Whether you're looking to ramp up volume or increase ROI, you'll find tips to help you find success.
Start out on the right foot.
Before optimizing, it's important to make sure you aren't making any common mistakes. If you haven't already read our article on best practices for targeting, that's a good place to start.
Put it to the test!
In general, the best way to optimize any campaign is by testing changes and analyzing your data over time. The longer you run your campaigns, the more reliable your data will be, and the better it will be for testing.
The tests you run and the optimization changes you make will depend on your goals.
If you want more volume...
The more volume you get, the more clicks and conversions you're eligible for. Increasing volume also helps you accumulate data more quickly so you can spot better trends and have more accurate results when you test. Here are some ways you can increase volume to your campaign:
Add more targets to cast a wider net. Learn more about Pops targeting.
Monitor your impressions over time and make sure you're bidding competitively enough, especially on highly competitive targets.
Try increasing or removing frequency caps, conversion caps, and custom dayparting.
If you consistently reach your daily budget cap, increase or remove your budget to keep the traffic flowing.
Expanding your reach to additional geos is a great way to get more volume.
TIP: View the Potential Daily Reach indicator in your Campaign Settings to view an estimated range of maximum impressions your campaign is eligible to receive per day based on your Geographic Targets, Platform & Device Targets, Default Base CPV, and Conversion Boost℠: Quality Tiers℠ sliders.
If conversions and ROI are your goal...
If you're not already doing so, you'll need set up conversion tracking before you can optimize.
With Conversion Boost℠: Quality Tiers℠, our machine-learning algorithm intelligently categorizes your traffic into three Quality Tiers based on your conversion likelihood. Customize your bids for each tier depending on the traffic you want.
Monitor conversions and ROI over time for each target, and bid competitively on those with the highest ROI that drive the most conversions and highest profits.
Pause, archive, or lower bids for targets with negative ROI.
Add two slightly different creatives, then pause the creative with the lower conversion rate after they've both gotten enough volume to determine a clear winner. Keep the creative with the higher conversion rate enabled and add another creative with a different change to continue the cycle of testing and optimizing.
Test different conversion caps to find what setting is most profitable.
Sometimes, users need to see an ad several times before they'll convert. Test different frequency caps to see what setting increases your campaign's conversion rate the most.
Use tracking macros to pass performance data to your third-party tracking platform, then refine your campaign based on the type of traffic that converts best. For example: If you find certain types of users tend to convert well (for example, users in certain geos using certain browsers, devices, or operating systems), you could target those users in a separate campaign and raise your bids to reach more of that audience.
Performance can vary depending on the user's browser, device type, mobile device model, operating system, mobile carrier, and connection type. Customize your campaign's Platform & Device Targets to target the perfect mix of traffic.
Opt for a landing page instead of a homepage as your creative URL. Users who are taken to a page that directly relates to your keyword or target is more likely to convert than a user who has to click around to find relevant content.
Append the {channel} macro to your creative URLs to track channel performance, then enable or pause channels based on performance.
Use the {domain} macro to track the domains that your targets are matching. Add any high-converting domains as domain targets with increased bids to maximize their volume. If any high-volume domains aren't converting, add them as blacklisted domains.
Increase conversions with Blackballer! Blackballer intelligently pauses any channels and blacklists any sub-IDs and domains that have not received conversions after sufficient testing. You can enable Blackballer on your campaign’s Settings page.