Ad Rotation

Question 1

What were the 4 ad-rotation options?

This was updated to only give 2 options, which are?

Answer 1

1. optimise for clicks (default)
   (this would prob make Google the most money w/o necessarily helping your conversions and sales.) RE: Google may start optimising too soon, before we have meaningful results in.
2. optimise for conversions
   RE: Google may start optimising too soon, before we have meaningful results in.
3. rotate evenly (then optimise for clicks or conversions after 90 days) RE: this could be ok, BUT if your search volume is low, then 90 days may not be long enough to have statistical significance (at least 200 imps);
4. rotate indefinitely - RE: this is probably best if you ensure that you check your results and finish your a/b testing at the appropriate time. It’s the manual approach. You don’t want to perpetually run a test, because you’ll be running losing ad(s) instead of just running the winner, or doing another test.

• -
  1. Optimise: Prefer best performing ads

2. Do not optimize: Rotate ads indefinitely

Question 2

Select Rotate (used to be also called ‘indefinitely’ but now just ‘rotate’) - will deliver your ads more evenly for an indefinite amount of time - why/ when is this important?

Answer 2

When you test two ads inside an Ad Group, you want to run both ads at least 200 times for statistical accuracy.

Optimise may stop the test prematurely by actually stopping the ad that could have won the test.

So ‘Rotate’ is especially good for low traffic adgroups me thinks, where Google is perhaps most likely not to allow enough time to compare the two ads properly. And as one article says, if the metrics are mixed, G tends to fall back on CTR as the criteria for a winning ad, and CTR doesn’t mean more conversions necessarily. Though it can mean higher QS and lower CPC.

Question 3

What’s it mean when G optimises ad rotation?

Answer 3

This relates to testing ads in the same AG.

Most likely to be based on CTR. i.e. this is G’s way to prefer the best performing ad in their eyes.

But could also be by click, showing the ad that’s most likely to deliver a click or by conversion, showing that ad most likely to deliver a conversion.

Why wrong?
Some ads may ultimately lead to traffic that converts better than the other, but this won’t be taken into account by Google’s optimisation.

YOUR BEST ROI may NOT be correlated with higher CTR. E.g. of assumption: that higher CTR equates to best ROI

Question 4

Google's default setting is "optimize," so if you have multiple ads in one ad group, your better
performing ads (generally those with a higher CTR) will be shown more often. 

This might seem great – you will automatically receive the maximum number of clicks for your ads. But the more experienced PPC advertisers out there will know that what?

Answer 4

clicks are not generally considered a good
measure of success.

Instead, conversions – sales, leads, sign-ups, downloads and other desired
outcomes – are generally considered better measures of PPC performance.

Of course clicks is almost synonymous w/ CTR, but both relates to clicks

Question 5

Can you set ‘ad rotation’ at the adgroup (AG) level or only at the ‘camp’ level?

Answer 5

Yes you can - select and AG

Settings (via LH menu to show specifically for the AG)

Question 6

Rotating ads allows PPC advertisers to override Google’s default “optimize” setting and force all
ads in an ad group to be shown equally.

Since each ad in an ad group is given the same number of *** , data-hungry PPC
advertisers are provided with a plethora of unbiased comparative ad performance data they can
work with.

Ad performance analysis becomes considerably easier if all ads in an ad group have the same number of **** .

Answer 6

impressions

impressions

Question 7

With the ‘Rotate ads indefinitely’ option, the percentage of impressions for ads served in the ad group will be more even than the other ad rotation options.

However, the percentage of impressions for each ad may not be perfectly even, why?

Answer 7

However, because the quality of the ads differ, and quality is used to determine where an ad appears, or if it even appears at all, the percentage of impressions for each ad may not be perfectly even. An ad with high quality may appear on the first page of search results, whilst an ad with low quality may show on the second page of search results, reaching a smaller number of users.

Question 8

If you do choose the ‘Optimise’ option you must absolutely START using the ‘rotate indefinitely’ option, why?

Answer 8

To test your messaging thoroughly.

Question 9

Most of the time Isaac will ‘rotate indefinitely’ on an ongoing basis for clients

They will manually pause ads based on their own optimisation decisions, which are based on what?

Answer 9

The KPIs that they are tracking (RE: i.e. not relying on G’s assumptions and inferences).

You thus have more information and opportunity to learn about your business.