Comments on: How Often Should I Optimize My PPC?

By: Andreas

Andreas — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:16:26 +0000

You need 1,067 impressions to be able to draw conclusions within a 3% margin of error. With 2,401 impressions, the margin of error is 1%. Increase your time span until you have 1,067 impressions (I use 1,000). For more details, see p. 40 in my book.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 20:16:32 +0000

I don’t know how you could write an article on optimization of any kind without mentioning statistical significance… Sure, when optimizing PPC it’s certainly a “more data is generally better” situation, but more data does little to tell you if the difference in performance is actually significant enough to be actionable.
Way back in ’06 Avinash put togther a classic post on statistical significance – check it out: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2006/05/excellent-analytics-tip1-statistical-significance.html

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:07:44 +0000

You mentioned using Google Trends as an alternative if your client doesn’t have sufficient analytic info. How detailed is Google Trends in showing niche products? I mean Jewelry an Hotels are fairly broad. I’ve never explored Google Trends and I was just curious how detailed it is!

Thanks,
E.

By: Béate Vervaecke

Béate Vervaecke — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:03:45 +0000

Hi Brian,
Thanks for this overview. Next time a client of mine is anxious for changes, I’ll send him your article :-)
That said, I’d like to add a small tip to nr. 2 – seasonal trending. I use the AdWords keyword tool to have an idea of the influence.

By: Dan London

Dan London — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:36:36 +0000

My analogy…

You can’t judge your car’s MPG until you drive a full tank of gas. If you just look at the MPG after going through a 1/4 tank, you don’t get enough data to make a good decision.

Paid Search is the same way. You need a decent amount of data before you make a decision. I think that time varies per industry and per product.

By: Social Service Organization India

Social Service Organization India — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:59:10 +0000

PPC is good concept at the time of beggining a bussiness