Standard vs Accelerated Ad Delivery in Adwords

When to slow it down…and when to punch it.

When you have a Google AdWords campaign with “All Features” enabled, you have a choice of how your ads are delivered, Standard and Accelerated, which determine how often your ad is shown and how quickly your budget is used.

The standard delivery method, which is the default in AdWords, aims to deliver your ads in a way that distributes ad budget evenly throughout each day.

Accelerated delivery displays your ad more frequently as soon as each day starts until your budget is reached.

Because delivery method is impacted by budget, it is extremely useful to know the differences between standard and accelerated delivery, especially if the your budget is limited. So which method should you use? Here are some pros and cons of each to help you decide whether to use standard or accelerated ad deliver in AdWords.

Standard Ad Delivery

With standard delivery, the first problem, or solution (depending on how you look at it), is that your entire budget may not be used. Google’s algorithm will guess from previous data to see how often your keyword is likely to be triggered and how much it will cost. But the actual data might be different than the prediction. When the number of searches for your keyword isn’t as high (in volume or in cost) as the algorithm predicts, you will end up with unspent budget.

Because standard delivery spreads your budget throughout the day, you will miss out on some morning searches in order to show up later in the day. Depending on your business this may not be beneficial. If you’re advertising a breakfast cafe you definitely want your ads showing as much as possible in the morning!

[Tweet “Standard delivery spreads your budget throughout the day, so you will miss out on some searches.”]

As you’ve probably realized, if your delivery method is set to standard you won’t show up every time your keywords are searched. Google will calculate how often you can show up in a day based on your budget and will spread how often your ad is shown accordingly. So you may be showing up only once an hour if your budget only allows for an average of 24 clicks a day.

Because Google is focused on showing your ads throughout a day rather than in every search, your clicks may cost less. This occurs because Google takes into consideration the average cost per click enters you into the AdWords auctions most likely to get you more clicks. You may be placed in cheaper auctions when fewer competitors are running, or bid on auctions with your less expensive keywords.

Standard delivery method is useful for a limited budget because your ad is likely to show at any time during the day. The only way to tell which time of day gets more conversions see what the data says, and standard delivery will help you learn when you get more clicks, more conversions, a higher click through rate, a better position, etc. Once you have the data you can create an ad schedule to show ads at the most effective times of day.

Accelerated Ad Delivery

With accelerated delivery, there is a better chance your budget will be completely used each day. This is because Google enters your ad into every eligible ad auction as long as you have budget left until your limit is reached. If you have a high volume keyword and a limited budget, your ad might stop showing around noon.

Accelerated ad delivery might mean that you miss out on searchers later in the day. That could be great if you’re a breakfast cafe open until 1pm, but might be terrible if you’re a restaurant that only serves dinner.

[Tweet “With accelerated delivery, there is a better chance your budget will be completely used each day.”]

Accelerated delivery is great for getting a top position with a low budget. Because accelerated aims to use your budget as fast as possible, your ads may show up higher on the page and get more costly clicks.

You may get more clicks with accelerated delivery than standard because of higher ad positioning, which will allow more people to notice your ads.

Accelerated delivery is good if you aren’t using up all of your budget each day. Because you will be entered into all eligible auctions, you will most likely get more clicks, which will probably use more budget than standard delivery even if your budget isn’t limited.

As always, actual performance may vary depending on your industry, so test each method for a week to see which one really performs better for your account, and let us know in the comments how it goes!