What Makes Display Campaign Optimization Unique?

Display campaign optimization is radically different from the optimization of the other three fundamental types of paid search campaigns. During the display campaign optimization process, it’s not unusual to make significant improvements in performance as we become more familiar with the nuances of how a display campaign is serving.

With 8 different types of targeting available, and the inclusion of images as a central focus of the ad, display campaigns can take longer to optimize. It’s more of an experimental iterative process, as compared to search and shopping ads. However, the traffic is less expense. 
The optimization process revolves around finding the right combination of targeting and ad design. These are interrelated so each targeting method may work best with a different type of ad, and vice versa.  So we use engagement parameters and other traffic metrics to experiment until the performance is maximized.

Using click attribution is also useful in display campaign optimization, so that we can see how the display ads serve to pull traffic into the funnel which later converts on search, shopping, display, or organic/direct clicks on the same device, or other devices. The assist click attribution reveals what would otherwise remain hidden. 

When we are confident that the right mix of ad design and targeting has been put into play, display campaigns are moved onto automated bidding which usually will result in additional performance gains. It also reduces the time required to manage the campaign from that point forward.