17 Checks to Do Before Restarting Google Ads Campaigns
Restarting Google ads campaigns after a long time?
There are few checks that will help you during this transition. In this blog post we will discuss;
- 17 Checks to do before restarting a paused Google Ads campaign
- What to expect during the first few days
- Tips to fix performance issues
- What to do if you are using automated bidding
- 9 Checks to do after first week to improve performance
17 Checks to Do before Restarting Google Ads Campaigns
These checks are very important if you are restarting your campaigns after a long time.
Pausing a campaign will take it out of it’s steady state. This disruption can have a negative impact on campaign performance when it is restarted.
For some, this transition will be easy. But for some, extra care and adjustments will be needed.
I wish you could get a chance to go through these checklists and tips before restarting your Google Ads campaigns.
These are the 17 checks that ideally you should be doing before restarting your campaigns.
- Check the landing page.
- Review content on the page.
- Check the lead forms.
- Do a test purchase if you are selling products.
- Check ad status.
- Check ad messages.
- Check keyword status.
- Check all ad extensions.
- Check sitelink extensions.
- Check callout extensions.
- Check location extensions.
- Check promotion extensions and price extensions.
- Check ad scheduling.
- Check ad extension scheduling.
- Remarketing lists.
- Daily budget and bids.
- Check account balance.
Find more guidance about each check below.
Check the landing page (or website)
Make sure it is functioning as expected. If you find any issues, contact your developer and fix it. Check the page load speed and ensure the page is loading fast. Check the landing page on mobile devices and make sure it is working properly, without any problems.
Review the content
Check the whole content and remove any information that is out-dated. Update offers and discounts if needed. You may not want to continue with previous offers or you may want to give your customers a new offer – update your page. Recheck all the headings and ensure they are relevant. Check reviews and testimonial sections and ensure they are error free.
Check the lead forms
Test your lead generation forms and confirm that you are getting the leads in the designated email IDs.
Do a test purchase if you are selling products
Make sure the entire purchase funnel is working properly and the payment gateway is working fine. Update the product inventory (Stock, prices, discounts).
Update shipping information if there is any change or if you are expecting slight delays in delivery in some cases. Check the terms and conditions and return policy information. Make changes if needed.
Check your ad status
Are they still approved? Google periodically checks all ads in an account, even if the campaign is paused. And if the checks find any issue, your ads will be disapproved. So check all your ads and make sure they are approved.
Check your ad message
Another important thing is your ad message. Your old ad message may not be relevant any more. So make necessary changes. Update prices, offers, shipping information and any part of your ad message that you want to change. Include new offers and discounts if you have.
Check keyword status
Check the status of your keywords too, especially that of your best performing keywords.
Check all ad extensions
Check all ad extensions like you check your ads. Ensure the information included in all extensions are relevant now. Make changes as per your new offers and ad message. More information about individual ad extension checks below.
Check sitelink extensions
Sitelink extensions are not just like other ad extensions. These extensions include a link to an important page on your website.
Ensure all these pages are working well and the titles and descriptions are up-to-date. Check the content on each page and update the content if required. If you are changing your ad message, check if a more suitable sitelink option is available on your site.
Check callout extensions
Callout extensions can be used include a lot of different messages with an ad. Like price, offers, shipping information, discounts and more. Remove out-dated information and update all callout extensions as per your new offers and advertising message.
Check location extensions
Check and update your Google My Business account. Update your business hours and phone numbers if needed. This will ensure that, accurate information is displayed with your location extensions.
Check promotion extensions and price extensions
You may be running promotion or price extensions. It is important to update these extensions as per new offers and price.
Check ad scheduling
If you are using ad scheduling, it is important to review it. Recheck the time you are running your ads. This must be aligned with your business hours and needs.
Check ad extension scheduling
It is equally important to check scheduled time of your ad extensions, especially that of call extensions. Ideally your call extensions should be visible with your ads only during the business hours, when someone is available to pick the calls.
Remarketing lists
If you are running remarketing campaigns, check your remarketing list size. If you are using a small membership duration and if you pause your campaigns for a long time, chances are there that the list size may fall below the minimum requirement.
If this happens, your remarketing lists will not serve ads till the minimum list size requirement is met.
You must have a minimum of 100 active users in the display and Gmail remarketing lists, and a minimum 1000 active users in the search remarketing lists to serve ads.
Daily budget and Bids
Also check your daily budget and keyword bids. Make sure the bids and budget is high enough to effectively reach your target audience.
Account balance
Check your account balance and ensure you have sufficient balance in the account. If you are using automatic billing, ensure that all the dues are paid and you have valid/active credit card attached to your payment profile.
What to Expect During the First Few Days after Restarting Your Google Ads Campaigns
Pausing, that too for a long period can be unsettling for many campaigns.
Pausing a campaign for long time takes it out of its steady state. And this can impact performance when you restart the campaign.
Not always, but it can happen.
Your campaign might have been performing very well before you paused it, but there is no guarantee that you will get the same kind of performance when you restart that campaign.
And if you are one of those who gets the same level or improved level of performance from day one when restart you Google ads campaigns, consider yourself lucky.
Digital marketing gods are smiling on you. Continue your march towards success and business growth!
And if you campaign performance is not good as expected; consider the tips below to improve performance.
Best Practices and Tips to Fix Performance Issues
If you are not getting expected results from your campaigns when you re-enable them, there are few things you need to check.
Pro tip: Do not panic if the performance is bad during the initial days after re-enabling your campaigns. Do not make frequent or drastic changes to your old campaigns. This could completely destroy it.
- It can take few days to get the campaigns to settle down (usually 5 to 7 days) and reach its previous level of performance when you restart it after a long time.
- To give your campaigns initial momentum, try bidding high and increase daily budget limit during the first few days when you restart the campaigns, if you are using manual bidding.
- Use Google Trends and check current trends (a free tool, you can access it here). If your industry is going through a downward trend, that will affect your campaign performance too.
- Check the search volume of your keywords in Google Ads keyword tool. Check if there is any big fluctuation.
- New competition can emerge in your market. Check your auction insight report to find new competitors. Also check you impression share. A low impression share usually indicates more competition. You may need to bid high, if you competition increases.
- Consider seasonality effect, if your product or service is affected by it. Check the performance data of same time last year to analyse trends.
What to Do if You are Using Automated Bidding Strategies
If you are using automated bidding, there are chances that the system will again reset to learning mode. And your campaign performance will suffer. Your average cost per click will fluctuate a lot during this period.
Automated bid strategies depend on past data in you accounts to make optimization decisions. When you pause a campaign, the inflow of data stops. Once this happens, it will be difficult for the Artificial Intelligence engine to make the right decisions. This will push the campaign back to learning stage.
Consider these strategies;
- Give the campaign some time to go through the learning phase and slowly the campaign performance will settle down and improve.
- You can also try adjusting your smart bidding targets, to give the system more room to learn fast.
What to do if performance is not improving at all or you are struggling to get impressions after restarting Google Ads campaigns?
Then consider the present situation as an opportunity to reset and test everything again.
Switch you campaigns to manual bidding. Increase your daily budget and bid high during the first few days to build momentum.
Continuously monitor performance, make changes where needed, test and optimize the campaign for better performance (ideally for a month). Then if you have enough conversions, you can switch your campaign back to a suitable automated bid strategy.
9 Checks to Do after the First Week to Improve Campaign Performance
- Check impression share
- Check click and conversion volume
- Check keywords performance
- Analyse ad performance
- Analyse auction insight reports
- Check device performance and click distribution
- Compare location performance
- Check demographic performance
- Check performance on search partner network
Check impression share
Compare your present impression share data with that of the previous period (before you paused the campaigns). You may have to adjust your budget and bids based on new data.
Click and conversion volume
Compare performance with that of previous period. Make adjustments as needed.
Check keyword performance
Check past and present performance of your best converting keywords. Adjust bids based on current results. Check if any previous best performers are dropping in performance and check if there are new keywords that are emerging as new winners.
Thoroughly check the search term report. Find if there is any emerging trend. Add irrelevant search terms as negative keywords.
Analyse ad performance
You may need new ad messages, offers and discounts in the changed circumstances. Update your ads as needed. Test new ad variations.
Compare your ads with that of your competitors. Make necessary changes if required.
Findings from your search query report analysis will also help you in fine tuning your ad message if there is a new trend.
Analyse auction insight reports
Auction insight report is the easiest way to find new competitors. Periodically analyse this report and make necessary changes in your campaign strategies.
Check device performance and click distribution
Compare your campaign performance (with previous data) on different devices. Check conversion rate.
Check for impressions/click/conversions volume changes on different devices (computers, mobile devices and tablets). Use device bid modifiers to make bid adjustments.
Compare location performance
Compare location wise performance with the help of previous data. Ensure you are allocating most of your advertising budget to the best performing locations.
Check demographic performance
Different demographics can respond to new marketing conditions in different ways. Keep an eye on this segment and alter your advertising message if needed.
Check performance on search partner network
If you have search partners enabled in your campaign targeting, evaluate the performance periodically. Performance can vary drastically on the search network and search partner network.
There is no way to separately optimize search partner network performance. But you can exclude it from targeting if the performance is not good.
Conclusion
I really hope these tips will help you in restarting your Google Ads campaigns and optimize them with ease.
I would like hear from you. Is there a step that you would like to add in the ‘restarting’ process? or do you have a specific challenge in your campaign?
Let me know.
And share this content to your friends, family and community, if you think this is going to help them.