Consistency Is The Key On Google
Although constant TLC of a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign is obviously a good thing, obsessive-compulsive tinkering without giving changes time to take effect is not. A day - or even a week's worth - of conversion data will never allow you to conclusively judge whether new keywords, different ad text, higher/lower ad rankings or changes to Cost-Per-Click (CPC) bids have been successful or not. This is because search traffic on Google is like the weather – volatile, erratic and difficult to predict with any degree of certainty. For that reason, any significant changes you make to a PPC campaign should be given around 2 to 3 months to accumulate data. By resisting the urge to meddle for this long, you can then run a monthly report in your AdWords Report Centre, take a step back, and spot overall trends in 60 to 90 days worth of volatile, erratic PPC data.
Another important consideration is the accrual of quality score for things like new keywords. You may trail a cluster of new keywords and, after only a few days, conclude that the CPCs are too high and/or it is not converting well enough. These keywords may be paused or deleted, although, if they were given more time to amass quality score, their CPCs would be lower and, in turn, their cost per conversion would be lower.
On so many levels, consistency is so important on Google. For example, your ad needs to show at all times and for every single search. It is never a good idea to (a) have your ads showing intermittently because of budget constraints, (b) have your ad high up on the first page of the search results in the morning and slipping to the second page in the evening or (c) stop-starting the campaign. If your ad only appears now and then, you have to hope that, when it does appear and you get a click, it is a converting click from someone who at the far end of the buying process and ready to buy. This is a dangerous game to play. It is far better to relentlessly command the search results with ever-present ads that never disappear from a general position in the search results. This is especially true in e-commerce, as people do click around websites, compare prices, and look for your ad at a later point.
