We might not be at risk of an AI take over just yet. But Google is slowly bringing in their machine learning into AdWords PPC management, and from September 25th there will be major changes to Google AdWords ad rotation options. So, are paid search marketers slowly being encouraged to hand the reins of their beloved campaigns over to the machines…?
What is Ad Rotation in Google AdWords?
Ad rotation is the way your ads are delivered on both the Search Network and display network. If you have more than one ad in an ad group, your ads will rotate because only one ad can be shown at a time. The setting you choose will determine how often you’d like certain ads in your ad group to be served.
What exactly is changing to AdWords ad rotation?
Currently, Google AdWords PPC marketers have a variety of options available to them to optimise ad rotation. With many opinions on how you should use these options to get the most out of your campaigns.
Google is putting an end to this debate by simplifying ad rotation to two settings. These are “Optimize: Prefer best performing ads” and “Do not optimize: Rotate ads indefinitely”.
current ad rotation options:
Ad rotation settings will now be available at the ad level, allowing advertisers to have increased granular control over campaigns.
Who will be affected by the Ad rotation change?
This change will affect all accounts from the 25th September onwards, for all campaigns using “optimize for clicks”, “optimize for conversions” or “rotate evenly” settings. It will also affect those using an automated bidding strategy: Enhanced CPC, target CPA or target ROAS. Though all campaigns using “rotate indefinitely” will be unaffected.
These are all common ad rotation & bidding strategies, to find out if any of your campaigns use one of these strategies look in the settings tab in your AdWords campaign.
Best practices to make use of the “optimise: best performing ads” ad rotation
To make the best use of the “optimise: best performing ads” ad rotation is to move away from A/B testing ads, and instead run at least three ads per ad group and let the machine learning choose the best ad rotation for conversions.
Why the changes to ad rotation?
Google is always updating the AdWords platform to benefit both PPC marketers and Google users. This is among many recent updates including expanded text ads.
Find out more about expanded text ads - Google Adwords - New Expanded Text Ads!
These changes are in line with googles approach of improving usability from the perspective of both a user and an Advertiser. They have done this by improving the user experience and by helping advertisers to increase their return on ad spend (ROAS) through AdWords campaigns. Google are also slowly pushing their machine learning technology into the AdWords platform, this could be the start of more similar updates.
If you would like to discuss your Google AdWords or other PPC campaigns with us, our PPC team are more than happy to provide you with recommendations, provide a PPC management service or set-up an effective Google AdWords campaign that maximises your return on your investment.