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26/06/08

Rotation or Optimisation



Rotation or optimisation? It's a hot topic in the Pay Per Click world. You might be surprised to find out which one actually works better at getting your ad before the most people and which converts better.


It  may not be the most important element in a Pay Per Click (PPC) strategy but it’s certainly one to consider. How do you best run a successful PPC campaign – with rotating or optimized ads? Which is better?

The default of course is usually set to Optimise. This favours ads with higher historic Click Through Rates (CTRs) and quality scores. That also means these ads enter the ad auction more often than other ads within the ad group. Makes sense doesn’t it?

The system will consider the ad’s Quality Score and cost-per-click (CPC) bid before ranking the ad on a given page. Because this set of ads enters the auction more frequently they gain in the number of impressions as well. Compared with other ads in that grouping they’ll have higher ad served percentages as a result.

On the other hand, rotated ad serving delivers ads more evenly. Rotation won’t favor any one ad over another – regardless of the higher CTRs. Every ad entered into the auction is served the same, gets the same number of impressions and has the same or similar ad served percentages.

Now, consider what it is you are really after in all this.

Since quality score is the most important factor when building a quality score, the optimum number of ads to run per ad group to best drive quality score is three.  By leaving the default setting to optimize your ads you’re also allowing Google to determine how to serve the ads. Google’s algorithm automatically serves the ad with the best CTR and the highest quality score so there shouldn’t be a problem.

However, this can or often does happen after only two or three days of the campaign going live. Often it takes a few weeks or more for viewers to see the ad and respond. So the algorithm can’t possibly have fairly tested the quality of all the ads to determine how to favour one more than another.

In a PPC campaign, setting your ads to rotate is a better choice. Quality score is important, but the true test is what the user does on your site. Do they convert? Ad text is an important part of this. Having a better CTR to bring traffic to the site doesn’t necessarily mean it will be better at converting. Set your ads to rotate and try it for yourself, but  remember – conversion is the ultimate indicator of an ad’s power.

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