Navigating a website migration is always a complex task for everyone involved and it is important that PPC does not get forgotten. Through experience this can be the case due to the stresses on development teams, new platforms and SEO migration focuses.

We won’t stake the claim that PPC is more important than those during a website migration, it definitely isn’t. However there are some easy steps to ensure that PPC is not only a focus but also contributes to the new site.

Pre-Launch

Provide a list of Landing Pages that the campaigns currently use so they remain on the new site or are redirected. You will need to establish if there is going to be a new URL Structure and plan your redirects ahead of launch so you are fully prepared on launch day. Remember Asset update if the new website is part of a rebrand!

You should provide the current Shopping Feed Format and performance against SKU IDs to all teams involved in the migration as reference. Unless you are using the migration as an opportunity to implement changes the best result is keeping the feed the same pre and post migration. It is essential that you do not change SKU IDs as this will eliminate all previous product performance data as new IDs will be treated as a new product by Google, this is common when migrating to platforms such as Shopify and can be avoided by using a third party feed tool such as Feedonomics to keep the IDs static. 

You will and should be able to work on the feed pre-launch so you can confirm that all is as expected through IDs, Titles, Images, URLs etc.

For additional security take advantage of the Google Merchant Center Product Protection Threshold (located within Account Settings) as this will act as a failsafe if a certain percentage of current products are removed from the feed and will save previous product data, send you an alert, and allow you 30 days before removing the affected products. We recommend having a low percentage threshold during a migration or in any event that you are expecting large product changes, think 10-20%.

Tracking – Provide what you need from Google Ads or GA4 to the development team / project manager in order to have tracking functioning as expected at launch. It is important to raise this incase there is any oversight based on previous custom setups. A migration can be a good time to get the developers to update or add additional tracking such as enhanced conversions if you have not been able to get the resource previously.

Post-Launch

On the day of launch you should be checking that all tracking is working as expected before activating campaigns – browser tools such as Google Tag Assistant will give you a quick reference point before data shows within GA4. Check to ensure that conversions including revenue are pulling through in the first 24 hours as you want to avoid any delay in detection of tracking issues so campaigns are not affected.

Of course, as soon as the site is live the new feed can be activated within GMC – if the IDs have remained static there should be little downtime or evidence of a migration from a campaign point of view. Keep an eye on diagnostics as Google will be recrawling the website which may result in issues and also any issues from incorrect automated checks from Google is common in any GMC.

If you have a new URL structure, ensure that your new adverts and assets are updated on schedule with the launch. Customary checks of adverts and assets is necessary to avoid any 404s and to check that the redirects were correctly implemented.

Important Considerations

SKU IDs must remain the same within GMC if you are to retain historical performance. Any change to the SKU will mean Google will consider the item an entirely new product.

Be prepared to pause campaigns on the day of launch, as post-launch checks start on the development side it is important to wait until you have confirmation of the site being fully live including tracking and checkout elements before reactivating.

If early signs are good, branded campaigns can be reactivated first as a testing ground for the new site and tracking. Getting campaigns back live within 48 hours of being paused should be the target to avoid any performance penalty from Google.

Discuss with the SEO team whether it is expected that PPC will support key generic terms as part of the SEO Migration for additional traffic security. This may not be immediately obvious until days or weeks after the migration.

If the migration is part of a rebrand, ensure you have new assets (Images, logos etc.). If the brand name is changing consider bidding on the old brand name for a period after launch to help communicate the rebrand and capture lost traffic.