Online advertising with Google Ads is one of the fastest ways to get results for your business from brand awareness and website traffic to leads or sales. But how fast does it take to get these results? While it definitely depends on a variety of factors including your type of business, your unique business goals and location(s), the competitiveness and search volume of your selected keywords, the ad copy and the landing page copy and experience, there is another answer.
It’s the time that it takes for Google’s algorithm to gather enough data and learn in addition to the time that it takes for you to make changes needed in order to optimize the campaign based on the data collected. Well, that’s confusing, let’s take a closer look at what each of these entails.
How long does it take for the algorithm gather enough data?
It typically takes about 7 days for Google’s algorithm to gather enough data to complete its learning phase. However, this varies and it will take longer depending on a variety of factors. For example, if you are looking to get conversions for a business that has a long or fluctuating buying cycle, your keywords have a low search volume, your are targeting a small audience, or you have a limited budget.
You can find out the status of the campaign after you login to your account and click on campaigns – it will be listed under “status”. You can find the status of your bid strategy by clicking on the tool icon, then under “shared library”, click portfolio bid strategies.
How long does it take to optimize?
After the algorithm has enough data, your status will be listed as “eligible” and you will need to use that data to make some changes in order to optimize the campaign based on your goals and objectives. There are several things that might need to be done to optimize a campaign. The bid strategy and budget may need to be updated, ad copy or landing page copy may need to be tested and updated, locations or audiences may need to be included or excluded and an ad schedule may need to be created or adjusted. Keywords and negative keywords will need to be adjusted, added, or removed.
Each time a change is made, you will need to wait for the enough data (about a week or two depending on the factors listed above) to determine how that change impacted the campaign. Another reason it is best to wait for Google Ads to relearn is because changing often can actually prolong the learning period.
So, how long does it take for google ads to get results?
If you take the time to research and select your keywords and location(s) carefully, set up the campaign in a way that best matches your goals, and create ads and landing pages that resonate with your audience, it will minimize the number of changes needed which will shorten the time that it takes to optimize your campaign and get results for your business.
The short answer? About 7 days x the number of changes made = about 3 months.
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Andrea Fick
Andrea is in charge of managing all client digital marketing for Sumy Designs. This includes pay-per-click campaigns, Facebook ads, email marketing, as well as search engine optimization.