Andy's Google Ads Posts

[Andy Black]

Saving spot. Updates soon...

Thanks Andy, I've just made a commitment to help a local fellow entrepreneur who has been unhappily running AdWords since April.

So here I go, reading everything. Estimated time, for me a few hours...

The things I do differently will be compared to their previous methods not mine. As for Results, I may get specific on the Inside soon but would you prefer percentages or numbers in this thread?

Cheers

Gosh, no numbers needed, just mindset shifts really. Thanks!

 

[Andy Black]

Thanks for this! I'm working my way through all this value!

Andy, do you happen to have any books you would suggest as recommended reading?

I remember Perry Marshall's book was good.

I have a thread in the Speedway Forum that has screenshots on how to get some skin in the game without losing your shirt.

 

[Zakary Frank]

I remember Perry Marshall's book was good.

I have a thread in the Speedway Forum that has screenshots on how to get some skin in the game without losing your shirt.

I'll check it out. Thank you!

 

[mjblackwood]

This whole section is exactly what I needed to find. I'm so beyond grateful for all of this information! Thanks Andy!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

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[notyet]

Thanks for sharing. Really appreciate it.

 

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[Andy Black]

I've been reading some of your adwords stuff and got the general gist of "find what people want and sell it to them"
As an app developer i often get ideas that seem good in my head but in reality i don't have a clue if it will go viral.

Even though i focus on creating a minimal viable product and see that as testing the market, im wondering if some adwords keyword kungfu would help me decide which idea among several to pursue.

Let's say i want to create an app related to instagram, i wonder if playing around with the keyword "instagram", i can find common pain points that people google for and maybe find one that can be solved with an external app!

You mean like this?

 

[Andy Black]

Andy hi,

I've learnt a lot from your posts and videos. Your ideas and directions gave a great boost to my PPC results. I know i've mentioned that several times, just wanted to pay tribute one more time

I've looked through your posts and on youtube channel and do not see automation topic covered (maybe i've missed it)
Did you covered it in any of your posts/videos?
Do you recommend using Automated Bid Management, Automated Rules or Adwords Scripts?

At the moment i am using 0 automation. And i have feeling that i am loosing some efficiency by doing that.

What made me research on automation is idea to bid to position.
In my niche I would like to hold second position for main KWs.(there is one big player I can not compete with)
Often some of smaller players increase their bid and can take 2nd position from me. Obviously i can't check my postion all the time manually

After digging a little i realized that automating is very big topic.

We don't do any automation. We don't bid to a position, but to as high as we can go with our CPCs.

 

[letter9]

We don't do any automation. We don't bid to a position, but to as high as we can go with our CPCs.

I see,

Do you use automation for reporting, identifying potential problems, etc?

Are there things in your opinion that should be automated?

 

[bpampillon]

Hi @andyblack !
This is really great stuff. Very detailed and quite easy to follow even for the beginneers on this matter. I haven't managed to read all that you have posted in the links, but getting into it. It's going to take sometime to work on this, but it would be worth it.
Thank you so much for sharing!

Great to see Irish in this forum. It brings up nice memories of my time living there.

 

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[JustWalkinAround]

Hi Andy,

Thanks so much for all your contributions on this forum about ad words, very much appreciated.

I am working with an ecommerce shop whose campaigns are all set to maximise conversions. Overall, their main search campaign wins 20% impression share, losing almost 70% to rank.

I looked at the keyword level and there are many on 9/10 and 10/10 quality score but still losing upwards of 70% impression share due to rank.

A quick Google search says that impression share rank is won based on Quality Score * Max CPC. Unfortunately you cannot manually configure Max CPC when the campaign goal is maximise conversions.

I have 2 question:

1- How can I increase rank impression share if the keyword is already 10/10 QS without changing away from maximise conversions?

2- If I were to go down the route of testing a new bidding strategy, what's the best practice for that? Do I edit the existing campaign or create a new one and run them side by side etc?

3- If I ran the 2 campaigns side by side, how does that work when it comes to each campaign bidding for the same keyword? Or would I pause the ones I want to test from the original campaign and only include them in the new campaign?

Many thanks in advance!

 

[Andy Black]

Hi Andy,

Thanks so much for all your contributions on this forum about ad words, very much appreciated.

I am working with an ecommerce shop whose campaigns are all set to maximise conversions. Overall, their main search campaign wins 20% impression share, losing almost 70% to rank.

I looked at the keyword level and there are many on 9/10 and 10/10 quality score but still losing upwards of 70% impression share due to rank.

A quick Google search says that impression share rank is won based on Quality Score * Max CPC. Unfortunately you cannot manually configure Max CPC when the campaign goal is maximise conversions.

I have 2 question:

1- How can I increase rank impression share if the keyword is already 10/10 QS without changing away from maximise conversions?

2- If I were to go down the route of testing a new bidding strategy, what's the best practice for that? Do I edit the existing campaign or create a new one and run them side by side etc?

3- If I ran the 2 campaigns side by side, how does that work when it comes to each campaign bidding for the same keyword? Or would I pause the ones I want to test from the original campaign and only include them in the new campaign?

Many thanks in advance!

It’s maximising conversions for your budget so that’s why you’re not showing as losing impression share due to budget, but you are losing impression share due to budget. Google is reducing your CPC to try and maximise your conversions for your budget ... and it’s showing as lost Impression Share due to rank. Try slowly increasing the budget and see what happens.

It can be tricky making changes with automated bidding. It’s like the algorithm has figured out how to run with the current setup. I’ve seen it where changing the budget adversely affected campaigns set with an automated bidding strategy - and we couldn’t revert back to the previous performance when we changed the budgets back (or not immediately anyway). Because of this I’d be more inclined to clone the campaigns and make changes to the clone (if you’re going to change the bidding type). Pause the old campaigns while you run the new campaigns so you can revert back easily by enabling them again. Bear in mind that campaigns that are paused then enabled may also not restart with quite the same performance, presumably because they have to force their way back into the auctions.

PS: These are just my opinions from observations in campaigns I’ve managed. I’ve not read this in official Google documentation.

 

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[JustWalkinAround]

Hi Andy,

What is your process when doing a biweekly ad account update?

I have started working at an agency and I feel like what I've been taught is not enough. I don't feel confident at all.

If conversions are steady or improving then everything is all smiles and I can happily tell the client. If conversions slow down then I have no idea what to do.

What they taught me is go into the keywords page, see which ones are performing poorly and turn them off.

Then they taught me to go into Google Analytics and break it down by channel, device etc. but it's all meaningless to me. E.g. ok traffic from paid search is down. So why is it down? I know to go check the impressions. Ok, impressions are trending down... then what?

Our monthly updates for clients are so weak... e.g. for the Google Ads section, our insights are of this calibre:

1. this keyword brought in $2000 which is a ROAS of 5 which is good.
2. this keyword that brought in 5 sales, and that keyword brought in 3 sales.
3. bounce rate dropped by 3% so that's good.

Sorry this is becoming a bit of a rant but I am very frustrated. I'm don't know much yet I'm being put in charge of thousands of dollars of ad spend. There is 0 documentation in this company and I haven't been able to learn many advanced concepts from my team. They mostly set up campaigns and let it run. Oh and they check for poor performing keywords and pause them from time to time. To be honest I don't think the campaigns are done properly. All of our campaigns for clients are either maximise clicks or maximise conversions, both of which I understand to be crap.

TLDR: I am managing thousands of dollars of ad spend and I need to give performance updates and I don't know what to do. Furthermore, optimisations as I've been taught is just check the keywords that have low ROAS and turn them off.

Would you be able to outline your process if you were to check the performance of an account? We work for ecommerce clients, I'm not sure if that changes things. Maybe a rough breakdown of how you would spend your time would be very helpful too,

e.g. 20% checking overall health (impressions, ctr, etc.) 60% checking search term report, 20% keyword expansion. I don't even know what check the search term report and keyword expansion means, just made it up lol.

 

[door123]

Hi @Andy Black
I am running some call-only ads for a long distance moving company. Why doesn't my phone call metric not equal my "calls from ads" conversion metric? I am confused between the phone call metric & conversions. My conversions(calls from ads) are recorded when the call reaches 15 sec duration, but isn't that the limit for the phone call metric also 15 sec duration?

Google support is useless for this topic.

 

[door123]

Interesting, I never look at that column. Are people able to make calls from website and does Google Ads track those?

Google is only able to track mobile click to call links on the website, not desktop calls. When someone on a mobile device clicks the phone number button.

 

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[door123]

Phone calls vs. phone call conversions​

It is important to remember that there are differences between a click that results in a call to your business and that call being considered a conversion.

A phone call conversion is defined by the duration of the call, which you determine in your account. A phone call has no duration requirements which means that your reporting will be expected to have more calls than call conversions. For example, if you set call conversions to 30 seconds and have a call last for 26 seconds, Google Ads will report 1 phone call and 0 phone call conversions. Learn more about phone call conversion tracking.

Note: Phone calls are reported on the date they occur, but phone call conversions are reported on the date of the ad click, this means the reporting dates may be different. For example, a customer sees a call-only ad on August 5 and writes down the Google Forwarding Number (GFN). On August 7 they call the GFN and the duration meets your conversion requirements. Google Ads will show 1 phone call on August 7, and a phone call conversion for August 5.

Analyze call reporting data - Google Ads Help

Call reporting allows you to track the performance of your call assets, location assets, and

support.google.com

Thanks for the explanation. I also pulled up the predefined call report in Google Ads & that explained the discrepancy.

 

[Andy Black]

Hello @Andy Black

I have a question regarding all your 53 threads about GA, wich is why I post it here in the master thread.

I plan to learn GA in order to sell it to clients, and for creating digital products selling websites, like we are discussing in Lex's thread My learning plan will of course include all your past threads about GA.

My question is: How relevant are your 53 threads in present times ? The oldest is almost 10 years.

Everybody on the internet seem to say that GA have changed, became more competitive, speaking about IA taking over etc... But fast reading your old threads and comparing to your recent posts, it seem that your core concepts haven't changed and you are still confident and obtaining mad results.

Can you confirm ? I don't ask you a detailed plan but if you could briefly list some eventuals warning about the evolution of GA relative to all your threads, things you think I need to know in order to avoid losing time doing stuff that doesn't work anymore.

Reading you and Lex I have the feeling that search-based ads are clearly the best system and that it won't change anytime soon. That google IS the web and that this system is and will stay like that because it's just the most natural of things.

Do you agree ?

Performance Max campaigns can work great for some. Personally I don't touch them.

@Lex DeVille went through my course. Lex, do you think bidding on keywords still makes sense? Curious what you think of my response in the post above.

 

[Lex DeVille]

Performance Max campaigns can work great for some. Personally I don't touch them.

@Lex DeVille went through my course. Lex, do you think bidding on keywords still makes sense? Curious what you think of my response in the post above.

I think so, but I don't do it lol. I use max conversions and let Google figure out what to bid. But it probably depends on the goal of the campaign. Don't ask me. I don't know jack. I'm not advertising a local business, so that is probably worth considering.

 

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[Raedrum]

@Andy Black thank you for answering to me so accurately. I still can't believe that oversea experts are actually taking time to help total strangers like me by giving away free gold advices. You are keeping this place alive by your participation (Same for Lex of course.)

I don't feel like you're nitpicking at all. Semantic is important and you are right to correct me.

Okay so your answers comfort me.

I'm discovering concepts like long-tail, and your way of mining datas and adjust products to match demand is one of the smartest thing I've seen. This sound like the way to do things. But I'll ask questions about that in the corresponding threads like you asked.

Now I want to learn Google Ads even more ^^ It really look like the most logical, rentable and stable way of doing webmarketing.

 

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[Andy Black]

@Andy Black thank you for answering to me so accurately. I still can't believe that oversea experts are actually taking time to help total strangers like me by giving away free gold advices. You are keeping this place alive by your participation (Same for Lex of course.)

I don't feel like you're nitpicking at all. Semantic is important and you are right to correct me.

Okay so your answers comfort me.

I'm discovering concepts like long-tail, and your way of mining datas and adjust products to match demand is one of the smartest thing I've seen. This sound like the way to do things. But I'll ask questions about that in the corresponding threads like you asked.

Now I want to learn Google Ads even more ^^ It really look like the most logical, rentable and stable way of doing webmarketing.

Feel free to ask questions in here too.

One of the threads talks about the biggest benefit of Google Ads being how you dial in what your offer is based on what people are searching for. I still think that's true.

 

[perchboy]

Do you have any material on bidding Andy?

Right now I have no control over my bids and it seems like Google is just trying to suck my money and put it wherever they want.

 

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[Andy Black]

Do you have any material on bidding Andy?

Right now I have no control over my bids and it seems like Google is just trying to suck my money and put it wherever they want.

Go to the campaign settings and switch to manual bidding.

 

[Andy Black]

thanks. i should have had that on before

im going to start low to gauge the performance and then adjust the bids accordingly.

or should i just set the bids to what google had before?

my bids for the past 3 days are double what they were at for June 1 - 10

spent $38 dollars today with a $20 daily budget and got 0 conversions. still have a 2.5 x roi though

MARKETING - How to get profitable or fail fast with AdWords

(Originally posted on the inside here.) How To Get Profitable Or Fail Fast With AdWords Here's how I often determine whether a project, niche, seed, or keyword has legs, or needs a bullet. Note1: I use blanket bid prices throughout the steps below, meaning the bid price within a campaign for...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

 

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[Qeno]

Go to the campaign settings and switch to manual bidding.

When should one consider switching to manual bidding?

 

[Andy Black]

When should one consider switching to manual bidding?

I start with manual bidding so I know what's going on. I want to know how each keyword performs with the same bid.

If we consistently lose Impression Share due to budget then I may switch to Maximise Clicks.

We rarely use Maximise Conversions, mainly because of our clients aren't getting many clicks or conversions a week and/or I don't trust the conversion tracking.

 

[Qeno]

I start with manual bidding so I know what's going on. I want to know how each keyword performs with the same bid.

If we consistently lose Impression Share due to budget then I may switch to Maximise Clicks.

We rarely use Maximise Conversions, mainly because of our clients aren't getting many clicks or conversions a week and/or I don't trust the conversion tracking.

Thank you very much! I'll try it out!

mainly because of our clients aren't getting many clicks or conversions a week

May I ask why this is the case? Isn't this one of the goals of Google Ads?

 

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[Andy Black]

May I ask why this is the case? Isn't this one of the goals of Google Ads?

Some clients get less than 10 clicks a week, and some at $100 per click. A lead can turn into $30k+ jobs though (once at $700k I believe).

 

[Andy Black]

Quite short-sighted by me, sorry! Thank you very much! I would think it's a bit different when working like this. Could you recommend some material to learn about this?

It was a good question.

Many think it's all about getting as many clicks as possible for as low a CPC as possible. Often the first optimisation step is to reduce clicks but increase their value, which might mean a higher CPC.

And some marketers think the goal is to get as many leads as possible for their client, when the client doesn't want their phone ringing with tyre-kickers.


I'm not sure what you're asking to learn. Can you clarify?

 

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[Andy Black]

Is there a case where clients only can get only 10 clicks per week because there isn't no more supply and it still works?

I presume you meant demand rather than supply.

So long as the cost-per-sale is low enough then 10 clicks a week could work.

 

[Qeno]

I presume you meant demand rather than supply.

So long as the cost-per-sale is low enough then 10 clicks a week could work.

Of course, sorry. Thank you for clarifying it for me!

 

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[Raedrum]

Hey @Andy Black just wanted to thank you for your last video on youtube about Starting and scaling Google Ads as a productised service. It is really what I want to do now and this video come at the right moment.

It make me realize than instead of trying to sell entire websites, maybe I should begin to sell traffic MVP (ad + landing) and then if working, build websites around that. It is like instead of building a big airport with no planes, I'll build just 1 landing strip and make planes come, and then only build the airport if needed. They will be built in abolute adequation of what the market want.

I have 2 questions if you don't mind:

1) In the video you speak about difference between US and Ireland. I live in Belgium so I depend on UE regulations. Is there major tweaks I need to know ? It seems that we have far more less freedom about datas in UE than they have in US.

2) Future of search marketing and manual bidding. Everybody speak about how they're going to delete manual biddings for good, and that IA or whatever will deeply change search marketing. What are you thoughts about that ?

Thanks again for the video it remotivate me. I just followed you on linkedin.

If you want me to put my questions in your youtube channel, can do.