Ad Rotation Changes in AdWords and How They Impact Advertisers
In case you missed the recent headlines, Google is switching from multiple ad rotation options to two: rotate for conversions or rotate indefinitely. By doing this, Google wants you to focus more on how your ads can generate more conversions, such as signups and purchases, and offers more control of which ad copy is showing while tracking the ad’s performance.
But what do these ad rotation changes mean for marketers?
What are these recent ad rotation changes?
With Google AdWords in the past, you could have:
- Rotated for clicks if you wanted traffic
- Rotated for conversions if you wanted to maximize sales
- Rotated evenly and then optimized for conversions
- Rotated indefinitely
Now, Google has recognized the needs of advertisers to either test ads or optimize for conversions as their main two goals.
This won’t really change much for advertisers because this is what they were doing already. If you are a testing aficionado, you should rotate evenly to find out what ad text performs best. If you are looking for conversions and don’t worry too much about testing ads, you should rotate for conversions.
Each of these two options goes along with the way you would like to manage the ads in your ad groups.
Rotating for Conversions
If you choose to use rotate for conversions, consider that although your ad group might be receiving fewer clicks, this option selects ads that will receive more conversions and, therefore, have a possible improved return on investment.
Another potential benefit is that Google decides which ad is the best to generate conversions. Google has also said that by having more ads in their system, advertisers have greater chances of better ad performance. Google enables advertisers to create better ads within each campaign and gives them the opportunity to see which ads are performing well versus underperforming.
Optimizing for Clicks
On the other hand, Optimizing for Clicks is not beneficial when you add new ad copy. This is because Google can sometimes revert to ads that already have clicks for them and other historical data.
If you want to optimize your ad copy regularly, this will not work as an option for you–you want those new ads to get clicks and conversions. Although this option will increase the amount of clicks, it restricts which ads are shown.
Rotating Evenly
This option focuses on delivering ads more evenly in the ad auction. This means that ads with lower click-through rates and conversion rates appear more often. Because of this, your ads could possibly generate fewer conversions and clicks and have a lower average position.
Over time you can see how each ad copy performs, and you can pause underperformance versions and add in new versions of your ads.
What does this mean for advertisers?
Now, advertisers’ main focus will be to choose ads that create more conversions, which can improve their return on investment. They’ll also need to ensure they have high-quality ads because both lower-performing ads and higher-performing ads now have an even chance of showing.
Choose your strategy depending on how you want to deliver your ads on both the Display Network and Search Network and how often you would like to show your ads. Our personal recommendation is to test indefinitely at first until you are extremely confident with your top ads. Then, switch to optimizing for conversions and get as much as possible from your budget.
Google AdWords changes can be confusing and cost you money if you don’t fully understand them. That’s why you need to to hire Yael Consulting, a true AdWords expert.