November brought some interesting surprises, some expected patterns, and some mysteries. Let’s break down how each Ad Grants metric performed and why.
These numbers are still liable to shift slightly, as I’m writing this at the very beginning of December, and we must remember that the increased Christmas budget will make certain stats like cost go a little wild. Increased budget will have existed in the last two weeks, hence the last two data points:
Impressions
Firstly, let’s examine which stats haven’t seen much change in trend. Impressions continued to rise, having risen around 25% in the last 2 months. That’s an enormous increase, and if we look over a longer timescale (the last year):
You can see that a) this is the highest that impressions have been in that time, and b) this is a recovery from a hefty drop mid-year. This is strange – we’ve not been drastically expanding our keyword base for 6 months, so what is going on here? My guess is that keywords, particularly broad match keywords, are being allowed to match to more and more searches.
Interestingly, if we compare the graphs of impressions for keyword match type (so whether your keyword is exact, broad or phrase) to search term match type (whether the search term matched exactly, broadly or phrase-ly to the keyword it triggered) you see something interesting:
(Ignore the wacky scale on this one, it’s a log scale, and I used it to make sure the shape of all three lines was clear enough to make out the trends.)
On this graph, all the keywords are experiencing similar changes relative to their original positions, so it doesn’t appear keyword match type matters all that much.
Search term match type, however, is a different story. We can see that broad matches have actually just dropped, whilst exact matches have gone up significantly.
So what does this mean? It means that all keywords are acting a bit more like exact match than you might have expected, generating comparatively more impressions for the exact or close match variants of their searches than they were doing 6 months ago.
Why is this happening? I don’t know, Google won’t tell us – and we have asked. Our guess is that it has something to do with the Ad Quality filter, a system Google has often used quite aggressively in Google Ad Grants. It essentially blocks ads from entering certain auctions, limiting the impressions that can be achieved. We believe that as keywords are matching more exactly to searches, Google might be loosening up the Ad Quality filter, leading to an increase in impressions. This also might explain what’s been going on with Clickthrough Rate recently (but more on that later).
What should we do about it? Well, as always, if there is a particular search you’re desperate to target, make sure you’re using a keyword that closely or exactly matches that term. You might also want to add a few more broad match keywords than you normally might have from now on, just to capture as many exact match search terms as possible.
CTR
In summary: Oof. But there’s a light at the (very) end of the tunnel.
CTR has continued to plummet across almost all accounts. We’ve had a few clients comment on this, and I and others have been saying it’s a strange and anomalous drop. I think this graph showcases that best:
Clearly this is not normal. I’ve done further investigating but I can’t find a particular area of keywords or ads that are responsible. For any of you worried that pinning / lack of pinning is causing this, the graph of ad strength shows that all ads are experiencing this regardless of how much Google likes them:
However, maybe there is hope. Look here, right at the end of the graph:
Hey, now that’s a flat line!
It does look like literally last week we saw about the same CTR as the week before. Now you can’t make sweeping statements based on one data point, but we might be about to emerge from the full-on freefall. Equally, it could be a result of the extra budget and being able to get better positions for higher CPCs than you normally could.
CPC
The final non-changer is CPC. This one is steadily rising, and with the increased budgets it probably will be a little inflated for the next month. We’re well above the $2 mark at the moment ($2.24) but, as always, the best CPC for you is a matter of what brings in the best performance. CPC increasing is very common in Grants, and although I expect we’ll see a dip once the extra budget is removed, it will likely still be higher than it was before the budget got added.
The below graph shows that CPC increasing is by no means a strange occurrence, over the last 5 years it has been increasing consistently.
Clicks
Now onto some stats that have seen changes. Clicks have finally stopped dropping. They did so around the end of October and have stayed fairly level since then. We did see a little increase last week, which I’d guess is the result of additional budget kicking in. The CTR not continuing to drop will have been a big help, too.
Why the results remained level throughout November is another matter. Stats-wise, the reason is that impressions and CTR were increasing and decreasing at the same rate, meaning clicks stayed roughly consistent. On a non-stats basis, I can’t give you an answer, as I don’t know why either of those stats are moving in the way they are.
However, this is another clue that Google may be involved, as it’s a little coincidental that these stats are moving in just the right amount since November to keep traffic at the right level. It also looks conspicuously switch-like. The clicks were decreasing and then suddenly they weren’t anymore.
Here’s the larger time graph:
You’ll note that this is the only time that this sort of flatlining has happened. It looks similar to the summer holiday drop, but even that saw a steady decline over time.
I’ll keep an eye on it and get back to you in the new year, but I’m sure the additional budget and / or the influence of Christmas will hide many of the true trends.
Cost
Google recently got in touch offering to give a number of our accounts temporarily increased budget during the holiday period. This has doubled the budgets of Grants that have received the additional funding.
Cost therefore increased in the last two weeks of November; we can’t read too much into that. However, it should be noted that cost has increased considerably for only a slight increase in clicks, so it seems that for many accounts, the impact of that additional budget was not especially consequential.
Before that, cost was essentially following the same trend as clicks. This makes sense, as PPC is, well, PPC (pay per click). So if there are fewer clicks… I’m sure you can figure that one out.
Christmas Trends
Finally, a note on the month to come. Here’s what Christmas looked like last year:
You can see drops began in the second week, then really accelerated after the 20th. This is pretty normal, and we should expect the same sort of trend this year. Overall, clicks dropped by 18% in December. Your results may vary on this; different search areas are affected differently by the holidays, but you can quote that as a scheme average.
So those are the trends we’re seeing in November. There is a lot going on right now with additional budgets, CTR freefalls, and continued CPC increases. Keeping up with all of this can be a difficult task, but that is the challenge of operating one of these very unique accounts.
I’ll be back in the new year with a look at how Christmas affected accounts, the impact of the extra budget, and an update on what is going on with Impressions and CTR. If you have any questions before then, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us!
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