5 ADVANCED TIPS
to level-up your Google Ads search campaigns
from ex-Google PPC Strategist Phil Taylor
Hey - I'm glad you're taking the time to go through this guide, because these are some
gems (most of them not widely known or used) that will help you turn up the dial on your
campaigns.
I use all of these techniques regularly, in accounts ranging from local kitchen stores to
international sportswear brands. They work… so read on and get ready to add a few
new strings to your bow!
Who am I?
I’m Phil Taylor.
I’ve been in PPC advertising since 2004, when I
started working at Google, to join their team of
‘Creative Maximisers’.
(They did eventually realise how silly a job title that is,
at which point we became ‘Account Strategists’)
That was an interesting three years!
It was a cool company to work for - especially in the early days, before the creeping
corporatization really took hold...
My team were optimising accounts for (only) the biggest advertisers in
the UK, spending eye-watering sums. It was quite a responsibility… especially when
I consider how little I knew about what I was doing compared to now!
But good times… I met my now-wife there too
I left the mothership in 2007 to work on various online projects: a news satire site,
affiliate marketing, app startups, building a marketing agency… and through it all I’ve
been honing, and benefitting from, my Google Ads know-how.
I now train fellow PPC professionals to get the most out of their paid search
campaigns. PPC is a valuable skill to have... and I like being able to offer that leg up.
Let's Get Started
If you’re an intermediate-level PPCer, looking to level up to advanced,
this guide is for you.
('Intermediate-level' is a vague category, I know… but if in doubt, you're probably
a) in that category b) not arrogant )
I also have a lot more (training, videos, online community…) designed to help
PPCers take exactly that step up. I’ll flag it all up at the end.
01 - Life after Average Position
As you’re interested in advanced tips - you’ve probably been in PPC for a while…
...and if you’ve been in PPC for a while, chances are you lost a valued
metric when Average Position was laid to rest in October 2019.
So if you’re not quite ready to let go, here’s a rough-and-ready guide to mapping
search impression share metrics onto the old average positions.
POSITION RECOMMENDED METRIC IMPRESSION SHARE
1 100%
1.1
ABSOLUTE TOP 90%
1.2 IMPRESSION SHARE 82%
1.3 72%
1.4 66%
1.5 76%
1.6 72%
1.7 69%
1.8
TOP 65%
1.9 IMPRESSION SHARE 62%
2 59%
2.5 46%
3 35%
3.5 26%
4 18%
Research by Marin Software, 2019
Although the correlation between Impression Share and Average Position isn’t super
high... this table will at least help you calibrate what counts as 'high' and 'low' if
you’re still more fluent in the old average position metric.
02 - Sneaky Aggregation...
Google Ads Search Partners is one of those ‘default opt-ins’ that can really blow your
budget on lower-quality traffic.
I generally recommend turning Search Partners off... and if you do run it (occasionally
it does add value – especially in retail…) it’s wise to keep a close eye on your CPAs
while you test.
But the real problem with Search Partners is harder to spot…The big, hidden danger is
how it furtively skews your data.
Look at the data for this keyword:
A pretty unremarkable CTR... low, for a brand keyword. On the impression share side,
there's a little unused search volume (8.31%) but it's not far from maxing out.
Now see how the picture changes when we segment this data between Google
Search, and Search Partners
See how the now-visible Search Partners segment was seriously down-weighting CTR,
and hiding the Lost Impression Share against this keyword, when viewed in aggregate
on the top row?
The aggregated CTR for this keyword
(1.12%) bears little relation to the excellent
CTR it is actually achieving on Google
search (~14%) or the (typically) poor CTR Conversely, as the Impression Share on
on Search Partners (0.15%). Search Partners is nearly maxed out
(under 3% lost) the huge impression share
loss to rank on Google is hidden.
Although it isn’t contributing much in terms of clicks, with its flood of impressions
Search Partners data is obscuring both the major success (CTR) and missed
opportunity (Lost Impression share) that would otherwise be clear.
This kind of data skew happens all the time.
Here’s how to deal with it...
To evaluate search partners traffic and uncover these hidden insights, segment your
data by network.
With this segmentation in place, you'll want to focus on the Google Search segment for
two reasons.
1) Google Search is usually where the bulk of clicks and conversions come from
2) Performance on Search Partners activity is excluded from all Quality Score
calculations – so will only add noise to any analysis you’re making with QS in mind.
03 - A Better Way to Judge Ads
When judging your winning ads, you often face a trade-off between an ad with a
higher CTR, and another with a better conversion rate.
Instead of weighing up those metrics against each other every time, there’s a way to
cut straight to a definite winner.
Here’s how
You can create a custom column to factor both CTR and conversion rate into a single
metric: ‘impression conversion rate’.
This will tell you the number of conversions each ad generated per 100 impressions –
factoring in both CTR and conversion rate with a single score.
It’s simple to set up…
In the ads view, select ‘Columns’
Scroll down to ‘Custom Columns’ and select '+ Custom Column'
Name the new metric, define it as ‘Conversions ÷ Impressions’
and choose ‘%’ for the metric type.
Welcome to your new favourite metric
for judging ads!
04 - Shortcuts!
This is a quick one....And speed is the word here, as that’s what you’ll gain from getting
familiar with the Google Ads interface shortcuts.
If there’s one shortcut worth getting familiar with, it’s ‘G’ then ‘C’, which jumps you
back to the Campaigns view… (this one alone could save you precious minutes each
day).
Other favourites:
‘G’ then ‘J’ - Ad Groups view
‘G’ then ‘K’ - Keywords view
‘G’ then ‘A’ - Ads and Extensions view
Hold ‘SHIFT’ and press ‘A’ to jump up to the 'whole account' level while staying on
the same view (e.g. if you’re looking at keywords within one ad group, this shortcut
will then show you all ads.
If want to get really nifty around the interface - here's a list of all the useful shortcuts.
05 - The Lin Rodnitzky Ratio
What kind of PPC manager are you?
No, that wasn’t meant to be rude... It’s a question you can actually answer in a rather
useful way, using this little-known (but killer) formula - the Lin Rodnitzky Ratio.
The LR ratio is a quick way to measure how efficiently a campaign is spending its
budget, telling you what % of its spend is actually going towards traffic that generates
a return (...which is valuable question, and you won’t answer it by looking at ROI or
CPA alone).
The formula is:
To work out the Lin Rodnitzky Ratio for your account:
Take a long enough date range to show substantial conversion data,
representative of how the account generally performs
From all search campaigns, navigate to keywords > search terms
Make sure you have the cost/conv. column in place
Create a filter to show only search terms that have had greater than 0 conversions
Read off your cost/conv. from the total row. That’s your first input
Read off your cost/conv. from the filtered search terms row. That’s your second
input
Divide the first by the second, and behold your LR Ratio
77.61 ÷ 58.72 = 1.31
The logic of using search terms as the basis is that this is the rawest measure of
what you are actually spending your money on with paid search.
Comparing how freely you spend on all activity in relation to those proven, converting
elements of it, you reach an almost-perfect insight into where an account sits on the
conservative-expansive scale. The higher the number, the more ‘freely’ the account is
spending…
What's a Good Lin Rodnitzky Score?
The creators of the scale (Will Lin and David Rodnitzky of Q3 Digital) suggested the
following interpretation:
“healthy accounts typically have a Lin-Rodnitzky Ratio between 1.5 and 2.0.”
1.0-1.5: The account is conservative. There is very low wasted spend, but the account is likely
missing out on a lot of incremental conversions, most of which are likely to still be highly profitable
for the business.
1.5-2.0: The account is well-managed. There is a combination of consistent winners that always
bring in sales and experimental queries that are being tested to identify growth opportunities.
2.0-2.5: The account is too aggressive. There are too many queries getting clicks that are not
driving conversions. This is either due to excessive use of broad match, a lack of attention to the
account, or a lack of rigorous analysis of metrics.
2.5+: The account is being mismanaged. Money is being wasted daily, and simple changes can save
the business a lot of money.”
Having used this excellent formula for a while, I think these groupings are a bit
conservative. I'd say a score up to 2.5 is usually healthy (but hey… maybe I’m
a PPC hippy!).
There may be good reasons to operate outside the 1.5-2.5 zone, depending on the
context and priorities of the advertiser... but if you find that your accounts generally
sit outside the middle range of L-R scores, you can probably infer that you are
conservative or cavalier as an account manager. An interesting insight to have…
As well as a good sanity check on your own accounts, the LR ratio gives a good, quick
indication of an account’s potential (either to save money or to be more ambitious…)
when you run an audit. If you fancy an in-depth discussion with your prospective
client, it can also make for a nice talking point!
You Made It
Well done for getting through this guide. It’s denser than most ‘freebies’, and if you
digested the last seven pages (in spite of my overly-wordy writing style) then you’re in
good shape to become a top-tier PPCer, by my reckoning...
Finally, understand the value of your campaigns… but also understand yours.
As a PPC professional, you hold a vital piece of the business puzzle.
You offer organisations of all shapes and sizes, the chance to unlock the power of paid
search, which remains the most efficient, most effective marketing channel around.
To the independent mechanic... the ambitious entrepreneur… the online therapist
looking to expand... the high-street brand scrambling for a foothold in a digital world…
effective digital marketing can make the difference between shattering failure, and
glowing success.
That’s worth something.
If you want to become
a valued PPC expert fast
These would be good steps to take...
Join my search optimisation course and membership
Join my free Facebook Group - The PPC Lounge
Book a 1-to-1 with me for direct help on your accounts
