Keep in mind: It’s normal for your campaign performance to vary.
Before you begin
Use Explanations to identify reasons for performance changes in a single click
Explanations give you insights into large changes in your App Campaign’s performance and help you quickly find out why they happened. By default, you’ll have explanations that compare the date range you selected with the previous period of the same length:
- Go to your campaign or ad groups page.
- Hover over values in your data table that are colored in blue with a dotted line.
- You’ll see how this value has changed since the last period.
- Click View explanation to find what caused the change.
Assess performance based on your bid strategy and optimization goal
Before making conclusions about your campaign performance, it’s important to first consider whether the settings you are using match the metrics your campaign is optimizing towards. If not, it may be worth setting up a new campaign if you’d like to start optimizing for a different goal. A new campaign will be better at optimizing your bids and ads for an audience who can meet each goal. This will help to ensure that you are focusing on the relevant metrics when analyzing campaign performance and understanding what drove fluctuations in Google Ads.
For example, Target CPA helps you get as many conversions as possible at or below the target cost-per-action (CPA) you set. In campaigns using Target CPA, cost-per-conversion and other conversion-related metrics may be better indicators of performance than cost-per-click and impressions.
10 common reasons why your performance is fluctuating
1. Recent changes to account or campaign settings
Editing any account or campaign settings, such as bid strategy, bid adjustments, bids, budget, keywords, audiences, demographics, and ad scheduling can change your performance.
Learn more about App campaign performance fluctuations: Changes to account or campaign settings.
2. Conversion tracking setup and conversion delay
If there’s a sudden drop in global pings for a conversion your App campaign is optimizing for, this can result in a drop in serving and spending as Google Ads optimizes towards your set conversion action.
Learn more about App campaign performance fluctuations: Conversion tracking setup and conversion delay.
3. Bids and bid targets
Your performance may fluctuate if your bids, bid limits, or bid targets are set without taking into consideration the historical data Google Ads will use to serve your ads.
Learn more about App campaign performance fluctuations: Bids and bid targets.
4. Budget settings
Your campaign may be more likely to have performance fluctuations when its budget is limited.
Learn more about App campaign performance fluctuations: Budget settings.
5. Low creative coverage and diversity
If you’re running an App campaign, it’s important to ensure you have a diverse set of creatives across ad formats.
Learn more about App campaign performance fluctuations: Low creative coverage and diversity.
6. Targeting settings and overlaps
If your campaign is targeting a smaller group of users with very specific audience, location, or language settings, it may also be more likely to have performance fluctuations. You may have multiple campaigns or ad groups in your account that are eligible to enter overlapping auctions due to similar targeting.
Learn more about App campaign performance fluctuations: Targeting.
7. Policy and ad review status
Changes to the review status of your ads or keywords can affect your performance.
Learn more about App campaign performance fluctuations: Policy and review status.
8. App status
The status of your app in Google Play or Apple App Store may limit or prevent App campaigns from serving ads.
Learn more about App campaign performance fluctuations: App status.
9. Other account issues
Issues with your payments, billing transfers or other account level issues can affect the performance of your account and the performance of your campaigns.
Learn more about App campaign performance fluctuations: Account issues.
10. Auction dynamics
The choices that other advertisers, who are participating in the same auctions as you, make can affect your campaign’s performance.
Learn more about App campaign performance fluctuations: Auction dynamics.
