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How to Optimise Google Ads Search Campaigns [Updated for 2026] — Transcript

by Aaron Young | Google Ads | Define Digital Academy · 3,862 words · 540 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00If you need better results with your
0:02Google Ads search campaigns, in this
0:04video I'm going to walk you through the
0:05exact optimization process that we use
0:09to drastically increase the performance
0:12of Google search campaigns for our
0:14community members and also for our
0:16clients as and businesses like yours.
0:20Now, when it comes to optimizing your
0:21Google search campaigns, it's important
0:23to note that there's four key levers
0:26that you can do or four key focus areas
0:29that you can use in order to increase of
0:32your Google Ads search campaigns. And I
0:34call this my STAB framework for
0:37optimizing Google Ads. And what the STAB
0:39framework is is if you take all of the
0:42hundreds of different optimization
0:43actions that you can complete inside of
0:45a Google Ads search campaign, it's
0:47important to note that they are all
0:49broken down into four core categories.
0:51And let me grab my iPad so I can show
0:53you what these are. So, when we look at
0:55it here, as I said, we call this our
0:56STAB method for optimizing. And the
0:58first thing is our spending and
1:00segmentation. And what you're looking at
1:02doing here is people like to
1:04overcomplicate Google Ads, but let's be
1:07honest, the easiest way to see success
1:09with Google Ads is find what's working
1:11and then spend more money in those
1:12areas, find where you're wasting money
1:15and stop spending money in those areas.
1:16Now, the way that you could do that is
1:18if you find a winning campaign, purely
1:20just increase the budget. But then if
1:22you find inside of that campaign you've
1:23got three or four ad groups and one of
1:25those ad groups is just not working, you
1:28know, you're spending a lot of money
1:29with no conversions, you can just turn
1:30off that spending and that's what we
1:31call in our spending and segmentation.
1:34And that's where we're really looking to
1:35find the winners and find the losers.
1:38Spend more money on the winners and then
1:39also stop spending money on the losers.
1:42Sometimes when we get more advanced, we
1:43might want to break out new campaigns,
1:45but that's purely what we're doing with
1:47the spending and segmentation. The next
1:49part is our targeting, and that's red on
1:51red, so I know that's a little bit hard
1:52to see, but you can see the red section
1:54there. And this is all about things like
1:57what keywords or what user search terms
1:59are triggering our ads. Also as well
2:01remember it's not just about the
2:03keywords, you can also adjust the
2:05targeting by your different locations,
2:07also by your different audiences, and
2:10also by your different devices. Now it
2:11is important to note that especially
2:13with targeting, when you do move into
2:15the world of smart bidding, so if you're
2:17using maximize conversions or maximize
2:19conversion value, they will override
2:22some of these settings, not the keyword
2:24targeting
2:25any existing bid adjustments you had.
2:27So, it's just important to note that
2:29yes, while you can go through in the
2:31early days and add in different bid
2:32adjustments, that when you move over to
2:34smart bidding smart bidding is going to
2:36take over any of those bid adjustments
2:38you had. So that's why the main movement
2:40we're going to be focusing on is your
2:41keyword targeting. Then the next part is
2:43your ads and landing pages, and what you
2:46really want to be looking at in through
2:48here is with your ads we're going to be
2:50focusing on your click-through ratio,
2:52how many times people see an ad versus
2:53how many times they click on it. But
2:55with your landing pages and with Google
2:57Ads success in general, remember it's
2:59not just about them clicking on your ad,
3:01that for success with Google Ads they
3:03also need to be moving over to a high
3:05converting landing page. So, if you are
3:08not seeing results with Google Ads,
3:10don't just blame Google, remember it
3:12could be your landing page. And then
3:14finally is your smart bidding, which are
3:16those bidding strategies that you can
3:17use inside of your Google Ads campaign.
3:19So, in this video I'm going to take you
3:21through these four areas. Now, now what
3:23you're seeing here is my optimization
3:24checklist. And that has actually been
3:27downloaded well over 120,000 times by
3:30different businesses and a lot of
3:31agencies who are using that as a guide
3:34way for how they can optimize their
3:36Google Ads campaigns, and it's
3:37completely free. And if you would like
3:39access to that checklist, just follow
3:41that link in the description below. Also
3:43will add as well when you're in the
3:44description you will also see a form
3:47where you can get extra help from Define
3:49Digital Academy. And just in case we
3:50haven't met yet, my name is Aaron and
3:52I'm the founder of Define Digital
3:53Academy. And we started DDA for one
3:57reason, which which was to help business
3:59owners like you and brand owners like
4:01you get better results with their Google
4:03Ads campaigns. And regardless of whether
4:05you're just starting or whether you're
4:06spending well over $100,000 a month
4:08inside of Google Ads, we've got
4:10different options and programs that can
4:11help you in your and your in-house teams
4:13to see better results with Google Ads.
4:15And if that's you, just fill out that
4:17how can we help you form and one of my
4:19team members will be in contact with you
4:20as soon as possible. All right. So, with
4:22all of that said now, let's jump into a
4:24screen share because I do want to make
4:25this super super practical and I'm going
4:27to show you how we walk through that
4:28STAB framework, spending and
4:31segmentation, targeting, ads and landing
4:33pages, and also bidding so you can get
4:35better results with your Google Ads
4:36campaigns. Let's go.
4:38All righty. So, we are now inside of my
4:41of a Google search campaign and let's
4:42start with that first option, which was
4:44the S, the spending and segmentation.
4:46Let me firstly focus on spending and
4:49what you can see from here, this is the
4:50easiest way to optimize a Google Ads
4:53campaign or see better results. And
4:54that's simply when you got a campaign
4:56that's working, just increase the
4:58budget. And you can see from here, with
4:59this individual search campaign, we've
5:01been able to increase their spend from
5:04$300 a month all the way up to where
5:07they're sitting at four or four and a
5:08half and you can see the conversions uh
5:11have gone at the same pace. Now,
5:12obviously there were other optimizations
5:14that we completed, which we're going to
5:15go through now, but that's just a pure
5:17example of the you know, sometimes we
5:20want to overcomplicate it. If you're
5:21happy with the results you're getting,
5:22just increase that budget. Now, there
5:24are some important guidelines.
5:26When it comes to increasing your budget
5:28inside of Google Ads, you do want to
5:30follow what I call the 20% rule. And
5:32that is where you increase your budget
5:34by an increment of 20% every 5 to 7
5:37days. So, if for example, on $100,
5:40increase to 120, wait 5 to 7 days,
5:43increase it again by another 20%. The
5:46only thing I would add is if you're
5:47coming off a really, really low base, so
5:49like $5 or $10, I'm happy for you to go
5:51up in increments of five or $10, even if
5:53it's over that 20% rule. But, one other
5:55thing you do want to look at, and this
5:56is what I call the you just want to
5:58review the search impression share. Now,
6:00what your search impression share metric
6:02is is your search impression share is
6:05it's a score out of 100, and it's given
6:07in percentage format. And if you see a
6:09search impression share of, say for
6:10example here, 37%, that means that out
6:13of every 100 searches your ads are
6:15currently appearing on 37 of them. But,
6:17what I want to show you in through here
6:19is you can see with this business as we
6:21started increasing their budget, it was
6:22quite easy cuz they had a very low
6:25search impression share. But, as you can
6:27start to see that as we started to
6:29increase that search impression share,
6:32the CPC started to increase. And really,
6:34once it started getting above that
6:3545-50%, it really started skyrocketing.
6:38So, there is a limit to how much you can
6:40increase your your budgets. Generally,
6:42if your search impression share is under
6:4440%, you can increase your budget by
6:4620%, and you're going to see pretty much
6:48the same conversion metrics, which is
6:50what you saw in this period through
6:52here.
6:53So, when it comes to that next part
6:55where you just can't simply increase
6:58your budget, you can do the second part
7:00of that S or the the stab method, which
7:02is adding in some segmentation. Now,
7:05what you're doing with segmentation is
7:07you're essentially breaking out a new
7:09campaign. And the reason why you're
7:11doing this is you need to remember
7:12inside of Google Ads your budget is set
7:15at the campaign level. So, and there's
7:17two core ways that you could do this.
7:18One, you can break it out by different
7:20product categories, or you can break it
7:22out by location. So, let me show you
7:24both examples. This is This is an
7:26e-commerce brand, and they've got four
7:29core product categories. So, what we've
7:31done through here is we did two things.
7:32One, this is one product category, and
7:34we've broken out a secondary campaign,
7:37which is targeting five particular
7:39states in the in the US. And what that's
7:41allowed us to do is as you can see from
7:43here, it's allowed us to continue
7:45increasing this spend while also
7:47maintaining their conversions. But what
7:50they've also done from here as well is
7:52that we also broke out three other
7:55campaigns, which are these ones in here.
7:57And what they are are they are for
7:59different product categories. So, the
8:01way that you're thinking about it there
8:03is that you can have different campaigns
8:04for different product categories. A
8:05perfect example would be is let's just
8:07say you've got one search campaign that
8:10has four different product categories,
8:11and you see that within that and they're
8:13all based by different ad groups, and
8:15you can see that of those four ad
8:17groups, two of them they're getting some
8:19conversions, but Google isn't spending
8:21much money there. Is what you can do is
8:22that's when you then break out that
8:24segmentation campaign. And what that
8:26allows you to do is force Google to
8:28spend money where you know it's
8:29converting, just Google isn't spending
8:31there. And that's another way that you
8:32can increase the performance of your
8:34Google Ads campaign. So, that's the S.
8:36The next way to optimize your Google Ads
8:38search campaigns is by targeting. Now,
8:40as I said, you can go through and also
8:42do this by locations and bid adjustments
8:44and audiences, but because now for
8:47success with Google Ads you're very much
8:48leaning into smart bidding strategies,
8:50and smart bidding strategies will
8:52override a lot of those bid adjustments.
8:54So, what you really want to be looking
8:56at is by cleaning up the search terms
8:59which your keywords are triggering for.
9:01And the way that you do that is that if
9:03you go into one of your individual
9:04campaigns, go into insights and reports,
9:07and then go into your search terms. I
9:08generally like to do this once every 7
9:12days. Now, if you've got a a new
9:14campaign, you may want to do this twice
9:15a week. But the reason for why I don't
9:17want to do it every single day is
9:19because what you can do is that you can
9:21also use what we call the change
9:23history. So, if you go too far with
9:25these optimizations, what you can do is
9:27you can pull up the change history. And
9:29sorry, because we've got the last 30
9:31days, we're not seeing it there. But
9:32what you can actually do is you can
9:34start to see what is happening in there,
9:36and if you need to undo any of these
9:38changes, you can go through and undo
9:40them. So, what we generally do, get the
9:43last 7 days. Now, I've had to pause a
9:45lot of these just for um privacy
9:47concerns, but what you're essentially
9:49doing is you're getting the search
9:50terms, and what you want to do is you
9:53want to add any as negative keywords
9:55which are irrelevant. Now, I'm going to
9:58do this with a individual ad group. I do
10:00like to do it at the ad group level, and
10:03what you really want to be looking at is
10:05you want to be looking at it. So, let's
10:06just say for example, this is a keyword
10:08that we want to add as a negative
10:10keyword. We would select it and then add
10:12it as a negative keyword. So, that's
10:13[snorts] the easiest way of going about
10:15it and going through and refining your
10:17negative keywords. You can also add that
10:20at the campaign level, or if you wanted
10:21to, you can also add that as a negative
10:23keyword list. The benefit of a negative
10:25keyword list is that you can just
10:27continue to grow that list, and then if
10:29you break out another campaign, so let's
10:31just say for example, you want to use
10:32that location segmentation, you can just
10:34assign that list to multiple different
10:36campaigns. So, that's the best way of
10:38going through and doing your doing your
10:40targeting. Now, that optimization
10:42checklist which I got showed you before,
10:44which is this one over here, it does
10:45have a lot of different other things
10:46that you can do, which has got
10:48everything in there for you here,
10:49especially if you go into the search
10:50campaign.
10:52Now, let me take you through the big one
10:53which which is your ads. Now, when it
10:55comes to your landing pages as well,
10:57it's important to remember that what's
10:59happening outside of Google Ads is just
11:01as important what's is what's happening
11:03inside of Google Ads.
11:05With your landing page Now, if you are
11:07if you do have a Google Ads campaign
11:09which is not converting, I am going to
11:11show you another video that you can go
11:13through and watch at the end of this
11:14video because that goes more into how to
11:16review your your landing pages. But,
11:19what you want to be doing with your ads
11:20is that you want to be going through and
11:23running proper split testing. So, what
11:25you can see from here, this is in one ad
11:27group, and what we do, as you can see,
11:29we've got just over the last couple of
11:31months, we've been going through and
11:33we've paused this ad. Now, the reason
11:35why we paused this ad is if you look at
11:36the core metrics,
11:38especially the cost per conversion,
11:39these other two ads had a cost per
11:41conversion of $50, this one was 47, this
11:44one was $200. The And also as well, you
11:47can see the click-through ratio was a
11:49little bit lower. Now, when it comes to
11:51testing your ads, the framework that we
11:53use is that we like to have two ads
11:56running in an ad group at the same time.
11:58And the core differences is that you
12:00only want one difference between these
12:03two ads. So, let me just go through to
12:05the last 30 days. Now, the reason for
12:08why we don't test um more than three
12:10ads, so we've only got two ads running
12:12at the same time, is that we've found
12:13that if you're inside of a search
12:15campaign, as soon as you start running
12:17three or four ads, Google very much just
12:20puts the spending to the top two ads.
12:21So, that's why we run two at a time.
12:23But, you do need to make sure that with
12:25this testing is that you've only got one
12:27core difference. And the reason for that
12:29is because, especially the way ads are
12:31structured now with 15 different
12:33headlines and four different
12:34descriptions, you really want to do some
12:35hard testing to know what's happening.
12:37The way that we frame this is that we
12:39would generally start with these ads,
12:42and you can see from here,
12:43these ads are actually exactly the same.
12:45The only difference is is that one of
12:48these ads has a a keyword uh one of
12:51these ads has one of the headlines
12:52pinned into position one. So, that's
12:53generally what we go through is we'll
12:56start by pinning one of the headlines,
12:57seeing if we're getting a better result.
12:59Uh and then we can start going through
13:01and pinning uh call to actions in
13:03position two to see what's again what
13:05gets the best result. Most important
13:06thing is is that you're only testing one
13:08thing at a time. Otherwise, you don't
13:10know what the driver is. The other thing
13:12that I would add in there as well is
13:13that people I want to know, you know,
13:14how much data do you want to be getting
13:16before you make that change? You can see
13:17here we've got a current test running.
13:19As a general rule, the test needs to run
13:21for at least 4 weeks, but in most cases
13:24we're finding it needs to run for about
13:258 to 10 weeks.
13:27And you we would like to see at least
13:291,000 impressions on the ad before we
13:31make a decision.
13:32>> [snorts]
13:32>> And what the two metrics we're really
13:34looking at is our click-through ratio
13:36and our conversion metrics. So,
13:38ultimately for me inside of a business,
13:40if we're able to pick a winner now,
13:42um even though this ad has a lower
13:44click-through ratio, remembering we're
13:46not in the business of getting clicks,
13:47we're in the business of getting
13:48conversions. And you can see this ad is
13:50already performing to be the better ad
13:52because it's got a conversion rate which
13:54is 5% higher, and that cost per
13:56conversion metric is at $34. Let's just
13:59go to the last 7 days to see if Google
14:02has started prioritizing that one. Now,
14:04Google is still prioritizing this uh
14:06winning ad. Once again, it's it's
14:07slipping around here. Let's go 14 days.
14:10Yeah, so this ad is still the winning
14:12ad. Um as I said, just be just based on
14:15the pure conversion rates. But if we
14:16start to find that Google is showing
14:20another ad even though for us this one's
14:22getting better conversions or better
14:23conversion metrics, we will just do a
14:25hard test and just pause that ad so that
14:27we can then run with this other ad uh in
14:29there. So, it is important to note that
14:31you do uh really use your own business
14:34sense in it. Remembering conversions is
14:36the name of the game, and that's the
14:37core driving factor that we look at. Um
14:40people do ask what are some general
14:41metrics that you should be looking at.
14:43For search campaigns in 2026, you want
14:45to have a click-through ratio above sort
14:47of 6%, and you want to have a conversion
14:49rate of at least 5%. Now, we've been
14:51working with this business for well over
14:5312 months now, so that's why we've been
14:54really drive up these numbers to a
14:56click-through ratio above 14% and a
14:58conversion rate of above 10%. But as you
15:00can see from here, this one just didn't
15:02work. It was a really, really low
15:04conversion rate. So, that's why it's
15:05important to make sure you continually
15:07with your testing. So, that's how you go
15:10through your ad copy split testing. And
15:12now, let's focus on the last thing,
15:14which is your bidding. So, this is a big
15:17topic, and I'm going to actually also
15:19include a video where you can actually
15:20see this uh see some extra teaching
15:23about bidding. But, what I do want to
15:24let you know is that I just want to show
15:26you how bidding can affect a campaign.
15:29You can see from here, we made two core
15:32changes in October last year. We went
15:34from maximize clicks to maximize
15:35conversions. And then in February this
15:37year, we added in a target CPA. Now,
15:40what I'm going to show you in through
15:41here is how that actually affected the
15:44campaign or affected the account. So,
15:46remember in October last year is when we
15:48added in the the cost we added in went
15:52from maximize clicks to maximize
15:53conversions. And what I really want you
15:56to show through here is that it does
15:57actually affect your CPC. So, you can
15:59see from here, our CPC went up from $3
16:02up to $4.80. So, it was a big jump. But,
16:06let's look at the cost per conversion
16:08cuz once again, but you can see once we
16:11added in that maximize conversions in
16:13October, this cost per conversion really
16:16started to drive down. So, one thing I
16:18do really want to stress here is that
16:20when you do move over to a maximize
16:21conversion bidding strategy, it is going
16:23to increase your CPC. But, CPC is not
16:25the name of the game anymore. It's this
16:27cost per conversions that you're really
16:28looking at focusing on. And then in
16:30February is when we added in that target
16:32CPA. But, what I really want you to
16:34focus on is remember our target CPA was
16:36set at $75. Is it that's what the
16:38account was telling us it was performing
16:40at. So, some businesses get some
16:42business owners get stuck in that they
16:44want to set a target CPA too early. But,
16:47as you can see from here is that we were
16:48able to drive down that target CPA Uh
16:51let me just bring it down to a weekly
16:52basis through here cuz remember we
16:55didn't introduce that target CPA until
16:58mid-February. So, as you can see, we
17:00were able to bring it down and then we
17:01introduced it because we were seeing
17:02some uh really really stable results in
17:05through here. All right. Thank you so
17:07much for joining me. I know there's a
17:08lot there to cover. So, there's some
17:10extra teaching you you can get right
17:11now. If you want to learn more about
17:13Google Ads smart bidding strategies, I
17:15want you to go through and watch this
17:16video right here. Or if you want to
17:18learn more about our ad copy process and
17:20how we do proper ad copy split tests, I
17:22want you to go through and watch this
17:23video right here. Hey, thank you so much
17:25for joining me. My name is Aaron Young
17:27from Define Digital Academy. And
17:28remember, if you want to get access to
17:30our Google Ads optimization checklist or
17:32any of our clawed AI generated
17:34optimization tools, or drop us a form
17:36and let us know how we can help you
17:38further with your business in 2026 with
17:41Google Ads, just follow that link in the
17:42description below. Thanks for joining
17:44me. See you next time.

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