ad Strength doesn’t necessarily guarantee your ad will meet your performance expectations.
Regardless of your Ad Strength rating, you should continue to evaluate the performance of your ads and assets and continue testing and optimizing.
What Is Ad Strength In Performance Max & Demand Gen?
Ad Strength was introduced in Performance Max in February. In Performance Max, Ad Strength reflects the quantity and variety of assets that can serve across Google channels, not just search.
For example, Poor Ad Strength in Performance Max reflects that an asset group doesn’t have the breadth of assets to serve on all available inventory formats – and an Excellent Ad Strength reflects that you’ve included all asset types and have a diverse variety of text and other assets.
You can read more about the Performance Max asset recommendations for text, images, videos, and more in the Help Center here.
Similarly, Ad Strength is also available in Demand Gen campaigns. In this Help Center article, you’ll find Ad Strength guidelines for the various ad formats supported in Demand Gen, including single image, dynamic, carousel, and video.
How Should I Use Ad Strength?
To put it all together, Ad Strength is a feedback mechanism for creative content and meant to be used as a helpful guide to improve the effectiveness of your ads.
Ad Strength is a tool. It isn’t a key performance indicator (KPI). It isn’t used in the auction. It shouldn’t inhibit your testing.
Use Ad Strength as a guide to understand what may help improve performance during ad creation and optimization.
The reason we recommend having at least one ad with Good or Excellent Ad Strength per ad group is because that’s what has been shown to increase conversion performance on average.
To dive in even deeper, I recommend checking out the Responsive Search Ads technical guide. You’ll find more on Ad Strength on pages 5 and 6 of the guide.
Looking for ways to strengthen your digital acquisition strategy this year?
You’re certainly not alone.
Between resource constraints, fierce competition and lack of insights, it can be pretty challenging for businesses to acquire new customers and expand their digital footprint.
That’s why we’re hosting an exclusive webinar this month to empower enterprises with the tools and insights needed to thrive in today’s dynamic landscape.
Join us on April 24, as we share a scalable and sustainable acquisition framework to help you lay the foundation for long-term success.
Tim Murphy, Marketing Strategist and Consultant at Crum & Forster, and Susovan Ray, Director of Digital Solutions at iQuanti, will walk you through an innovative, two-pronged strategy to drive campaign efficiencies.
Our expert panel will explore key topics including:
Driving Efficiency in Paid Media Campaigns: Learn cutting-edge tactics to maximize the impact of your paid media efforts while optimizing costs.
Working Towards Long-Term Success: Discover how to build a solid foundation for sustained growth in the ever-changing digital landscape.
Leveraging Cross-Channel Strategies: Explore the power of an integrated approach across various digital channels to amplify your brand’s reach and impact.
Integrating CRO with Paid Channels: Unlock the potential of Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) by seamlessly integrating it with your paid media strategies for superior results.
In this live presentation, we’ll address the digital acquisition challenges faced by enterprises and provide actionable solutions.
You’ll leave this webinar equipped with the strategies needed to overcome these obstacles and enhance your company’s digital presence.
Don’t miss out! Secure your spot now to get game-changing advice from digital marketing experts.
Plus, you’ll be able to ask Tim and Susovan your most pressing questions in an interactive Q&A session following the presentation.
Can’t attend the webinar live? Sign up now and we’ll send you a recording shortly after the event.
Google announced the rollout of new generative AI capabilities for Demand Gen campaigns in Google Ads today.
The tools, powered by Google’s artificial intelligence, will allow advertisers to create high-quality image assets using text prompts in just a few steps.
The AI-powered creative features aim to enhance visual storytelling to help brands generate new demand across Google’s platforms, including YouTube, YouTube Shorts, Discover, and Gmail.
Michael Levinson, Vice President and General Manager of Social, Local, and Vertical Ads at Google, stated in the announcement:
“Advertisers need to diversify their creative strategy with multi-format ads to keep audiences engaged and deliver results. With generative image tools, you can now test new creative concepts more efficiently – whether it’s experimenting with new types of images or simply building your creatives from scratch.”
How It Works
Starting today, the generative image tools are rolling out globally to advertisers in English, with more languages coming later this year.
Advertisers can provide text prompts to generate original, high-quality images tailored to their branding and marketing needs.
For example, an outdoor lifestyle brand selling camping gear could use a prompt like “vibrantly colored tents illuminated under the Aurora Borealis” to create engaging visuals targeting customers interested in camping trips to Iceland.
Additionally, a “generate more like this” feature allows advertisers to generate new images inspired by their existing high-performing assets.
Responsible AI Development
In the announcement, Google emphasized its commitment to developing generative AI technology responsibly, with principles in place for fairness, privacy, and security.
The company states:
“On top of making sure advertising content adheres to our long-standing Google Ads policies, we also employ additional technical measures to ensure generative image tools in Google Ads produce novel and unique content. Google AI will never create two identical images.”
All generated images will include identifiable markings, such as an open-standard markup and an invisible digital watermark resistant to manipulations like screenshots and filters.
Creative Best Practices
To accompany the new AI tools, Google released a “Creative Excellence Guide” with the following best practices for building Demand Gen campaigns:
Use a combination of videos and images to engage audiences at different stages of the buyer journey.
Provide Google with a variety of assets in different aspect ratios to maximize reach across inventory.
Utilize high-quality, high-resolution visuals to build brand trust and inspire action.
Adopt a test-and-learn strategy, evaluating performance metrics to optimize creatives.
Why SEJ Cares
Generative AI for Demand Gen campaigns represents a potentially valuable new capability for Google Ads advertisers.
By leveraging AI to streamline creative production, brands can experiment with a broader array of visual concepts.
This positions them to better engage audiences in Google’s premium ad environments, such as YouTube, Discover, and Gmail.
How This Can Help You
For brands, generative AI tools open up new creative possibilities with a level of image sophistication that was previously time-and resource-intensive to produce.
The ability to iterate rapidly on visual ideas can lead to more impactful ad creative.
Small businesses and agencies operating with leaner teams can now create a high volume of diverse, on-brand image assets with minimal design resources.
Additionally, the “Generate more like this” functionality allows advertisers to expand on existing assets while maintaining a consistent look and feel.
Brands need to approach this technology responsibly and strategically, however.
While Google has implemented safeguards, advertisers should still apply human oversight, creativity, and brand governance when using AI-generated assets.
Featured Image: blog.google/products/ads-commerce/, April 2024.
In an email sent to Google Ads advertisers this week, the company announced a change coming to search ads.
Effective May 31, 2024, ad customizers will stop serving for expanded text ads (ETAs) and Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs).
The notification reads in part:
“On May 31, 2024, existing ad customizers for text ads, expanded text ads and Dynamic Search Ads will stop serving (after this date they will only be able to serve with their default value).”
For advertisers leveraging customizers with their text ads or DSAs, Google recommends “transitioning to responsive search ads and creating ad customizers for responsive search ads by May 31, 2024.”
Reactions Within The Search Marketing Community
News of the impending change sparked discussion among paid search professionals.
Navah Hopkins shared the Google announcement on LinkedIn along with her take:
“I’ve never been a huge fan of customizers (both anecdotally and when looking at large data sets), but I respect that they do work for some advertisers.
If you’re currently running ad customizers on your DSA or ETAs – now is the time to build them out as RSAs so you can gradually move to the new format.”
Hopkins clarified that the customizers will cease serving text ads and DSAs, not the ad types.
“If you didn’t bother with [customizers]…keep calm and carry on with your amazing human augmented creative segmentation!”
The Writing On The Wall For Text Ads
Google’s push for responsive search ads (RSAs) as the go-to search ad format has been apparent for some time.
In 2021, Google shared that RSAs would become the only search ad type advertisers could create or edit in standard search campaigns.
The following year, in June 2022, Google stopped allowing advertisers to create or edit expanded text ads within any of its surfaces—a clear sign that RSAs were taking over as the primary ad unit.
Many marketers have invested in responsive search ads over the past couple of years, and this latest move seems to be another step in that continued shift.
For those still leveraging custom ad text with their text ads and DSAs, the clock is ticking to rebuild those customized experiences with responsive search ads instead.
FAQ
How does Google Ads’ change regarding ad customizers impact advertisers?
To maintain personalized advertising experiences, Google Ads advertisers now need to:
Transition their existing ad customizers to responsive search ads (RSAs) by the May 31 deadline.
Rebuild customized ad experiences within the RSA format, which offers dynamic customization capabilities.
Adapt to a new ad landscape where RSAs are becoming the primary format for search ads.
What are the steps for advertisers to transition from ETAs to RSAs?
Advertisers must take proactive measures to ensure a smooth transition from expanded text ads to responsive search ads:
Review current ad campaigns using ETAs and identify which utilize ad customizers.
Create new responsive search ads that implement customizers before the deadline.
Test and optimize these RSAs for performance against current ETAs to ensure minimal disruption.
Gradually phase out ETAs in favor of RSAs to become accustomed to the new format.
Why is Google pushing for a transition to responsive search ads?
Google’s push towards responsive search ads is rooted in adaptability and efficiency. The transition reflects an effort to:
Simplify ad creation while maximizing reach and relevance across different search queries.
Employ a more automated approach to ad optimization using machine learning algorithms.
Streamline the ad platform by focusing on a single, more effective ad type that can adjust to user queries and device types.
Whether you are new to paid media or reevaluating your efforts, it’s critical to review your performance and best practices for your overall PPC marketing program, accounts, and campaigns.
Revisiting your paid media plan is an opportunity to ensure your strategy aligns with your current goals.
Reviewing best practices for pay-per-click is also a great way to keep up with trends and improve performance with newly released ad technologies.
As you review, you’ll find new strategies and features to incorporate into your paid search program, too.
Here are 10 PPC best practices to help you adjust and plan for the months ahead.
1. Goals
When planning, it is best practice to define goals for the overall marketing program, ad platforms, and at the campaign level.
Defining primary and secondary goals guides the entire PPC program. For example, your primary conversion may be to generate leads from your ads.
You’ll also want to look at secondary goals, such as brand awareness that is higher in the sales funnel and can drive interest to ultimately get the sales lead-in.
2. Budget Review & Optimization
Some advertisers get stuck in a rut and forget to review and reevaluate the distribution of their paid media budgets.
To best utilize budgets, consider the following:
Reconcile your planned vs. spend for each account or campaign on a regular basis. Depending on the budget size, monthly, quarterly, or semiannually will work as long as you can hit budget numbers.
Determine if there are any campaigns that should be eliminated at this time to free up the budget for other campaigns.
Is there additional traffic available to capture and grow results for successful campaigns? The ad platforms often include a tool that will provide an estimated daily budget with clicks and costs. This is just an estimate to show more click potential if you are interested.
If other paid media channels perform mediocrely, does it make sense to shift those budgets to another?
For the overall paid search and paid social budget, can your company invest more in the positive campaign results?
3. Consider New Ad Platforms
If you can shift or increase your budgets, why not test out a new ad platform? Knowing your audience and where they spend time online will help inform your decision when choosing ad platforms.
Go beyond your comfort zone in Google, Microsoft, and Meta Ads.
Here are a few other advertising platforms to consider testing:
LinkedIn: Most appropriate for professional and business targeting. LinkedIn audiences can also be reached through Microsoft Ads.
TikTok: Younger Gen Z audience (16 to 24), video.
Pinterest: Products, services, and consumer goods with a female-focused target.
Snapchat: Younger demographic (13 to 35), video ads, app installs, filters, lenses.
Recently, trends in search and social ad platforms have presented opportunities to connect with prospects more precisely, creatively, and effectively.
Don’t overlook newer targeting and campaign types you may not have tried yet.
Video: Incorporating video into your PPC accounts takes some planning for the goals, ad creative, targeting, and ad types. There is a lot of opportunity here as you can simply include video in responsive display ads or get in-depth in YouTube targeting.
Performance Max: This automated campaign type serves across all of Google’s ad inventory. Microsoft Ads recently released PMAX so you can plan for consistency in campaign types across platforms. Do you want to allocate budget to PMax campaigns? Learn more about how PMax compares to search.
While exploring new features, check out some hidden PPC features you probably don’t know about.
5. Revisit Keywords
The role of keywords has evolved over the past several years with match types being less precise and loosening up to consider searcher intent.
For example, [exact match] keywords previously would literally match with the exact keyword search query. Now, ads can be triggered by search queries with the same meaning or intent.
A great planning exercise is to lay out keyword groups and evaluate if they are still accurately representing your brand and product/service.
Review search term queries triggering ads to discover trends and behavior you may not have considered. It’s possible this has impacted performance and conversions over time.
Critical to your strategy:
Review the current keyword rules and determine if this may impact your account in terms of close variants or shifts in traffic volume.
Brush up on how keywords work in each platform because the differences really matter!
Review search term reports more frequently for irrelevant keywords that may pop up from match type changes. Incorporate these into match type changes or negative keywords lists as appropriate.
6. Revisit Your Audiences
Review the audiences you selected in the past, especially given so many campaign types that are intent-driven.
Automated features that expand your audience could be helpful, but keep an eye out for performance metrics and behavior on-site post-click.
Remember, an audience is simply a list of users who are grouped together by interests or behavior online.
Therefore, there are unlimited ways to mix and match those audiences and target per the sales funnel.
In-market and custom intent: Searches and online behavior signaling buying cues.
Remarketing: Advertisers website visitors, interactions with ads, and video/ YouTube.
Note: This varies per the campaign type and seems to be updated frequently, so make this a regular check-point in your campaign management for all platforms.
7. Organize Data Sources
You will likely be running campaigns on different platforms with combinations of search, display, video, etc.
Looking back at your goals, what is the important data, and which platforms will you use to review and report? Can you get the majority of data in one analytics platform to compare and share?
Millions of companies use Google Analytics, which is a good option for centralized viewing of advertising performance, website behavior, and conversions.
8. Reevaluate How You Report
Have you been using the same performance report for years?
It’s time to reevaluate your essential PPC key metrics and replace or add that data to your reports.
There are two great resources to kick off this exercise:
Your objectives in reevaluating the reporting are:
Are we still using this data? Is it still relevant?
Is the data we are viewing actionable?
What new metrics should we consider adding we haven’t thought about?
How often do we need to see this data?
Do the stakeholders receiving the report understand what they are looking at (aka data visualization)?
Adding new data should be purposeful, actionable, and helpful in making decisions for the marketing plan. It’s also helpful to decide what type of data is good to see as “deep dives” as needed.
9. Consider Using Scripts
The current ad platforms have plenty of AI recommendations and automated rules, and there is no shortage of third-party tools that can help with optimizations.
Scripts is another method for advertisers with large accounts or some scripting skills to automate report generation and repetitive tasks in their Google Ads accounts.
Luckily, you don’t need a Ph.D. in computer science — there are plenty of resources online with free or templated scripts.
10. Seek Collaboration
Another effective planning tactic is to seek out friendly resources and second opinions.
Much of the skill and science of PPC management is unique to the individual or agency, so there is no shortage of ideas to share between you.
You can visit the Paid Search Association, a resource for paid ad managers worldwide, to make new connections and find industry events.
Preparing For Paid Media Success
Strategies should be based on clear and measurable business goals. Then, you can evaluate the current status of your campaigns based on those new targets.
Your paid media strategy should also be built with an eye for both past performance and future opportunities. Look backward and reevaluate your existing assumptions and systems while investigating new platforms, topics, audiences, and technologies.
Also, stay current with trends and keep learning. Check out ebooks, social media experts, and industry publications for resources and motivational tips.
If you haven’t set up a 2024 game plan, you’re not alone. Many search engine marketers and PPC professionals are late, or just terrified of what is to come this year.
I recognize most of us have still not recovered from the dumpster fire that was 2020 (just look at my beloved NY Jets as an example), but you can work through that later.
But one thing it didn’t do for us was give us much guidance for 2024.
Recession fears are largely gone, the presidential election is looming, interest rates are high (yes, that does play into your planning), and cookie deprecation has actually started.
Take a moment to accept that 2024 is going to be a rollercoaster. Have a cup of coffee, and let’s dig into what you need to know for this year.
Pro tip: Plan for at least three seasons:
Pre-Election (January-August).
Election (September-November 5th).
Post-Election (November 6th-December).
Within that, you can add your seasonality (and if your peak season is in that election period season, get ready for a ride).
How Strategic Planning Typically Goes In Search Marketing
Disclaimer: Normally, this process applies if you’re working toward the same game plan as the prior year – without dramatic, sweeping changes. But in 2024, we throw in new macro factors that will throw you some curveballs.
The most common way New Year search planning happens is by examining historical data. Here, you examine YoY growth in costs per click – in addition to annual search activity growth – to estimate necessary budgets.
But when Google search produces abnormally high cost-per-click (CPCs) in Q2 of 2022, you must adjust for unexpected changes the following year after completing four fiscal quarters to offset it.
The search engine does all of this, so you end up with behavior for Google Ads, Bing Ads (because I refuse to call it Microsoft), Meta (yes, paid social is more or less paid search these days), and other non-typical platforms (e.g., Yelp, TikTok, Nextdoor, Pinterest, Amazon, etc).
You examine seasonal, monthly, and even day-of-week behavior across all your campaign segments, including Product Listing Ads (PLAs), Performance Max, brand, non-brand, high volume, etc.
Once this is done, you look for front and back-end traffic variances over the past two years.
But you should also revisit data from 2020 and 2016 (if available), specifically during the election season, to see if there is any other abnormal activity. You’ll need to account for variances like that in your planning.
You’re looking for highs or lows caused by time or macro factors that often repeat annually or are a one-and-done scenario.
We call this a “Forensic Lookback” – think of international impacts such as world events, major hurricanes, Supreme Court rulings, etc.
If you look at your 2023 data and find an out-of-character pattern in the numbers that cannot be attributed to a change you made, then see if the date when the data behavior changed correlates to any major event.
You’re probably keeping a close eye on impression share data (especially impression share lost); this will be helpful to correlate alongside your peak and low seasons.
Cross-reference it with total impressions and investment. Remember, this is valid for search, Google Display Network (GDN), and Shopping only – not eligible for PMax or social.
Net-net, the valuation of impression share, should be devalued if you’re already running Performance Max.
Then, you apply expected growth, increase in spend, etc., across 365 days, flexing up or down for recurring seasonal (and your anticipated adjustment for the election cycle), quarterly, monthly, weekly, or daily events.
And boom! Your anticipated needs and delivery for 2024 are all put together in a nice, neat little package.
Except you forgot about the increased adoption of Performance Max and its unpredictability.
If you don’t have one inherited campaign, you can still use the performance planner, but take it with a grain of salt because it is more accurate with historical data. This is all a nice way of saying, “Launch with a predetermined budget, but make funds fluid between search/PLA/PMax.”
Separately, you’ll do traffic estimates via reach planner for YouTube and Meta, and use historical data cross-planning with estimated audience sizes the platform pushes out to you.
What Keeps Seasoned Pros Up At Night When Planning For 2024?
2020 and 2023 hindsight will provide 2024 foresight.
Unless you don’t care about anything or operate in a vertical that is somewhat immune to macro factors (I used to say worm farming was immune to these factors, but courtesy of inflation and homesteading booms, it’s not the case anymore).
So, at least we know some of what we’re facing this year and how to plan for potential impact.
These include, but are not limited to:
Residual impact from the pandemic: Deeper pushed into the work-from-home model, which hampered verticals such as apparel and dining.
Recovery from the pandemic: Travel demand surged, exceeding pre-pandemic levels.
Interest rates: High-interest rates led to a massive drop in loan-based marketing and indirectly negatively affected automotive sales. Inversely, this positively impacted retail financial marketing, such as checking and savings accounts.
Election season: This hit some verticals more than others, as politicians ran ads that targeted key terms in adjacent/halo categories, such as Medicare/insurance, healthcare, and law.
Non-market related incidents: Wars, mass shootings, political fighting, and court rulings immediately cause brand safety concerns and may limit what is possible to advertise near for display, social, and video.
Non-traditional SEM adjacent advertising: The continued evolution and adoption of elements, such as Performance Max in Google (and soon in Bing) and YouTube, make your search forecasting more difficult.
Planning Search For 2024, Step By Step
So, what are you supposed to do now?
Don’t panic, but you need to get to it as soon as possible.
Depending on your vertical, you may need to account for collateral impact from the election, which we’ll note in later steps.
For those of you who are exclusive search and/or PLAs, this will be a bit easier.
For users of any of the following, there is a bit more legwork: PMax, GDN/Microsoft Audience Network (MSAN), and YouTube.
For those who are search-dominant or exclusive, I recommend the following steps, provided you are keeping the same objectives.
1. Pull January to August data from 2023 over 2022.
2. If you lost impression share due to budget, identify which campaigns and months.
Then, determine the opportunity if you weren’t underfunded. (See the fun little equation below.)
Calculation Of Actual Impression Share Data for Budget by author, November 2021
3. Take it a step further.
You can calculate the missed opportunity due to missed impression share due to rank.
I first learned about this formula in PPC Math Made Easy by Rachel Law in 2019, and I find it pretty accurate.
Calculation Of Actual Impression Share Data for Rank by author, November 2021
4. Add total opportunity if you were underfunded to missed opportunity due to rank.
You got what you should’ve had for this year.
5. Review average CPC growth for the past two years by month.
Apply that growth to your CPC and cost (not impressions or clicks, though). I had a habit of annual growth of 3% to 5%.
6. Review January to August 2020 over 2019 growth/activity change (for election year impact).
Compare, and if there is incremental growth over the 2023 vs. 2022 percentage, raise your anticipated metrics.
This will help account for the incremental impact of the election.
Note: If there is a dip in the performance, I play the conservative side and don’t forecast metrics going down to avoid being shy about funds later.
7. Repeat Steps 1 through 6 for September through election day.
This is what I am calling “Election Impact.”
8. Repeat Steps 1 through 6 for the day after the election through New Year.
This rechecks your numbers. It also helps account for the peak shopping season.
9. Add the three timeframes together, and you have your budget.
If you change optimization strategies, roll out new creative, etc. – those that allow for flexible range variances – where you give the CPCs a variance, which leads to providing a budget range vs. that of a single number.
Now, Performance Max is a bit unpredictable.
For those inheriting campaigns, it is always good to review performance (especially on brand and PLAs) before PMax was involved and after it was involved.
This will give you a direction on its potential impact. Then, look at the historical spend by day over time to try and see if you can determine a baseline for spend.
The real kicker is that, back in 2020, PMax wasn’t a thing. So, the historical impact of events such as the election can’t be overlaid on it.
I look at growths in search CPC, YouTube cost-per-view (CPVs)/cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPMs), and GDN CPMs and look for commonalities. Then, apply that anticipated growth to the cost per interaction to try and back into my numbers.
Yes, this is very dirty math. But it also reiterates that impression share doesn’t carry the same weight in search/Display/YouTube as it once did because PMax is in there.
Lastly, I dig into GDN/MSAN and YouTube. These are a bit easier to anticipate because they have an impression share.
You can use a similar formula to search (Steps 1 to 9), but you’ll definitely want to shave some cost off the top to account for PMax (if you use it).
If you aren’t inheriting campaigns for MSAN/GDN/YouTube, then I recommend using Reach Planner for YouTube planning.
For GDN/MSAN, build audience targets, do the math for the population within your market (if it isn’t nationwide), and give yourself a test budget to work with and run with it from there.
Like that, you have a 2024 that attempts to account for the current state of society and its foreseeable transition and restlessness for later in the year.
Tips For SEM Planning In An Election Year
Now, that is all well and good – unless you are handling one of the verticals prone to be affected by interest rates, elections, and social issues (basically anything that can be politicized).
Your process will be similar but not entirely the same. This adjustment is applied to Step 7 in the prior section.
Determine the total opportunity that should’ve been with impression share lost in 2023. Then, scale CPC/CPM/CPV for two years and in 2020 for pre-election (call it June to August) vs. election (September to Election day 2020).
This delta should be applied to your earlier forecasts, providing the growth rate exceeded
Note: If you’re doing 3% to 5% annual growth, scale for year-on-year (i.e., a compounded 5% CPC for two years comes out to a 10.25% growth rate).
But let’s say election season causes the increase to 7% instead of 5%; then you’ll utilize that for one of your two years.
Once I Have My Traffic Numbers, What Should I Do Now?
Well, you could do nothing. But that would be a terrible idea.
Instead, apply historically normalized (follow data history from above to find “normalized”) post-click performance data, such as conversion rate (CVR), cost per acquisition (CPA), etc., to your delivery numbers. This will give you your expected back-end performance for the year.
But remember to exercise caution here.
Apparently, all it takes is civil unrest from an election, a pandemic, new fears of economic collapse, or a return of the murder hornets – and your hard-planned approach to budget and strategy will need to be redone.
If there’s only one thing you take away from this, expect the back half of the year to be a wild ride.
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