August 10, 2020

Google Ads Production Tasks

Published by
Vasilios Lambos

Digital Marketing Expert helping brands scale with performance marketing.

What are Google Ads Production Tasks?

Production tasks are pre-defined paid search tasks and analyses. They are done with specific parameters in mind and generally apply to all paid search accounts. Production calendars are established to ensure that these important tasks are done on a consistent basis, as is expected. They help maintain a standard of functional excellence.

Production Calendar Structure

The production calendar is broken up into two types of tasks: Performance and setting/set-up tasks

Performance production tasks are specific analyses that need to be done on consistent basis to effectively manage performance of a paid search account.

Setting/set-up tasks are done to ensure that everything in your account is still set up as you intended; with so many changes being made in our accounts, it's important that various settings are periodically audited to protect accounts from avoidable errors.

Task Frequency

This is how often a particular task/analysis is expected to be done, at minimum to ensure active paid search management. Feel free to do these tasks on a more frequent basis, especially if you're launching new keywords/campaigns.

Example Calendar

google ads production task calendar
Google Ads Production Task Calendar

Performance Topics & Frequency

performance calendar tasks
Performance Calendar Tasks

CPA Analysis

CPA (cost per acquisition) is one of the most important indicators to measure when optimizing paid search performance and spend efficiency. This metric will help you and the team decide how to throttle bid adjustments to achieve conversion goals and yield success as they pertain to the business KPIs.

CPA analysis is a very flexible analysis and can be calculated and analyzed in conjunction with a slew of segments within your Google Ads account. This includes calculating CPA at the campaign, ad group, keyword, demographic, and geographic level.

CPA = Cost/Conversions

Example of Paid Search CPA Performance Month over Month

conversions and cpa month over month
Conversions and CPA Month over Month

Day & Hour Parting Analysis

The Day & Hour Parting Analysis is a foundational analysis to drive better cost efficiency by setting bid adjustments in place to capitalize on the conversion rate and overall conversions during a particular time of day and week. Similar to CPA analysis this can be analyzed at many different levels. We recommend capturing the analysis on at least a 3-6 month time horizon.

If you have access to traffic performance outside of paid search i.e. Google Analytics, we encourage to pull conversion rate data for all traffic as the analysis will become more accurate with the inclusion of more data. Not all days and hours perform equally, and search intent can change drastically based on a multitude of factors we encourage to keep a close eye of this strategy as seasonality and competitive factors may influence this performance over time.

Example showing CVR by hour on an YTD horizon:

conversion rate by hour
Conversion Rate By Hour YTD

Low Search Volume Analysis

It is very common to come across "low search volume" keywords over the course of an account's lifecycle. It is important that as keywords are added and paused that you continue to audit for low search volume keywords at least on a monthly cadence.

The main issue with low search volume keywords is that they may in fact affect the overall quality score of the campaigns they are in and potentially drive unnecessary volume.

In what event would you keep a low volume keyword?

If the keyword is considered a "long tail" keyword and has both quality traffic and higher intent users you may have a case to keep this keyword active.

Many low search volume keywords may also be event and holiday driven. An example would be "labor day sale" which would like only have search intent around Labor Day.

Low Quality Score Audit

Quality score is Google's rating of the quality and relevance of both your keywords and PPC ads. It is used to determine your ad rank which is calculated by taking the max cost per click (CPC) bid and quality score.

The Low QS audit is important to identify because it will affect your overall spend efficiency due to its relation to your max CPC bid. Improving your quality score will in turn help drive higher ad rank which allows you to win higher position in auction with a lower max CPC bid.

Google does not provide the public with their "secret sauce" for the calculation of quality score but we can improve quality score by adding more relevant content to both our ad copy and landing page destinations.

Factors that impact Quality Score:

  1. CTR
  2. Ad Relevancy
  3. Landing page experience

How do we Improve Quality Score?

It is recommended to structure campaigns and ad groups into targeted categories. Ideally an account structure would leverage the SKAG methodology. Single Keyword Ad Group is where all ad groups and keywords are 1-1. This allows for maximum flexibility and personalization from keyword, ad copy, and landing page.

Ultimately, the more personalized and relevant the ad copy, the better the user experience will be.

Example of how to filter and identify low quality score:

low quality score google ads
Low Quality Score Example

Search Query Mining

The goal of search query mining is to ensure that the queries your ads appear on are relevant to the traffic you need for your business. This exercise is one of the most commonly executed tasks as queries and intent change every day. The goal for search query mining is two-fold. SQM drives overall efficiency by negating irrelevant keywords and increases overall traffic quality.

Time needed: 2 hours.

How to search query mine

  1. Keyword Selection Select all the keywords within the ad group you are looking to optimize.
  2. Analysis Begin by analyzing which queries are relevant or likely to convert.  
  3. Create Negative Keywords Add negative keywords that are high CPC and low converting keywords. You could set these negative keywords at the ad group level or add them to a bigger negative keyword list.
search term audit google ads
Search Term Audit Example

Impression Share Audit

Impression share audits are key to evaluating overall competitive and landscape changes in the search environment. Analyzing your campaign and ad group impression share and auction insights will help further contextualize full funnel performance.

We recommend to review the following metrics:

  • Search Impression Share - Overall impressions registered relative to budget, rank, and competition
  • Impressions share lost due to budget - Impression share lost due to overall max CPC and overall budget
  • Impression share lost due to rank - Impression share lost due to overall max CPC, quality score, and competition

Looking for an expert to help with your Google Ads management?

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