Campaign Optimization- A Quick 10 minutes Guide with 50 Tactics!!!!

NOTE: As Campaign Optimization is extremely vast and it depends on various factors like- funnel position, lifecyclye position, optimization goals, optimizing for Direct response or upper funnel, devices, systems, creatives, placements, campaign level optimization and endless permutations and combinations, so it is NOT possible to include everything and discuss in depth here. So , I have just demonstrated a very simple yet effective technique to optimize. Its easy, quick and can be implemented without hassles. 

Knowledge needed to implement- Intermediate level
What is Campaign Optimization?

It is the process of increasing the impact of an ad and is closely linked to your advertising objectives. For instance- Revenue , lead generation, brand awareness, reach or for that matter any direct response/performance or upper funnel/branding KPIs. The overall process of optimization involves cutting losses for under-performing segments, and scaling up high-performing segments.It can be done pre-flight, during a campaign, or after a campaign’s completion. However, to be more precise, optimization makes sense only when you have some data which is actionable and is large enough to gather insights and then take action accordingly.

Or in other words,

Campaign Optimization is the process of monitoring various aspects of campaign and making right decisions at various levels by changing certain parameters (as shown below in the diagram)

Types of Optimizations?

1. Low hanging Fruits- Something that can be leveraged quickly to improve the campaign performances

2. Long term optimization- refers to the process of continual optimization over time and includes improving the customer LTV

When should you optimize?

This is a tough question as it does not have a 'one-size-fits-all' approach. It depends: so from very high frequency like hourly to very low frequency like quarterly. I will take you through this in detail, in few minutes in the underneath paragraphs and explain why we do not have a direct answer to this question? Campaign optimization can be 

What is the Approach for Campaign optimization?

Well, there are many approaches to optimize  the campaign, however, for the sake of this post, I will take you through one of the most simplest yet very powerful approach. Its easy to understand and very fast to implement with less chances of errors (in case if you are not used to campaign optimization)

Layers of Campaign Optimization

Lets understand the above figure.

Suppose, you are running a direct response campaign for any company,the first thing you start optimizing is the smallest elements of the campaign-which is creatives. The you move to placements, then to publisher level and then finally to campaign level.

When to pull the levers for optimization?

There are certain instances when the  campaign is not performing,  you have to look at the different layers of your campaign structure to determine what is performing and what is not. For examples, you can fetch the Creative level report  to see all the creatives and align it with your KPIs. Once you find the best and least performing ads,its time to pause the least performing ads and focus on the ones which are highly performing. Apart from this, there are some mediocre ads (mid level performance), you also have to have a look at it and set up the optimization tactics for those. 

Similarly, once you have identified the creative level, move down the ladder as shown in the above figure

Also, to determine certain levers (as when to start optimization), have a look at the major things below:

1. Right audience- Is the campaign reaching right audience?
2. Right message- is the right message reaching the right segment?
3. Pricing efficient- check on the pricing end
4. Optimal frequency- make sure your ad frequency is set right, anything more than 3 exposures is too much and can cause your audience to move away from your brand
5. Budget vs Reach- Is your budget too small compared to the audience you want to reach- in this case , it will be deplted very soon. Or in other case, is your budget too big for a niche audience- in this case, your budget will not be burned/depleted for days in a stretch. You need to find a balance  between the two
6. Measurement accuracy- check for tagging, pixels, analytics etc

Few things to consider

• Avoid too many changes at one go- Try to make sure you are changing 1 or 2 elements and then running the campaign for some time to see the effects and understand the true power of optimization. In case if you are changing too many elements, you might be confused as to what change has caused the campaign to perform better (or NOT).
• Have patience- You need to give some time for the optimization to start giving results.
• Don't take any abrupt decisions , plan everything very carefully.
• Don't optimize too quickly
• Don't optimize too frequently or infrequently
• Keep track of all the changes

Use the Power of Segmentation (click to Enlarge)

Some use cases for Campaign Optimization

Note: These are just some of the used cases, list is NOT comprehensive and is not in any particular order.

Below , we will discuss some of the pointers to improves ROAS and ROI. Please note that there are very many ways to do it. For the sake if this assignment, I am just outlining few of them

1. First  and foremost- Utilizing the Power of  organics- via  Search Query reports and organic keywords in Analytics. Based on the best converting organic keywords, you will have an idea  of where to add keywords  immediately. 

2. SKAG- Single Keyword Adgroup - This is one of the quickly converting tactic. Just one keyword with in 1 Adgroup, this will be tightly aligned with the adcopy

3. Tiered Bidding Approach- If you are having all the 3 or more match types in the same Adgroup- use this approach. Example:  Bid highest on Exact, medium on Phrase and lowest on Broad Match Modifiers- BMMs

4. Make the best use of BMMs, avoid Broad keywords to save money

5. Use day parting if you see most of the people from a particular geography are converting well at a particular time

6. Use enhanced CPC – to make sure that you are bidding on the right bid- also cross check conversion tracking before that

7. Create separate campaigns for different countries and also if you have multiple languages, create separate campaigns for them as well.

8. Webform- do a lot of testing and see what is converting  (less form fields vs medium or higher).

9. A/B testing and also Multivariate testing- Spend daily some time on testing- DON’T over test- keep the testing elements to minimum 1 and maximum 2

10. Landing page optimization- Make sure that the ad copy is tightly aligned with the Landing page. It should also be optimized as per the keywords on the ads

11. 3 click rule- Make sure that the person after seeing the ad, reaches to the goal completion within 3 clicks

12. Integrate Google Adwords, YouTube, Merchant center, Google Play , Webmasters and all the other tools with each other wherever possible Best way is to make sure your CRM is getting all the data from different data sources

13.           Use keyword report to find the best/least/mediocre performing keywords and take appropriate actions

14.          Placements report- Check it – same as above

15.          Remove the keywords with zero conversions immediately

16.          Review ad copy and pause the lowest-performing ad version

17.          Use Negative Keywords to block unwanted traffic

18.           Use location exclusion feature – make sure your clicks are only coming from the desired location. You can bid higher for the  geo  locations  that are converting the most

19.           Use extensions- they get extremely high CTR  (however, extensions may or may not appear always-esp. Automatic

20. Device level bid optimization

21. Exclude Smart Goals from Analytics- they are not relevant if you already have conversion tracking in place. They just populate the original conversion numbers and amplify it abnormally.

22. Select right tools for your SEM campaigns- right from Keyword research, creation of campaigns and optimization

23. For the best ROI, move to programmatic

24. Check for Search Lost is (rank and budgets both) report- you can see how much potential losses you have. Based on that you can tweak the budgets

25. Improve Average position, Quality score, keywords ranking , CTR etc.

26. Create better targeted and very tightly focused Adgroups - with only the most relevant keywords in them

27. Choose the bid strategy and targeting very smarty and wisely. This is the major area where the most of the budget can be depleted without converting into Dollars.

28. Be very careful whenever you start design new campaigns. Always have a detailed account structure in place even before you start working on your computers. This structure should be shared with everyone in the team.

29. Target bids by geographical location and household incomes

30. Remarketing is a must- DON’T forget to factor this into your  overall Marketing plan- Both RLSA and Display RT

31. Make sure your membership duration or the cookie windows is set up as per the actual business conversion

32. In placements block the Adsenseformobileapp

33. Use conversion optimizer to get the desired CPA

34. Strike a balance between Branded, Generics, Competitors ,Top of the funnel and Middle/Bottom of the funnel keywords

33.           Make the best use of different audience targeting- for example- in Market when you want to target people who are ready and looking out for your product/service OR Affinity Market audiences who are not ready but certainly have a long term plan in mind

34.           Make use of Frequency capping FCAP on impressions and views – you should know the desired numbers for both

35.           Content exclusion settings- Make sure you have opted out of all the categories that you don’t want your ad to appear in

36.          Keywords in the Ad copy- Make sure they are front loaded. Also, there should be a close synergy between keywords, your ad copy and when a user clicks it, the landing page should also talk about the same message

37.          Keyword strategy- It should be based on the lifecycle or the customers journey. For every different stage , the ads should be different. Also, make sure of Ads cannibalization , so select the keywords carefully

38.          For Retargeting campaign- same is applicable at the communication or the adcopy level

39.          Conversion rate optimization- Many people think that it is a bottom of the funnel activity. I however, do not agree. CRO should be the part of the overall funnel strategy and should be used appropriately at all levels  of funnel

40.          Always remember : Right Person >Right time >Right message

41.         Ad copy optimization- Use abbreviations, use symbols, capitalize the first letter of every word, use the keyword in the display URL as a subdomain or subdirectory, use a compulsive call to action, etc.

42.         Split your largest ad group into two smaller, more targeted groups. Tightly knit ad groups tend to earn higher Quality Scores.

43.        Website optimization is the key- load time,  speed, easy navigation are some  of the most important criteria

44.        Use flexible bidding strategies like- Maximize clicks, CPA bidding, Enhanced CPC and Target search page location

45.       Make sure you are  having a closer look at Ad rotation settings

46.      Try bidding for the 1st page and also do bid on your brand

47.       Unify Interests with  Remarketing  list

48.       Improving Quality score is an everyday task- just make sure it is done regularly
49.       Use -ve keywods intelligently
50.       Look for opportunities in Google Adwords. ForFacebook, make the best use of Audience Insights, you can develop customer personas, content strategy as well as cater your ads to the relevant audience and also realign your targeting efforts as per the findings

Thanks for reading!

Sarang