Running a Google Ads campaign can seem like its it's half art and half science. It seems to me that the "art" part of that equation is just experience built over time. When you've been running campaigns for years you get a sense of what a good campaign looks like. The science part is easier to explain. On this page I describe one of the ways I evaluate an account. Full disclosure, this method is based on Brad Geddes excellent work.
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Raw Keyword Data
The first step is gathering the data. Time frame depends on the account but it should be long enough to have a good set of numbers. The goal is to understand how each ad group is performing so adjustments can be made based on the overall health of the ad group.
Simple Pivot Table
After gathering the data. I want to know the average quality score of each ad group and how much I spent for the time frame. In the table to the right I see that I spent too much on the "Example" ad group and that it has a low quality score. One of the things I would look at to determine why the low quality score is if the keywords, ads and landing page are tightly related.
Extended Pivot Table
There is so much more insights that can be extracted from the initial table. I've touched on quality score, but what about impressions? How does quality score relate to impressions and is the ad group creating value?
Pivot Tables are FUN!
There are so many different ways a pivot table can be used to evaluate data, and there is a ton of videos and tutorials on how to do it. YouTube alone has thousands of tutorials.
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