Still trying to convince yourself to register for Hero Conf? Maybe you haven’t seen the recently posted topic schedule for days 1 & 2, because it’s going to be an incredible lineup of content! On top of that, you can still get your Hero Conf passes with a super early bird discount…but only until midnight Friday!
Because we know content and topics are the things driving you to join us in Austin this coming April, we reached out to some of our esteemed Hero Conf speakers to get on-their-feet responses to a PPC account question. These are THE people you’ll be interacting with at this year’s event…check it out!
THE QUESTION:
Let’s say you or a client has an account running traffic to www.KaylasFreshWidgets.com and the website is transitioning to a new domain; we’ll call the new domain www.FreshWidgets.com. In terms of maintaining account history, do you think it’s better to duplicate all campaigns and set them to the new domain within the original account OR start a new account from scratch for the new domain traffic? What’s the reasoning behind your choice?
THE HEROES:
Neil Sorenson – Head of Pay Per Click @ Zagg
Unless there was a really good reason to start a new account I would probably use the existing account. If the account has a rough history on QS or anything like that then I think you could definitely make a case for a brand new account. That said, Quality Score history isn’t built in a day so even if the QS up to this point has been just average I don’t think that history is worth losing. Just my thoughts. Hope it’s somewhat helpful.
Jeff Allen – Director of Paid Search @ Hanapin Marketing
My thought is that history has weight but really only if it’s really great or really bad. So if he has average quality scores in the 3-7’s then create a new account that is set up right from the start may be the way to go. If he is getting 70% of impressions from QS of 8-10 then I think he should keep it in the same account. Hopefully that helps!
Chris Kostecki – Search Analyst @ Keurig
If they are completely getting rid of the old site, I would update new ads in the campaigns and annotate Google Analytics. In a best-case scenario, I would try to time it for the first of the month in order to keep reporting consistent. If the sites are up at the same time, a new account would make sense to maximize the SERP shelf space.
To be clear though, I would not setup new campaigns, just new ads, so all history is kept (though having to delete the old ads in order to comply with the consistent ad group URL rule). If concerned about having to delete the old ads, I would then duplicate the ad groups, and start fresh from there – but I would rather loose ad copy info then have to start over with new keyword history.
James Svoboda – CEO/Partner @ WebRanking.com
Each AdWords and Bing Ads account has history. There is historical data on an account level, ad group level, for keywords, ads, display URLs, for specific geographic regions and even specific devices. An existing “Aged” account has so much previous history that I’d recommend trying to maintain as much of it as possible. And since you might only be looking to change domain names, I’d limit my changes to URLs. To do so you will only need to duplicate your ads and then update the Display and Destination URLs to the new domain and pages. This would maintain the existing campaigns, ad groups, and keywords and allow you to make the transition as easily as possible. Through AdWords Editor and Bing Ads Editor you could do an amazing amount or ad duplication and URL updates in no time at all.
I’d also recommend considering taking a multi-step transitional approach if possible. This would depend on if you are implementing 301 redirects on your old website URLs to your new ones. If so, then leaving the original existing ads running for a period of time, while running the new ads that are new building new history, would help to limit any drop in performance. You’ll might also need to update your Linked AdWords and Analytics accounts if the new website domain is being given a new analytics profile. This assumes that you are using Google Analytics.
…and that’s just the first batch! Keep an eye out for the next round of rapid fire questions with this year’s Hero Conf speakers, and get over to HeroConf.com and register now to be sure you get a spot (and for a discount, remember?!)!
What do you all think about the question posed to the speakers? How would you handle the account question at hand? Share your thoughts and ideas with us in the comments section below!
