Today I will take you through various possibilities of Google Ads, the existence of which is not known to everyone. Interesting!
If you have been involved in the SEA profession for years, you will know these possibilities. But as a less experienced user, you might miss some of the hidden parts of the interface.
No worries – I’m going to help you! In this blog, you will discover a number of lesser-known features within Google Ads that can help you make your marketing activities even better.
Advanced control technology of Google Ads
Sometimes you just have to look for those parts. There are all kinds of features and possibilities that hide, simply waiting to be discovered.
Such a hidden tool is the advanced control function. To find them, navigate to Tools & Settings > Strategies. Next, look for the button labeled “advanced controls”.
Once you’ve found it, you can adjust two things: Data exclusions and Seasonal adjustments
With data exclusions, you can exclude certain data from the total dataset. This can be useful if there has been a measurement problem or if you want to exclude certain outliers that cause noise in the algorithm.
The data remains visible but is no longer included by the Google Ads algorithm.
With a measurement issue, it may be that the algorithm has become upset.
If you suddenly measure twice as much turnover, that is a signal for your bidding strategy to start bidding. While this is actually not the case at all. Data exclusions ensure that this is resolved.
The other functionality is seasonal customization.
This method allows you to adjust bids during upcoming events, such as a sale or promotion.
Only use seasonal adjustments if you expect a serious change in conversion rates, as “Smart Bidding” already manages seasonal events.
Seasonal adjustments are ideal for short events of one to seven days. They don’t work as well if you use them for longer periods of time (more than fourteen days at a time).
If an event is coming that you think could benefit from seasonal adjustments, be sure to take advantage of it.
You say to Google: “Please note, I expect a peak in sales coming, do you make sure you are ready?”.
Automatic extensions
The next tip is really hugely well-hidden. And actually, we think Google doesn’t want you to use it either:
Automatic extension settings.
Google increasingly makes its own dynamic extensions or copy, fully automatic. However, these automatic extensions often do not correspond at all to the corporate identity or message that you want to convey. You can also just pause it.
First, navigate to Extensions > Summary. Scroll down to automated extensions and press the three dots with ‘more’ on the right. Here you click on ‘Advanced settings’ and voilà , there they are.
All ready to be turned off.
So don’t get frustrated, remember that you have the power to change them!
Item library
The item library is actually not hidden. But so little use is made of it that I take it with me.
It’s like a drive where you can store all your images and banners grouped together. In the item library, you can create your own folders. For example, easily sort your footage based on seasons/promotions, etc.
Do you use a lot of different content? Then this is a very nice tool!
The ‘Make video’ function is quite hidden here. You’ll find it under the same heading.
This way you can immediately make a beautiful video of your images. Which can be useful for Performance Max.
Migration tool Performance Max
Performance Max?
A little SEA specialist has known for a few months that this is coming.
Google is constantly changing the way we do things.
Sometimes it involves small things, such as a new button or layout in the interface. But sometimes it’s a big change that affects the way we work every day.
For some a curse, for others a blessing. Whatever you think about it, you will have to learn to work with it.
Google will automatically convert the Smart Shopping campaigns, but you can already do this yourself. Go to your Shopping campaigns, click on the recommendations, and voilà there is the one-click migration tool from Google.
Note: you still have to add a few things yourself, but it is an easy way to keep your current Smart Shopping set-up.
If you’re like most marketers, you’ve probably cursed Performance Max at least once. We don’t get a lot of information about the distribution of expenses by channel.
We challenge you to dive into the ‘reports’ tab and see what insights you can find.
The first step is to get a better understanding of where your money is going.
So go ahead, take the plunge and see what you can discover about the performance of your Performance Max campaign.
Portfolio bidding strategy in Google Ads
Old school, but still alive and working: the portfolio of bidding strategies.
Portfolio bidding is a great way to manage multiple campaigns at the same time.
It’s very simple: where you normally use one strategy per campaign, here you use one bidding strategy for multiple Google Ads campaigns together.
Now we come to the hidden part. You can still work with a maximum CPC under advanced settings.
For example, you can set up a tCPA or tROAS where you determine your maximum click price yourself. This is not possible with a separate bidding strategy.
Spoiler Alert: tCPA and tROAS will be phased out to convert and maximize conversion value.
There is a good chance that with this phase-out, this tool will eventually disappear.
Customer value
Ready for the first step towards CLV?
Then think about optimizing customer value over the past 12 months. This option is located under ‘Added value for the customer under the tab ‘Measurement’.
You can see here exactly how many weeks a customer is on average. But also how much the average customer generates in terms of turnover over a longer period of time.
Easily see the distribution between your valuable customers, average customers, and one-time customers. Think about how a strategy increases the share of valuable customers and analyze whether the strategy works.
6 great tips to get started!
Have you implemented everything? And are you looking for more? Coincidentally already heard about reporting conversions with cart data and costs_of_goods_sold? There are always new things to discover in Google Ads. That’s what makes the profession so beautiful. Please contact us if we can help you with anything!\
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