It’s important to continually learn about your campaigns and improve them. You do this by evaluating how your ads, keywords and targeting choices are performing. This fine-tuning process is called campaign optimization.
Below you’ll find the important steps you should take if you want your campaign to flourish. Some of these steps can be repeated throughout the campaign for constant progress, while others are a one-time tweak whose importance is sometimes neglected. This training gives you an overview of the tools necessary for optimizing your SelfAdvertiser campaigns.
#1 Define Your Targets
Every optimization has to be performed against a certain target. It all depends on the targets you’re trying to achieve, which of course will be the foundation of your optimization process. Only after you’ve defined your target audience will you be able to compare it to your campaign/ad group/keyword/ad and see if there’s a match.
#2 Track the Right Things
It’s very important to measure and track your campaign data. SelfAdvertiser.com makes tracking performance and per-traffic-source optimization possible by using dynamic URL tags (tracking tokens). These are special keywords you can use in the URL field when creating a campaign. They'll be replaced with the actual information during the ad serving process.
#3 Improve as you go
Optimization doesn’t just happen by itself during your advertising campaign, you need to adjust your campaign based on generated data. To do more of what works and less of what doesn't, , close unwanted sources and raise the bids for the converting ones, to increase their potential. Is your campaign going so well that you've increased sales? You can always extend it to make sure you earn even more.
#4 Understanding Statistics
Taking full advantage of all the available performance reports is the fourth component in campaign optimization. In your account, you have statistical reports available for each active campaign. You can view statistics for all of your campaign groups, per selected group and per campaign. Once you run these reports, you’ll be better informed about how your campaign is performing and be able to make adjustments as needed.
#5 Keyword Optimization
Keyword research never stops. Seasonal businesses require even more vigilance, don’t lose business opportunities by missing keyword opportunities. Our Keywords Tool allows you to explore the available keywords inventory and provides suggestions for keywords that contain the words you typed into the search box. This enables you to find new high traffic-volume keywords you might have not thought about so you can get more accurately targeted traffic to your ads.
#6 Control Your Budget
To maximize profitability, every dollar must be allocated effectively. The more control you have on what you can spend your budget on, the more you will be able to get rid of what does not work and focus your resources on. SelfAdvertiser’s Daily Budget per Source, enables you to define the maximum daily budget you want to spend on a single source. Once it is profitable, the source can be scaled to a larger budget/bid.
#7 Set Up a Frequency Cap
A single ad, especially a single creative ad, should not be served to the same person too many times. Doing that risks being boring and annoying to your audience. This may vary from market to market, but the general conclusion is that you should serve an ad to a visitor exactly four times. The first time, the ad will probably be ignored. The second time, they’ll notice it. By the third time, they’ll find it interesting but not enough to click, which is what usually happens on the fourth serving.
#8 Should You Bid More by Time of Day? Absolutely
Not all hours of your business day are created equal. In other words, some hours of the day may convert better than others. Make sure to set your ‘Day Parting’ and we'll get your ads to the relevant audience at the right time.
Closing Comments
Optimizing campaigns to reach your marketing objectives is not a one-time endeavor. It is a constant process of testing, executing, analyzing, brainstorming, rinsing, and repeating. It is much more than choosing the right keywords and ditching those that don’t convert. Understanding your audience, as well as keeping a close eye on the latest trends in the industry. These are all important steps you must do to make sure your campaigns are optimized. It’s time to embrace the data and technology you have available and start optimizing your digital advertising campaigns. We are certain your campaigns will pass with flying colors.
For more useful information on how to make the most out of our platform, visit our Support Center.
As always, SelfAdvertiser's support team is available for any questions or feedback at support@selfadvertiser.com