What is a Second Goal and How Does it Work? (Enterprise Plan Only)
In this article I will explain what exactly a second goal is and how it works.
However, keep in mind this is only an Enterprise plan feature. If you don’t have the Enterprise subscription, you cannot set second goals to your Performance Groups. If you would like to upgrade your plan to Enterprise, reach out to us via chat or email.
Let’s get to it!
What Is a Second Goal?
Every Performance Group has an optimization goal. If you have an Enterprise Plan, then you can also set a second goal to your Performance Group.
When you set a second goal, it means your Performance Group has two optimization goals: main and second. Then Adspert optimizes all campaigns within a Performance Group towards the more defensive of the two (the one that’s easier to reach).
I’ll explain more about that soon, keep reading.
Why Should I Use the Second Goal?
Second goals are available to refine an existing, main goal.
If Adspert almost reached your main goal, you can add a second goal. This means Adspert could try to reach another goal while also working on the main one.
How Does a Second Goal Work?
First of all, there is no difference between a main and a second goal. “Main goal” is not dominant over the “second goal”! They are completely interchangeable.
Adspert always goes for the easiest goal first, or in other words, the more defensive one.
When Adspert is close to reaching the more defensive goal, it then goes for the other goal. That’s why it’s important to choose goals that are not too hard to reach.
Let me explain with a practical example.
Practical Example:
I want to reach:
Main goal: 20% ACoS
Second goal: 1,500€ Cost/Day
Before I set the goals, I open Adspert’s Scenario. From here I can see it is very unlikely I will reach both of these goals at the same time.
Why? Because the gap between them is too big.
Look at the second row on the screenshot below: with 20% ACoS goal, Cost/Day is estimated to be 768€.
This is half LESS than my initial idea of 1,500€ Cost/Day.
This means it is very unlikely I will ever reach the second goal.
What happens if I ignore Scenario's forecast? Let’s say I am very determined to reach 20% ACoS and 1,500€ Cost/Day and I go ahead and set both of them as goals:
Based on Scenario’s analysis, 20% ACoS is a more defensive goal. That’s why Adspert tries to reach this goal first.
When Adspert reaches 20% ACoS, it tries to reach 1,500€ Cost/Day goal by increasing the volume.
As soon as the ACoS increases, Adspert will again try to reach the 20% ACoS goal. And after reaching 20% ACoS, it will again try to reach the Cost/Day goal and keep bouncing back and forth between the two goals.
Does it make sense to use your valuable time and money on trying to reach the unreachable? Probably not.
So: the main takeaway is to always pick goals that are not too out of reach.
Keep reading to find out exactly how.
How to Pick a Suitable Main and Second Goal?
First of all, only consider setting a second goal if Adspert already almost reached your current, first goal. If yes, then follow these steps:
Go to Reports and select Scenarios
Select your Account, Performance Group and goal type (from the “New Goal” field”)
Click on the chart where you’d like to set your new goal (go for the narrow, which means more reachable part)
Scroll down and look at goal values underneath the Scenario chart
Pick the goal values from the same row
Similar to this:
Main goal: 20% ACoS
Second goal: 768€ or 843€ Cost/Day – they both work because they are close enough to 20% ACoS goal
Conclusion:
There is no difference between the main goal and the second goal. None of them is dominant or has priority over the other.
Adspert always first tries to reach the more defensive goal, the one that is easier to reach (see Scenario curve at the shade’s center)
Choose the second goal only if your main goal is nearly reached.
Only choose second goals that are close to the Scenario of the main goal