Introduction
Whether your campaigns are freshly launched or have been running for a while, optimizations are key for long-term success. You can optimize on a Campaign, Creative, and Keyword level.
To make performance optimizations as efficient as possible, we highly suggest using OddBytes tracking capabilities so that conversion data is readily available in the platform. There are two ways to accomplish this:
Placing an OddBytes pixel for real-time tracking.
Uploading conversions into the OddBytes Platform via our Conversion Import Tool or Email Import option.
There are many adjustments you can make within the platform to grow or optimize your Campaign. You will want to decide your course of action based on current Campaign performance. We suggest optimizing on a Month to Date (MTD) basis, with at least seven days’ worth of data to create a blended optimization approach. Blending performance over weeks and months helps account for day to day performance fluctuations, while still reaching your target goals. For example, if the MTD CPA is below your Target/Goal CPA (TCPA), you may want to focus on growth instead of cutting down traffic. However, if the MTD CPA is above your TCPA, then more aggressive optimizations should be made, especially if the true CPA is significantly above the TCPA.
Below are a few optimization recommendations, ones even our own Account Managers use. However, this is not a conclusive list and the order and frequency with which you implement them can vary based on your Campaign's needs and goals.
Best Practices
Please Note: The below Best Practices are recommendations; implementing any of them does not guarantee that your Campaigns will be successful.
1. Bid Adjustments
Increase Bids: It is important to increase Max Bid(s) to increase a Keyword’s competitiveness for Keyword(s) that are either performing well or have little traffic and costs (i.e. total cost less than the TCPA).
A Keyword’s Win Rate and Average Rank is useful to look at to see how you compare against your competition and determine how much more to bid up.
Increasing bids for low-spending Keywords will help you collect data and test the performance for that keyword. Once there is sufficient statistical significance for a Keyword, you can determine what to do next - pause it out or adjust the bid.
Decrease Bids: When a Keyword gets too expensive or has an average CPA that is higher than your TCPA, you may want to consider decreasing the Max Bid to receive more cost effective traffic.
Using your Campaign’s conversion data within the OddBytes Platform, you can use the “Set to Allowable Bid” function to automatically set the Max Bid(s) to the maximum CPV or CPC to maintain profitability based on the number of conversions and TCPA (in the selected date range).
Please note: the TCPA needs to be set on the Campaign or Creative level for the Allowable Bid feature to work.
For instructions on how to change Max Bids, please click here.
2. Pause Keywords
Zero Conversions: Keywords which have spent equal to or greater than your TCPA are considered “bleeders”. These Keywords can drive up the overall CPA and should be paused.
High CPA: If a Keyword has received conversions but at too high of a CPA, and cannot be blended into the overall CPA for the Campaign, the Keyword should be paused.
Slow Delivery: You can also pause Keywords if your Campaign/Creative has been active for a longer period time (i.e. 6 months) and you are looking to improve your overall CPA.
We recommend pausing Keywords that have not converted over longer periods of time, but have been spending slowly (i.e. last 30 days, last three months, year to date, all time).
3. Pause Campaigns/Creatives
When a Campaign or Creative begins to consistently underperform, despite general and advanced optimization efforts, we recommend pausing it and implementing a “refresh”. This means testing a new version of the Creative(s) (new landing page, new Lightbox creative, updated Headline, etc).
We highly recommend allowing enough time for the optimizations to take effect before making the decision to pause. Generally, 3-5 days is sufficient to gather enough statistical significance, however the timing could be shorter or longer depending on your daily run rates.
4. Retest Campaigns/Creatives/Keywords
If you’re looking for more volume, or even if it’s a brand new month, we suggest resuming Campaigns, Creatives and/or Keywords that have been paused for 3+ months due to poor performance.
The network landscape is constantly shifting, so Campaigns, Creatives and/or Keywords that under-performed in the past may perform better today.
To help in selection of what to retest, our recommendation is to choose Campaigns, Creatives and/or Keywords that performed successfully at one point.
Resume Keyword(s) at a lower Max Bid bid (i.e. Opening Bid) and gradually increase Max Bid(s) during the retesting phase to test for performance.
5. Placement Targeting
Blocking Poorly Performing Domains
Pull a Targeted Domain report using the Main Report to analyze performance on a referring domain level.
The report can be pulled at an account level, but also on the Campaign or Creative level depending on the granularity you want to analyze the data.
Improve Campaign performance by excluding domains that are negatively impacting your profitability via Placement Targeting.
Adding Positively Performing Domains
Pull a Targeted Domain report using the Main Report tool to identify domains that are performing well for your Campaign.
Increase traffic on domains that perform well by adding them as Keywords, if they are not already in your existing Keyword list.
For more information on Placement Targeting, click here.
If you prefer automated optimizations, check out our CPA Optimizer for a hands off approach. Please note: to be eligible for the CPA optimizer, you will need to have consistent conversion data and a Target CPA set in the platform.
If you have any questions or would like additional optimization recommendations, please reach out to [email protected] or your designated Account Representative (if applicable) and we would be happy to provide some more guidance.