Everybody knows that it is extremely important to keep your adcopy fresh and updated, but at what point do you decide whether an ad is working or not working? The answer to this question is not a simple one and will be different across different industries. Different criteria will apply to different industries, but I have found that for us, the best way of deciding whether or not to change an ad, is to apply a set of rules or formulas to our ad performance reports.
I have come up with a simple set of rules that works well for us. It needs to be said that this formula should only be applied once a number of other checks have been done and you are absolutely sure that it is the ad that is the problem and not the keywords in the group, the bid price of the keywords, the positions you’re targeting, etc.
Once I am sure I need to change my ads, these are the formulas (adjusted for each client) I use to check for trouble areas:
Clicks > (a) AND Transactions = 0
Cost Per Transaction > (a)
Click Through Rate < (a)% AND Impressions > (b)
If any of the conditions above are TRUE, the ad needs to be changed.
Search marketing companies should always be looking at ways of improving their ads and this is just a guideline for determining which ads are not working, but it doesn’t mean that the rest of the ads for which the conditions are FALSE, can’t be improved on.
I would love to get input from anybody on this topic.
