2016 is just around the corner and it just so happens that some of the most common resolutions – getting organized, losing weight and saving money – can also be applied to PPC accounts. Here are some quick tips for starting the new year off right!
Get Organized
Let’s face it, your account has been bulking up over the years and the holiday season probably didn’t help. It’s time to cut out the things that aren’t working.
Challenge yourself to take a look through your keyword performance and see if there’s anything that can be trimmed. If a keyword hasn’t spent much and it has only been active a month or two, you might leave it active. If it hasn’t spent much but it has been active for a year or more – it might be time to cut it. Sure, these keywords are harmless on their own but they become dangerous in aggregate. It’s not uncommon for an account to build up quite a few of these seemingly harmless keywords over time, because they slide under the radar.
Tip: When you add keywords in the future, use a label to note when they were added so that when you’re looking back at performance, you can get a true measure for how long a keyword has ran. I challenge you to maintain organization in your accounts by:
- Setting a time to regularly review underperforming keywords.
- Monitoring new keyword additions, so that your account doesn’t balloon back up.
Trim the Fat
Hopefully it hasn’t been too long since you did your last deep dive into your dimensions report to see where you could be spending money more efficiently but it’s always good to take another look after you have some post-holiday data. The holidays can be a bit of a different beast and holiday-season account trends aren’t always representative of the rest of the year.
Challenge yourself to Trim the fat by:
- Scheduling regular reviews of the dimensions reports and analytics for money saving opportunities.
- Scheduling regular audits (bonus points if your audits are performed by an extra set of eyes).
Save Money Time
Both of the above resolutions can help you save money but there’s one thing that they don’t mention. Time is money, too, ya’ll! I challenge you to take it upon yourself to make yourself more efficient. Watch an Excel tutorial, learn about AdWords scripts, or make better use of automation. This is an easy resolution to quantify. Challenge yourself to one of the following (or all three!):
- Once a week, find a faster way to do a recurring task.
- Once a month, find a way to automate a recurring task.
- Once a quarter, take an online course and/or watch a tutorial about an efficiency tool that you would like to utilize better.
Make 2016 a year where you take your work to the next level. Have any other suggestions for New Year’s resolutions? Share with us in the comments!
