Long thought to be an easy, one-click optimization, accelerated delivery might be doing more harm than good (if it’s doing anything at all). Here’s why that is and what you should do about it.
In the world of Google Ads, there’s a choice for each and every campaign’s ad delivery method: standard or accelerated. Do you want to spend your budget evenly over time (standard), or do you want to spend your budget more quickly (accelerated)?
I understand the impulse to go accelerated. It sounds better in some ways. For years, that “sounding better” squishiness has led to all sorts of people recommending accelerated delivery as a no-brainer optimization. It’s time for those days to come to an end. It’s safe to say that you should only use standard delivery for your budgets in Google Ads.
The downsides of accelerated delivery
Accelerated delivery only comes into play when your campaigns are limited by budget. Since most campaigns aren’t limited by budget, accelerated delivery is usually superfluous. The sixth toe of Google Ads, if you will.
If your campaigns are limited by budget, though, you should update your ad delivery settings as soon as possible – right this very second, even. Standard delivery is better. You’ve all heard that patience is a virtue, and that applies to your daily budgets in a big way.
To start, there’s no guarantee that the first part of the day is the best time for you. In most cases, I’d imagine it’s actually a worse time of day for your business. If you’re spending an entire day’s budget by 8 a.m. on a given day, think about the geographic effects of that. If you’re in the US, your ads might only be seen by night owls on the West Coast and early risers on the East Coast. Maybe that’s what you want, but I’d argue there are far better ways to control for location and time of day than accelerating your budget. Also, if certain auctions have a number of advertisers on accelerated delivery, CPCs may even be higher in the morning. When you and your other accelerated peers all jump in en masse at midnight, competition is hotter than it otherwise would be. – Read more
