Ex-Googler here to answer your questions...

[Andy Black]

Hi Conor. We've talked privately about Google's automated strategies vs my keyword based paid search strategies. I nearly spat my coffee out laughing when you called me old school.

Don't worry about @Cameraman checking on your motives. He's a great guy and been super helpful in some of my threads. The forum is rightfully suspicious of new members trying to solicit leads by "giving value". I think there's even a rule about not starting an AMA without approval. Given I know you IRL and encouraged you to join the forum I'll just allay people's fears.

Spending time working in Google is an amazing start for you. Build on that with the entrepreneurial mindset, skills, and business models you'll get by making friends, building relationships, and creating win-wins with felloe business owners. This forum is the best place I know online for that. Oh, and you'll have to unlearn some things you picked up from Google... such as corporate speak.

Good luck with your AMA, in the forum, and with your fledgling business.

 

[Conor Foley]

Hey all,

I'm an Ex-Googler who's worked with more than 100 companies both B2B and B2C helping to generate millions in ad revenue.

Let me know if you have any questions and I'll see if I can help!

Conor

 

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[Conor Foley]

I own rocketspelling.com -- a spelling game website for elementary students (English language only, US spellings). Could Google Ads be profitable for us?

Our main issue in the past has been that for whatever keywords we try to get impressions for, we end up getting accidental clicks from students instead of from teachers and school administrators. The adults are the true intended audience of our Google Ads.

Hey @msufan, Google Ads can certainly be a profitable channel or you to acquire new customers with the correct setup.

With respect to keywords, use the Google Keyword Planner tool.

- Start by entering the products or services closely related to your business and see the estimated CPC and Volume for each keyword (look to add the search terms relevant to Children as negatives to avoid serving Ads here).
- If Adults are your intended audience than navigate to the 'Audience Manager' tool and begin adding 'Custom Audience Segments' for Adults who have interests in XYZ (which closely relates back to your business).
- Or, you can select the campaign in question, go to 'Audiences' - left hand side than 'exclude' certain audiences, i.e. children.

Moreover, I would believe that low search volume might also impact you as its a quite a niche area so 'Performance Max' would be a more effective channel for you to reach a larger audience. Give it a try and let me know, hope that helps !

 

[Andy Black]

when all competitors have a specific advantage, no one does

I believe this too.

I suspect Google's ultimate goal is for advertisers to enter their credit card details and website URL and let the algorithms get on with it. In which case it will be down to whoever has the best offer, copy, and landing page / website. And who can afford to pay the most to acquire a customer.

The adwords marketing itself is now just taken out as a variable you could excel in.

They're making it harder to do things manually. I suspect the people who understand what their AI is trying to do and can manipulate it the best will be even more sought after.

It is much easier to change your website and product for the better when your finger is on the pulse.

I always said the biggest benefit of Google Ads (the ones that run on Google itself) is that we find out what people are searching for on a whiff of spend, and can dial in the ads, landing page, and offer using this trickle of high search intent visitors. Then turn on the tap by increasing bids and budgets.

Google seems to be leaning towards the world where advertisers need to already have an offer that sells and they'll then go make sales for us and we'll not know who or why people are buying. I don't like that.

I'm just hard pressed to see how the AI can serve multiple competing masters.

I think (hope?) businesses still use Google Ads as a marketing tool and not just an advertising tool and that it still enables the better tool wielders to do a better job of helping businesses.

My definition of marketing btw is:

• Find out what people want to buy.
• Find out how to sell it to them profitably.
• Do it.

I'm finding it harder and harder to do this with Google Ads.

Google Ads seems to be getting more and more complicated the more "simple" they make it.

 

[Cameraman]

Because I like helping people @Cameraman

Apologies for being cautious and it's always great when someone tries to genuinely help others.

Do you have a bullet point "flight plan" you could share for someone wanting to get started with Google Ads?

Thank you

 

[Conor Foley]

1. How much data do you need to feed Google in order for automated bidding strategies to be truly effective?

2. Historically I have found that phrase match is the best way to go. Do you have any arguments for broad match? And a follow up... Does Google adjust the price per click based on the type of matching that you choose?

@BizyDad, Great question mate!

1. To best leverage 'Smart Bidding' we need at least 4 weeks of continuous data and a minimum of 15 conversions over the last 30 days to sufficiently train the ML model. Also, the minimum figure indicated by Google is 3,000 weekly impressions per ad group to take advantage of 'Smart Bidding'.

- The more data we have the higher the chances of success. Of course, before we talk 'Smart Bidding' we need to have 100% confidence in our Conversion Tracking setup as that is how we're going to accurately attribute these conversion to individual campaigns / ad groups.
- At Google, we encourage 'The Hagakure Method' to build Ad Groups optimised for ML (see attached screenshot).

2. Phrase Match and Exact for that matter have changed a lot in recent times. The boundaries have blurred and its pushing more advertisers into automation.

- The argument for Broad Match is simple just this year 'Google reconfirmed that 15% of all searches on Google = New Searches'. Therefore, Broad Match works best when paired with Smart Bidding 2.0 (Value Based Bidding) as its able to determine higher quality prospects from lower quality and therefore expand reach in a manner which generates higher conversion value / no. of sales in general.
- Broad Match requires consistent monitoring of Search Term reports and updating the negative keyword list's for each campaign to ensure poor quality leads are netted out.

2 (b) Yes, they do of course, surprisingly enough 'Broad Match' is often cheaper from a CPC perspective as its less competitive. Match types and their price per click is mostly correlated with the competition in terms of bids of certain keywords and match types.
- Just another reason why a/c's should be optimised towards behavioral and intent signals as opposed to the traditional purely keyword driven strategies especially for larger accounts looking to scale.

 

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[Conor Foley]

A lot of googles recommendations seem like they are just ways for them to take more of your ad spend

Broad match

Pmax

Etc

Are there any of these tips that actually benefit people or is it still best to micromanage campaigns?

And I guess the obvious question, what’s working now? Especially for ecom

@MitchC, We hear this all the time and look mate that's the common perception out there - no denying it!

Broad Match, PMax and the constant 'Increase Budget' recommendation are going nowhere if I'm honest...

PMax and Broad Match are new automated tools from Google to take advantage of millions of behavioral and intent based signals Google can extract from your SSO - Google Account (gmail address) which is likely signed in most of the time you're searching online.

- This allows Google to create digital profiles of us online and start predicting ads / interest and hobbies we may be interested in without us necessarily searching for them online and this is where the future is going as 3rd party cookies are being phased out and Google needs to rely on First Party data i.e. our email addresses to map our our user journey online. and track our browsing sessions.

*Unless you follow the best practices for these sophisticated products, i.e. conversion tracking and Smart Bidding than you will likely not be successful and end up wasting money on 'spammy' leads.

 

[Conor Foley]

Apologies for being cautious and it's always great when someone tries to genuinely help others.

Do you have a bullet point "flight plan" you could share for someone wanting to get started with Google Ads?

Thank you

Completely understand mate, no worries at all!

This is a good resource here - Google Ads Checklist.

Essentially start thinking in terms of your business and marketing objectives, outline them and a realistic timeframe. Follow the checklist above than begin setting up your paid search campaigns focusing on the high purchasing intent of 'long tail keyword driven strategies'.

e.g. For a local service business (Electricians) this would be 'electrical repairs near me' or even better 'electrical repairs in XYZ Town' and do this for all the towns your covering. The difference being we know people searching for these terms are bottom of the funnel and have their card in hand - ready to buy. As @Andy Black always says!

 

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[Andy Black]

I've seen you say this a few times in your videos and the forum. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how.
I need to come up with the initial keywords to advertise. If I don't hit on one that potential customers are searching for then I'm still in the dark about what they are searching for, aren't I?

What am I not understanding?

Have you read this one? Let me know if that makes sense.

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

 

[Conor Foley]

Why?

Because I like helping people @Cameraman

 

[BizyDad]

1. How much data do you need to feed Google in order for automated bidding strategies to be truly effective?

2. Historically I have found that phrase match is the best way to go. Do you have any arguments for broad match? And a follow up... Does Google adjust the price per click based on the type of matching that you choose?

 

[Conor Foley]

Hi Conor. We've talked privately about Google's automated strategies vs my keyword based paid search strategies. I nearly spat my coffee out laughing when you called me old school.

Don't worry about @Cameraman checking on your motives. He's a great guy and been super helpful in some of my threads. The forum is rightfully suspicious of new members trying to solicit leads by "giving value". I think there's even a rule about not starting an AMA without approval. Given I know you IRL and encouraged you to join the forum I'll just allay people's fears.

Spending time working in Google is an amazing start for you. Build on that with the entrepreneurial mindset, skills, and business models you'll get by making friends, building relationships, and creating win-wins. This forum is the best place I know online for that. Oh, and you'll have to unlearn some things you picked up from Google... such as corporate speak.

Good luck with your AMA, in the forum, and with your fledgling business.

Hey Andy! Of course we have, me being a Gen Z. I'm super comfortable with automation and relinquishing control to systems as long as I know for sure I've followed the best practices and that I've seen the same patterns repeat themselves time and time again. This really means integrating all your systems (CRM & 3rd party) and seamlessly sharing information to give the algo's as much information to learn from as possible.

Thanks Andy, I just thought some people would be interested to hear my advice and hopefully we start a good dialogue for all of us PPC nerds out there.

I champion this completely Andy, you know me I'm very outgoing and I love making friends, learning new things and being as helpful as I can be. The aul corporate speak has got to go - I agree mate but old habits die hard. I might need a detox of some sort but I'm sure speaking with smaller business owners will help me a lot.

Thanks Andy for all your advice as always

 

[Antifragile]

This thread is like foreign language to me. Subscribed and will be reading.

 

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[Andy Black]

Full disclosure... I've just engaged @Conor Foley to look over some of our client accounts.

Getting the "Google" take on optimisation is interesting (dare I say depressing?). I'm not going to blindly follow Google best practices, but I think it's good to know how the game-keeper thinks.

As much as I can I'll try to "surface" our conversations and have them in this thread so others can benefit.


Oh, and I'm secretly helping Conor not be so "Google". My goal is to turn him from the darkside. We'll see how that goes... the force is strong with this one.

 

[BizyDad]

@Conor Foley ... you've mentioned Auto-Apply Recommendations (AAR). I think these are sneaky by Google. If we ever see any of these turned on we turn them off. I'd rather know what's going on in the account and be in control. I think client's would rather I was doing that too.


In particular you asked if we "streamline" our accounts and mentioned the AAR settings below.

I'm curious what the official Google line is.

• What does "streamlining" an account mean, and why would we want to do it?
• I have my thoughts on making accounts easier to manage and why I'd keep "non-serving keywords". I'm curious what the Google official line is on removing non-serving keywords. Are accounts penalised for having too many keywords?

View attachment 45863

I've wondered this too. Like you I always turn these off. For example one of my favorite techniques is using a phrase match of a term like "Chandler homes for sale" but then negative keywording out the exact match of it. [Chandler homes for sale].

I do this in situations where I'm trying to get the long-tail traffic, but the actual keyword phrase gets most of the clicks, eats up the budget, but doesn't convert as well as the long-tail stuff.

I find myself using this tactic more and more, but Google will always flag it and ask me to remove the negative keyword.

@BizyDad ... Conor is Irish. "This is gas" translates to "This is funny". It took me a while to get it when I first came over to Ireland...

I got it. It took me using Google to find urban dictionary, but I got it. I felt old doing it, but I got it.

Now, I'm sure my coworkers are already tired of me calling things "gas". I just think that using the word gas is gas.

 

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[MitchC]

A lot of googles recommendations seem like they are just ways for them to take more of your ad spend

Broad match

Pmax

Etc

Are there any of these tips that actually benefit people or is it still best to micromanage campaigns?

And I guess the obvious question, what’s working now? Especially for ecom

 

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[Andy Black]

This thread is like foreign language to me. Subscribed and will be reading.

Lol.

If you want it in business speak then this workshop will help. I presented the power of Google Ads to a group of small business owners, without ever showing the interface.

A business owner who watched it said it was the best marketing course he's ever watched.

MARKETING - Google Ads Workshop Replay

I did a 90 minute online workshop for some business owners in Ireland last week. This is probably the most comprehensive video I've done to explain Google Ads ... for business owners. What's your takeaways? What will you do different going forward? View: https://youtu.be/T0swT3kEOQs

www.thefastlaneforum.com

 

[Andy Black]

Thanks for the reply.

Is the graphic you shared a little out of date, given that there's no ETA's anymore?

Which brings up another question. Is there any reason to have more than one RSA in an ad group?

Sometimes I want to try to split test messaging and it's hard with one RSA. But if I create two RSAs with less headlines and descriptions, Google pretty quickly chooses one as the winner and most of the impressions go to that... So I've kind of given up trying, and I blend everything into one RSA.

Yeah, I do the same. I'll have one RSA, see which combinations get shown the most and create another RSA with only the elements in those combinations and pause the other RSA. Then I'll see if the ad group CTR improves.


For those who don't know:

RSA = Responsive Search Ad

They have up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions. Only 3 headlines and 3 descriptions will show, and that's a lot of permutations.

 

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[BizyDad]

Well spotted @BizyDad, that's just me being lazy and pulling the first graphic I found.

@Andy Black will probably not like my strategy here but I use 'AAR - Auto-Apply Recommendations' and I select 'Improve my RSA's and 'Build new RSA's'. Improve my RSA's allows Google to mix and match the headlines and descriptions to show those combinations which perform best... Hence, improving ad relevance, CTR and Ad quality. Build new RSA's will use the messaging from existing RSA's to build new RSA's for Ad groups which don't have one while also scanning the website ensuring ad relevance / ad quality is excellent and Google will reward you for your efforts.

To caveat my point above, use the build new RSA's recommendation with caution. First pin your top headlines and descriptions - then through 'Change History' you can see the live changes being made. This works extremely well for very easy to understand business models i.e. eCommerce merchandising as opposed to more complex business models like SaaS. Auto-apply recommendations deserve a thread of themselves as when used correctly & following best practices they really excel results.

(*Incoming rant*)

And this is how we train our future robot overlords...



In the coming apocalypse I'll be the guy off screen shooting laser guns at these automated Google strategies.

Jokes aside, last I tested this we ran into problems. Like giving a discount on one service, and having Google promise that discount in all the ad groups.

I feel like clients pay us to do the thinking, not to click buttons so machines can learn faster how to do the work to replace us...

Anymore it seems like Google just wants to give us the illusion of control.

 

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[NeoDialectic]

Adwords was never an area of expertise for me, but it was always something that I had to do one way or another for my businesses. So I would love to hear your opinion on my anecdotal takeaways. Based on your responses so far, I think you will likely balk at my experience.

It seems to me that automatic campaigns were obviously always 100x easier to implement but always did worse than manual campaigns. I admit that maybe I needed to optimize things better, but we could set that aside. I find it difficult to see how they can be helpful in competitive fields for anything but lining googles wallets. I completely understand the idea behind them and that in a vacuum, AI learning could make much better choices based on basically unlimited data. But when things hit the pavement, the reality is that when all competitors have a specific advantage, no one does.

I understand that an automatic campaign may be better at making sure only customers that want my type of product see my ad. But what about when there are 5 other people selling the same thing running the same campaign? Obviously having the best converting website/product is what will ultimately provide the advantage then.... That may ultimately even be an ultimate "good" for Google. But not for the business. The adwords marketing itself is now just taken out as a variable you could excel in. On top of that, @Andy Black makes an excellent point that parallels mine. It is much easier to change your website and product for the better when your finger is on the pulse.

I really meant it when I said that adwords isn't my expertise and that I may be wrong. So I look forward to you pointing out what I'm missing. I'm just hard pressed to see how the AI can serve multiple competing masters. (IMO...the answer is that it's because we aren't the masters and Google is).

 

[Cameraman]

I always said the biggest benefit of Google Ads (the ones that run on Google itself) is that we find out what people are searching for on a whiff of spend, and can dial in the ads, landing page, and offer using this trickle of high search intent visitors. Then turn on the tap by increasing bids and budgets.

I've seen you say this a few times in your videos and the forum. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how.
I need to come up with the initial keywords to advertise. If I don't hit on one that potential customers are searching for then I'm still in the dark about what they are searching for, aren't I?

What am I not understanding?

 

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[Andy Black]

The question that's swimming around in my head now is do I start with a broad search term or something more specific? For example, do I advertise "Learn Photoshop" or "Books to learn Photoshop"? If this were on Amazon I would use the wider term and then refine my search terms based on the Ad's search history and the terms people used to trigger my ad.

With Google, I'm guessing it needs a different approach and the narrower search term like "Books to learn Photoshop" is a better starting point because it has greater buyer intent. With Amazon, people are already searching the site because they want to buy.

Me personally, I'd start with absolute bulls-eye buyer search terms.

What search term indicates they have their credit card in hand looking to buy your product ... right at this moment? Start there. If you can't sell to those people, then how will you sell to the people who have a cup of coffee in hand and are doing research?

So yeah, I'd start with "photoshop books" related keywords before loading "learn photoshop" related keywords. (Unless there's keywords that indicate people want to photoshop book covers or something ... beware of those types of keywords.)


Get in front of these guys:





EDIT: I just did a video for you @Cameraman

View: https://youtu.be/KIOpiji1xXM

 

[Cameraman]

So yeah, I'd start with "photoshop books" related keywords before loading "learn photoshop" related keywords.

That makes sense and is subtly different to what works better on Amazon initially. I think it all comes down to buyer intent.

I just did a video for you @Cameraman

This is brilliant and extremely helpful. Thank you.

By the way, Lightroom comes up because the correct name for Lightroom is "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC".
People searching for Photoshop Classes are probably searching for in-person classes as they are often older users. It's why most of the searches or on desktop rather than mobile. I guess it helps when setting up Google Ads if you know the target demographic well because you need to make these connections.

I also noticed one of my book titles came up in the suggested keyword search terms in your video. I guess I've been missing a trick by not using Google Ads.

 

[Cameraman]

Whoa!! How cool is that? Folks already know your book and are looking for it.

I know - I'm lucky. My name followed by the word "book" seems to get around 90 searches a month in the UK and more in the US. Some of my more popular titles seem to be searched for from what I can see.

I have been meaning to try Google ads for some time but couldn't decide between that or Facebook ads. This has given me a push and I'll opt for Google to test the waters. I also need to clean up my sales page for one of the books to test this with. It would be nice to make some sales whilst testing.

Thank you

 

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[Conor Foley]

Wow , what a thread full of value.

Thanks mate!

 

[msufan]

I own rocketspelling.com -- a spelling game website for elementary students (English language only, US spellings). Could Google Ads be profitable for us?

Our main issue in the past has been that for whatever keywords we try to get impressions for, we end up getting accidental clicks from students instead of from teachers and school administrators. The adults are the true intended audience of our Google Ads.

 

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[Dr_B]

Thanks Conor, some useful things to consider

 

[Andy Black]

A tip @Conor Foley ... when you reply you can go into their comment and hit enter. You can break up their reply into sections and reply to each section.

Or you can select text and add it to your quotes that you can insert into a post later:




Like this:

I'm super comfortable with automation and relinquishing control to systems as long as I know for sure I've followed the best practices and that I've seen the same patterns repeat themselves time and time again. This really means integrating all your systems (CRM & 3rd party) and seamlessly sharing information to give the algo's as much information to learn from as possible.

I personally think this is beyond a lot of the smaller businesses. Hence why I start with paid search and keyword driven campaigns.

Thanks Andy, I just thought some people would be interested to hear my advice and hopefully we start a good dialogue for all of us PPC nerds out there.

Yep. Lots of people in the forum are interested in paid media. I prefer not to call it PPC as it's not always pay-per-click.

I champion this completely Andy, you know me I'm very outgoing and I love making friends, learning new things and being as helpful as I can be. The aul corporate speak has got to go - I agree mate but old habits die hard. I might need a detox of some sort but I'm sure speaking with smaller business owners will help me a lot.

Selling a B2B service will slap the corporate speak out of you fast. It's one of the reasons I suggest people start in business by selling a B2B service - it forces you to think, act, and speak like a business owner.

Thanks Andy for all your advice as always

My pleasure.

 

[BizyDad]

@BizyDad, Great question mate!

1. To best leverage 'Smart Bidding' we need at least 4 weeks of continuous data and a minimum of 15 conversions over the last 30 days to sufficiently train the ML model. Also, the minimum figure indicated by Google is 3,000 weekly impressions per ad group to take advantage of 'Smart Bidding'.

- The more data we have the higher the chances of success. Of course, before we talk 'Smart Bidding' we need to have 100% confidence in our Conversion Tracking setup as that is how we're going to accurately attribute these conversion to individual campaigns / ad groups.
- At Google, we encourage 'The Hagakure Method' to build Ad Groups optimised for ML (see attached screenshot).

2. Phrase Match and Exact for that matter have changed a lot in recent times. The boundaries have blurred and its pushing more advertisers into automation.

- The argument for Broad Match is simple just this year 'Google reconfirmed that 15% of all searches on Google = New Searches'. Therefore, Broad Match works best when paired with Smart Bidding 2.0 (Value Based Bidding) as its able to determine higher quality prospects from lower quality and therefore expand reach in a manner which generates higher conversion value / no. of sales in general.
- Broad Match requires consistent monitoring of Search Term reports and updating the negative keyword list's for each campaign to ensure poor quality leads are netted out.

2 (b) Yes, they do of course, surprisingly enough 'Broad Match' is often cheaper from a CPC perspective as its less competitive. Match types and their price per click is mostly correlated with the competition in terms of bids of certain keywords and match types.
- Just another reason why a/c's should be optimised towards behavioral and intent signals as opposed to the traditional purely keyword driven strategies especially for larger accounts looking to scale.

Thanks for the reply.

Is the graphic you shared a little out of date, given that there's no ETA's anymore?

Which brings up another question. Is there any reason to have more than one RSA in an ad group?

Sometimes I want to try to split test messaging and it's hard with one RSA. But if I create two RSAs with less headlines and descriptions, Google pretty quickly chooses one as the winner and most of the impressions go to that... So I've kind of given up trying, and I blend everything into one RSA.

 

[Conor Foley]

Thanks for the reply.

Is the graphic you shared a little out of date, given that there's no ETA's anymore?

Well spotted @BizyDad, that's just me being lazy and pulling the first graphic I found.

Which brings up another question. Is there any reason to have more than one RSA in an ad group?

@Andy Black will probably not like my strategy here but I use 'AAR - Auto-Apply Recommendations' and I select 'Improve my RSA's and 'Build new RSA's'. Improve my RSA's allows Google to mix and match the headlines and descriptions to show those combinations which perform best... Hence, improving ad relevance, CTR and Ad quality. Build new RSA's will use the messaging from existing RSA's to build new RSA's for Ad groups which don't have one while also scanning the website ensuring ad relevance / ad quality is excellent and Google will reward you for your efforts.

Sometimes I want to try to split test messaging and it's hard with one RSA. But if I create two RSAs with less headlines and descriptions, Google pretty quickly chooses one as the winner and most of the impressions go to that... So I've kind of given up trying, and I blend everything into one RSA.

To caveat my point above, use the build new RSA's recommendation with caution. First pin your top headlines and descriptions - then through 'Change History' you can see the live changes being made. This works extremely well for very easy to understand business models i.e. eCommerce merchandising as opposed to more complex business models like SaaS. Auto-apply recommendations deserve a thread of themselves as when used correctly & following best practices they really excel results.