Paid Search Campaign Optimization

Campaign optimization is a long term commitment, not a hit it and forget it initiative. It involves leveraging analytical insight, methodologies, strategies and a little sugar and spice doesn’t hurt.

Over a period of seven months, the needle has been shifted on this particular campaign. When we compare the trending click-thru rate and average cost-per-click over this period of time we can see a strong improvement. The Google campaign increased in click-thru rate from 5.68% in it’s lowest month of May and climbed to 8.20% in September. At the same time, the average cost per click dropped from it’s high of $0.77 in May to $0.45 in September. Saving an average of $0.32 per click. With these optimizations we are maximizing budgets and we are capturing the greatest bang for our advertising dollars.

The objectives of this campaign are to increase the number of clicks to the site, while maintaining a consistent budget month over month. However, we need to ensure the visitors we are driving to the site are relevant and engaged in the site.

Among other metrics, we are monitoring a few key metrics to ensure these objectives are met:

• # of Clicks
• Keyword Bounce Rate
• # of Pages Viewed by Referring Paid Search Traffic
• KPIs performed by Paid Search Traffic

The sugar and spice of optimizing a campaign takes some practice. Much like the experience and skills a chef develops after countless hours in the kitchen perfecting the perfect menu. They understand the right amount of spices to add to make the flavor pop, or in our case the campaign out perform competitors.

A few tips to share:

It is often beneficial to look at keywords on an individual basis. Get to know your keywords; make friends with them. One way to take a deep look at each individual keyword is to monitor Keyword Bounce Rate. Keyword Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors referred from a particular keyword but who exit the site without visiting deeper in the site. As a self imposed guideline, I normally don’t worry about bounce rates under 30%, but rather focus my efforts on everything above 30%. If a bounce rate is high for a particular keyword there are a few steps I take to try and optimize the performance of this keyword.

Review the landing page - Is this the best landing page possible for this keyword? Does the landing page support the ad copy. If not, the landing page needs to change. (You maybe asking yourself, “Why not just change the ad copy?” You don’t want to change the ad copy right away because the ad copy is driving traffic to the site. In problem solving you want to see where the issue lies. If the ad copy is driving traffic to the site, yet the landing page is not converting visitors into consumers, then there may be an issue with the landing page.

Review ad copy - While reviewing the landing page, I look at the ad copy. Does the ad copy over sell what is offered on the site. If the ad copy says “We sell pasta”, then the site better sell some pasta. Otherwise we are lying to our visitors and wasting money on clicks.

Evaluate keyword - Same thought as with the ad copy. If the keyword is ‘homemade pasta’ and our pasta is defiantly not anywhere near homemade, then maybe this keyword is not for us and it’s time to pause the keyword and shift spend to else where. Another potential avenue to optimizing keywords is to evaluate where the keyword lives. Does the keyword fit in with the ad group it is associated with? Again, with the term ‘discount pasta’, if the term lives in the ad group with ‘fresh fruit’, well then you have a whole other problem and you should call me to manage your paid search account. All jokes aside, if the keywords that live together in an ad group are not relevant to each other than chances are they don’t support each other and should be moved.

Spices come in all different flavors, mixed with another can create a whole different flavor. Sometimes the trick is to find the perfect mixture of spices for that particular dish.

Bon Appétit!