3 ms·

Our company spent over $3mm last year and this article is spot on. On the Adwords side it really is that simple - test tons of creatives and use CPA bidding. T

Our company spent over $3mm last year and this article is spot on. On the Adwords side it really is that simple - test tons of creatives and use CPA bidding. The third party services aren't much help. Google has a lot of great in-house support to ramp up your Adspend once you get noticed. Not sure what the target is, but we seem to get a new rep every few months who has new suggestions. I have no experience with Youtube, but that is highly interesting. If Adwords isn't working for you, there is a ton to dive into. Could be your website, could be your product. If you have a competitor obviously succeeding in the space with heavy Adwords spend the fault is probably on your end (unless they're just pissing away money, but how long does that go on for?).

steeleyespan 6y ago
On that note, expect to lose money initially while optimizing your website & waiting for enough CPA data to accrue. I give it at least a month and $5-10k spend before seriously considering killing the campaign (if starting from scratch). Very different from taking something already successful but mismanaged - this can be a lot easier to ramp off if they're making big mistakes (like not actually mobile optimized, not CPA bidding, not actually actively optimizing the website's funnel/landing page).
- nicklafferty 6y ago
  This is spot on! When I first transitioned those campaigns from eCPC to tCPA there was a big learning period. As the campaigns scaled and collected more data the actual CPA started aligning closely with the target CPA, but it took some time. The more conversions you do the faster that alignment will happen. After 2+ years on tCPA (and many behind the scenes improvements to the Algo by Google), I could get that delta to match within 3-4 days of making a change to the target CPA. That was with thousands of conversions a day though, so scale absolutely helps.

steeleyespan 6y ago

On that note, expect to lose money initially while optimizing your website & waiting for enough CPA data to accrue. I give it at least a month and $5-10k spend before seriously considering killing the campaign (if starting from scratch). Very different from taking something already successful but mismanaged - this can be a lot easier to ramp off if they're making big mistakes (like not actually mobile optimized, not CPA bidding, not actually actively optimizing the website's funnel/landing page).

nicklafferty 6y ago
This is spot on! When I first transitioned those campaigns from eCPC to tCPA there was a big learning period. As the campaigns scaled and collected more data the actual CPA started aligning closely with the target CPA, but it took some time. The more conversions you do the faster that alignment will happen. After 2+ years on tCPA (and many behind the scenes improvements to the Algo by Google), I could get that delta to match within 3-4 days of making a change to the target CPA. That was with thousands of conversions a day though, so scale absolutely helps.