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March 31st, 2009
6 Questions about Ad Optimization
Questions from recent webinars that you wish you’d asked
Every month, we get great questions in our ongoing series of advertiser webinars. Even if you’ve never had a chance to attend one of these sessions, this info is too good to keep to ourselves. With this post about ad optimization we continue to share those questions and their answers with you. (We normally offer five, so consider the sixth a gift.)
Q: How can my ads be rotated within a campaign?
A: The ad optimization feature, which is turned on by default, will automatically rotate your ads in a campaign evenly, and track their performance. Then whichever ad begins to outperform the others will be shown more frequently. If you turn off the ad optimization feature and have more than one ad in an ad group, the ads will be displayed equally.
Q: What is a good measure for keeping an ad or deleting it? For example, should I delete any ads running under 20 percent?
A: We don’t recommend using specific percentages as a factor in determining ad performance, because each keyword market is different. But you should use ad optimization and test different ads, which will enable our system to optimize to the better performing ad.
Q: Is there harm in keeping low-performing ads?
A: You probably would not want to keep low-performing ads if you have others that are performing better. Ads that perform poorly can drag down your quality index score. As you know, a higher quality index score can help raise the position of your ad and/or lower your cost-per-click.
Q: Do I need to remove ads that not working that well, or they will be deleted automatically?
A: Although ad optimization will automatically display the ad with the best performance, poorer performing ads are not deleted by our systems. This enables you to potentially refine them for further testing.
Q: Where can I turn optimization on and off within my account?
A: To turn ad optimization on or off:
- Click the “Campaigns” tab.
- Click the “Ad Groups” subtab beneath the Campaigns tab.
- Check the box(es) next to the ad group(s) you wish to optimize, and then click the “Optimize Ads” button above the list of ad groups.
Q: Is ad optimization based on performance statistics only, or does Yahoo! analyze the content of my ad copy and factor that in?
A: The click-through rate of your ads is the main metric used in determining which ads are displayed. Additionally, the relevance of the ad—how closely the ad copy matches to your keyword—is also factored in.
— The Team
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12 Comments Add your own
1. Craig | April 6th, 2009 at 5:29 am
What should I do if my ad with lower click through generates more orders on the site?
2. Tahir | April 6th, 2009 at 6:39 am
how many copy should i keep for each ad group, is there any min, or max and what is best??
3. Elise | April 15th, 2009 at 7:22 am
@Craig: Keep the ad with the higher conversion rate and test aspects of both. The ad with the lower CTR but higher conversions is doing a better job of prequalifying your traffic, helping to not waste your money.
@Tahir: I wouldn’t have more than 4 ads running at a time. This way you can test the headlines on one and the copy for the other. When you get more than 5 ads running it’s hard to keep track of what you’re testing.
I would always keep my ads on “rotate evenly” (google term i know) but this way you can accurately test which ad really is performing better. If one ad shows more than the rest it will skew results.
4. Guy Hill | April 15th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Great comments from Elise!
To her comments for Tahir, I’d add you should consider “rate of data” when youre doing any testing.
If you have a very low rate of data (few clicks day, or few conversions per week, etc), test will take longer. In those instances, you may want to limit ad testing to 1 or 2 ads for that campaign. Getting thru tests quickly can make a big difference.
However, if you have a high data rate – especially if you have a high conv rate – that can be a good time to do some testing. Brand campaigns, as they convert more quickly that other campaigns (in many cases) can do a lot more testing. When data is higher you can test more. I like Elise’s suggestion of sticking to 4 ads… but you can complete tests quicker, and then begin new tests.
Cheers!
Guy
DroidINDUSTRIES
5. Administrator | April 15th, 2009 at 11:58 am
@Craig: As Elise suggests, ad testing may help you find the right balance.
@Tahir: The minimum number of ads we recommend is two — this allows you to use ad testing, which automatically displays the ad that receives the highest click-through rate to help increase traffic to your web site. You can have up to 20 ads in each ad group. The recommended number of ads in an ad group depends on how relevant each ad is to the keywords in that ad group.
6. Manoj Singhvi | April 15th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Great post. Keep posting. visit my Twitter page and follow me for my latest udpates.
7. The Unit | April 16th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Good tips.
8. Judy Sorenson | April 16th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Because of oour business being way down in the remodeling biz I have had to select to “pause” our account after about 4-5 hours per day. sometimes we do not sun at all. We seem to have lots of impressions and not that many CTR. not sure how to rate them and which ones to keep. but our main problem is deciding when to pause the campaign.
9. Russ | April 21st, 2009 at 8:37 am
Great tips indeed.
10. Bennetta | April 22nd, 2009 at 5:47 am
Thanks for the information. Great tips! Every dollar saved on advertising is important in these tough times. Knowledge is power! Hope to learn more.
11. ninepanc | April 28th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
6 Questions is very good for all
12. unlimited | October 19th, 2009 at 4:49 am
Thanks a lot for these tips. We are running very hard times and every dollar counts! Some of the tips found here are very good and I will use them for sure, very smart way to save a few bucks. Thanks a lot for sharing, I look forward to tighten my budget in advertising.
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