Following the launch of your Google AdWords Display Campaign, it is regular practice to go back and optimize it in about 2-3 weeks. You should be checking on performance daily. By two weeks there should be a large amount of data about your customers. For example, if an ad group is converting very well, move a larger portion of your budget into it.
The performance of a campaign can be measured on many levels. On the campaign level you want to look at all of your metrics such as clicks, impressions, average cost per click and all conversion metrics. On the keyword level, you may want to add some variations to expand the targeting or even some negatives for restrictions. The performance of any placements receiving clicks need to be evaluated and you are allowed to adjust bidding individually. Lastly, on the ad level you want to review the performance of you ad creative(s) and ensure that your audience is responding to your message.
Direct response advertisers are almost always more concerned with maximizing return-on-investment (roi) than creating brand awareness. Conversions are the key metric because it tells you tells how many people are completing the goal activity on your site. The activity can be any action that a visitor takes on your site, whether it be a purchase, a sign-up or even watching a video. Other conversion-based metrics become important such as cost-per-conversion and conversion rate when providing google ad words service.
For branding campaigns, the goal is to create awareness. Reach is a metric that shows the number of users exposed to an ad. The higher the reach, the more it is exposed, the more awareness is created.
Advertisers with branding goals are primarily concerned with creating brand awareness as opposed to maximizing conversions. For example, an advertiser that is introducing a new energy drink wants to create awareness and interest among as many sports enthusiasts as possible, and isn’t necessarily as concerned with selling actual units of the drink online. Frequency is the second most important branding metric, It measures the number of times a user was exposed to an ad over a a period of time.
Reach and frequency are increased by managing impressions and cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM). There is a report within the AdWords report center, “The Reach and Frequency Report,” which should be used by advertisers with branding goals.