Google Eliminates Accelerated Ad Deliver

If you have been using the Accelerated Delivery option in Google Ads, you’ve likely seen a notice popping up that it will no longer be available on your search and shopping campaigns. The choice between “standard” and “accelerated” ad delivery methods will no longer be available after October 14, 2019.

What Are Ad Delivery Methods

Standard Delivery has always been the default option, and let Google optimize your budget to spend throughout the entire day. This was done to prevent the budget from running out too soon.

Accelerated Delivery is a less-optimized variant, the goal of which was to spend budget as rapidly as possible. For accounts limited by budget, this could result in running out of money early in the day.

Did Accelerated Delivery Help?

According to Google, accelerated delivery is being removed because it never helped with budget utilization. While it was never the default, or recommended, option for users, there were still use cases where accelerated delivery was being practiced.

In cases where accounts did not have budget limits, the argument was that using accelerated delivery helped maximize impression shares. However, accelerated delivery does not increase your spend if you’re not spending your entire budget to begin with. So, it had no effect on campaigns without budget limits. What about those that had them?

Accelerated Delivery on Campaigns Limited by Budget

So accelerated delivery did not have any impact on those campaigns that were most likely to use them, so what about the rest? If your campaigns are limited by budget, using accelerated delivery would in fact have negative effects on your performance:

• Increased CPCs: by showing your ads as soon as possible, you face more competitive pressure in the early hours of the day and the resulting higher prices.
• Uneven Distribution: by showing your ads as soon as possible, you are putting more focus on certain regions or demographics than others (like delivering more to the U.S. East coast than West coast.
• Decreased Clicks and ROI: higher CPCs use your budget quicker

So What Do You Need to Do?

Luckily, there’s nothing you have to do yourself. Starting on October 7th, existing campaigns using accelerated delivery will be automatically switched to standard delivery, and as of October 14th, the option will be disabled entirely. This change will affect search and shopping campaigns, shared budgets, and all versions of Google’s APIs and scripts.

What Changes Can You Expect?

If you’re an advertiser using accelerated bidding on campaigns that do not have budget limitations, you shouldn’t see any changes. If you’re using accelerated bidding on budget limited campaigns, however, you can expect to see decreased CPCs and improved ROIs. Sounds like a win-win proposition, right?

Google is constantly working to improve their products, adjusting algorithms and adding/removing features. In many cases, especially those relating to SEO performance, the changes are often murky and unclear. In this case, we have a clear explanation of what is happening and why. If you are using accelerated bidding on your campaigns, try shifting a few to standard bidding to see what effects, if any, you should expect. As always, keep a close eye on your accounts and any anomalous performance figures.

If you need further help or clarification, get in touch with one of our experts