Google Killing PPC Ad Rotation

Put this in the column of "What The Hell Are They Thinking?".  In yet another thinly veiled attempt to pretend that they are "helping" advertisers, Google announced that the option to have ads in an adgroup "rotate evenly" will reset after 30 days of rotation.

Google has recently launched some really exciting, innovative changes to the AdWords interface that will make it easier to manage PPC accounts, especially those with dozens of campaigns and thousands of keywords - and more is in the pipeline!  I applaud them for this continued innovation. 

But this change really is a huge step backward.  Now, our A/B testing will be limited to 30 day time periods, at the end of which the campaign setting will revert to the dreaded "optimize for clicks".   Google, I beg your pardon, but you do NOT know what is best for my clients.  Just because an ad is expected to receive more clicks does not mean it's a better ad.  What about conversion?  What about bounce rate and other on site metrics that we evaluate in Google Analytics??  This is insanity for them to think that everything is about "the click".  Yes, that's how they make their money - but to be this transparent about it is just astounding.

Google claims that ongoing use of the "even rotation" "can inhibit advertiser performance and deliver less relevant ads to our users."  Whaaaa???

This post was met with much anger today, and already there are petitions on Change.org appealing to Google to reverse this change.  I encourage you to please sign these petitions now:

This petition by my good friend and colleague, Matt Van Wagner here,

and this one by Neil Sorenson here.

Thanks for nothing, Google.

Update on Wednesday, October 3 by [Barb Young]

Google announced this week that advertisers can now select "Rotate indefinitely" in their Campaign settings.   We believe this to be the best choice for testing ad message click through and conversion rates.  Thanks for listening, Google!

Update on Saturday, January 12 by [Barb Young]

Occasionally, Google is capable of doing the "right thing" by search advertisers.  After our collective uproar about taking ad rotation control away from us back in May, 2012, Google announced that they had "listened" to us and subsequently launched a new ad rotation option:  Rotate Indefinitely: Show lower performing ads more evenly with higher performing ads, and do not optimize.

As ominous as this sounds, it's the only option that puts 100% of the control back into the hands of the search marketer.  We find it humorous that they felt compelled to add the "lower performing/do not optimize" label on it.  

On a related note, now that we can import Google Analytics data into our AdWords reporting console, we have four more indicators of ad performance:  bounce rate, pages/visit, average visit duration, and % new visits.  Combine these onsite metrics with CPC, CTR, Conversion Rate and Cost/Conversion and you have powerful insight into ad performance.  

Now that this information is readily accessible in Adwords, it eliminates the previous need to have slightly different text ad headlines in order to access on site behavior in Google Analytics, and permits more precise testing on other elements of the ad copy.

Thanks Google!!