Working at an agency, you quickly realize how important it is to prioritize. Finding the balance between client communication, routine account optimizations, and strategy development is crucial to an Account Manager’s success. By spending a little more time in the beginning on new campaign builds, you can save time in the long run.
Segment Ad Groups By Match Type
In my opinion, segmenting ad groups by match type is the easiest way to create efficient campaigns in AdWords and Bing. If you’ve been following PPC Hero for a while, you know our opinions vary. I believe that if you have exact, phrase, and broad keywords in the same ad group, you are limited in how many negative keywords you can implement in the ad groups without excluding relevant traffic.
I prefer using only exact and broad match modified ad groups. By eliminating phrase match ad groups, you can save time optimizing search queries since the same query can match to both phrase and broad or modified broad keywords. This is also a time saver because if you’re adding negative keywords to a specifically phrase match ad group, the query will very likely still match to the broad match ad group. If you’re unsure how your current match types are impacting your campaign performance, I recommend reading this post.
Don’t Wait To Optimize For Mobile
Unless you’re bidding down 100% for mobile in your campaigns, go ahead and create mobile specific ad copy from the start. Creating mobile ads doesn’t need to take a lot of time. Testing shorter description lines or even using the word “mobile” in ad copy can improve CTR.
Below is an example of two mobile ads that were served after using the query “oil change.”
While the first ad doesn’t use any mobile specific language, call and location extensions allow mobile users to directly call or visit the nearest location. The second ad, however, uses a call to action in the second description line that is not relevant for mobile users. “Print a coupon today!” may be effective when used on desktop, but doesn’t make sense for mobile ads since users can’t easily print from their phones. This ad could be changed to call out that users should view mobile coupons when shopping for places to get an oil change.
Considering mobile is also a great way to show clients you’re thinking of the details and setting up their account for success. Even if mobile ends up performing horribly, you’ll know you took the initial steps to lift mobile CTR instead of going back into the campaigns to create mobile specific ad copy just to find that mobile still doesn’t work well for the account.
Ad Copy Tests
When setting up new campaigns, go ahead and set up your first ad copy test by writing, at least, two ads. Even if you aren’t planning on checking the test results within a couple weeks, you can still receive significant results to share with your client. To actually save time, you should be intentional with the test and properly label the ads. This way, when you go back and check significance a month later you won’t need to waste time determining what you’ve been testing. Also, when clients ask what language you are using and why, you’ll have a solid answer and can quickly pull an ad report.
In general, using labels at the campaign, ad group, and keyword level is a great idea and can also save you time when optimizing accounts. Once you get comfortable labeling ad copy, try labeling other aspects of accounts to remind yourself of high return campaigns, why an ad group is paused, etc.
Set Up Email Alerts
Even though it’s our job to optimize accounts daily, some things always slip through the cracks. It may be a broad match keyword that spent an entire campaign’s daily budget or an account slightly overspending when the last day of the month is on a Saturday. Recently, I’ve taken advantage of the email alert settings offered in AdWords in the Automated Rules section. Even if I’m aware of the change, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Below is an example of a rule to send an email if the selected campaign has a Cost/Converted Click over $150 over the last week.
By setting up email alerts instead of automated rules to make changes to your accounts, you can quickly stay updated with performance details without relying too heavily on automation.
Final Thoughts
Often, restructuring an entire account to gain efficiency just isn’t realistic. Sometimes it’s even harder to get client buy-in since there is no guarantee that an account, or even just campaign restructure won’t tank account performance. I’m not suggesting you pick apart each ad group to fit the above structure, but keep these tips in mind when building new campaigns in existing accounts or when you’re lucky enough to build an account from scratch. You’ll have more time to test new features and spend time on account strategy.
