1. Brad Geddes
Co-Founder, AdAlysis
Founder, Certified Knowledge
Author, Advanced Google AdWords
@bgTheory
When Best Practices Fail Hero Conf
@bgTheoryAdAlysis

2. @bgTheory
What is a Best Practice?
AdAlysis

3. Answers:
1. It’s amazing - I use it all the time
2. I use it sparingly
3. It’s terrible - modified broad is the way to go
@bgTheory
Poll: Who things Broad Match is Wonderful?
AdAlysis

4. @bgTheory
Who Defines Best Practices?
AdAlysis

5. 1. Simplifying complex problems
2. Resource constraints / Non-Defined Processes
3. Failures of a best practice due to exceptions
@bgTheory
Why to They Fail?
AdAlysis

6. When Best Practices Fail
Simplifying Complex Problems
@bgTheoryAdAlysis

7. @bgTheory
Delete Non-Preforming Keywords
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Number Spend (10s) Conversions
Keywords with conversions Keywords without Conversions
AdAlysis

8. @bgTheory
What Happened?
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Month 1 Month 2 Month 3
Conversions
AdAlysis

9. @bgTheory
Funnel: Generic > Specific > Brand
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Number Spend (10s) Conversions Assisted Conversions
Keywords with conversions Keywords without Conversions
Article on managing assisted conversions: http://adalysis.com/blog/3-ways-to-handle-assisted-co
AdAlysis

10. •Best Practice (debatable):
Choose all languages your consumer speaks
Don’t mix languages (ads to landing pages)
Only choose languages you support
Language targeting is a minimal setting; don’t optimize for it
Note: no stats from AdWords/Bing on conversions by language
@bgTheory
Language Targeting
AdAlysis

11. @bgTheory
Local Philly Company: Just Started Adding
Languages
Overall CPA Conversions / Month
English $56 192 (baseline)
Russian $55 197 (+5)
Korean $52 203 (+6)
Chinese $55 204 (+1)
Italian (China removed) $53 206 (+3)
Polish $54 207 (+1)
Spanish $59 211 (+4)
More added… $54 228
Final Tally of 11 Languages $-2 / conversion +36 (16% Lift)
AdAlysis

12. @bgTheory
Languages In Philly / World
AdAlysis

13. @bgTheory
Travel Company: Created Language / Country
Combination Campaigns
AdAlysis
Country Language CTR Conv Rate
Italy Italian 3.1% 2.1%
Italy English 3.9% 7.9%
Italy German 4.1% 8.1%
Germany German 2.9% 3.1%
Germany Italian 4.2% 7.6%
German English 5.6% 7.7%

14. @bgTheory
Optimizing Modifiers To Conversions
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Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
Calls Per Day
AdAlysis

15. @bgTheory
Applied Modifiers Based on Conversion Rates
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Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
Calls Per Day
Pre Modifiers After Modifiers
AdAlysis

16. @bgTheory
Sunday Evening Was Their Best Research Time
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Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
Research vs Action
Company Details Found Calls
AdAlysis

17. @bgTheory
Best Practice: Bid to ROAS/ROI for Ecommerce
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Ad Hoc Bidding ROAS Bidding
ROAS Orders/Month
AdAlysis

18. @bgTheory
The Complicated Data
Overs over
$10,000
Orders over
$500
Orders under
$500
Orders 102 1098 4502
Unique Keywords
Leading to Orders
87 119 245
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How Predictable Are the Large Orders?
AdAlysis

19. @bgTheory
CPA Bidding
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Ad Hoc Bidding ROAS Bidding CPA Bidding
Bid Type
ROAS Orders/Month
AdAlysis

20. @bgTheory
Location Targeting
2011: Company examined credit card zip codes
Only targeted high revenue zip codes
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2011 2014
Conversions / Month (Spring/Summer)
CPA
AdAlysis

21. •Location targeting is more accurate
•More people are searching on phones
•DC is:
Worst commuting traffic
2rd highest public transit rates
@bgTheory
Three Problems
AdAlysis

22. @bgTheory
Added Most Work Areas: Conversion vs CPA
Balance
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2011 2014 2015
Conversions / Month
(Spring/Summer)
CPA
AdAlysis

23. @bgTheory
Picking a “Best” Remarketing Ad
Ad Clicks Impressions CTR Conversions Conv Rate
1 4075 613621 0.66% 132 3.24%
2 6725 835389 0.81% 321 4.77%
3 4399 565363 0.78% 197 4.48%
4 1610 672062 0.24% 27 1.68%
5 8547 939540 0.91% 41 0.48%
Total 25356 3625975 0.70% 718 2.83%
ad clicks impressions CTR conversions conversion rate
1 19294 3720132 0.52% 443 2.30%
AdAlysis

24. When Best Practices Fail
Resource Constraints
@bgTheoryAdAlysis

25. •Airline company (rounded data to protect company info)
• Fly from 40 cities to 40 cities
• Cities encompass 6 countries & 5 languages
•How do you create this account?
@bgTheory
Flight data organization
AdAlysis

26. @bgTheory
Organization is From the Ad: Not Keywords
Ads CTR Conv Rate
To <city> 2.3% 1.90%
From <city> 1.8% 1.5%
<city> to
<city>
4.1% 3.75%
Keywords:
• Orlando to Munich Flights
• Munich to Rome Flights
• etc
Repeat for airport names, codes
Ads CTR Conv Rate
To <city> 2.9% 1.8%
From <city> 2.3% 1.5%
<city> to <city> 4.1% 3.6%
Geo-targeted campaigns to city:
Keywords:
• Flights to Munich
• Cheap airline to Rome
Result: Every city should have 14,400 ad groups
AdAlysis

27. •Airport names > City or airport codes: need airport name ad
groups
•Airport codes > City names or airport names: need airport code
ad groups
•Using city based campaigns outperforms national campaigns
when only destination is included in query.
•Perfect management:
Minimum: 360,000 ad groups
•Resources: 4 people
Result: “Best Structure” overwhelms resources
@bgTheory
More Testing
AdAlysis

28. @bgTheory
Final Initial Organization Due to Resource
ConstraintsCampaign Type # of cmp type Keyword Type Modifications Total Ad Groups
Country - Specific 6<city> to <city> None 9600
Country - Specific 6<airport code> to <airport code> None 9600
Country - Specific 6<airport name> to <airport name> None 9600
Country - Specific 6From <airport code> None 240
Country - Specific 6To <airport code> None 240
Country - Specific 6From <city> None 240
Country - Specific 6To <city> None 240
Country - Specific 6From <airport name> None 240
Country - Specific 6To <airport name> None 240
Country - Specific 6<city> to <city> Cheap / Deals 9600
Country - Specific 6<airport code> to <airport code> Cheap / Deals 9600
Country - Specific 6From <airport code> Cheap / Deals 240
Country - Specific 6To <airport code> Cheap / Deals 240
Country - Specific 6From <city> Cheap / Deals 240
Country - Specific 6From <airport name> Cheap / Deals 240
Country - Specific 6To <airport name> Cheap / Deals 240
Country - Specific 6To <city> Cheap / Deals 240
City - specific 10To <airport code> None 400
City - specific 10To <city> None 400
City - specific 10To <airport name> None 400
City - specific 10To <airport code> Cheap / Deals 400
City - specific 10To <city> Cheap / Deals 400
City - specific 10To <airport name> Cheap / Deals 400
City - specific 10Generic flight words None 10
City - specific 10Generic words (cheap flights) Cheap / Deals 10
Country - Generic 6Generic words (cheap flights) Multiples 150
Brand 1Brand Multiples 11
Total 23 53,461
AdAlysis

29. •If city has more than 500/conversions year – it gets a
campaign.
•RLSA is bid modifier only
•Using dynamic remarketing
•All ad groups labeled by match type to ensure proper structure
Cannot use anything but exact and phrase in <city> to <city>
campaigns.
@bgTheory
Ongoing Rules
AdAlysis

30. @bgTheory
Close Variant Matches
Query Type Conv Rate Average Order
Value
Blue Widgets (plural) 2.3% $673
Blue Widget
(singular)
2.9% $81
Small Accounts > Often ignore as managing plurals & singulars are
very difficult and increases management time significantly with little
returns.
Large Accounts > Take advantage of this and split out singulars &
plurals by campaign for bid purposes.
AdAlysis

31. @bgTheory
Discovery / Managed Structure
AdAlysis

32. @bgTheory
The Results
0
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
Not managing hero terms Managing hero terms
Conversions / Month
AdAlysis

33. @bgTheory
Why? Improper Definition of Hero Term
A Hero Term (for them) is:
• 35 impressions / month
• 2 conversions / month
For 3 consecutive months
AdAlysis

34. @bgTheory
Post Process Definition
0
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
14,000
Not managing hero terms Managing hero terms Process Defination
Conversions / Month
AdAlysis

35. When Best Practices Fail
Failures Due to Exceptions
@bgTheoryAdAlysis

36. @bgTheory
Best Practice: Don’t Send All Traffic to the
Homepage
AdAlysis

37. @bgTheory
Search + GDN (non-remarketing) Conversion Data
$0.00
$2.00
$4.00
$6.00
$8.00
$10.00
$12.00
$14.00
$16.00
Cost/Conversion Conversion Rate
Conversion Data
Home Page City Landing Page
AdAlysis

38. @bgTheory
Can’t Beat the Home Page for Search
Search
Conversion
Rate
Display
Conversion
Rate
Search CPA Display CPA
Home Page 16.68 6.55 $13.35 $13.34
City Landing Page 9.48 11.1 $19.99 $8.99
AdAlysis

39. @bgTheory
Lowering QS on Purpose
0.00%
0.50%
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3.50%
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Quality Score
Conversion Rates by Quality Score
AdAlysis

40. @bgTheory
B2B vs B2C Ads
AdAlysis

41. 1. Enter name
2. Enter zip
3. Choose data type
4. Enter email
5. System ‘looks up
data’
 Showed benefits of data
while ‘looking up info’
@bgTheory
Speed To Conversion
0.00%
1.00%
2.00%
3.00%
4.00%
5.00%
6.00%
7.00%
0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 150 175 190 205 220 215
Seconds Waiting
Conversion Rates by Seconds Before Conversion
Option Displayed
AdAlysis

42. @bgTheory
Changing Broad Match to Modified Broad
Broad Match Modified Broad Only
Conversions 3401 2591
Conversion Rate 2.71 3.14
2.4
2.5
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3
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ConversionRate
Conversions
AdAlysis

43. Search term
‫وظائف‬florist
‫موقع‬flower shop
‫باص‬ ‫تعرف‬ ‫منو‬flower shop
‫موقع‬ ‫عن‬ ‫معلومات‬florist
‫دبي‬ ‫قوديفا‬godiva dubai
‫عنوان‬shimmerygifts in doubai
‫وباليز‬ ‫والمكسيك‬ ‫غواتيماال‬ ‫في‬ ‫مايو‬ ‫دي‬ ‫فلور‬ ‫والصور‬ ‫روبي‬delivery
dubai
‫موقع‬ ‫حول‬ ‫آراء‬http dubaiflowers ae
‫اسعار‬only roses dubai
‫اسعار‬godiva‫مول‬ ‫دبي‬
‫دبي‬ ‫في‬ ‫ورد‬ ‫ارسال‬send flowers in dubai
@bgTheory
Why? Multi-Lingual Queries
AdAlysis

44. •Long tail
•Small GEOs
•“Target & Bid” RLSAs
•“Target & Bid” Customer match
•Capturing everything possible
•Research
@bgTheory
Good Broad Match Uses
AdAlysis

45. •Best practices are great starting places
•There are many exceptions:
Most are due to simplifying complex problems
They may (rightfully so) be ignored due to resource constraints
There are some (but not many) actual exceptions to ignoring them
completely
@bgTheory
Wrap-Up
AdAlysis

46. Thank You! Hero Conf
Let’s Connect
@bgTheory
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Software
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