Purpose of this document:
To define the monthly optimizations that should be made to a Google Ads account.
- Refresh Ad Copy — pick the Position 2 winner; rotate two new test ads
- Split Test Landing Page — declare a winner from the current A/B test; promote it and queue the next variant
- Optimize Locations — city bid sculpting, ZIP granularity, exclusions, or campaign splits depending on bidding strategy
- Optimize Ad Schedule — hour-by-hour bid adjustments or hour-removal depending on bidding strategy
- Optimize Devices — bid up/down on converters or -100% blackouts only, depending on bidding strategy
- Optimize Demographics — Age, Gender, Household Income tier bid adjustments or exclusions
- Optimize Audiences — bid up over-indexing segments or exclude underperformers
- Call Extension Bid Adjustment (Maximize Clicks only) — nudge the call-extension bid up or down based on 90-day call CPL vs the campaign goal
- Check Gate 2 Readiness (Maximize Clicks only) — is the campaign ready for The Switch?
- Adjust Target CPA (Smart Bidding only) — ±10% per month, max once per campaign
- Split Campaigns by Performance Tier (Smart Bidding only) — split when one geo or service converts 3× another
Optimizations
Refresh Ad Copy
📖 Deep dive: Refresh Ad Copy
Time: 10-15 min.
Pick the Position 2 winner among the 3 ads per ad group. Plan two new test ads for next cycle: keep the winning angle, write one new ad that doubles down on it and one that tests a new angle.
Split Test Landing Page
📖 Deep dive: Split Test Landing Page
Time: 10-15 min.
Open Insights and Reports → Landing Pages. Compare conversion rate per URL across the live A/B variants. If a clear winner emerged (meaningful conversion-rate gap with enough volume), declare it and promote that variant. Then plan and ship the next test — new headline, CTA, hero image, layout, or form structure.
Optimize Locations
📖 Deep dive: Optimize Locations
Time: 10-15 min.
- Maximize Clicks: city-level bid sculpting (+10/+30% strong-CPA cities, -10/-30% weak), Excluded Locations for out-of-service-area cities, ZIP-level granularity for sub-city sculpting
- Smart Bidding: exclude underperforming cities entirely (bid-down is ignored) or split into a separate campaign with a different Target CPA
Optimize Ad Schedule
📖 Deep dive: Optimize Ad Schedule
Time: 5-10 min.
- Maximize Clicks: hour-by-hour bid adjustments — +10/+30% on the top 3 converting hours, -10/-30% on dead hours
- Smart Bidding: percentage adjustments are ignored; only hour-removal works. Remove hours where cost > 2× Target CPA AND conversions = 0 over 30 days
Optimize Devices
📖 Deep dive: Optimize Devices
Time: 5 min.
- Maximize Clicks: bid up converting devices, bid down underperformers
- Smart Bidding: only -100% blackouts respected; use them sparingly when a device shows sustained terrible performance across two 30-day windows
Optimize Demographics
📖 Deep dive: Optimize Demographics
Time: 5-10 min.
- Maximize Clicks: Age, Gender, Household Income tier bid adjustments on demographics that over-index on conversions
- Smart Bidding: percentage adjustments ignored; exclude consistent underperformers across both this 30d AND prior 30d
Optimize Audiences
📖 Deep dive: Optimize Audiences
Time: 5-10 min.
- Maximize Clicks: bid up segments that over-index on conversions, using observation-mode data accumulated since launch
- Smart Bidding: exclude consistently underperforming segments or restrict the campaign to high-converting audiences only
Call Extension Bid Adjustment (Maximize Clicks only)
📖 Deep dive: Call Extension Bid Adjustment
Time: 5 min.
Compare 90-day call CPL to the campaign goal. +10% if calls are converting under goal; -5% to -10% if over goal. Cap at ±10% per cycle.
Check Gate 2 Readiness (Maximize Clicks only)
📖 Deep dive: Check Gate 2 Readiness
Time: 5 min.
Verify the four Transition Readiness criteria:
- Conversion volume: ≥15 in last 30 days
- CPA stability: weekly stddev ≤25% of monthly average
- Search-terms maturity: <10% new None-status terms WoW for 2 consecutive weeks
- Daily conversion volume: conversions on ≥70% of days in last 30 days
When all four are green, execute The Switch.
Adjust Target CPA (Smart Bidding only)
📖 Deep dive: Adjust Target CPA
Time: 5 min.
The primary lever under Smart Bidding. ±10% per month per campaign, max once.
- Actual CPA ≥20% below target → lower Target CPA by 10%
- Within ±20% → hold
- Actual CPA ≥20% above target → raise by 10%, accept lower volume, OR investigate
Split Campaigns by Performance Tier (Smart Bidding only)
📖 Deep dive: Split Campaigns by Performance Tier
Time: 10 min (when it triggers; usually skipped).
Split when one geo or service segment converts at 3× the rate of another AND both have 15+ conversions in the last 30 days. Each half gets an independent Target CPA.
Where to go from here
- Tomorrow: Google Ads Daily Optimizations
- End of next week: Google Ads Weekly Optimizations
- If on Maximize Clicks and Gate 2 is green: The Switch