Visitor Volume and Frequency: The Forgotten GDN Metrics in Keyword Bidding Ads

In Google keyword bidding advertising, the GDN indicator can record and analyze the number of visitors and click frequency. Marketers often ignore the GDN indicator in the process of keyword bidding and ranking, but making good use of the GDN indicator will yield unexpected gains.
GDN (Google Display Network, Google Network Advertising Display System)

The Reach and Frequency report is located under the scale tab of Google AdWords. However, when analyzing data, this information is usually ignored, and people tend to pay more attention to geographic location and browsing time.
 
What can you get from this report?
 
Quite simply, this report shows the following:
 
Reach:The number of unique visitors who viewed your ad.
 
Frequency:The minimum number of times each unique visitor spends while viewing an ad. the
 
You can choose the frequency of viewing: one day, one week or one month.
 
Where can I find this report?
 
Reports are located under the Metrics tab (see image below). This data applies to all GDN advertisements in cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) or pay-per-click (CPC), and are aimed at interested audiences. They may be interested customers, or they may be just statisticians or even returning users, but, basically, what you are dealing with are users rather than specific content.


 
How was this data obtained?
 

 
Google looks at your sampled data and then presents the findings into a complete impression for the data in the metrics report. Since these figures are approximate estimates, you should treat them with a grain of salt. If there are 1,000 impressions in these sample data, and users see the keyword ad twice in each impression, then Google will divide 1,000 by 2 to get 500 users. Because these word counts are estimated based on a sample, it's not unusual to end up seeing some random numerical metrics.
 
What can you do with this data?
 
The main benefit of looking at this data is that if you are going to set a frequency cap, this data can help you make a better decision. This report can be used for standard GDN advertising and remarketing campaigns. Generally I don't recommend frequency capping GDN ads related to keywords because you are unlikely to encounter the same user multiple times. However, if you're using interest category recommendations or marketing campaigns to get users, you're tracking users, not content. And, if you don't set a cap, for these people, you will have more opportunities to show this ad to them.
 
The following case comes from a GDN campaign. It can be seen that the frequency of most impressions is 1 or 2, but because there is no upper limit, some unique visitors will see keyword ads more times.
 

 
The key is to pay attention to the click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate (CONV. Rate), which can indicate where you set the frequency limit.
 
In the above example, the more times the keyword ad is shown to the user, the lower the click-through rate, while the conversion rate of the ad that the user has only seen once is the strongest (ie, the largest number of conversions). This confirms one thing: once a user sees these ads a few times, they lose interest, or, better yet, they have already entered your site and done what you want them to do thing. In either case, after three, four, or even five views, users will no longer want to interact with these keyword ads.
 
If you're using a cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) model, this data is extremely useful to you. Since each impression costs a certain amount, you should want to place a stricter frequency cap on your GDN ads. You can even further break down this data by grouping keyword ads. Doing so may provide a more useful heuristic, since a key phrase or two may also skew the overall data.
 

 
After resetting and running for a while, look at the daily or weekly data to see if you need to change the ad frequency cap to only show daily, weekly or monthly impressions.

Analyzing remarketing campaign data is not always straightforward, the data is often fragmented and shaped based on the industry you are in and how you are accomplishing your goals. The example below is an account about luxury travel. As you can see from the graph, their conversion rate is highest when the monthly frequency is 8 or above. Therefore, their frequency cap value is set relatively high, so as not to block customers who need to see the keyword ad multiple times to achieve their goals.
 

 
Small suggestion:
 
1. When comparing similar frequencies, filtering information by column is extremely effective.
 
2. Adding additional performance columns can also strengthen GDN ads. When analyzing the operation of GDN, it is very critical to pay attention to the agreed weight. Depending on the frequency of your keyword ads, seeing how your bounce rate goes up and down can help you.
 
3. If the current frequency cap is set at the ad level, then it is set at the ad group level, and you can set one ad to be displayed three times a day, and the other ad to be displayed five times a day. If you want to reset now, you'll need to separate these ads into different ad groups.
 
4. The chart function is also very useful, it can make the comparison between frequency and conversion rate more specific and clear.