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Who Is Seeing These New AdWords Conversions?

Marketing, social media, advertising

CoreyinMN

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I've been noticing new conversions mysteriously appearing in some of my AdWords accounts {see image below]. I did not put them there.

I searched for some information on them but got nothing.

QUESTIONS:

1) Who else is seeing this?
2) Do you have any more information on them?

Pssst... @Andy Black & @eliquid

1530278628633-92367.png
 
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eliquid

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Shamefully, I am still using the old Adwords GUI.

So maybe, I am not seeing them because of that ( I have seen this in similar other situations ). But I poked around my larger accounts and did not see anything like that yet though.

Could be a beta you got rolled out in, or something showing up in the new interface and I am not seeing it since I am clinging on the last days of the old one.

.
 

CoreyinMN

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Shamefully, I am still using the old Adwords GUI.

So maybe, I am not seeing them because of that ( I have seen this in similar other situations ). But I poked around my larger accounts and did not see anything like that yet though.

Could be a beta you got rolled out in, or something showing up in the new interface and I am not seeing it since I am clinging on the last days of the old one.

.

Hmmm... ok. Thanks for checking.

And the GUI... You just have to cut the cord man. :)

I "made" myself late last year. Wasn't easy but I am glad I did. I really think that is faster and easier when you get used to it especially now that pretty much all the features are in there (was missing a lot along the way and had to do some back and forth). With the exception of the keyword planner (which is will miss), now it is the old interface that is annoying for this cat.
 

Andy Black

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I’m still using the old interface. I don’t go by AdWords reported conversions much either, preferring to measure against client reported sales. I just don’t trust Google much.
 
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CoreyinMN

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I’m still using the old interface. I don’t go by AdWords reported conversions much either, preferring to measure against client reported sales. I just don’t trust Google much.

Yeah, I am not worried about using them per se'. Just want to find out what they are if for any reason to be able to explain them to clients who will notice and start asking.

And since you brought it up, what is your method for measuring against client reported sales? And then convincingly reporting that to the client? (if you don't mind sharing)

Just want to compare notes since I have a few clients where it is very difficult since a "direct" line from click to sale is very fuzzy or nonexistent.

I was actually working up a post on the forum detailing all the crazy website set ups I see and how tricky...errr... maddening it is trying to link everything up and track data through multiple domains and services (i.e. Weebly + Square + MailCheat(Chimp)).
 

Andy Black

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what is your method for measuring against client reported sales? And then convincingly reporting that to the client? (if you don't mind sharing)
Any email form fills should be easily attributed to Google Ads since we pass quite a few parameters in the URL, and often the only way to get to the page is via an ad anyway.

For phone calls the ideal is a dedicated phone number on the landing page for paid search visitors. If people are getting to other website pages from the landing page then we can insert the same dedicated phone number on all those pages.

We’ve not bothered with any fancier phone call reporting (Callrail etc).

We report on a weekly basis:


Every Monday we send something like this:

Hi Client,

Last week you had X visitors for Y spend.

How did you get on with enquiries and sales?


Every Tuesday we update a Google shared sheet we called a Weekly Trading sheet and send a screenshot.

Often clients don’t get back to us, or tell us how many enquiries or sales they had. That’s par for the course. If they keep paying month after month and year after year then we figure they’re happy enough.
 

CoreyinMN

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OK. So not much different than what I do. I track calls using 3rd parties for some but not all clients (if validation is important, for sure).

Been running into a lot of wacky sites configurations these days. I've been pushing new clients for more of a "walled garden" approach (using a lead page provider). But either the product is to complex (industrial machinery) or they are not always down with not using the awesome website they just had built (by someone who overcharged them and doesn't know about copy, SEO and getting people to convert. The site looks good, just doesn't do the most important thing... convert).

Thank you!
 
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Andy Black

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OK. So not much different than what I do. I track calls using 3rd parties for some but not all clients (if validation is important, for sure).

Been running into a lot of wacky sites configurations these days. I've been pushing new clients for more of a "walled garden" approach (using a lead page provider). But either the product is to complex (industrial machinery) or they are not always down with not using the awesome website they just had built (by someone who overcharged them and doesn't know about copy, SEO and getting people to convert. The site looks good, just doesn't do the most important thing... convert).

Thank you!
We create our own landing pages now-a-days.
 

CoreyinMN

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We create our own landing pages now-a-days.
Do you use a particular service (i.e. Leadpages/clickfunnels/etc) with a separate domain and/or subdomain?
 

Andy Black

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Do you use a particular service (i.e. Leadpages/clickfunnels/etc) with a separate domain and/or subdomain?
When we create our own pages it’s sometimes on our domain, but mostly a subdomain of the client’s domain. We don’t use any of those landing page creation tools. We’re developing our own.

We also have a lot of campaigns where we send visitors straight to the client site.
 
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CoreyinMN

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When we create our own pages it’s sometimes on our domain, but mostly a subdomain of the client’s domain. We don’t use any of those landing page creation tools. We’re developing our own.

We also have a lot of campaigns where we send visitors straight to the client site.

Cool. Thank you for sharing. Sure that saves a few bucks a month.
 

eliquid

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Some of the worst ones I deal with, used Hubspot and Pardot.

Im sure the competitors to those 2 products above are horrible too ( Marketo, etc ).

It's just a nightmare ( speaking about setups, multiple providers in the mix, etc ) like you said @CoreyinMN

.
 

Andy Black

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CoreyinMN

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Some of the worst ones I deal with, used Hubspot and Pardot.

Im sure the competitors to those 2 products above are horrible too ( Marketo, etc ).

It's just a nightmare ( speaking about setups, multiple providers in the mix, etc ) like you said @CoreyinMN

.

Here are some of the combinations of websites I’ve seen over the past year alone:

Squarespace + Shopify
Weebly + opentable
WordPress + wooCommerce
WordPress + clickfunnels + woo
Shopify + Booker (for a local personal care service biz... head scratcher)
Weebly + Square
GoDaddy html + Zoho CRM + A pair of File Upload Sites
WordPress + Hubspot
(sure I am forgetting some)

And most of them have some sort of email marketing service combo the should be hooked in somehow as well.

Learning each new platform is a huge time suck.

It amazes me that some of these services do not put more emphasis on helping people understand their metrics. Many times it is the difference between success and failure for all involved (myself, client AND the platforms). We can optimize for vanity metrics (ie. read palms and tea leaves) all day long but you can't get enough cold hard sales data to make a decision on stuff like scaling and/or cutting loses.

I feel like this is a big problem that needs to be solved. I feel like there is an opportunity there. BUT I wonder how much demand there would be for a solution. Many times businesses do not know its a problem and, based on the poorly mismanaged accounts I take over and audit from time to time, agencies/freelancers don't seem to care because either they don't know OR its easier to spew vanity metrics to keep the account... "look how many visits we are getting you"... when in reality it is all crap traffic.
 

CoreyinMN

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It's not to save a few bucks a month. We tried a few landing page builders and they don't do what we wanted, and they're not in our control.
Interesting. I've tried a few different approaches myself (vendor and my own) but money was main motivational factor. But know that you say it, that control would be nice as well

Between your "build/own the funnel and the ad account" approach, sounds like a good course in there somewhere. I know I'd like to look behind the curtain. :)
 

eliquid

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Here are some of the combinations of websites I’ve seen over the past year alone:

Squarespace + Shopify
Weebly + opentable
WordPress + wooCommerce
WordPress + clickfunnels + woo
Shopify + Booker (for a local personal care service biz... head scratcher)
Weebly + Square
GoDaddy html + Zoho CRM + A pair of File Upload Sites
WordPress + Hubspot
(sure I am forgetting some)

And most of them have some sort of email marketing service combo the should be hooked in somehow as well.

Learning each new platform is a huge time suck.

It amazes me that some of these services do not put more emphasis on helping people understand their metrics. Many times it is the difference between success and failure for all involved (myself, client AND the platforms). We can optimize for vanity metrics (ie. read palms and tea leaves) all day long but you can't get enough cold hard sales data to make a decision on stuff like scaling and/or cutting loses.

I feel like this is a big problem that needs to be solved. I feel like there is an opportunity there. BUT I wonder how much demand there would be for a solution. Many times businesses do not know its a problem and, based on the poorly mismanaged accounts I take over and audit from time to time, agencies/freelancers don't seem to care because either they don't know OR its easier to spew vanity metrics to keep the account... "look how many visits we are getting you"... when in reality it is all crap traffic.

I agree.

However, from running a SaaS myself in the digital marketing space I can tell you 110% that a lot of the issue is on the client end and not the SaaS end.

I use to think the same way as you ( still do for the large part ). I tried to re-educate the customer and show them the real metrics they need to know about, etc. SERPWoo has some of the best videos, guides, help support answers, onboarding ( pushing new one just this month ) and monthly emails for training.

Our customers still write in daily and get it wrong. People still don't get it.

I'm not saying I "nailed it" and all these customers are just getting it wrong, but me and my partner have worked tirelessly on the customer support end with onboarding and training. Like every month for the past 5 years tirelessly with different angles, attacks, deliveries, etc.

No matter what we try, there is just a group ( and its large ) that will just not get it for whatever reason.

Re-education is a hard battle, but it's one that squarely is on the customers end because you can't be all things to all people... and sadly most people don't even know what they need and want. Trying to educate them on it only goes so far.

Once that seed is planted ( Wordpress + Woo, Shopify + Clickfunnels, Website + IFTTT + Squarespace, Wix + Paypal + Hubspot ), getting it out of their head is pretty damn hard.

.
 
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Andy Black

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We send visitors to the most appropriate page on their site. We don’t care what their site is built with. We often don’t try to find out either.

We give them the AdWords conversion pixel to implement on the Thank You page. We’ll help them if they get stuck.

We’re not fiddling with their website. Often it’s an abomination, and slow af - especially on mobiles. We might make suggestions, and that’s often after campaigns have been running for a little bit and the client isn’t getting enough bang for their buck.

We don’t really care what AdWords says about conversions. It’s down to the weekly numbers from the client.

“How many enquiries and sales did you have?”

If they can’t answer that and want to then we’ll try to help them.

If they can’t answer that or don’t want to then that’s ok too. We’ll just report visitors and spend every week.


We started building our own landing pages to go with the campaigns we build. We sometimes rent these in addition to rental fee for the AdWords campaigns. Sometimes we just include it in the current fee, especially for a long term client. We haven’t settled on the best way to do this yet.

We’ve started making these mobile-only pages and are often just totally ignoring desktop and tablets. It depends on the search volumes of course, but most of our clients want phone calls and a lot of their search volume is on mobiles anyway.

We’ve no intention of doing a course specifically on landing pages, although it’s often part of the reviews I do of campaigns anyway. They’re in the course I created, and I occasionally drop audits into my own wee forum.



We might end up creating full-blown mobile sites for clients if we can show our mobile landing page works better than their slow af responsive landing page(s).

In which case we may well have a SaaS on our hands. An accidental SaaS that’s just evolved out of us trying to serve our clients better.

I currently prefer to build niche directories though, and own the platform completely. Booking dot com style.

What tickles me is that we’ve made and sold about 30 landing pages, without a landing page to sell them from. They’re an add-on for AdWords clients. They (sometimes!) help clients get a better ROI, which means they’ll stay longer. I say sometimes because we can’t seem to nail every vertical, or even every location in a specific vertical.
 

CoreyinMN

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We send visitors to the most appropriate page on their site. We don’t care what their site is built with. We often don’t try to find out either.

We give them the AdWords conversion pixel to implement on the Thank You page. We’ll help them if they get stuck.

We’re not fiddling with their website. Often it’s an abomination, and slow af - especially on mobiles. We might make suggestions, and that’s often after campaigns have been running for a little bit and the client isn’t getting enough bang for their buck.

We don’t really care what AdWords says about conversions. It’s down to the weekly numbers from the client.

“How many enquiries and sales did you have?”

If they can’t answer that and want to then we’ll try to help them.

If they can’t answer that or don’t want to then that’s ok too. We’ll just report visitors and spend every week.


We started building our own landing pages to go with the campaigns we build. We sometimes rent these in addition to rental fee for the AdWords campaigns. Sometimes we just include it in the current fee, especially for a long term client. We haven’t settled on the best way to do this yet.

We’ve started making these mobile-only pages and are often just totally ignoring desktop and tablets. It depends on the search volumes of course, but most of our clients want phone calls and a lot of their search volume is on mobiles anyway.

We’ve no intention of doing a course specifically on landing pages, although it’s often part of the reviews I do of campaigns anyway. They’re in the course I created, and I occasionally drop audits into my own wee forum.



We might end up creating full-blown mobile sites for clients if we can show our mobile landing page works better than their slow af responsive landing page(s).

In which case we may well have a SaaS on our hands. An accidental SaaS that’s just evolved out of us trying to serve our clients better.

I currently prefer to build niche directories though, and own the platform completely. Booking dot com style.

What tickles me is that we’ve made and sold about 30 landing pages, without a landing page to sell them from. They’re an add-on for AdWords clients. They (sometimes!) help clients get a better ROI, which means they’ll stay longer. I say sometimes because we can’t seem to nail every vertical, or even every location in a specific vertical.

@Andy Black and @eliquid And all this time I thought I was missing something. :) Turns out everyone else is having the same issues. Good to know because at least I can shift my attention from stressing out about getting everything to work together to finding other solutions ("renting landing pages"... very interesting way to put it).

The unfortunate thing about not being able to track sales conversions properly, other than lost opportunity, is that we will never be able to fully utilize some of the AI/machine learning optimization tools Google is rolling out. I know the stuff isn't perfect yet but it is getting there and it will get to the point where if we are not using it, we are going to get our a$$ kicked. The guys using a machine that can track and adjust based on millions of data points versus a guy relying on his single digits data point tracking and his gut is not a fair fight and won't end well.

Good discussion. :)
 

Andy Black

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@Andy Black and @eliquid And all this time I thought I was missing something. :) Turns out everyone else is having the same issues. Good to know because at least I can shift my attention from stressing out about getting everything to work together to finding other solutions ("renting landing pages"... very interesting way to put it).

The unfortunate thing about not being able to track sales conversions properly, other than lost opportunity, is that we will never be able to fully utilize some of the AI/machine learning optimization tools Google is rolling out. I know the stuff isn't perfect yet but it is getting there and it will get to the point where if we are not using it, we are going to get our a$$ kicked. The guys using a machine that can track and adjust based on millions of data points versus a guy relying on his single digits data point tracking and his gut is not a fair fight and won't end well.

Good discussion. :)
I will be the guy building millions of keywords and ads based on small insights I get into the data.

Google wants a keywordless world where their algorithms level the playing fields and empty our wallets.

Sure, it might end up being the battle of the AI tools. And yeah, I’m probably a cynical old fart (with a background in IT and data).

I’ll focus on clicks being people and try and figure out what they want so I can give it to them.

IMO... people get insights, not computers.
 
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Andy Black

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Andy Black

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CoreyinMN

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I linked to a Google Sheet on the inside here:
Sorry for the late reply. I’ve been on an info diet and restricting my non work related internet use.

Plus, I have spending additional time on building out a new site using the model we have been discussing.

It looks like these resources are behind a paywall. I’ll have to look at the INSIDERS plan a little closer.
 
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CoreyinMN

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@eliquid What do you use for landing pages when working with clients? Do you build them from scratch? Use a service? Use whatever the client has? Just curious. I prefer to use the @Andy Black "build my own site approach" when I work with a clients (I know my way around Wordpress). But I've been running into situations were a landing page service might be more efficient (even if the service costs $100-$200+ a month... which is a little hard to swallow). Thank you!
 

eliquid

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I generally use what they have and split test it in VWO/Optimizely.

If I need to make a page of my own ( which I do a lot too ), I tend to use UnBounce.

Many times I am doing both of the above.
 

CoreyinMN

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I generally use what they have and split test it in VWO/Optimizely.

If I need to make a page of my own ( which I do a lot too ), I tend to use UnBounce.

Many times I am doing both of the above.
Thank you. Unbounce seems to come up a lot. I am just trying to determine if it’s worth it or not. Hard to swallow shelling out $200 a month for anything no matter how much I’m making on projects.
 
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