Universal Optimization Checklist
Provided below are best practices on how to optimize AdWords accounts to accomplish each marketing objective. Please note that these are not guaranteed to improve account performance and should be used at your best judgement. Most recent version and translations can be found on google.com/partners Universal Optimization Checklist
ONLINE SALES, AWARENESS CONSIDERATION PHONE SALES LEADS & WEB VISITS
Search Reach TrueView Ads Display Views Lightbox bought on CPE TrueView Ads Budget Delivery
STORE SALES APP INSTALLS IN-APP ENGAGEMENT
Universal App Campaigns Display Search TrueView ONLINE SALES, LEADS & WEB VISITS
Search Display TrueView Ads Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Online Sales, Leads & Search Web Visits Category Best Practice Search Campaign Delivery Setting Budget Settings Use standard delivery if the campaign is Reallocate budget across campaigns based on Display budget capped. performance, budget utilization, and impression share lost to budget (or leverage Shared Budgets). Successful advertisers often serve ads during all TrueView Ads hours and use time of day bid multipliers accordingly. Consider breaking out budget-capped campaigns if keywords have different performance. Consider using Campaign Experiments to better understand the impact of potential ad tests. Awareness
Ads Test which unique benefits work best for your ads and Ensure at least the same amount of ETA’s as OTA’s Consideration prioritize focusing on headlines. Potential tests to run: in existing group. Once this is done we recommend pricing, special offers, clear value prop, brand name. 3-4 ad text variations in high volume ad groups and 2 variations in lower volume ad groups. Update with Include strong calls to action on your ad, and make Phone Sales new ad texts on a regular basis. sure those ads direct to a relevant landing page that allows a user to follow through on that CTA (eg, Using Dynamic Keyword Insertion on small ad product specific landing pages). groups increases the likelihood of the grammar Store Sales being correct. Ads should be relevant to the targeting tactics (eg, what is the user thinking when they see that ad ETA Brand Campaigns and how can the ad text match that? How can this App Installs be different for upper-funnel targeting? What are the Start with what works. If your existing text ad targeted demo’s and geo’s?). outperforms your expanded text ad on brand queries, In-App Engagement If customizing ad text for each geo is a high priority, try mimicking your text ad. For example, if your try using ad customizers. original text ad headline was “
Ads Extensions continues... Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Online Sales, Leads & Search Web Visits Category Best Practice Search Ad Sitelinks Structured Snippets Extensions (cont’d) Short, crisp sitelinks/callouts are most effective. Each value has a 25-character limit. For mobile, it’s Display best to limit value text to less than 12 characters Monitor approved and disapproved sitelinks across for optimal chance to show & check the “mobile all accounts with the campaign details report. TrueView Ads preferred” option during setup. Callouts Review Awareness Callouts trigger with sitelinks so it is advised to have Make sure your quote is accurate, current and uses a at least six active sitelinks for desktop and four active credible third party source. sitelinks for mobile. Consideration
Bidding Manual Consider bidding with an eye toward maximizing profits rather than optimizing for CPA. Phone Sales Consider manual bidding for the most control of More details here. your bids or automated bidding (aka Flexible Bidding Strategies) to manage campaigns at scale via the Device Bidding Store Sales AdWords auction-time bidding algorithm. When decoupling desktop and tablet bids, remember When optimizing bids, on top of reviewing you should also revise the desktop bid (eg, lowering performance metrics, remember to consider Tablet bid to improve CPA may allow you to increase App Installs competitive insights from impression share or Desktop bid because it’s already below the avg CPA) Auction Insights (ex. eg, if you reduce bids then your competition may benefit by appearing above you Keep consolidated campaigns that target all devices In-App Engagement more often) as well as data from the attribution tab for efficient management of keywords, extensions, (eg, keywords with “Click Assisted Conversions” or ads, etc. “Impressions Assisted Conversions” may be more Use keyword level bids to reach your target CPA at an valuable than their last click actual CPA). aggregate level and then device bids to equalize CPA Factor in cross-device conversions as you make across devices. bidding decisions. Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Online Sales, Leads & Search Web Visits Category Best Practice Search Bidding Automated (Smart Bidding) visitors, category visitors, lead form abandoners (e-commerce and lead gen), and previous converters When on automation, avoid changing things too (loyalty and lead nurturing). Display frequently (try waiting at least two weeks – however if Use the Audience tab to view statistics for all of the your average time to conversion is > 5 days you may audiences in your campaigns and understand the TrueView Ads need to wait longer). Try to keep Target CPA/ROAS performance of each applied audience. goals, ads and campaign daily budgets fairly steady. Set the audience bid adjustment based on cvr ratio. Make all of your changes at one time to decreases Awareness the amount of time needed for the AdWords bidding FYI: Remarketing lists have on average double the algorithm to adapt. conversion rate of non-list traffic yet automated bidding products do not account for remarketinglists. Organize like-performing keywords into bidding Consideration portfolios and use the strategy that makes Customer Match the most sense with each portfolio (ex. brand keywords on Target Search Page Location or Target Have tiered bids for different segments across the Phone Sales Outranking Share). funnel (the lower the funnel, the higher the bid). Add eCPC can be used in conjunction with third party your Customer Match list as ‘Bid Only – 0%’ to all bidding platforms. existing Search Ad Groups; analyze results; optimize Store Sales bids; Users who are lower in the funnel should Enable cross-device conversion reporting from within cost less than lapsed users, or new customers. AWFE by going to the Tools tab > Conversions > Don’t expect the same CPAs across the funnel, and Settings. App Installs bid accordingly. RLSA Common segmentation ideas include purchasers from a past sales period, upsell/cross-sell, and In-App Engagement Recommend adding user lists as Bid Only unless premium customers to drive loyalty with. client has customized ad text per user list. Be careful suppressed recently active customers/ Start with broad user lists like homepage or all suppressing all of your emails there may be lapsed visitors and gradually create more granular lists. customers which could be reacquired. eg, lists based on website funnel could look like: all
Bidding continues... Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Online Sales, Leads & Search Web Visits Category Best Practice Search Bidding Location Schedule certain extensions to align with business (cont’d) hours (eg, only show sitelinks about an online chat Target broadly, then adjust your bids based on feature when you have reps to chat with customers). Display performance and sales. Mobile-Specific Review performance by location and set TrueView Ads the location bid adjustment based on: Review campaigns not opted into mobile (this is 100 * (CPA goal/actual CPA of that geo) – 1). a common accident) by running a report w/ the Analyze User Locations Report in AWFE (in the campaign and/or ad group settings at the MCC level. Awareness Dimensions tab) and identify additional locations Set initial bid: calculate initial mobile bid multiplier that can be targeted. by: 100 * (Value per mobile click / value per desktop Consideration Create separate campaigns based on location only and tablet. click). Deciding the value per mobile if you have a reason to do so (eg, because of budget click is often determined by relative CvR and slightly allocation, language targeting, differences in ad influenced by the Mobile Moment. messaging, different sites, etc.). Phone Sales Evaluate the impact of cross device behavior: enable Review your location bid adjustments across the cross device conv, phone call, in‑store (US), campaigns with the campaign details report. and total conversions columns and then segment Store Sales performance by device and apply appropriate mobile Time bid adjustments. You can also create columns specifically for a segmented metric, such as Review time performance and set the time bid mobile conversions. App Installs adjustment based on: 100 * ( (CPA goal/actual CPA Determine impact of position: review top vs bottom of that time segment) – 1). performance and profitability. The vast majority of In-App Engagement Analyze Day of Week and Hour of Day reports mobile clicks occur on the top of thepage. to apply appropriate adjustments based Consider competitive goals: review the affect of your on performance. campaigns on competitors via auction insights (ie, If there are unprofitable hours/day to ad serve, it’s you may be pushing competitors out of the limited important to consider the importance of impression mobile spots). share during those times. An audit to make sure your accounts aren’t accidentally missing out on mobile traffic can be done. Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Online Sales, Leads & Search Web Visits Category Best Practice Search Targeting Keyword – Selection Identify keyword opportunities from organic traffic via Paid & Organic report. Use broader match types to capture more queries or Display granular match types to have more control over the Dynamic Search Ads bid for each query. TrueView Ads Create targeting groups based on user behavior: Ensure ad groups have tightly themed keywords consider using recommended categories as your (based on product categories, brand vs non‑brand, dynamic ad targets, creating one DSA campaign core vs. long-tail, etc.) and are related to the for each language (DSA efficiently manages Awareness corresponding ad texts and landing pages. View the multiple language campaigns), creating different Search Terms report to ensure queries are being ad groups for different dynamic ad targets (which covered by the intended ad group. will have more tailored ad texts), and excluding non Consideration Use Keyword Planner, search terms report, transactional URL’s, page content and titles from Opportunity Tab, and DSA to find new keywords and your main DSA targets (these are likely to have a remember mobile-only keywords (eg, mobile queries lower ROI). Phone Sales are more likely to include location terms and typos). Add dynamic ad target exclusions in the auto target tab, eg page_content exclusions for sold out or Keyword – Optimization unavailable items. Store Sales Expand keyword coverage (via adding new keywords Use URL and page_title targeting for very specific and/or using broader match types) around strong sections of the website. Page_content is not performing keywords. recommended for positive targeting. App Installs Manage poor performing keywords by bidding down, Remember to add negative keywords from the checking quality components on the diagnostic search terms report or any keywords you’ve removed In-App Engagement bubble (ad text and/or landing page relevance) or from other Search campaigns (because DSA will adding negatives from the search term report. If cover gaps which you may not want filled). needed, use a more narrow match type or pause Remember that DSA works in conjunction with the keyword. auto‑bidding and RLSA. Review conflicting negative keyword report in EasyLife to find potential negative keywords.
Targeting continues... Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Online Sales, Leads & Search Web Visits Category Best Practice Search Targeting Run a search terms reports in the Auto Targets tab Ensure you are examining enough data when setting (cont’d) to see which search terms triggered your DSA ads bid adjustments. Consider examining audience and discover undesired searches or landing pages performance at the campaign level, and adding the Display (via sorting by Clicks or Landing Page). You can block same bid adjustment to each adgroup based on undesired landing pages by using dynamic ad target overall campaign data. TrueView Ads exclusions in the Auto Targets tab. Use the Target and Bid setting with duplicated Separate out high value dynamic ad targets based ad groups to ensure they will only serve to your on insights you uncover in the categories report and audience. Then customize keywords and ads based Awareness Bid accordingly. on the audience characteristics. Target broader keywords and match types in your RLSA RLSA campaigns (even those that may not have Consideration worked for your on standard campaigns in the past) RLSA requires a minimum list size of 1000; Maximum since that audience has already qualified themselves duration of list size for RLSA is 180 days. by visiting your site. Phone Sales User lists can be shared from another account by adding that CID as equivalent customer. Store Sales
mSite Evaluate current site: Take the Mobile-Friendly Test Optimize mSite Speed: 74% of users will abandon App Installs to see if your site is mobile-friendly. If not, it’s time after waiting 5 seconds for a mSite to load. Use to go mobile. If you have issues with the tool, ensure PageSpeed Insights to diagnose how a mobile page Google is crawling your site correctly. is performing Use the Mobile Usability Report to monitor specific pages for usability issues. In-App Engagement Optimize mSite UX: keep in mind the 25 principles of Mobile Site Design from the mSites Principles. Build a Progressive Web App: Additional technical Reference the Webmaster Forum for additional dev documentation on Google Developers. support. Or, utilize an approved google mSite vendor either from the list of certified vendors US here. Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Online Sales, Leads & Display Web Visits Category Best Practice Search Campaign Check front end Display goals before optimizing. Frequency Cap Settings Wait two weeks or more before applying optimization For brand sensitive campaigns: consider using a Display changes on new campaigns. Conversions are frequency cap, CPM bidding (review the reach and attributed back to the date of the ad click – frequency report to determine the cap), and not a sometimes it takes time for those clicks to convert TrueView Ads DSP or automated bidding which already determines later on. the optimal frequency per user Ensure that accelerated delivery is not turned on NOTE unless there are specific reasons (eg, struggling to Awareness Display quality score is not significantly impacted spend budget). by CTR. Reserve creating mobile-only GDN campaigns until Avoid using frequency caps if campaigns are using Consideration after GDN best practices and then separate mBid automated bidding as it can hurt performance. optimizations occurred. Keep search and display campaigns separate for Phone Sales more control.
Ads Best practices include using: Clear value propositions in all frames (users should Store Sales feel like they are missing out by not clicking). Aligned messaging and style on the ad with what is A sense of urgency referring to deadlines or found on the landing page (includes calls to action, quantity limits. App Installs background colors, etc.). Coordinated colors and images: ad colors match Short, indirect calls to action (eg. ‘Explore Now’ or the image or logo (try using transparent PNG format ‘Travel Your Dream’ vs. the generic “Buy Now”) in images), easy to view background colors, and avoid In-App Engagement all frames. extremely bright colors which can be hard to read. A company/brand logo visible in all frames, or at A mix of text and images. least the final frame. Directing users to the most relevant landing page. Prices (prices can help prequalify clicks) and discounts (via including discount codes).
Ads continues... Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Online Sales, Leads & Display Web Visits Category Best Practice Search Ads Incorporate all ad types to maximize access to Consider breaking out ad groups which exclusively (cont’d) low cost inventory: text ads, static images (which use text and image ads if they yield very different usually have a higher CTR than GIFs), GIFs, ad sizes performance metrics. Display (300x250, 728x90, 160x600, 468x60 [YouTube]) and When updating creative, avoid swapping out all ads 320x50 (Mobile), and dynamic ads. as this can cause performance volatility. TrueView Ads Use m-preferred creatives, link to mobile landing Upload your image ads in high-definition (HD) sizes. pages if applicable, and signal if the landing page is HD typically indicates doubled size. For instance, the mobile friendly in the display URL (eg, m.example. HD version of a 300x250 ad should be a 600x500 ad. Awareness com) for a higher CTR.
Consideration Bidding Bid strategy Use a conversion that will both drive a high volume of conversions, but also be a metric that is indicative of If using Target CPA, start the campaigns on Target advertiser success.). Too many ad groups will mean Phone Sales CPA from day 1 at a slightly higher bid than you’d longer learning times after changes are made, and ultimately like it to run with (around 20% higher) and can result in more CPA/ROAS volatility. allow 2-4 weeks for learning. For Target ROAS, use Store Sales Limit target CPA or ROAS changes to +/- 20% and no eCPC at the onset and once eligible move to ROAS more than once every two weeks to prevent volatility bidding. . During this transition, set the target to in performance. within 10% of the campaign’s current CPA/ROAS to App Installs maintain similar volume and performance. Ensure a If using a flexible bid strategy , you can add the “Bid daily budget 10x of the target CPA or ROAS to ensure strategy” and “Bid strategy type” columns to your flexibility for the algorithm to learn. campaign view to check progress. In-App Engagement Auto-bidding will be more accurate and consistent if the ad group has more traffic and conversions so consider consolidating ad groups for campaigns to have 30+ conversions per ad group/month.
Bidding continues... Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Online Sales, Leads & Display Web Visits Category Best Practice Search Bidding Mobile (cont’d) Reserve creating mobile-only GDN campaigns until GDN’s automated bidding solutions use device, Display after applying both GDN best practices and separate location, time-of-day and other mobile specific mBid optimizations. Having a mobile optimized site signals so the most popular way to opt in to mGDN is TrueView Ads is even more important for display campaigns. to use automated bidding. Otherwise, if you don’t use automated bidding, then start on mGDN with your desktop bids. Awareness
Targeting General If you’re happy with the performance of your Consideration campaign and want additional traffic we recommend The targeting products below are listed in ascending enabling conservative auto-targeting. order from the bottom of the customer funnel. Please note that Conservative and Aggressive Auto-Targeting Phone Sales “Auto‑targeting” automatically test these targeting types to identify the optimal allocation. Allow conservative auto-targeting to run for 1-2 weeks. If you’re happy with the performance and Store Sales If performance is still poor, consider combining want even more traffic, we recommend enabling targeting options (layering) but please note: this aggressive auto-targeting. approach will significantly reduce volume. If you’d prefer greater control over bid and budget App Installs Exclude certain categories where you don’t want your of this expansion traffic, we recommend creating a ads to be shown (most common categories excluded brand new campaign and only enabling aggressive are sexual suggestive, parked domains, error pages, auto-targeting + Target CPA or Target ROAS. This will In-App Engagement juvenile, gross and bizarre, profanity and rough give you a more automated campaign. language, in game, and death and tragedy). Exclude placements and keywords that consume budget but All auto-bidding best practices apply to Display produce no leads or conversions over time. as well.
Targeting continues... Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Online Sales, Leads & Display Web Visits Category Best Practice Search Targeting Remarketing Dynamic Remarketing (cont’d) (incl. Dynamic Responsive Ads) Reach all site visitors by making sure all pages Display (desktop and mobile) are tagged. Common best practices among Dynamic Try targeting all site visitors in five segments Remarketing advertisers: TrueView Ads (homepage viewers, category/search results viewers, Dynamic Responsive Ads product/item viewers, cart abandoners, converters or Provide a logo with 1:1 aspect ratio for best look and equivalent for your vertical) or align the segmentation feel. If not possible, use 4:1 aspect ratio. Awareness with your RLSA segments. Let Google optimize the color selection (under Enable Target CPA or ROAS to automatically bid colors and font choose the option Let AdWords higher on users who visited your advertiser’s website automatically pick styles to let our systems optimize Consideration more recently and frequently. color and font on dynamic and static image Remove campaign restrictions: no manual frequency impressions based off of your logo). cap (system automates capping), target all Provide a 1.91:1 marketing image (this image will be Phone Sales languages and locations where you get conversions, used on static image and static native ads. Ads with and remove ad scheduling. marketing image generally look much nicer, and not Store Sales Add all ad formats and sizes (including mobile) and providing it may reduce your reach). add Dynamic Remarketing creatives for product/offer If unsure of the headline and description, use ones from viewers, cart viewers and converters. other high performance Search or Display text ads. App Installs Create remarketing lists based off of your YouTube Avoid using a promotion or disclaimer unless viewers and specific actions they’ve taken with your necessary (too much information can be hard to read). site. You can use these remarketing lists across Select Ad format selection = “All ad formats” to In-App Engagement the GDN. maximize your reach across image, text and native. Use AdWords Editor to apply audience lists in bulk to Place the new creative is in the same ad group as your ad groups. other dynamic ads and use automated bidding.
Targeting continues... Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Online Sales, Leads & Display Web Visits Category Best Practice Search Targeting Ad formats Display Keywords – Content (cont’d) Use dynamic responsive ads! If not possible, make sure to include dynamic image ads (all 10 ad sizes) Prioritize keywords from your existing/comparable Display and dynamic text ads in all dynamic ad groups. search campaigns that are: brand, high converting, product or category related, and high traffic. Auto-bidding TrueView Ads Have at least 80% of Dynamic remarketing spend Ensure keywords in ad groups are grouped by similar using Target CPA or Target ROAS. theme and, if applicable, customize ad creative that reflects that theme. List strategy Awareness Tag and target at least product/item pages, cart If campaign was KCT or was copied over from a KCT pages and conversion pages, across desktop and campaign try removing restrictive topic overlays or mobile. Have one Dynamic Remarketing campaign, excessive placement exclusions. Consideration all lists in the same ad group (or in different ad Sort keywords by spend, expand on keywords with groups if you have different messaging for different high click/conversion volumes, and pause keywords funnel stages). Use mutually exclusive lists, and no with a lot of spend yet no conversions. Phone Sales recency-based segmentation. Use keyword diagnostic tool to determine if low bids Tag & feed limit traffic. Maximize impression eligibility and likelihood to show Store Sales relevant products in each impression by having Fill Display Keywords – Audience Rate 85% and Remarketing Fill Rate of at least 85%. You can do so by making sure all product/item, cart Create ad groups thematically and test various App Installs and thank you pages are tagged, across desktop and themes (eg, product, industry, brand, and/or mobile. Also, optimize feed to get highest Fill Rate customer related). and Remarketing Fill Rate possible. Strongly recommended to use Auto-bidding if using In-App Engagement Mobile optimized this targeting type and attempting to hit CPA goals. Make sure that the dynamic campaign has full eligibility to show on mobile and apps by tagging the If not using auto-bidding, optimize at the ad group entire mobile website. In addition, include all mobile level, looking at performance of an ad group instead users in your list strategy and use all mobile ad sizes. of individual keywords, and bidding up or down at the Make sure your mobile bid is higher than -100%, ad group level instead of having individual keyword target all devices and include app inventory. level bids. Targeting continues... Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Online Sales, Leads & Display Web Visits Category Best Practice Search Targeting Since this is primarily audience driven, placements Creatives (cont’d) are not expected to all be relevant as they are with Use static creatives aimed at new user acquisition Content Keywords As a result of it being primarily and ensure landing page is aligned to creatives, Display audience targeted, people manually optimizing with a clear call to action. For retail customers, test should opt for category exclusions, topic overlays dynamic creatives, which will contextually match with TrueView Ads or topic exclusions. Individual placement exclusions the page. tend to be too specific to have any impact on traffic In-market and Affinity Audiences or performance. Awareness If performance is still poor, suggest creating a Affinity segments are often used to accomplish brand Content Keywords campaign in tandem to help goals and in-market audiences for performance goals balance out efficiency. Consideration Prioritize segments based on relevancy to Similar Audiences target customer. Bid CPC or use automated bidding for in-market List Selection Phone Sales audiences. Use CPM bidding for affinity audiences. Select lists with a specific action, product or vertical in mind (eg, shopping cart abandoners will look Do not target affinity and in-market segments in the different than converters and people looking for same group. Store Sales hotels may be different than people looking for a Test Custom Affinity Audiences if existing affinity cruise). Ensure highest volume lists are selected to segments do not fit your advertiser’s specific target maximize performance (sort by size). audience. Use themes from your highest performing App Installs Bidding keywords (on Search or Display). Do NOT use the same bid as Remarketing; these are new users and should be valued as such. Begin using Placement Targeting In-App Engagement eCPC until enough conversion volume is generated. Then switch to CO or ROAS (lots of advertisers Review which websites, videos, and apps have find success when using Similar Audiences and served your ad from the placement report within the auto‑bidding). Placements Tab.
Targeting continues... Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Online Sales, Leads & Display Web Visits Category Best Practice Search Targeting Add successful placements as ‘bid only’ and bid (cont’d) more aggressively. Display Review successful placements to inform other display targeting themes (eg. new In-Market audiences, more placements, etc.). TrueView Ads
Gmail Ads Set-Up reach, target domains your audience might receive Awareness emails from (correct formatting is “google.com” Although Gmail ads are created within a GDN versus “www.google.com” or “[email protected]”) campaign, separate your Gmail ads with a new Test different targeting types (keywords, domains, Consideration campaign for Gmail ads only. This will help with topics, affinity segment. In-market isn’t widely reporting and optimization. available) to determine the best performing targeting Make sure you select the placement “mail. for your goals. Phone Sales google.com” when creating ad groups, to run on A best practice is to enable Target CPA/Aggressive Gmail inventory. Targeting when available to algorithmically reach After campaign launch, try to wait two weeks before target users. Store Sales making changes to your campaign. When using Customer Match, target your existing Enable “Gmail ads custom columns” in AdWords to user lists with special offers only for current see additional performance metrics unique to Gmail, customers. You might also target lapsed customers App Installs such as Saves, Forwards, Clicks to website. or customers who have signed up for your email list but haven’t converted. If using Customer Match Targeting Similar Audiences to target high performing users, In-App Engagement make sure the seed list has 5,000+ matched users to Advertisers often start with keywords that have get a higher qualitySA list. worked well on GDN, then expand. Gmail ads allow you to target email domains as keywords. Based on the audience you are trying to
Gmail Ads continues... Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Online Sales, Leads & Display Web Visits Category Best Practice Search Gmail Ads Creative (cont’d) Optimize both parts of the Gmail ad creative: The Use at least two different templates for simple A/B Display Collapsed ad. Smaller screen sizes will show fewer testing and determining which creatives drive better characters in this invitation state. Keep your call-to- performance. For example: if your client is promoting TrueView Ads action within the first few characters to entice users 3-6 products, test the Multi-Product Template and the to click to expand. The Expanded ad. Make this a Catalog Template. mini-landing page that can shorten the conversion For custom creatives: test your custom creative Awareness funnel. Use deep links to drive the user right to the before uploading to AdWords in the Creative Validator purchase/ conversion landing page. Have clear and tool https://h5validator.appspot.com/gmail. emphasized calls-to-action, so the user knows where to click. Refresh creatives every 4-6 weeks. Consideration Apply creative learnings from your previous email marketing campaigns. Understand what subject lines or copy worked well. Phone Sales
Store Sales Additional Measurement Suggestions Add view-through conversions to placement reports. You can use your findings directionally when making App Installs You can use this metric to optimize your Display budgeting decisions. performance or identify high-performing placements. Run A/B split testing to understand how many more Keep in mind that view-through conversions are visits or conversions occurred as a result of your automatically de-duplicated against Search, YouTube In-App Engagement display ads. You can split your audience into two and Google Display Network campaigns in the groups: people who were shown your display ads same account. versus people who were not shown your display ads. Review your Assisted Conversions report in Google You can use these findings directionally for budgeting Analytics to understand how many conversions each and bidding decisions. channel initiated, assisted and completed. Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Online Sales, Leads & TrueView Ads Web Visits Category Best Practice Search Campaign Networks Settings Opt in to both YouTube Search and the YouTube Display Video Network to optimize for site visits (this lets you drive CTR with both TrueView in-stream and TrueView Ads TrueView discovery ad formats).
Product In-stream Awareness Formats Use call-to-action overlays and cards to maximize Cards and call-to-action overlays cannot be used site visits by driving video viewers to approved together in the same video. Consideration websites. Use a 300x60 companion banner (desktop only) with NOTES an explicit “click” call-to-action to maximize site visits. Call-to-action overlays are often more effective than NOTE Phone Sales cards to maximize site visits because they redirect Another benefit of the companion banner is that it traffic with a single click whereas cards require two stays on the right side of the screen after the video clicks (the first click on the icon and the second click ends, which increases user exposure. Store Sales on the card).
App Installs Targeting In-Market Audiences
Use In-Market Audience targeting to maximize site If you want to test the effectiveness of multiple In-App Engagement visits as it will typically drive the highest CTR. targeting types (which is recommended) you should create multiple Ad Groups, each Ad Group with NOTES a distinct targeting option and use the ‘Segment’ Using In-Market and Affinity targeting in the same ad function to identify which delivered the largest number group will significantly limit inventory so if there is a of clicks to site. need for both targeting types they should be used in separate Ad Groups.
Targeting continues... Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Online Sales, Leads & TrueView Ads Web Visits Category Best Practice Search Targeting Remarketing (cont’d) Use remarketing lists to target people who have been Experiment with short-form content and be sure that Display to the client’s site but did not take the desired action. the content features an explicit call-to-action to click. Use remarketing lists created during previous You can also use a remarketing list to exclude people TrueView Ads campaigns to reconnect with people that have at the campaign or ad group level and prevent ad previously watched the client’s ads/know the brand serving to users who have already purchased or and are more likely to visit the site (they might have taken an action on-site. Awareness higher awareness/interest in the brand). Customer Match NOTES Consideration Ideally you would create a specific Ad Group(s) and Customer Match can be very effective at increasing tailor the video creative to match the remarketing lists site visits because it identifies the client’s most specific audience (vs. the rest of the campaign which valuable customers using the client’s own CRM data. likely has a more general creative). Use that result with Similar Audience targeting to Phone Sales expand the campaign’s reach to users with similar characteristics and a high likelihood of engagement. Store Sales
Additional Content and Creative Suggestions App Installs Use a clear call to action that asks the user to click the Use the creative to show where the user should click ad creative (this is critical to maximize site visits). to improve effectiveness (for example, pointing to the CTA overlay containing the client’s site link). NOTES In-App Engagement Allow enough time for the user to click (a minimum of A/B Creative Testing 5 seconds is recommended). One effective way to do this is to create a static frame at the end of the video A/B test different creatives and compare the CTR to with a clear “click” call-to-action. identify the creative most likely to accrue site visits. Assign each creative a separate campaign to isolate CTR for subsequent analysis.
Additional Suggestions continues... Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Online Sales, Leads & TrueView Ads Web Visits Category Best Practice Search Additional NOTE NOTES Suggestions Because creative development takes time, suggest View-Through Conversions are easily overlooked (cont’d) this to the creative agency during the planning stage to but are also attributable to the campaign because Display ensure multiple creatives are made for testing. they reflect users who skipped some of the ad but subsequently still took an action on the site. This is TrueView Ads Measurement an important source of efficiency and impact of the campaign beyond direct clicks generated. Use Brand Lift Surveys (Brand Interest) to measure Use MCC conversion tracking to avoid any duplication the impact of YouTube campaigns on branded Awareness across Search activity. search volumes. NOTE You can also use Google Trends to identify uplift in Consideration branded search volume from the campaign.
Include both CTR and View-Through Conversions Phone Sales to measure the total number of site visits from thecampaign. Store Sales
App Installs
In-App Engagement AWARENESS
Reach Views Budget Delivery Awareness Online Sales, Leads Reach – TrueView Ads & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Campaign Frequency Capping Delivery Method Settings Use a campaign-level frequency cap of 6 impressions Do not use “Accelerated Delivery” until you’ve per week or 1 to 2 impressions per day minimum. exhausted all other optimization levers. Reach For optimal brand impact, reach people regularly over NOTE the course of a campaign. “Accelerated Delivery” can have negative impact Views including lowering VTR or increasing average CPV NOTES so use it with caution.” Frequency caps are a ceiling, so if a campaign is set to Budget Delivery 6 impressions it will often average much lower Budget (typically 2-3). Cap on a shorter period to better control the distribution Start the campaign with a higher daily budget (about Consideration of impressions over time. For example, capping per 10%) to avoid lagging behind on spend rate. For day or per week gives you more control than capping example, if the campaign’s budget is $100K over at 6 impressions per month (which could mean that 10 days, input $11K per day rather than $10K per day. Phone Sales you serve the 6 impressions on the same week or the same day). Increase daily budgets for prime and peak times (for example, before 6pm, before weekends, and so forth) Do not cap at View and at Impressions at the same to ensure you dedicate enough budget to reach your Store Sales time unless it’s to serve a specific purpose (for example, audience during the busiest periods. capping 1 view for the duration of the campaign to get the maximum number of unique viewers, and capping at Networks App Installs 3 impressions per day to build effective frequency without creating annoyance). Opt-in to Google Video Partners to increase your Adjust the frequency cap down if the campaign audience reach by 20-30% and generate additional In-App Engagement if falling short of the reach objective. Adjust video views across brand-safe partner sites and apps. the frequency cap up to drive ad repetition and increase GRP. Language
A frequency average of 2+ has shown much higher Expand a campaign to include more relevant brand lift metrics than an average of 1+ (when languages to help reach more unique users. measured with Brand Lift Surveys).
Campaign Settings continues... Awareness Online Sales, Leads Reach – TrueView Ads & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Campaign Time Ad Scheduling Settings (cont’d) For campaigns with a large available budget, extend Remove ad scheduling (if enabled) and serve ads all the campaign end date to help deliver more reach. days and times to extend reach. Reach
Views
Budget Delivery Product Discovery Formats Include TrueView Discovery ads as a separate ad group(s) to increase reach on non in-stream inventory Consideration and to help deliver views at a more competitive CPV.
Phone Sales
Bidding CPV Store Sales If you’re spending the daily budget, start optimizing NOTE CPV to maximize reach (lower CPV will yield more Use the “Competitive Metrics” column in AdWords to views and impressions for the same budget). assess the number of impressions (and consequently, App Installs views) lost due to Ad Rank, and adjust your bid NOTES accordingly. When impression share lost to Ad Rank is When you optimize CPV down, change the max CPV high, increase your max CPV, when impression share gradually (in 1 cent increments) and allow 24-48 hours lost to Ad Rank is low, decrease your max CPV. In-App Engagement for the campaign to adjust to the new bid before making additional changes. Mobile Bid Adjustment The CPV you can expect is directly linked to the quality score (hence VTR) of your campaign. The higher the Do not down bid on mobile; always opt-in to mobile VTR, the lower you can drive your CPV down. with your mobile bid at parity with your desktop bid. Mobile opt-in is crucial to optimize reach. Set your bid 1-2 cents higher than the CPV benchmark or target CPV from the start of your campaign. Awareness Online Sales, Leads Reach – TrueView Ads & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Targeting General If your goal is to spend a specific amount daily for a particular targeting type, build separate campaigns Create multiple ad groups each with distinct (versus. ad groups) for different targeting types targeting options rather than combining multiple because daily budgets are set at the campaign level. Reach targeting options in a single ad group (which can Campaigns using Google’s audience targeting significantly limit ad serving and reach) to ensure options (Demographic, Affinity, Custom Affinity, Views that your targeting is broad enough to deliver your In-Market and Similar Audiences) typically deliver reach objective. more impressions and reach than contextual-based Budget Delivery NOTE targeting (Topic or Keyword). Demo targeting is on average 2x more competitive than non-demo targeting. Remarketing Consideration
At the start of a campaign, create a remarketing If you want to use a broad (“run of site”) targeting list(s) of people who have viewed the ad. This gives strategy and still see 1. how various targeting types you the flexibility to optimize for reach during the Phone Sales perform relative to one another (eg, Affinity vs. Topics remainder of the campaign (and even after the vs. In-Market, etc.) and 2. how they perform relative campaign has ended). to all targeting options within a type (eg, beauty Store Sales mavens vs. cooking enthusiasts), create individual ad Use video remarketing to maximize unique reach by groups per targeting type and then select all targeting excluding users who have already viewed the video ad. options within that targeting type. This way each ad See here for more information on linking YouTube App Installs group records all of the targeting option(s) granular Channels to an AdWords account. data which you can use to identify insights and optimize appropriately. In-App Engagement Awareness Online Sales, Leads Reach – TrueView Ads & Web Visits Category Best Practice
Additional Planning Measurement Awareness Suggestions Use Reach Explorer to check the total audience Use the “Unique Reach” columns in AdWords to size available on YouTube within the desired measure unique reach (based on cookies) and Reach demographics. assess progress against your reach goal. NOTE Views If the campaign has reached a high percentage of the targeted total audience on YouTube, it’s increasingly Budget Delivery difficult to deliver additional reach. At this point, you can either broaden targeting to drive additional unique reach or increase frequency to drive effective reach. Consideration
Phone Sales
Store Sales
App Installs
In-App Engagement Awareness Online Sales, Leads Views – TrueView Ads & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Campaign Frequency Capping Budget Settings Use frequency capping on views to maximize unique When running multiple campaigns, use the views. For small to medium campaigns, begin by “Competitive Metrics” column in AdWords to assess Reach capping at 1 view, for larger campaigns begin with a the number of impressions (and consequently, larger view-cap of 2-3 views per month. views) lost due to budget. Re-allocate more budget Views to campaigns with a high % impression share due to NOTE budget and that show the most competitive CPV. Decisions on frequency caps should depend on budget Budget Delivery size, customer viewership goals, and receptivity to repeat exposure. Networks Consideration Delivery Method Opt-in to Google Video Partners to increase your audience reach by 20-30% and generate additional Use “Accelerated Delivery” to increase view count over video views across brand-safe partner sites and apps. a short period of time. Phone Sales Ad Scheduling NOTE Accelerated Delivery can have negative impacts, Remove ad scheduling (if enabled) and serve ads Store Sales including lowering VTR or increasing average CPV, all days and times to drive the maximize number so use it with caution especially when optimizing for of views. more views. NOTE App Installs Weekends typically spend more budget, so set a much higher daily budget on Fridays to ensure your campaigns are not capped during the weekend. In-App Engagement Awareness Online Sales, Leads Views – TrueView Ads & Web Visits Category Best Practice
Product In-stream Discovery Awareness Formats Optimize the first five seconds (:05) of the ad’s Create a separate ad group with TrueView discovery creative to maximize audience retention. Videos to help drive retention (and thus views), particularly Reach featuring humor, celebrities, and animation are often across long-form video content (all TrueView associated with increased retention and views. discovery views are users who have chosen to Views engage by clicking the thumbnail ad). See To Skip or Not to Skip for more information Budget Delivery
Bidding CPV NOTE Consideration Use the “Competitive Metrics” column in AdWords to If the daily budget is delivered, experiment with a assess the number of impressions (and consequently, decrease in max CPV as this can yield more views (at views) lost due Ad Rank. If Impression share lost to Ad Phone Sales lower cost). If daily budget is not delivered, see the Rank is high (> 50%) do not decrease your max CPV. “Optimize for Budget Delivery” section. Store Sales Targeting General NOTE If you want to use a broad (‘run of site’) targeting Maximize Impression count (and consequently, strategy and still see 1. how various targeting types App Installs views) by using as many of the Audience solutions perform relative to one another (eg, Affinity vs. Topics available (Affinity, In-Market, Demographic, Topic, vs. In-Market, etc.) and 2. how they perform relative to etc.) which runs the targeting types with the best all targeting options within a type (eg, beauty mavens In-App Engagement VTR while pausing the targeting types with the vs. cooking enthusiasts), create individual ad groups lowest VTR. per targeting type and then select all targeting options within that targeting type. NOTE A higher VTR yields a higher quality score which in turn This way each ad group records all of the targeting lowers the CPV and allows for more views. option(s) granular data which you can use to identify insights and optimize appropriately. Use a ‘run of site’ strategy by not selecting any targeting in your ad group. Targeting continues... Awareness Online Sales, Leads Views – TrueView Ads & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Targeting Do not combine multiple targeting in a single ad group Create a remarketing list of people who have viewed (cont’d) as this can significantly limit ad-serving and reach. the current video ad and set it in negative remarketing to drive unique viewers. This is especially effective Remarketing when running multiple campaigns simultaneously and Reach controlling unique views across campaigns. Use remarketing list(s) created during previous Views campaigns to deliver higher VTR which positively Similar Audiences impacts the Quality Score and results in lower CPV and more views. Similar audience targeting is also effective at driving Budget Delivery higher VTRs and therefore more views.
Consideration Additional Content and Creative NOTE Suggestions Creative development takes time, so suggest this Creative quality is a major driver of video view-count. strategy to the creative agency during the planning Phone Sales High-quality creative encourages users to click on the stage to ensure multiple creatives are available TrueView Discovery thumbnail, watch the in-stream for testing. ad beyond the 30-second threshold, or watch it to Identify the creatives with the most views and Store Sales completion. A/B test creatives and compare VTRs highest VTRs and ensure those creatives are present to identify the creative most likely to accrue views. in all ad groups. Assign each creative to a separate campaign to App Installs isolate VTR for subsequent analysis.
In-App Engagement Awareness Online Sales, Leads Views – Lightbox Ads bought on vCPM & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Campaign Campaign Type Delivery Settings Create a Display Network - All Features campaign for Use ‘”Accelerated Delivery” if it is a time-bound, an awareness Lightbox campaign using vCPM. short‑flighted campaign, or if you are concerned about Reach under-delivery. Frequency Capping NOTE Views “Accelerated Delivery” may increase average CPMs. Set a frequency cap from 5 to 10 impressions per Expanding ad targeting is a preferable means of driving day to maximize impression exposure early in Budget Delivery impressions. the campaign.
Use the “Average Impression Frequency Per Cookie” Budget Consideration column in AdWords to assess unique impression reach and increase or decrease frequency capping When possible, start campaigns with limited budgets at thresholds accordingly. least five hours before the planned start time to allow the ad-serving systems time to ramp-up. Phone Sales Use the “Lost Impression Share due to Budget” column in AdWords to review the current share lost due to restricted campaign budgets. Store Sales
Product Custom Invitation States App Installs Formats Custom invitation in the 728x90 and 300x250 formats can maximize ad-serving across more In-App Engagement available inventory. Awareness Online Sales, Leads Views – Lightbox Ads bought on vCPM & Web Visits Category Best Practice
Bidding vCPM Mobile Bid Adjustment Awareness
Bid aggressively at campaign launch but note Viewability serves about 50% to mobile inventory that a CPM bid of greater than $6 (or local so unless the campaign goal is 100% on mobile, Reach currency equivalent) has no material impact on a mobile bid modifier is generally not required for campaign performance. vCPM campaigns. Views Use the “Lost Impression Share due to Rank” column to review share lost to bidding constraints. Budget Delivery If impression share lost due to rank is high, consider increasing your bid. Consideration
Targeting General Be cautious when using Keyword, Placement, or Remarketing targeting as these targeting types can Phone Sales To maximize available inventory, use a “run of site” limit available inventory and reduce reach. strategy by either (a) not selecting any targeting or Demographic targeting (including Unknown (b) creating different ad groups to select all targeting segments) and Affinity Segments typically drive Store Sales in each type (Demographics, Affinity Segments, the broadest campaign reach. and Topics). After a campaign has run for 72+ hours, exclude NOTE App Installs placements with low CTRs (high impressions/low Make sure that targeting is broad enough to deliver clicks) and increase bids on the placements with your reach objective. Avoid combining multiple good engagement. targeting options in a single ad group as this can In-App Engagement significantly limit ad serving and reach. Maximize reach by creating multiple ad groups each with distinct targeting options and adjusting CPE bids by performance.
Targeting continue... Awareness Online Sales, Leads Views – Lightbox Ads bought on vCPM & Web Visits Category Best Practice
Targeting Remarketing Awareness (cont’d) If you’re using remarketing list(s) on your campaign If you’re using remarketing list(s) on your campaign, and want to expand reach, use Similar Audience exclude the remarketing list from the client’s original Reach targeting to build a large list of people with similar list so the campaign is focused on targeting additional characteristics and interests to the remarketing list. new customers. Views This is a great way to quickly and effectively expand the reach of your campaign. Budget Delivery
Additional Measurement Suggestions Consideration Include a Brand Interest study for campaigns accruing 100,000 impressions per day over the course of 14 days. Phone Sales
Store Sales
App Installs
In-App Engagement Awareness Online Sales, Leads Views – Display Ads bought on vCPM & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Campaign Campaign Type NOTE Settings Do not use Accelerated Delivery until all other targeting Use a frequency cap of no less than 4 impressions options have been exhausted, as it can inflate per day. average CPCs. Reach
Delivery Budget Views
Enable “Accelerated Delivery” if your objective is Use the “Lost Impression Share.” Addressing Lost to maximize reach over the course of a flighted Impression Share to Budget through budget increases Budget Delivery campaign (especially for time-sensitive campaigns). or reallocation is a more cost-effective means than addressing Lost Impression Share due to bid. Consideration
Product General Formats Phone Sales Use all image ad dimensions to maximize campaign Include text ads in your GDN campaign as they can reach. Be sure to include both desktop and mobile increase reach by up to 30%. eligible formats in a given ad group. Store Sales Review performance at the ad format level and pause those units that experience high vCPM/CPC. App Installs Bidding vCPM Mobile Bid Adjustment
If your KPIs comprise guaranteed viewability, Start with mobile bid-parity. Segment campaign In-App Engagement consider vCPM bidding. With vCPM, you’ll only be performance by device and compare relative CPC, charged if 50% of your Impression is viewable for CTR, and Impression Share between desktop and at least one second. Start with an aggressive vCPM mobile over time. Increase or decrease mobile bid to maximize short-term impact and adjust bid adjustments incrementally (10%) according incrementally downward (10% -15%) while assessing to performance. impact on reach. Awareness Online Sales, Leads Views – Display Ads bought on vCPM & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Targeting General Mobile Apps
Segment criteria by ad group. Creating a distinct It’s standard for Display campaigns targeting mobile targeting criteria per ad group simplifies reporting to serve in-app ads. While a useful means of driving Reach and optimization opportunities. Do not combine reach, you can choose to exclude ad-serving on multiple targeting criteria within a single ad group, apps by adding “adsenseformobileapps.com” as a Views as this can significantly limit campaign reach. managed placement.
Audience & Demo Targeting Placement Exclusion Budget Delivery
Use audience-based targeting (Demographic and Use the Placement Performance report to assess Affinity segments) to drive the most significant reach. and exclude those sites that experience higher than Consideration Avoid Keyword-Contextual, In-Market targeting, and average vCPM/CPCs. Remarketing criteria where possible. Phone Sales
Store Sales
App Installs
In-App Engagement
Targeting continue... Awareness Online Sales, Leads Budget Delivery & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Campaign Frequency Capping NOTE Settings When running multiple campaigns, use the “Competitive Relax Frequency capping to help maximize Metrics” column in AdWords to assess the number budget fulfillment. of impressions (and consequently, views) lost due to Reach budget and re‑allocate more budget to campaigns with NOTES a high % impression share due to budget. A campaign-level frequency cap of 6 impressions per Views week is considered best practice. Networks Frequency caps are a ceiling, so if a campaign is set Budget Delivery to 6 impressions it will often average much lower Opt-in to Google Video Partners to increase your (typically 2-3). audience reach by 20-30% and generate additional video views across brand-safe partner sites and apps. Review the “Unique Cookies” and “Average Impression Consideration Frequency per Cookie” metrics in AdWords to determine actual frequency versus the campaign’s set frequency Language capping. Phone Sales Expand a campaign to include more relevant Delivery Method languages to help reach more unique users and maximize budget fulfillment. Store Sales “Accelerated Delivery” can increase budget fulfillment over the course of a flighted campaign. Time NOTE If your campaign is not spending its entire budget, App Installs Use this optimization with caution as it can have extend the campaign end date. negative impacts, including lowering VTR or increasing average CPV.” Ad Scheduling In-App Engagement Budget Remove ad scheduling (if enabled) and serve ads all days and times to maximize budget fulfillment. Start the campaign with a higher daily budget (about 10%) to avoid lagging behind on spend rate. For NOTE example, if the campaign’s budget is $100K over Weekends typically spend more budget, so set a 10 days, do not input $11K per day rather than $10k much higher daily budget on Fridays to ensure your campaigns are not capped during the weekend. per day. Awareness Online Sales, Leads Budget Delivery & Web Visits Category Best Practice
Product In-stream Discovery Awareness Formats For large-budget campaigns, always use TrueView If your campaign uses only TrueView in-stream, ad in-stream (in addition to other formats where TrueView discovery to drive incremental views and Reach appropriate) because the format is very effective at increase campaign spend. budget fulfillment. Views
Budget Delivery Bidding CPV Mobile Bid Adjustment
Medium to large bid increases can help accelerate Do not down bid on mobile; always opt-in to mobile Consideration campaign spend. with your mobile bid at parity with your desktop bid. Mobile opt-in is crucial to optimize reach. NOTE Phone Sales Increase bids when other levers to optimize budget fulfillment have been exhausted. Store Sales
Targeting General strategies for each of the ad groups, using a higher App Installs If your campaigns are not spending their entire max CPV for the most specific or niche targeting and budget, check to see if you are targeting selections a much lower max CPV for the broader targeting. that are too restrictive or overlayed. Explore all the In-App Engagement different types of targeting available as there are Remarketing multiple ways you can reach a desired audience. Expand a campaign’s targeting by creating new ad Use remarketing list(s) created during previous groups with new targeting options that mirror the campaigns to deliver higher VTR which positively different “layers” of a brand’s targeting strategy impacts the Quality Score and results in faster (primary and secondary target audience, etc.). campaign spend. To drive more efficiency, set specific bidding Awareness Online Sales, Leads Budget Delivery & Web Visits Category Best Practice
Additional General Awareness Suggestions NOTE Utilizing the campaign’s total available budget within Reach a desired time frame to deliver results for the client is referred to as Budget Maximization, Budget Fulfillment, Views Budget Delivery, or Burn Rate. Budget Delivery
Consideration
Phone Sales
Store Sales
App Installs
In-App Engagement CONSIDERATION
TrueView Lightbox bought Ads on CPE Consideration Online Sales, Leads TrueView Ads & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Campaign Time Settings Driving channel subscribers and engagement can NOTE take time. Plan for longer campaigns (or always-on 4-8 weeks is a good general rule of thumb on the Consideration campaigns) to allow enough time for growth and amount of time (minimum) needed to effectively optimization. maximize for channel engagement. TrueView Ads Product In-stream Formats Lightbox Set the YouTube channel URL as the TrueView An alternate approach is to use a 300x60 companion in-stream ad’s destination URL to help drive banner with an explicit call-to-action (such as “Enjoy bought on CPE traffic to the channel homepage and maximize more XYZ content on the official XYZ YouTube channel engagement. Channel”) instead of the video wall to drive people to the channel after they have watched a video. Use TrueView in-stream cards, call-to-action overlays, Phone Sales or annotations with explicit “visit” or “subscribe” calls Discovery to drive viewers to engage with more content or subscribe to the channel. TrueView discovery can deliver stronger engagement Store Sales NOTES metrics than TrueView in-stream. If your objective is Cards and call-to-action overlays can not be to drive channel engagement, try allocating ~50% of used together. campaign spend to TrueView discovery. App Installs The video wall will not auto generate and display Include a “subscribe” call-to-action in your TrueView if there is a 300x60 companion banner set up. The discovery text ad to drive more channel engagement. videos that are featured in the video wall are pulled In-App Engagement from your most recent public playlist. To customize the videos it displays, create a new public playlist in your channel with your choice of videos. Consideration Online Sales, Leads TrueView Ads & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Bidding CPV
Calculate a “cost-per-subscriber” metric and use that NOTE relative to the campaign’s cost per subscriber goal(s) Use YouTube Analytics to measure the increase in Consideration to adjust the max CPV accordingly. earned subscribers.
Targeting General Remarketing TrueView Ads
Use managed placements to target other popular Use remarketing list(s) to exclude users who are YouTube channels in the same category/industry to already subscribed to the YouTube channel. Lightbox reach people engaged with similar content and who Run a TrueView discovery campaign targeting the bought on CPE are more likely to subscribe to your content. same remarketing list from your TrueView in-stream campaign to drive viewers to the brand channel and compel them for additional engagement (eg, Phone Sales subscribe, share, etc.).
Additional Content and Creative Create an autoplay channel trailer targeting non- Store Sales Suggestions subscribers when they first visit the channel. Ensure Use a creative with a clear call-to-action to that the video has an explicit “subscribe” call-to-action. “subscribe” to the channel (this is critical to maximize Include branding “watermarks”on all video, desktop, App Installs channel engagement). and channel promotions to allow viewers to easily Design the creative like a “teaser” using multiple subscribe to the channel by simply hovering over any creatives in a web-series style with similar look and of the watermarks. In-App Engagement feel to showcase the YouTube channel’s content. This can be an effective way to persuade people To know more... to subscribe and drive channel engagement. See the YouTube Creators Playbook to learn Regularly upload new content (a minimum more about content strategy and driving channel weekly new content cadence is considered best engagement and subscribers. practice). New content is crucial to maximize channel engagement. Consideration Online Sales, Leads Lightbox bought on CPE & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Campaign Campaign Type Delivery Settings For a consideration Lightbox campaign using CPE, Avoid “Accelerated Delivery” where possible as it will create a new Display Network only – Engagement likely lead to increased CPEs. Expand the targeting Consideration campaign when flighting a Lightbox (you can’t criteria or extend campaign end-dates in the case upload Lightbox CPE creative to other types of of budget under-pacing. display campaigns). TrueView Ads Budget Frequency Capping “For campaigns that are “Limited by Budget” consider Lightbox Set a frequency cap from 3 to 5 impressions per day a marginal (10%-15%) decrease in CPEs while allowing as engagement rates will typically decrease with 24-48 hours for the campaign to adjust before making bought on CPE repeat exposure. additional changes. NOTE Use the ‘Lost Impression Share’ column metrics to Phone Sales gauge the impact of CPE increases and decreases.”
Store Sales
Product Custom Invitation States Formats App Installs If you want to use custom creative(s), use the custom invitation banner(s) (available in three sizes: 300x250, 160x600, and 728x90) to maximize In-App Engagement consideration. Custom invitation banners allow full control of how your invitation state appears across placements. Consideration Online Sales, Leads Lightbox bought on CPE & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Bidding CPE Mobile Bid Adjustment
Bid aggressively at campaign launch and make A mobile bid-modifier of +200% is required to run incremental changes to CPE over time (5%-15% across devices. Consideration increments) CPE. Generally a max CPE of $1 NOTE (or local equivalent) is recommended for newly- Mobile devices typically experience higher CPEs than created campaigns. desktop but deliver longer engagement time. Consider TrueView Ads this when setting campaign objectives and mobile bid modifiers.” Lightbox bought on CPE
Targeting General
Use a single targeting type per ad group to allow Use the Placement Performance report to identify Phone Sales for maximum control of CPE bids. Pause under- and exclude low-performing sites with poor average performing ad groups to dedicate more budget to top engagement rates. performing targeting types. Store Sales Remarketing Use In-Market or Affinity audience targeting to drive the highest engagement rates. Use existing remarketing lists to re-engage users App Installs NOTE who have previously visited your site. Use video Keyword and Placement targeting are not remarketing lists to re-engage YouTube users with recommended due to inventory limitations.” Lightbox ads across Google Video Partners. In-App Engagement Consideration Online Sales, Leads Lightbox bought on CPE & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Additional Content and Creative NOTE Suggestions Given that you are only charged on a “Cost Per Use a transparent brand logo when possible and Engagement” basis, additional interactivity (Video remove padding to make the logo appear larger. Metrics, Click Through Rate, etc.) are “free” impact. “ Consideration Use a 16:9 image ratio when uploading cover images Use conversions and view-through conversions and avoid text where possible. to measure post-click and post-impression activity on‑site. You can also use manual tagging for TrueView Ads For ad text, use 30 characters or less per line and analytics by using standard Ready Ad Gallery use at least two lines of unique text. Also, be sure to tracking inputs. preview the text on all placement sizes. Include a Brand Interest study for campaigns Lightbox Measurement accruing 100,000 impressions per day over the bought on CPE course of 14 days. “Use the “Free Clicks” column in the Dimensions report to gauge the various interaction(s) with the Phone Sales elements of the Lightbox ad.
Store Sales
App Installs
In-App Engagement PHONE SALES Phone Sales Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Campaign Scheduling on business type OR measuring the percentage Settings of AdWords calls that resulted in conversions Schedule Call Extensions and ensure they only and then look at total duration times to pick a appear when call center is available to answer. conversion time that would support that overall call Consideration conversion percentage. Setting Call Conversion Duration Import exact conversion data Phone Sales Set call conversion length by determining the minimal amount of time for a phone call conversion based
Ads Call Only Ads Call Extensions Store Sales
Consider using Call-only campaigns when advertiser Consider driving calls to a centralized number with doesn’t want to opt-in to mobile because they don’t call extensions for nationwide campaigns. You can App Installs have a mobile optimize site or if they want full control also use location extensions if you have different on their Call Only ads. phone numbers for each store. Consider setting up different phone numbers In-App Engagement for different product offerings (for tracking and other purposes).
Bidding View performance segmented by conversion/click Target CPA and ROAS will take into account type to see what types of keywords/campaigns call conversions. drive calls more frequently than others, and bid Use the caller area code in the call details report to accordingly. If you use the Report Editor to create this see if you receive more calls from certain locations report, you can save it again for future use. and bid accordingly (or use ad customizers). If you drive calls from your website, ensure website call conversions are included.
Additional Based on the performance analysis of your calls, Suggestions it may be a good idea to adjust call center staffing based on call volume to ensure low wait times, etc. STORE SALES Store Sales Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Ads Local Inventory Ads – Account Structure Enable bid-by-distance by increasing bids 5-10 miles from all your merchant’s stores (requires setup of For simple (recommended) AW management: opt Google My Business account and Location Extensions) in all Shopping Campaigns to LIA in the Setting tab. Consideration For advanced AW management: create separate Check the “Enable local inventory ads” box in the local-only Shopping Campaigns for LIA Settings tab (requires local feeds setup). Set-up an “All Products” catch-all target with an Ad Text Phone Sales appropriate bid (minimum recommendation $0.15) Use a call to action intended to get customers to visit the store or get store directions (by using a store Store Sales locator).
Ad Location Extensions Use distance report for your location extensions to Extensions help find the best radius to target App Installs Enable Location Extensions at the account-level to A larger radius may be needed for a location that’s allow for easier setup and it will also give you the option based in a more rural area of setting up filters to prevent extensions from showing In-App Engagement up on campaigns where they don’t make sense. Make sure your location extensions are verified and active to be eligible for store visits reporting
Bidding Ensure that your bidding strategy and account Use product dimension tab to better understand structure reflects the unique value of products in the performance at any level of granularity by any each of your stores (eg. adapt bids for national/ dimension you choose, including: category product seasonal/store promotions) type, item ID, etc. Schedule local ads to run during store hours Bid aggressively to show on Google Maps (part of Search Partners). Only the top ranked ad will show Review the distance report to determine the best because there is only one ad slot on Google Maps. radius to target (start broader then refine) Make sure bid levels are based on store hours (via time of day/week), location (via geo/location extensions), and call conversions. Store Sales Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Targeting Keywords
Add store brand keywords such as “adidas store” or “adidas location” & “find closest store” Consideration Ensure that your keywords (eg, “coffee” or “cafe”) are also matching for local searches (eg, “coffee near me” or “cafe in Dublin) by including their phrase and Phone Sales broad match variations. This way, you save time from having to add and manage all possible combinations of keywords and location names. Store Sales
App Installs
In-App Engagement APP INSTALLS
Universal App Display Search TrueView Campaigns App Installs Online Sales, Leads Universal App Campaigns & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Campaign Campaign Type If you have a video, enter the YouTube URL to Settings show video ads on YouTube and the Google Use the Universal App Campaign type for a fully Display Network. automated way to get max installs at your target CPI Consideration Create a separate universal app campaign for each from across all of Google: Google Search, Google language. AdWords doesn’t translate your ads, so you Play, YouTube, and the Google Display Network of should only target languages that match your ads mobile apps and websites. and localized app. Phone Sales If you’re promoting an iOS app, universal app campaigns will only show your ads across the Budget Google Display Network, YouTube and the Google Store Sales Search App. The campaign will also optimize for “first Once you’ve set your budget or target CPA, wait at opens” of your app instead of downloads. least 7 days to see the full effect of your change before updating these inputs. Otherwise, use the ‘Display-Mobile App Install’ or App Installs ‘Search-Mobile App Install’ or “Video-Mobile App Bidding Installs”campaign type. Universal App If your universal app campaign does not have traffic Campaigns Ads for several days, test higher CPI bids and see if anything changes. By increasing your CPI bids, you Write each line of text as independent, standalone Display potentially unlock another tier of traffic that wasn’t sentences. AdWords will automatically optimize and accessible to your ads before, which could drive combine any of these to create the best ad. installs within your new target CPI. Search
TrueView
In-App Engagement App Installs Online Sales, Leads Display (mGDN & AdMob) & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Advanced Campaign Type Budget Settings If you’re advertising an Android app and you are Daily budget is advised to be 50x the target CPA. not measuring in-app events, use the Universal App Consideration If a campaign is hitting budget early every day, try Campaign type for a fully automated way to get max decreasing the Target CPA to increase conversions. installs at your target CPI. You want to have the campaigns be ‘just barely’ Otherwise, use the ‘Display-Mobile App Install’ spending their daily budget. Phone Sales campaign type. If your app has in-app purchases (IAP), which are (For display you have to choose ‘Marketing Objective’ processed via Google Play, we recommend to use the and ‘install your mobile app’ in the marketing CO+IAP function to get users who tend to have IAP. Store Sales objective section when you open a new campaign.) FYI for gaming companies: a large amount of IAP comes from games. Use the Firebase SDK for a more comprehensive tracking solution, that allows you to track across App Installs Ads networks, and events like the first open of your app and other in-app conversions across both IOS Use the text app promo ad template to create an ad Universal App and Android. that will automatically re-size based on where it’s Campaigns eligible to show. These ads pull in info directly from Device/OS the app stores including app icon, ratings, and more. Display For apps larger than 100MB, target WiFi only devices If you choose to upload your own images using because App stores restrict downloading large apps the Image App Promotion Template instead, make Search to WiFi. sure to include the network’s most common ad sizes: 320x50, 320x480, 480x320, 768x1024, and Target iOS 6.0+ to measure downloads. TrueView 1024x768. Double Density ads (HD) can help to display your message in an even nicer way to high end devices. In-App Engagement You can upload them together with your regular ad formats.
Advanced Settings continues... App Installs Online Sales, Leads Display (mGDN & AdMob) & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Advanced If you have a video about your app, use the Video App Once you’ve enabled the Conversion Optimizer, avoid Settings Promo ad template. changing your bids or budgets in the first 3-5 days. (cont’d) Once the 3-5 day learning period is over, avoid Bidding Consideration changing your bids or budget more often than every 3-5 days and never by >20%. Conversion Optimizer in App Install campaigns is a best practice to get the maximum number of installs If you do have make drastic changes to your available at your target cost-per-install. campaign, eg optimizing for a new conversion type, Phone Sales you should start a new campaign (and pause the old CO works best when you have a broader targeting on one). The bid strategy will learn these new changed ad group level. conditions quicker this way. Store Sales When using CO, choose only one type of conversion for the algorithm to optimize for to avoid multiple conversion types being double counted. App Installs
Universal App Targeting Display Otherwise, to optimize for higher-quality users, it is common to break out standalone campaigns Campaigns A best practice is to do “Run of Network targeting” based on the customer value from top performing via targeting ‘All Android Apps’ or ‘All iOS Apps’. Or, segments (eg, certain Installed App Categories, Paid Display add all categories individually to see performance by Users, New Devices, etc), and bid more aggressively. category. This will ensure that you’re continuing to For example, you may have one campaign bidding $5 Search collect installers at scale. and targeting Run of Network, a second campaign targeting ‘New Devices’ bidding $7, and a third For additional inventory, leave the ‘Auto-extend to campaign targeting “W18-25” bidding $10. TrueView mGDN’ checkbox enabled in Android campaigns. If you have a mobile site, you can build a userlist of If you target Run of Network (a best practice for mSite visitors and target them. scaling vs. targeting high value installs), make sure In-App Engagement not to target and bid on all individual ‘installed app categories’ at the same time in the same ad group, as it can limit reach (some users opt-out from interest based advertising). App Installs Online Sales, Leads Search & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Advanced Campaign Type If your app has in-app purchases (IAP), which are Settings processed via Google Play, we recommend to use the If you’re advertising an Android app and you are CO+IAP function to get users who tend to have IAP. not measuring in-app events, use the Universal App FYI for gaming companies: a large amount of IAP Consideration Campaign type for a fully automated way to get max comes from games. installs at your target CPI. Ads Otherwise, use the ‘Search-Mobile App Install’ Phone Sales campaign type, share in-app events with google and Create one ad group for branded terms and another use tCPA. ad group for broader terms. Use the Firebase SDK for a more comprehensive Test 3-4 different ad variations in each ad group. Store Sales tracking solution, that allows you to track across Focus each ad on a single, compelling message networks, and events like the first open of your explaining the value of your app and include a app and other in-app conversions across both IOS call-to-action. App Installs and Android. Bidding Device/OS Universal App Campaigns Set your bid strategy to Target CPA. This will let For Search App Install, Android and iOS are AdWords automatically adjust your bids to get supported. Display as many installs as possible at your target cost-per-install. Budget If using Target CPA bidding (a common best Search If a campaign is hitting budget early every day, this is practice), please allow 2-3 weeks for the bidding a clear indicator that there is more opportunity for models to improve before making drastic changes. TrueView you. So you can check on the opportunity tab what will be your potential increase on downloads, by increasing budgets. In-App Engagement App Installs Online Sales, Leads Search & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Targeting Keyword (Search Only) Ensure your keywords are covering both generic (non-branded) and branded queries, and targeting You can search for more Keyword suggestions to keywords with and without the word “app” appended. be used as “seed keywords” on the KPT by using This will allow you to expand your traffic to maximize Consideration Keyword Suggestion Tool (uses data from Google performance (assuming you are using Target CPA Play to give you the low competitive queries on the bidding as well). Best practice is also to use broad store by vertical). match and Target CPA bidding. Phone Sales You can also use Wildcat for collecting seed Revisit the Keyword Suggestion Tool (you’ll have Keywords and external tools such as AppAnnie to go through campaign creation flow to do this) Keyword Suggestions and SimilarWeb to search for for new ideas every few weeks since the tool may Store Sales even more Keywords options. As more Coverage suggest new ideas based on more data gathered on Keywords you have, the better. Another good from Google Search and Play. optimization tip is to use your app’s metadata Along with your original set of seed keywords, (keywords, titles, descriptions) in your app App Installs evaluate your app install campaign for high developer’s console, or keywords from Search performing keywords and plug those into the tool for campaigns. You can also use keywords from your Universal App even more suggestions. user reviews. Campaigns
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TrueView
In-App Engagement App Installs Online Sales, Leads TrueView & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Campaign Device Budget Settings Segment campaigns by Operating System (Android If you’re using target CPA (tCPA), the campaign’s and iOS) to maximize app downloads. App download budget should be at least 200x of the tCPA bid to Consideration performance can vary significantly depending on the allow enough time to get results and make changes operating system. with the available budget. Use the Firebase SDK for a more comprehensive Phone Sales Time tracking solution that allows you to 1) track across networks, 2) track events like the first open of your Conversion Optimizer (CO) typically takes 7-30 days app, and 3) track other in-app conversions across to normalize to the tCPA bid. Store Sales both IOS and Android.
Product In-stream homepage on days when a Masthead is not sold. If App Installs Formats a day is available and your campaign has available If your primary goal is to drive app downloads and budget, you may want to adjust your bid 30-50x Universal App subsequent user engagement is a lower priority, greater than your standard TrueView discovery Campaigns use TrueView in-stream as it can drive larger app bid to increase the chances of winning this high install volumes. volume auction. Display NOTES Discovery You can check inventory in go/bart to see what Search days are unsold and if a YouTube homepage slot is If your goal is to drive app downloads with users who available. will have higher engagement rates with the app in TrueView general, use TrueView discovery. See the YouTube Homepage with TrueView discovery deck for more information. TrueView Discovery ads can deliver a huge number of impressions and are eligible to serve on the YouTube In-App Engagement App Installs Online Sales, Leads TrueView & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Bidding Target CPA
Start a TrueView app promotion campaign with NOTES target CPA bidding to maximize installs against the Allow CPAs 7-30 days to normalize. Consideration target CPI. Begin by setting the target CPA at the Migrate advertisers from CPV bidding to target CPA current Cost-Per-Install (CPI) and revising up or down bidding by creating a new campaign. in small increments as appropriate. Phone Sales
Targeting General Remarketing Store Sales Start a TrueView app promotion campaign with a “run Use remarketing list(s) of users who have “viewed of site” strategy (aka no targeting) and then refine any video from a channel” or “subscribed to a as needed. These campaigns generally deliver more channel” to maximize app promotion by targeting App Installs app installs at the lowest Cost-Per-Install if they have users who are more likely to install because they’re narrow targeting because this allows the Conversion familiar with or have already engaged with the client’s Optimizer (CO) to identify the best users to target. content on YouTube. Universal App Campaigns NOTE NOTE If a “run of site” strategy is not an option, use the Users with an app already installed on their Android/ broadest targeting type possible to maximize app iOS device are automatically excluded from a TrueView Display install volume. app promotion campaign for that app. In-market audience or topic targeting overlaid with To pursue high-potential users for an app download, Search keyword targeting can be effective at driving app create a remarketing list from your TrueView in- promotion with high quality users. stream campaign and then run a TrueView Discovery TrueView campaign targeting the list of viewers who are likely NOTE to be more familiar and engaged with the brand. Keyword targeting is very restrictive and should be among one of several targeting options. You should NOTE In-App Engagement test it with different targeting types. Build the remarketing list using list types of either “viewed certain video(s)” or “viewed certain video(s) as an ad.” App Installs Online Sales, Leads TrueView & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Additional Content and Creative A/B Creative Testing Suggestions Creative quality is a huge determinant of app A/B testing creative and comparing their downloads. The creative must give people a clear performance helps identify the most effective Consideration call-to-action asking to download the app and a clear creative at driving app downloads. Similar to other reason to download. It is crucial to demonstrate what A/B creative tests it is recommended that each the app does and its value proposition to the viewer. creative be assigned a separate campaign to isolate Phone Sales impact for subsequent analysis. Use a variety of video creatives that repeat a similar message and theme to maximize app downloads. Because creative development takes time it is encouraged to suggest this to the creative agency Allow enough time for the user to take action (a Store Sales during the planning stage to ensure multiple creatives minimum of 5 seconds is recommended). One are made for testing. effective way to do this is to create a static call to action end frame with the official mobile app Measurement App Installs store icons. If you don’t have a creative for an app promotion NOTE Universal App campaign, ask your Account Manager for help (AMs Use third party tracking to measure first opens and in- Campaigns can automatically generate a creative based on app events for both iOS and Android. assets available on your Google Play/App Store). Display Provide a clear call-to-action in the auto-end screen of a TrueView app promo in-stream to Search drive incremental performance when viewers are most engaged. TrueView
In-App Engagement IN-APP ENGAGEMENT In-App Engagement Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Advanced Campaign Type Device/OS Settings Choose ‘Display – Mobile App Engagement’ or Search: Only Android is currently supported. ‘Search – Mobile App Engagement’. Consideration
Offer something compelling in your ads that will Deep linking implementation guidance: Google Phone Sales Ads encourage users to engage with your app. If they’ve recommends using App Links (Android) and dropped out or forgotten about your app, they may Universal Links (iOS) standards when enabling need a simple reminder, a special bonus or an deep linking within your app. These standards are intriguing offer to entice them back. supported across all organic and paid products, Store Sales including: organic search, search ads, Knowledge If you choose to upload your own images using Engine, Voice Actions, Android, YouTube ads (coming the Image App Engagement Template, make soon), Goo.gl (short links), durable deep links, Google sure to include the network’s most common ad App Installs Now, display ads and .app (app only domain). sizes: 320x50, 320x480, 480x320, 768x1024, and 1024x768. In-App Engagement Work with your development team to set up custom deep links to the important parts of your app. That way, your ads can lead users directly to the spot that can best meet their needs.
Bidding Remember to bid based on the value of an in-app For Search, start with the “Maximize Clicks” bid conversion vs. an install. strategy, and then change to “Focus on conversions” when you have at least 100 conversions / Segment reporting is available by click-type which in‑app events. lets advertisers see how many of their clicks sent users to the deep link vs install page (Android only). In-App Engagement Online Sales, Leads & Web Visits Category Best Practice Awareness Targeting Display Search
Create user lists among those who have downloaded Begin testing with Mobile App Engagement ads and your app. text ads to evaluate mSite v App performance. Consideration When building remarketing lists for the Google The Keyword Planner can be used to generate Display Network, you can use any of the following: additional keywords and estimate how much traffic 1. Link your AdWords to your Google Play account, you can expect from given keywords. Phone Sales 2. Create a list of uploaded mobile IDs, You can also concurrently run high-volume keywords 3. Tag the events in your app for remarketing from your mobile app install campaigns. Users who Once collected, begin splitting the lists into more already have your app on their device won’t be shown Store Sales targeted categories based on user-behavior an app install ad. milestones (AdMob). Use broad match for re-engagement ads because Don’t limit your campaign with too many other you’re targeting someone that’s installed your app but App Installs targeting restrictions (geo, specific app categories) could be unaware of a feature or has forgotten that as it can limit reach significantly. you can help. Scale reach to users who don’t have your app with In-App Engagement Install and Continue (no action required).