After you start a PPC campaign on any platform, the first thought you have is to see your ad. It is a rookie mistake most new advertisers make when they launch their campaigns online. It can not only harm the performance of your ad but will also result in a lot of unnecessary cash burn.
Although, the reasons behind the curiosity to see your ad are valid. You wish to see how your ad stacks up against the competition. You may want to compare everything from copywriting to meta descriptions. But doing that by searching and clicking it yourself is something that will lead you to other unintended consequences.
This guide will share the top three reasons why you should not search for your ad. You will also learn how to see the real-time performance and appearance of your Google Ads campaign – through the legit way.
Reason #1 – The Daily Budget Restriction and Delivery Settings (Google Ads)
The first reason why you shouldn’t search for your ad is the daily budget restriction. In Google Ads, there is a delivery settings preference that most advertisers set to standard. The delivery settings feature lets you spread the daily budget throughout the day. That way, there is a specific allocation of your budget for every period (even minutes and hours). Assuming that 20% of your daily budget is allocated to the period between 8 AM to 2 PM, and you search for your ad during that time, you will lose out on one of the impressions that was supposed to come from a legitimate customer.
Remember that this only happens in standard delivery settings. When you set the delivery settings to accelerated, your daily budget will not be spread across the day and will dry out in the morning if there are more searches in that period. Either way, if you search for your ad, you are losing that one impression which can be from a legitimate customer – and may have chances for conversions. For such campaigns, every impression and click counts!
Reason #2 – Decrease in Your Quality Score
Quality score is a metric that Google Ads uses to gauge the overall Ad Rank of your campaign. Your Ad Rank determines your SERP position and CPC costs – two of the most critical factors of a PPC campaign. Quality score is measured by Ad Relevance, Landing Page Experience, and CTR.
If you search and click on your ad, it negatively impacts the quality score – resulting in a decrease in Ad Rank. In a broader perspective, it affects your Return On Investment and overall performance.
But what if you do not click the ad? It decreases your CTR. Read on to learn more about it.
Reason #3 – Decrease in Your Click-Through Rate
CTR refers to the Click-Through Rate of your campaign. It is a ratio of people clicking on your ad versus the impressions. If the number of people clicking on your ad is lower than those seeing it, your ad will have a lower CTR. And, similar to the Quality Score, it affects your Ad Rank negatively.
So, in both cases (clicking on the ad or just viewing it) – if you search for the ad yourself, your campaign will bear the consequences.
How To View Your Ad – The Correct Way
There is one harmless way you can view your ad with Google Ads, though. It will not affect your click-through rate. Because you do not search for the ad – you look it up in the tool provided by Google Ads.
The tool is the Ad Preview and Diagnosis Tool in Google Ads. Just go ahead and open your Google Ads account and click on ‘Tools’ in the top left menu. After that, click on the Ad Preview and Diagnosis Tool. With this tool, you can add a location, language, and device to see how the user sees your ad in real-time.
Final Thoughts
Usually, we do not realize that by searching for our ads, we are negatively impacting the performance of the campaign. It not only costs you money but also degrades the overall effectiveness of your campaigns. Why face all of this if you can view your ad without any harm?
Therefore, we recommend that whenever you wish to see your ad, do not search it. Open the Ad Preview and Diagnosis Tool in Google Ads to see the advertisement. That is the legit way to follow.
We hope you learned more than just the disadvantages of searching for your ad. We have tried our best to share as much information about Google Ads as possible. Feel free to reach out if you need some consultation regarding your Google Ads Campaigns.
