Google Ads is a very dynamic and resource-intensive task to run. It’s always preferable for you to want to see returns as quickly as possible. However, good things indeed take time.
First, make sure you’re familiar with how Google Ads work…
Even if you’ve chosen good keywords, made up a good ad copy, and created a great landing page for conversions, you may not get conversions.
Google Ads can be difficult to start up, especially if you’re doing it on your own. And what qualifies as a measure of whether Google Ads are working?
Because of the complexity of Google Ads, it’s hard to provide a specific answer for all business situations.
First, let’s look at the short answer:
The Short Answer
You may start running Google Ads and start seeing clicks and conversions within the hour. You could also start running them and not get a single conversion for weeks.
It will commonly take weeks to get through data analysis and months to get through optimization.
However, there are many factors that change this time limit. First let’s look at the Google Ads learning period.
The Google Ads Learning Period
Google Ads may be able to start seeing returns as soon as they go up; however, there’s an optimization period where it takes time to learn what the best strategy is to get the most value out of your Google Ads.
There are many optimizations that can be made for Google Ads campaigns, but these changes must be data-driven. So, how long does it take to collect that data?
There is actually a period of time where you shouldn’t be making any changes to your Google Ads. This time period is 1-4 weeks after your initial launch, depending on factors we will discuss later.
Google Ads will automatically adjust to find the optimal targeting for what is and isn’t working based on the data collected.
So how can we start optimizing sooner?
Factors That Affect How Quickly Your Google Ads Work
Since there’s no one-size-fits-all, let’s look at what affects how quickly your Google Ads will work.
Here are some factors that impact your Google Ads Campaigns successfulness.
- Budget: Not having enough budget can reduce the amount of data you get for your Google Ads. Google Ads can be adjusted more easily with lots of data for keywords, CTR, etc.
- Industry & competition: Different industries have varying levels of competition. A niche with a high Cost Per Click takes longer to start working, since it can eat through your budget with no conversions until you land one big client, such as in law
- Campaign type: Selecting the right campaign type is very important for how quickly you see results. Search campaigns, for instance is one of the best options for seeing results from a focused campaign. Whereas Performance Max is one of the worst campaigns to start with, even though it’s one of the most powerful.
- Landing page quality: One of the easily neglected parts of Google Ads is how you convert clicks to cash, which is your landing page.
- Keyword strategy: Broad keywords tend to do well at getting clicks, but aren’t good for conversions. Whereas focused keywords can help gather data on what specific keywords work well for your business.
- Historical account data: Brand new accounts require much more time to establish and get off the ground, since there is no previous data or information to work off of. Having existing data from previous Campaigns can speed up how quickly new Campaigns start working.
Next, let’s look at what signs you can use to tell if your campaign is working or not.
How To Tell if Your Google Ad Campaign is Working
Checking in on your Google Ads Campaign can be daunting; there are lots of statistics and analytics to check and compare. So what’s the most important part to look at?
Often, we measure success by Click-through rate (CTR) and Conversion rate (CVR), although it depends on your intentions and goals for your Google Ads Campaign.
For instance, if your goal is to run Google Display Ads for brand awareness, then impressions are the metric to measure.
Other Key Performance Indicators to look at include Quality Score and Cost per Acquisition (CPA). You want to have a high Quality Score and a low Cost per Acquisition. If these are problems for you, you may be interested in how to fix these issues.
One big mistake we see businesses make is starting with a Performance Max Campaign. Performance Max requires lots of preexisting data to work. So if you start with a PMax campaign, you won’t get good data from this campaign type.
So how can we start seeing results more quickly?
How to Speed Up the Process
One of the fastest ways to get more data is to start with a good budget, which allows for good conversion tracking and leveraging lots of data to start making optimizations sooner.
Another important thing to do is to start with a more focused campaign type, such as Search campaigns with focused targeting keywords.
- Start with a sufficient budget for your industry
- Use conversion tracking from day one
- Leverage remarketing early
- Build tightly themed ad groups
- Run Search campaigns before other types
Remember, Google Ads are somewhat of an investment. While they may take time to start working well, once they are optimized, you can see a massive return on investment.
If you want help optimizing your Google Ads or don’t know where to start, you may be interested in our Google Ads Management services.