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Made the Biggest Mistake in an Account
I have a lead gen account with about $300 spend daily budget with about 20 campaigns.
I decided to shift the individual budgets to portfolio budgets w/ max conversions (formerly used max clicks) and the results have totally blown up in my face. Went from 30% conv rate to 3%
I deeply regret not testing first and just going for it.
Should I avoid changes like that without testing first? Was that too large of a change in one go?
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1 Reply
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Did you test one thing at a time or make them all at once? You’re better off testing one variable at a time especially when taking big swings with things like bid strategies
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Bid strats are arguably one of the biggest levers to pull. They take time to level out in their new configuration, which is often better than previous with Max Con. As long as you are sending qualified leads back to ads and have 30 in 30 days, you should see better performance. Shifting to a portfolio strategy essentially means you are going to chase demand where it is greatest with a larger total spend than you could muster in one market by itself. This is a good idea in our mind and most of the time but, if you had an hvac company that is trying to fill the books of multiple dispatch locations for multiple verticals. It might be best to keep your ad spends siloed per market and NOt use the portfolio. You can tell I have got into trouble on this point myself before. Ideally you would test max con just 1 campaign before rolling out to all of them. Hope it all ends well. Hardest thing to do is nothing and let it learn.
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Why do people “shift” “optimize” campaigns that are doing great?
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$300 in daily spend and 20 campaigns seems a bit too segmented as a first thought. Can you consolidate the campaigns?
As for your change – how long has it been? You need to have at least 2-3 weeks of data for Google’s algorithm to learn what converts and what doesn’t. I’d also review whether your conversions you’re optimising too are aligned with business value because it seems off that switching from Max Clicks to Max Conv would lead to a 10x decline in conversion rate.
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I feel sorry for you, but Yes. Always Be Testing.
When a change impacts more than 10% of your budget/revenue, make sure to test using some form of AB test. -
The lesson u learn when taking risks like this is rarely worth the cost. I’ve made weird (and tempting) gambles like this before and ultimately the only thing that pays off is the loss steeling my resolve to not take risks with google: they’re monopolists that illegally operates to maintain their monopoly.
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When youve got a 30% conversion rate and have the opportunity to make sweeping changes that could jeopardize that number, you have to do it. No brainer.
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How long did you wait before you concluded it was a mistake?
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