Tip #1 – Disabling Advert Optimisation
Disable
automatic advert optimisation feature (set in your campaign settings) to avoid giving away valuable IP to your competitors.
Visit
following link for an example:
http://www.pdqprospects.com/AdwordsOptimisationScreenshot.html
Why would you want to do this?
Ok - Let's say you are diligently testing 2 adverts side by side within an ad-group (as you should always be btw).
With optimisation turned on, eventually 1 advert will be deemed
leader and shown more.
For arguments sake – we will take
keyword ‘marketing’. Your competitor has 2 split tested Google Adwords adverts which will show (in a round robin manner) whenever this keyword is searched for.
You can find out useful information regarding which of
adverts is performing better by searching for
keyword marketing, noting
ad results and refreshing
search results.
Because you get to know
best copy Suppose you do this 4 times (by reloading your webpage) - and 3 times advert 1 is shown, but advert 2 is shown once - you now know which of these adverts is
best.
Knowing what adverts are working for your competitors allows you to start to understand
mindset of your potential prospects (what's working and what's not to encourage click-throughs).
This of course is very valuable intelligence to have for you to construct your own adverts - which means you can ultimately have higher click through rates and as a direct result pay less.
Because ads in Adwords are in
public domain, your marketing efforts can be gleaned by your competitors and vice versa if you use
automatic optimisation feature.