In our new 'Common PPC Questions' blog series, we're going to explore how long it takes for Google Ads to deliver results.
This article is one of our series of blogs offering up-to-the-minute pay-per-click advice, designed as an accompaniment to our PPC training videos, but it can also be read as a stand-alone blog.
In our new 'Common PPC Questions' blog series, we're going to explore how long it takes for Google Ads to deliver results. In the PPC video below you will see a table with an example of a new campaign.
The Phases of a Google Ads Campaign
So if you have never run a Google Ads campaign before and you don't have historical data on the account, it can take at least a month and a half to see some conversions and leads from Google. Here we'll explain the different steps and stages you'll need to go through before you start seeing results:
- During the first fifteen days of your campaign going live, Google will enter a learning phase. During these two weeks, Google will learn about your business, your keywords, and your landing page and will compare your bids with your competitor's bids. So this is a very important and delicate phase, therefore we don't recommend making changes during the first fifteen days.
- After fifteen days you can start to look at important metrics on the account - like impressions, clicks and cost per click - to get an understanding of what is happening and what people are typing into Google. It will give you an idea of what kind of keywords you should exclude or include in your campaign. So after the first fifteen days, you can start to exclude negative keywords, if there are any.
- However, we don't recommend making big changes to the account at this stage - like bid strategy, ad copy or bid adjustment. After fifteen days Google will exit the learning phase. But it is still in a phase where it needs to collect information about your campaign. It will start looking at the audience and at other important metrics. It will also look at the keywords you have excluded and start to learn a bit more about your business.
- This second phase is a very important stage where Google is learning about your business. So after a month and a half, you should then be able to have enough data to see if your Google Ad campaigns are working and if you need to make big changes to the account - like bid strategy, bid adjustments, audience targeting, types of keywords and so on.
- So, in conclusion, big changes to the account can only be made after a month and a half. Otherwise, Google will need to enter a new learning phase every time you make big changes and will take more and more time to learn about your business and to deliver results.
Still looking for answers? We’ve got a range of FAQ articles to help you with your Google Ad related questions. Find out more through one of the article below:
- What is the Average Cost per Click for Google Ads?
- How Long Does it Take for Google Ads to Deliver Results?
- Can I Run Google Ads Without a Website?
- Preview your PPC Ads without using Google Search
- How to Use Negative Keyword Lists
- How to See Competitors' Google Ads
- How to Exclude Bot Traffic from your PPC Display Ad Campaigns
Or, why not check out our Google Search Ad Optimisation Cheatsheet.
