If you’ve been a long-time reader of PPC Hero, you might remember Sean Quadlin’s elegant dissertation back in May on how Google’s new Ad Rotation settings were, and I quote, “The Devil”.
For the uninitiated: In May, Google introduced new Ad Rotation settings, making it so that you can only opt ads in to the “Rotate evenly” option for a span of 30 days, after which they would default to “Optimize for Clicks”. Well, this particular change did not go unchallenged. In addition to Sean’s post, PPC managers across the globe rallied to give Google an earful about how this would impact ad testing, and Google walked it back, big time.
In July, Google made some significant changes to this new Ad Rotation system, detailed in another post by Sean here. Those being:
- “Rotate evenly” would now rotate ads for 90 days, rather than 30.
- You opt out of the change either via your representative or through a submission form.
- If enough people opt out, then they would make it a permanent choice in the interface.
Take a wild guess at what happened? That’s right! On Monday, Google announced that they are adding in a new “Rotate indefinitely” option – bringing us back to the glory days of statistically valid ad tests, untainted by the evils of “Optimize for Clicks”.
To make use of this setting (and you shouldmake use of this setting if you test your ad copy as much as we do), you can find it back in the familiar confines of the Campaign “Settings” tab – specifically, under “Ad delivery: Ad rotation, frequency capping”.
Naturally, with every option under the sun now available to advertisers directly in the Settings interface, there’s no real need for the submission form – so it’s been removed. As mentioned in the Google post, if you previously requested to opt out of the ad rotation change, your existing campaigns that have already been set to “Rotate evenly” will be set to “Rotate indefinitely” near the end of October.
This looks to conclude the saga of Google and the Accidental Ad Setting Outrage – so with their “The Devil” status now rescinded, what are your thoughts? Will you continue to rotate your ads until the end of time, or be tempted by “Optimize for Clicks”? In either case, pop a bottle of champagne and start the celebration. Party in the comments section!
