Making Changes without Losing History

I need to reorganize my adgroups, but I don't want to lose my history

[pdivi]

I have a very old (2001) AdWords account that is in dire need of some cleaning. Namely, many Adgroups have become too large and unfocused. Other other hand, my high-volume keywords have good history that I don't want to lose. I've heard conflicting stories about how moving them around might put their history at risk.

Can I put an old keyword in a new Adgroup in a new Campaign without losing history?

[smallcompany]

Keyword history is on an account level.

[pdivi]

Smallcompany, I have been told the same thing, but it has left me wondering...if that is the case, how does Adwords handle the case of two identical keywords in different Adgroups? Let's say I put 'widgets' in both AdgroupA and AdgroupB. Is their performance history averaged out (as a single keyword under the account) or does the keyword have a distinct identity/history under each Adgroup?

I have been told that to preserve history, you should not delete a keyword under on Adgroup then add it under another, but rather, you should "move" it from one Adgroup to another. I don't really understand the distinction, nor why Google would drop all history on a keyword if there were just a temporary lapse in it.

Can anyone out there shed some light on what it means to "move" a keyword and why it is important?

[smallcompany]

what it means to "move" a keyword

It means delete somewhere and add somewhere else.

"Move" oposed to add wherever has nothing to do with the keyword history.

Keyword may have different performance and QS depending on ads being triggered by it, but the keyword itself is same keyword across an account, wherever it is.

[vmsk]

Pause the original keyword, don't delete it. If things go poorly for the keyword in it's new location, you'll need to reactivate the original keyword with it's original history, which you can do if it's paused.

I suggest in the new ad groups, run the same ad the keyword was originally paired with along with a new, more targeted ad. As per usual, keep the one which performs better. Keyword QS is closely tied with ad text, so a whole new ad may be a disadvantage.

Pull your QS in advance of making changes, so you can run a post-opt comparison and roll back anything that didn't improve.

Quality score is calculated on several levels, but only visible at the keyword level, and only as a summary:
1. Account/Domain - the history of performance (CTR) for your domain.
2. Google Search - history of performance on Google. Both Account & Keyword level.
3. Search Partner - history of performance on search partner network. Both Account & Keyword level.
4. Content Network - history of performance on content partner network. Both Account & Group level.
All of the above are calculated per geography as well, which you can only see if the campaigns are set up per country.

I also suggest either not changing your bid for the "moved" keyword. Or even increase bids at the start, then ease them back down.

If you do migrate everything over to a new structure, keep content and search separate, and leave the content network running on the old campaigns. Maintaining performance while reorganizing is a lot harder for content than it is for search.

The faster you get clicks, the faster your QS will change. Most importantly, CTR is king so it's important to make sure that is high from the start.

Tread lightly and good luck!

[LucidSW]

I'm not sure if smallcompany is correct or not. Even if there is a negative effect, which I believe would be small anyway, re-organizing your campaign will have much greater benefit. It will be easier to manage for one thing and just the fact of having keywords grouped properly and focused ads should make it more profitable.

[pdivi]

vsmk, your advice is very consistent (and even more detailed!) with what others have told me. I am following it verbatim. Many thanks for the great post.