by brad
How to Set up a Google Instant Experiment for AdWords
6:53 am in AdWords Keyword Tool, PPC Info by brad
Google rolled out a massive change yesterday, called Google instant. You can see a brief video here about the feature.
If you watch closely when someone is typing, not only do the results change as you type, so do the ads.
The way impressions are counted will change. An impression will be counted when:
- The user begins to type a query on Google and clicks anywhere on the page (a search result, an ad, a spell correction, a related search).
- The user chooses a particular query by clicking the Search button, pressing Enter, or selecting one of the predicted queries.
- The user stops typing, and the results are displayed for a minimum of three seconds.
It’s the last one that might change your impressions dramatically. If you happen to have some 1-3 word keywords in your account that are in the suggestion bar, then your ads might also gather more clicks that previously.
The easiest way to quickly see instant results is to either type them into the Google search box or use Web Seer. If you happen to find another tool that lets you easily download search suggestion variations – please let me know.
If your willing to do some testing on these new suggestions (you have a bit of money to test with); do this:
- Choose a few of your root keywords (generally the 2 word variety)
- Type these words into Google instant or web seer
- Make a list of these words
- Break them into appropriate ad groups
- Enable ACE (AdWords Campaign Experiments)
- Create new ad groups with these words
- Make these brand new ad groups part of your experimental campaign
- Let the experiment collect data
- Measure the results
Do your new keywords just have lots of impressions and few clicks?
Do your new words have lots of clicks and few sales?
Did both clicks and conversions increase?
If you have good clients, telling them about this type of experiment and how you are already working on testing a brand new search system to see if you can gather more conversions for them the day after something launches often gets you bonus points.
Note for Certified Knowledge members: If you need help with this experiment; please post in the forums and I’ll make sure to reply to everyone. I’m going to do some testing with this method to try and measure click, volume, and conversion changes – and I’ll let everyone know about my results.
More resources on Google Instant:
Nice post, Brad! I suspect a ton of PPC folks are testing out adwords campaigns due to GI as we speak. In fact, I posted some thoughts on what some potential effects of GI on PPC would be this morning. Would love to hear your thoughts if you have some time – http://rbeale.com/ppc/google-instants-potential-effect-on-ppc-advertising/
Thanks, Brad
Ryan,
I commented on your blog post, but I’m not seeing it and there’s no message about moderation so not sure what’s up…
Anyway – here’s my comment:
Ryan,
I’m still going to be very careful about buying short words that might be a fragment of another word just to get an ad to show up quicker. The word ‘hub’ is so generic (USB Hub?) that I would approach that very cautiously.
However, I’m going to use ACE (http://certifiedknowledge.org/ppc-news/how-to-set-up-a-google-instant-experiment-for-adwords/) to try out some more generic terms, but with a low percentage served so I can watch the dollars and just extrapolate to actual volume.
I think we’re more likely to see a return of ads into the suggestion box (http://searchengineland.com/google-search-suggest-get-ads-links-answers-15821) than anything in the short term. However, this might really increase the PPC CTR as well.
On a 1024×768 monitor (I believe the most used in the states at present); if you have one toolbar installed and there are 2-3 ads in the premium spots, or a single universal listing, there isn’t any organic displayed on the page. It takes at least a 1280×960 resolution to see what you’re really getting on the screen.
One item I’m monitoring is browser resolution by SEO vs PPC CTR to see if I’m over analyzing this; or if I really do want to target certain device types differently.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
Hey Brad! Very interesting post. You know one thing I am concerned about is if impressions go up, clicks stay the same, what do you think will happen to the quality scores? Since CTR is such a big determining factor.
Do you think Google might alter the way quality scores are determined?
If there’s a consistent lowering of CTRs due to instant search that affects QS then I think Google will definitely take a look into that.
As everyone’s CTR should go down with the increase in impressions, not just a single advertiser – it should be easy for Google to spot those trends. But since everyone’s CTR should go down, even if QS also dropped, your CPC would remain consistent (assuming your QS didn’t drop enough that your ad stopped showing).
I don’t think the factors that make up QS will change; just how those factors are applied in the algos might change (as they do now every month or so).
Very interesting points – the best summary I’ve read on what do now that we have GI with real solutions. My concern is equally that of CTR going down due to more impressions, though as you say, this will effect all advertisers. However, with CTR going down so will QS so what will happen to Avg CPC – surely increase. GI is likely therefore to increase Google’s profits from Adwords.
Also, I am concerned with shorter-tail being rewarded over longer-tail, coupled with the fact that in most sectors the short-tailed keywords are more expensive and competitive. Google seems to have just found another way to reward those advertisers who stay on Adwords all year and also are happy to sponsor in stubby words. The problem is that most advertisers have learnt to root out the shorter tail over the last few years in order to invest in converting longer-tails.