AdWords Ads - Rotate or Optimize

When do you do better?

[smallcompany]

Have you tested Rotate vs. Optimize option in campaign settings?

Sometimes I find that while people like some ads, Google shows them rarely and favors other(s).

I also find that with Rotate we have more insight into what people would really click onto (by comparing CTR for ads that show on same spot) - until Google sinks some of the ads.

Thanks

[Seb7]

I find that Optimize and Rotate dont work very well. I often see 'optimized ads' giving lower impressions to better performing ads, and with rotate, the rotation isnt very even at all.

I personally set all campaigns to rotate and then after some decent impressions I knock out the under performing ads.

[pavlovapete]

One theory I have read is to use Optimize on the first iteration of the ad (with 2 versions), find the winner and then continue to optimize on rotate.

The theory being that you don't know which of your ads will work best when you first start.

[Brecon]

I would always recommend using rotate so that you can fully test ad variations. Proper testing will improve your account in the long term and you need to have every ad getting its fair share of traffic so you can assess them.

The other factor in favour of rotate is that optimize works towards CTR whereas what most people want is conversion rate - if you find an ad that has high CTR and conversion rate then great, but you don't want to cull high converting ads just because they are lagging behind a poor converting, high CTR ad.

[nakita_dog]

I concur with Brecon. Rotate is always best because it leaves you in control of your ad performance.

Sometimes what Google deem as a great ad might not be what you would consider being a great ad.

[RhinoFish]

i rotate when i need datasets that are equivalent to one another, to test ideas where each permutation gets the same exposure.

other than that, i'm on optimize 99.9% of the time, allowing G to show what they think is best.

[netmeg]

i rotate when i need datasets that are equivalent to one another, to test ideas where each permutation gets the same exposure.

other than that, i'm on optimize 99.9% of the time, allowing G to show what they think is best.

Exactly what I do as well.

Moreover, even if you set them to rotate, if one ad appears to be doing *significantly* better than the other(s), Google will go ahead and show that one more often anyway.

[PayMePerClick]

From my experience I've seen that what Google optimizes for isn't necessarily best for your bottom line. For example, if you have a rate for your product in your ad it might be higher than many people are willing to pay or too low and possibly illicit a thought of a "cheap" product to some, so they won't click your ads thus leading to lower CTRs and Google not showing that ad as much. However, the people that click that ad are much more qualified because they know the exact price and more than likely looking to spend something in that range. This has led me to use Rotate instead of Optimize because we use rates and deals in most of our ads.

Half the strategies/advice you find in these forums differ from vertical to vertical so take everything with a grain of salt. Maybe try to search for SEM advice particular to your industry, just don't use specifics because people really hate that around here.