Need help with scaling an Adwords campaign

Krass

Krass

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May 10, 2015
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Hi,

I have this dinky little journey thread sellling health food and just got a breathrough using Adwords after trying every channel I know of but getting so so results (FB, instagram, seo etc).

So now as with any campaign the best thing to do with a campaign that works is to scale. But I have zero experience on adwords. I've been doing mobile pops and facebook ads for the better part of 2016.

My adwords camp details:

1 ad, 11 keywords getting traffic and paying up to $1.6 per click. All keywords are exact match. I don't mind paying that much since the ROI is there. I might have to pause the camp because I'm running out of stock and will need to restock.

What should I do from here?
- do I just increase the daily budget?
- venture into phrase and broad matches?
- should I try different ads to see which one gets good clickthrough?
- Should I try to decrease the bids to get better prices on the clicks?

I have no way of tracking which keywords are giving me the conversions because I just went old school and slapped my phone number on the landing page just to get the thing out there.

I really need to refine this process obviously but I have no clue where to start..
 
you should never never never pause an adwords or fb campaign.

sounds odd, yes.

many many many time when you unpause they never come back the same
 
eliquid said:
you should never never never pause an adwords or fb campaign.

sounds odd, yes.

many many many time when you unpause they never come back the same
Click to expand...
That is strange, why do you think that is and what do you suggest doing?
 
Drop your bid to $.01 and leave it live.
 
I don't know enough to tell you what you should do, but I know enough to tell you to be VERY careful here:

- venture into phrase and broad matches?

This can get out of hand very quickly in a bad way.
 
eliquid said:
you should never never never pause an adwords or fb campaign.

sounds odd, yes.

many many many time when you unpause they never come back the same
Click to expand...

I pause campaigns all the time and haven't had problems. Frankly, I can't imagine why Google would penalize someone for doing this.
 
finnegan said:
I pause campaigns all the time and haven't had problems. Frankly, I can't imagine why Google would penalize someone for doing this.
Click to expand...

Google doesn't penalize for doing the action specifically.

If it hasn't happened to you, congrats.

However, 15 total years of experience with them and currently actively managing over 120+ accounts tells me it still happens a lot.

Dreo said:
Drop your bid to $.01 and leave it live.
Click to expand...
Looks like you have experienced this possibly based on your answer.

While I also hate this ( but it is a solution ), it is an alternative.

I actually change my location to a random BFE town and leave my bids and budget alone. Someone clicks in that 1 mile radius, so be it.. ill pay it for now until Im back fully.

ryandiscord said:
That is strange, why do you think that is and what do you suggest doing?
Click to expand...
I have a couple ideas, but a lot of stems from different backgrounds.

1. When I was doing bad things in Adwords, it seemed to trigger a review or bot more often. Not saying you are doing something bad, but I know people doing slight off-white things that wouldn't like a bot or review.

2. Google, just like FB rewards people who spend money. You're not in the ad pool, you're not collecting history or data. Maybe you pause for a few hours or a day or 2... fine. Nothing will prob happen to you.

Pause for week or more, something gets twerked in the ad serving platform and now those QS of 8's seem to be -- or set at 5 now. Your average position is 5 instead of 2 like it was when it ran.

You use to get full impressions, now your ads are on "Limited"? Ads might not be limited, but wow now your impressions are cut in half still.​

Even when you do things legit, shit happens. Someone might say this would happen naturally as the system updates account metrics over time, but gee... seems to happen a lot more frequently when stuff gets paused and turned back on versus just running.
​
3. If anyone feels I'm wrong, just Google it yourself. You'll see tons of info out there about it. We can't all have just came to this wrong conclusion ourselves randomly without knowing each other. The info is out there though.
 
eliquid said:
I have a couple ideas, but a lot of stems from different backgrounds.

1. When I was doing bad things in Adwords, it seemed to trigger a review or bot more often. Not saying you are doing something bad, but I know people doing slight off-white things that wouldn't like a bot or review.

2. Google, just like FB rewards people who spend money. You're not in the ad pool, you're not collecting history or data. Maybe you pause for a few hours or a day or 2... fine. Nothing will prob happen to you.

Pause for week or more, something gets twerked in the ad serving platform and now those QS of 8's seem to be -- or set at 5 now. Your average position is 5 instead of 2 like it was when it ran.

You use to get full impressions, now your ads are on "Limited"? Ads might not be limited, but wow now your impressions are cut in half still.​

Even when you do things legit, shit happens. Someone might say this would happen naturally as the system updates account metrics over time, but gee... seems to happen a lot more frequently when stuff gets paused and turned back on versus just running.
​
3. If anyone feels I'm wrong, just Google it yourself. You'll see tons of info out there about it. We can't all have just came to this wrong conclusion ourselves randomly without knowing each other. The info is out there though.
Click to expand...

Very interesting, come to think of it, I've re-enabled old paused campaigns that performed well on an account I took over only to find they didn't perform like they used to when re-enabled. Thought it had more to do with change in competitive landscape but maybe this played a role in it too.
 
eliquid said:
Google doesn't penalize for doing the action specifically.

If it hasn't happened to you, congrats.

However, 15 total years of experience with them and currently actively managing over 120+ accounts tells me it still happens a lot.


Looks like you have experienced this possibly based on your answer.

While I also hate this ( but it is a solution ), it is an alternative.

I actually change my location to a random BFE town and leave my bids and budget alone. Someone clicks in that 1 mile radius, so be it.. ill pay it for now until Im back fully.


I have a couple ideas, but a lot of stems from different backgrounds.

1. When I was doing bad things in Adwords, it seemed to trigger a review or bot more often. Not saying you are doing something bad, but I know people doing slight off-white things that wouldn't like a bot or review.

2. Google, just like FB rewards people who spend money. You're not in the ad pool, you're not collecting history or data. Maybe you pause for a few hours or a day or 2... fine. Nothing will prob happen to you.

Pause for week or more, something gets twerked in the ad serving platform and now those QS of 8's seem to be -- or set at 5 now. Your average position is 5 instead of 2 like it was when it ran.

You use to get full impressions, now your ads are on "Limited"? Ads might not be limited, but wow now your impressions are cut in half still.​

Even when you do things legit, shit happens. Someone might say this would happen naturally as the system updates account metrics over time, but gee... seems to happen a lot more frequently when stuff gets paused and turned back on versus just running.
​
3. If anyone feels I'm wrong, just Google it yourself. You'll see tons of info out there about it. We can't all have just came to this wrong conclusion ourselves randomly without knowing each other. The info is out there though.
Click to expand...

ok thanks for this. What should I do? What's a BFE location? Sorry I'm new to adwords
 
eliquid said:
2. Google, just like FB rewards people who spend money. You're not in the ad pool, you're not collecting history or data. Maybe you pause for a few hours or a day or 2... fine. Nothing will prob happen to you.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm referring to pausing for an hour or two. So maybe that's why I haven't seen QS go down.

Is it your opinion that pausing the ad groups or ads will have the same negative effect as pausing the campaign?
 
ryandiscord said:
Very interesting, come to think of it, I've re-enabled old paused campaigns that performed well on an account I took over only to find they didn't perform like they used to when re-enabled. Thought it had more to do with change in competitive landscape but maybe this played a role in it too.
Click to expand...

It could be that the landscape changed as well during that time, depending on how long we are talking about here.

A year's worth of time and now a bunch of new aliexpress dropshipers pop up? Sure. It could be landscape with a mix of the odd pause syndrome too.
 
What if I just duplicate the ad? Would that work? My stock will take two weeks minimum to arrive.
 
I googled the pause issue and there was a forum discussion mentioning competitors getting better CTRs while you're gone increasing their QS. If this is the case, changing your bid to $.01 or an obscure location may not help. Not saying there may be something else still going on.

Can you keep the ads up and take backorders?
 
ryandiscord said:
I googled the pause issue and there was a forum discussion mentioning competitors getting better CTRs while you're gone increasing their QS. If this is the case, changing your bid to $.01 or an obscure location may not help. Not saying there may be something else still going on.

Can you keep the ads up and take backorders?
Click to expand...
Backorders.. Hmm.. It might take them a month to get their order. Not sure if they would be ok with that.
 
Not everybody will be ok with it and will look elsewhere. That would negatively affect your conversion rate. Depending on what the item is they may wait, just be very upfront with them as to when it will be back in stock, if dates change, etc. Keeping them notified through the whole process is incredibly important. Honestly, this might be a bit of process just to resolve the Adwords pause issue but, if done correctly you can have a continuous stream of orders.

Instead of backorders, you could use this as a chance to get their email to notify them when it is back in stock. It's a softer conversion but a lower chance of having a pissed off customer.
 
You really haven't provided enough information to get a good answer.

What is your current volume and average position? What about ROI?

When you ask questions about changing your bid up or down no one could hope to give you a good answer unless you share those things.

I'd say get yourself to a good baseline with a good ROI and get all the tracking working. Then make sure you are super compliant then start going after more keywords. Your biggest issue is if you are selling health food there is a 90% chance something about your campaign is not compliant with Adwords and will need to be changed before you scale. Anything "health" related on Adwords has a ton of unwritten rules.
 
miketpowell said:
You really haven't provided enough information to get a good answer.

What is your current volume and average position? What about ROI?

When you ask questions about changing your bid up or down no one could hope to give you a good answer unless you share those things.

I'd say get yourself to a good baseline with a good ROI and get all the tracking working. Then make sure you are super compliant then start going after more keywords. Your biggest issue is if you are selling health food there is a 90% chance something about your campaign is not compliant with Adwords and will need to be changed before you scale. Anything "health" related on Adwords has a ton of unwritten rules.
Click to expand...
Yup you're right. Right now I'm using adwords like a tv or radio ad. I'm just showing ads to a list of relevant keywords and when the user clicks through to the landing page they get info about the product and there's my phone number for them to call.

I'm not too sure how to track that so maybe tracking leads should be my main concern for now.

Maybe i should put a simple javascript code where they have to click to see my number and count that as a lead?
 
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