Taking risks is part of any marketer’s job. No strategy is guaranteed to work.
I like to think of myself as a calculated risk taker. Because I have TSA PreCheck and monitor my flight status from home, I arrive at the airport only an hour before my flight. I try new restaurants in town, but don’t get in the car until I’ve searched review sites and scanned the menu.
My approach to taking risks at work is similar. Trying the latest bidding strategies excites me, but my moves are deliberate to avoid disruptive performance.
Major changes to a Google Ads account send the algorithms into a learning phase and create volatility as it relearns.
Like many marketers who want results yesterday, my patience can be short. But to keep customers happy, it’s imperative to balance forward-looking strategies with the risk of disrupting KPIs.
By now, we know offline conversion tracking (OCT) is a must in any account.
When you first set it up, switching from web-based campaign optimization goals to CRM-based goals can be tricky. Here are five best practices to mitigate the risk.
1. Add value to your conversions
Maximizing the potential of OCT requires assigning a value to each action.
If you can’t use real, dynamic values from your CRM, Google has one calculator that can help with estimates.
Values do not have to be precise for algorithms to benefit from this provided direction.
Assigned values tell machine learning how much each conversion is worth. Therefore, the system can bid accordingly with value-based bidding strategies.
Even if you’re not ready to achieve your target return on ad spend (tROAS) or Maximize Conversion Value, setting these values early allows for an easy launch when you’re ready.
2. Optimize for all stages of the funnel
Once all stages of the marketing funnel are included in Google Ads with their respective values, start optimizing campaigns for all stages of the conversion funnel.
This tactic will generate more conversion data for your campaigns and speed up the learning phase.
A risk manager can change account optimization at a time. Go ahead and rip off the bandage:
If you can handle performance fluctuations. If the account is new. Or if the volume of conversions is already regrettable.
I prefer to set up an experiment for any major changes to bids to reduce account volatility.
Experiments must last at least two weeks before a winner is determined, but this may take longer if your budgets are small or the conversion lag is long.
Increased backend conversions should be measured as a key success metric for this experiment.
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3. Optimize for the lowest possible conversion point
Once the full funnel approach is successful, you can start optimizing for one conversion event at a time. Treat each campaign uniquely and adjust campaigns ready to move through the funnel.
To mitigate performance fluctuations, set up an experiment that optimizes at the lowest possible point in the funnel, as Google needs to have at least 15 conversions in the last 30 days.
creating custom columns in the Google Ads interface allows you to easily sort and view your data. Analyze each campaign independently.
In this example, the two main campaigns have enough MQL volume to optimize them exclusively instead of the entire funnel.
Keep in mind that not all keywords are created equal. Top-of-funnel keywords will generate a slower pipeline than your non-branded or branded high-intent terms.
Optimization goals and bid strategies for individual campaigns should be aligned with the stage of the conversion funnel and what performs best.
The user interface does not allow you to set OCT goals as individual conversion events, but as a conversion category as a whole. So, personalized goals should be created by optimizing towards a single point in the funnel.
For example, if your OCT conversion is “sales”, you should create a custom goal for “sales”.
Google says “[…] Using custom goals in campaigns can make your bidding strategy work less efficiently, but if your account is well established with enough data, custom goals should work to your advantage.
4. Continue to generate lower funnel results
As time passes and data is collected, you can continue to increase the limits and optimize the lower points of the funnel.
Any bid strategy can be tested with this tactic, but it’s critical that the experiment you create only changes one variable at a time.
For example, the control campaign is based on target cost per action (tCPA) and is optimized for MQL. The test campaign should remain in tCPA, but optimize for the next stage of the conversion funnel (Scheduled Meeting). After determining a winner, test another variable by conducting an independent experiment.
Depending on the size of the account, finding the perfect combination of optimization goals and bidding strategies can take several months. Not seeing any improvement in performance after the initial two weeks can be concerning, but experimenting for three full cycles is recommended to determine a winner.
This means that if an MQL takes an average of two weeks to become a “Scheduled Meeting”, you should run the experiment for at least six weeks before closing it. Take a look Google Path Metrics Report to see how many days each conversion takes.
5. Try value-based bidding
Once you’re comfortable optimizing lower funnel conversion points, up your game with Maximize Conversion Value or TROAS bid strategies.
These Smart Bidding strategies automatically adjust bids to predict the value of a potential conversion when a user searches for the keywords you’re bidding on.
These bidding strategies can and should be tested in an experiment, especially if you are afraid of breaking the algorithm.
Despite the risks associated with performance fluctuations, the benefits should outweigh the volatility.
With a little patience and breathing exercises, one of my clients saw a 74% improvement in cost per MQL since optimizing backend conversions with OCT.
When their brand campaign had more than 15 MQLs in one month, we switched to MQL-only optimization, resulting in a 4x increase in conversion value for that campaign.
So, get out there and take calculated risks. Be smart, bold and willing to create experiments when you feel apprehensive.
The views expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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About the author
Kerri Amodio is a senior manager of digital advertising at closed loop. A B2B SaaS marketing specialist, he became familiar with executing digital advertising strategies across social media, search and display while working in-house for B2B technology companies. Kerri has been with the agency at Closed Loop for almost four years, working with clients including Slack, Netskope, Outreach, xMatters, Podium and Corporate Visions.
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