Adwords Conversion Optimization Series – Part 4: Rotate Indefinitely

You should have 4 ads per ad group running at a time. That way you’re able to:

1. test which ad gets the best response
2. delete the losers
3. and create some new ads to test again. Rinse and repeat.

This process of constantly testing lets you find the absolute best ad for your market, and is absolutely required to get the most bang for your buck.

There is a problem with the way the ads Google rotates your ads. By default, Google Adwords will display your top 1-2 ads more than the others, in an attempt to “automate” optimization.

For the smart marketer, this is a bad thing. Because your ads don’t get equal treatment, you can’t really see which ones are doing the best. You’ll want to make a custom change to enable your ads to rotate evenly, so that you can optimize them manually.

To start:

1. Go to the campaign you want to change.
2. Click on the “settings” tab.
3. Go down to “Ad delivery”.
4. Click “edit”.
5. Choose the “Rotate Indefinitely” option.

You will receive a warning from Google saying that Rotate Indefinitely is not recommended – ignore this warning.

By evenly rotating your ads, you can truly measure which ad provides the best results, and give every ad an even chance.

It’s true that your CTR may go down in the short run (as some of the lower performing ads are allowed to keep showing), but in the long run you’ll be able to increase your CTR far more than if you used the “Optimized” options.

The extra special benefit of doing this is that you can also optimize better for which ads actually convert, even if they don’t receive as high of a CTR.  This means your campaign will be optimized to make money, not just please robots.

It’s true that Google has an option to optimize for conversions, but that holds the exact same problem as the “optimize for clicks” option: you don’t get to see the true potential of every ad you write.

Next week we’ll be covering how mobile ads can increase your CTR.