← The Paid Search Podcast | A Weekly Podcast About Google Ads and Online Marketing
The Paid Search Podcast | A Weekly Podcast About Google Ads and Online Marketing
6 REALLY GOOD Questions from Listeners (Episode 500)
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Foreign. Hello and welcome to the paid search podcast. My name is Chris and today I have six really good questions from listeners. So this is a follow up to an episode I had about a month ago about PPC dying for home services. I have some commentary and feedback from listeners. I also have people asking about AI, the future of Google Ads. I have people that are asking about site links. I have people that are having issues with the, their reporting systems in Google Ads. How can they effectively report to their own clients? I have people that are asking about LSAs and you know, I'm going to jump into all of it right now, so stay tuned because this is going to be a, a packed episode with a lot of information. Okay, so let's, let's go with number one and I'll go ahead and say this right up front. If I say your name wrong, I am sorry, nothing personal. So I'm going to go with Philip. Philip's number one here. He says, hi, Chris. Philip has two questions. He says, since you said you were worried about the future of Google Ads, in your opinion, do you think Google Ads will eventually become irrelevant? And if so, in what kind of timeframe? What should professionals who currently work in Google Ads be preparing for? All right, so that's Philip's first question. So I'm going to answer that and say, yes, I do think Google search will become irrelevant. The timeframe I can't answer. I'm not a, I'm not smart enough to know the future on something like that. I don't know. You know, I might guess in five to 10 years perhaps, but that's, I mean, I could be off a lot in either direction there. But let me address why I think it's a yes, I do think AI will eventually kill Google Ads and it will no longer be the same that it is now. If you want to call that irrelevant, fine. It may change, but it will not remain as it is. But I don't think that's because AI is super good at campaign building or getting the right traffic or getting successful campaigns running. Absolutely not. I have seen the gambit of people running performance Max and having absolute disasters with that. I have seen people that ask AI how to build a Google Ads campaign and have absolute disasters with that. So I don't care whether it's AI instructing a person how to do it or AI doing it themselves. It's not good at it. It's not good at it. So it's not because I think it's good at marketing. I do think companies and people will start to migrate away from Google searches and they'll find other avenues to get questions and information. I think that's already happening. Here's the reason. I think it's gonna happen faster. And this is a uncomfortable truth, but I'll be honest with you. I've always been honest on this podcast. And I mean, I'm gonna jump in. We're. We're a couple minutes in. I'm gonna tell you something that, you know, it hurts to say, but I think the more pressing issue is the rot within Google Ads. Rot. Rot. I think there is major issues in Google Ads. I will give you examples. I mean, I could do an entire episode, but I don't. I don't think that's constructive. That doesn't help anyone. I don't want to just vent and gripe as a. And call that content. So I will give four points about why I think there is a rot and a destruction happening within Google Ads. Number one, largely, there are multiple points I could share about this, but there is a large amount of uncontrollable traffic that happens in Google Ads where you cannot control the right amount of traffic that you want for a specific niche thing, big or small, you can't do it. Number two, very poor support from Google. I would, I think it's even a stretch to call it support. The quote, unquote help that you get from Google is destructive more than it's helpful. Number three, disappearing data. Data that just no longer shows two big examples. Search terms I find are hiding themselves more and more. And then second is other things that are just gone, you know, that are no longer even possible to be seen is something like user location. Where did my clicks come from? Where did my PPC traffic come from? Where was the user when they clicked? You cannot see that. I don't know. Before you send me an email, I promise you, if you tell me you can see that in Google Ads, you're wrong. User location data is now gone. That. That changed back in early 2021, something like that. So that is gone. And then last, the interface. I'm finding massive issues with the interface. The interface is a mess. It is awful. It's cluttered with AI crap that I don't want to see. It's very poor, poorly responsive. It takes forever to load things. It is a nightmare to build campaigns and add keywords because of so many issues that you have. Especially anyone who's a power user that builds campaigns every single day does, you know, spends eight to ten hours a day in Google Ads. It is a nightmare to work in. So in the end you have to fight to control and you know, for, for those that are in the PPC industry, you need to prepare to do more fighting for controlling your traffic, controlling the quality of traffic that you're getting, controlling your campaigns, monitoring and, and making sure that you get what you want out of your Google Ads campaigns. Okay, I told you I was coming in hot. So here we go. I mean that was question one. So let's go to question two from Philip. Question two says what industries or skills, skill sets do you believe are the smartest and most realistic transition path for someone coming from Google Ads? What fields are better as a long term option? Basically, how do PPC professionals future proof their careers? And Philip says thank you in advance and keep up the great work with the podcast. Okay, I think PPC managers, if you're a good PPC manager, you're good at strategy, strategic, you know, big and small strategy and problem solving, specifically with things that have data and metrics associated with it. So anyone who, you know, wants to future proof, you know, look into other things, put probably online, you know, I mean that we're all computer skilled. If you're a Google Ads manager, you're mainly doing things on computer. You know, it might be specific software, it might be other things, but problem solving, data, you know, looking through metrics and making decisions and strategy and long term and especially things where there are clear goals and you need to reach that goal, you need to try and hit that goal. That's the larger skill that can be transitioned into other things. So I think that's a good bet. So, all right, so that's the first question. I've got five more coming up. Before I tell you about the next one, I want to remind you about my sponsor, optio.com so optio is a dedicated management software for people that would listen to a nerdy guy who does Google Ads all day talk about stuff that nobody cares about except for just us. Optio is for you. If you need detailed metrics, suggestions, tools to help you expand your efficiency and performance in your Google Ads campaign or campaigns or clients that you have optio.com PSP to get a 28 day free trial where you can do more with less, you can get more done. You can see data in ways that you've never seen it before, you can try it for free. 28 days. That's exclusively. If you go to optio.com PSP use the chat box at the bottom of their page, let them know. Hey, Chris sent me here from the Pacers podcast and they'll hook you up with that special deal. All right, moving on now to Larry. Larry says, hey, Chris, I hope all is well. I just got done listening to your latest episode on PPC for home services and how they're dying and I could hear the frustration in your voice. I can't say I blame you as I've experienced similar things. Just a few years ago. Managing Google Ads among service businesses helped me launch my business and grow it quite a bit. Now I'm seeing super high CPCs, poor quality leads and disappointed clients. It's truly infuriating. Do you ever foresee yourself pivoting to focus on optimizing for AI or even AI ads when they arrive? I'd love to hear you talk about that on a future episode. Thanks for continuing to share your experiences via the podcast. Well, thank you, Larry. I'll tell you, I put the call out about a month ago and told people, tell me I'm wrong. Tell me you're doing phenomenal work in home services Google Ads. I did not get anyone pushing back on that. In fact, you'll hear more, more, more people saying, you're right, you're right, you're right. No one said you're wrong. So if you haven't heard the podcast about home services is dying on on ppc, go back and listen to that. If you think I'm wrong, write to me. I want to hear people. It is very upsetting to know that people only agree and don't disagree at this point. The comments on YouTube, you know, feedback that I've gotten has not been combative on that point at all, which is upsetting. So to answer Larry's question, I mean, this is more of a personal question, but I'm fine answering it. It is unlikely that I will transition to any other industries or platforms. I am 23 years into this career at this point, and I'm honestly at the top of my game. I mean, I've been accelerating and I'm doing fine. I enjoy what I do. I'm really good at it. So I probably won't transition to anything else. If you, if you want an illustration of what that looks like, imagine Bilbo Baggins getting on to. Not Bilbo. No, it's Frodo. Right? Frodo. Frodo Baggins with Bilbo getting onto the ship and sailing off. I mean, that's me in the sinking ship of Google Ads. I mean, I'll probably just keep doing it because there's still a lot of opportunity out there, but I feel like the industry is sick. Feel like the industry's sick. So let's move on now to John. John says, hey, Chris, I'm starting my jump into managing my own clients, and I was wondering what reporting system you currently use for your clients. Okay, thank you, John, for your question. So, actually, this is interesting that you asked. I recently needed a change. I've been using the same reporting system. Now, this is. This is not Optio. I think I've been very clear and transparent that, you know, I use Optio for different purposes and reporting. I've always used a different platform. I transitioned about a month ago to using Swydo. So that's S W Y D O Swydo. S W Y D O. Yeah. And I have to say, I've been quite happy with it. I. I really. And I. I cannot use enough of adjectives to explain how much I dislike complexity and frustration that comes from over engineered interfaces. Interfaces that take me longer to learn and get the job done than just getting the job done. Like, I have to learn how to do it, you know, and there's all these tools, and it's so complicated. I really hate that stuff. It drives me crazy. I don't want to use a tool that adds complexity to something that already is complex. So. So the cool thing is I found SWYDO to be really simple. I have a lot of clients that had to transfer over to this new reporting system, and it was really easy. The interface is my favorite of all the different ones I've tried. It's really simple and easy to customize. I was expecting a huge headache. I actually finished it way earlier than I thought because I set up a lot of time to. Okay, I need to get this finished before the end of January. Um, and it. It didn't take me long at all. I was thrilled. So thanks for your question, John. That's currently my favorite reporting for right now. That could change, but I. I really like it. And right now I'm. I'm a fan. All right, now moving on to Annie. Annie says good day, Chris. My name is Annie. I am the director of marketing for a local pest company in Florida. A pest control company in Florida. Senior. Here we go again. Home Services is dying podcast brought me so much validation as I have had my suspicions about Google Ads becoming a dead end for us for the past few months as I watch a devastating decline in our traffic. In this episode, you mention why you believe it's dying, especially due to LSAs local search ads. So that stands for why we run both LSA and Google Ads. And at the moment, we're working on doing more optimization of our organic SEO techniques, blogging descriptions, et cetera. It's a heavily saturated market against these big guys that has an endless amount of money for advertising compared to just our small company. My initial thought is, should we take our Google Ads budget and dump it into the lsa even though we can't control the quality of the leads? Do you think that's too risky? If that is not the answer, what do you believe is the alternative route for our home service company on Google Ads, if any? I appreciate all you do from any. Well, any. Again, you guys heard it. I mean, I'm not hiding anybody who disagree with me. Everyone's agreeing with me, which is upsetting. So thanks for the feedback, Annie. And the short answer is this, Yes. I believe in many instances, LSA may be a better investment. In many instances, it has better visibility. It's as I, as I mentioned, and I won't repeat a lot of stuff I did on my episode of Home Services is Dying. I have my issues with lsa, but I think in many instances it might be a better option simply because it seems like a kind of set it and forget it. You know, there's not a whole lot of management involved. At least you're not spending your time there and wasting money in ways that you're frustratingly trying to stop. At least there you can just set your budget and hope the leads are qualified. As far as Google Ads PPC goes, you know, another avenue might be a more narrow niche for your home services company. So I've struggled to come up with an example of this, but here's the best I can do. So let's say you're a home cleaning service and, you know, cleaners near me, home, you know, maids for home cleaning near me, you know, those kind of searches. Know this, this is a home service. And it is also, you know, going to struggle in some instances, I think not as much as others, but an example of a transition, you know, a more narrowing niche, but still maintaining something is, you know, I had a client that transitioned from home cleaning service to Airbnb cleaning, right? It basically turned into, you know, something specific for a very detailed clientele. And, and the value of doing this, you say, well, how is this better, Chris? You're still using Google Ads. You're still going to have the same problems with keywords. Here's the here, here's why it's better. It's better because now it is Very clear. It is black and white. When you know you've got a good search and a bad search. Cleaning services is a bad search for that client if they do home cleaning service. You know, if you get a search for home cleaning services near me, that's a bad search because now it needs to be qualified. It needs to be Airbnb, it needs to be repetitive. It's a. They've basically changed to a. A business, a B2B kind of lead generation. So this is massive because, I mean, now I can look at the search terms, I can build my traffic, my, my, my ad copy, my keywords, my negative keywords, all of that based on a very specific niche. And I can tell good, bad, good, bad, good, bad, Bam. I mean, it's very clear. There's no gray area about that. So it is, you know, that's an example of a transition from, you know, I'm not talking like this is easy to just change your business's industry, but, you know, maybe there's hope for people that can do something like that, transition into something that is easier to generate leads for. Maybe you keep doing what you're doing, but. But Google Ads is now devoted to this other thing. Okay, so I have another question. I have two more, and I'll promise the way I laid them out, my favorite question is the last one. I didn't do that on purpose, but Dan has a question, and it was my. My favorite one because I get to gripe about something that is an absolute pet peeve of mine. So stick around. All right, so next to last question here, Siri. Siri asks, send a great email, lots of detail. I'm gonna boil it down to a couple bullet points. Basically, Siri is having campaign performance that has declined since October. Lower CPCs, worse CTR impression share, conversion rate. The gambit of everything having issues. And upon testing and trying different things, cheaper clicks brought around lower quality traffic, as you would expect. Right? Cheaper traffic, not as good a quality, not worth it. And then experienced dropping conversion rates further from that, you know, from 35% to 18%, which is pretty significant. Google, you know how I feel about Google suggestions, as I talked about in the first comment of the show. But. But Google suggests using AI Max. And the advertiser is. Siri is considering specifically possibly trying to go back to manual bidding as opposed to some of the automated bidding that they were doing. So the question is, you know, what should they do AI Max is that, you know, how do I feel about AI Max in this situation that I described is manual Bidding a better option. And the answer is this. Do not try AI Max. And this is specifically for Siri, because the description here is specific enough that I can tell that the issue is the quality of traffic and the dropping conversion rate. Okay? The problem is AI Max will expand upon your searches. That is not what you need. If you are struggling with traffic quality conversion rates, expansion by itself will kill it further. It'll make massive issues. You'll have dropping impression shares, you'll have increasing CPC, not increasing CPCs, but you'll have increasing depth and the campaign will have massively growing width. And now essentially your search impression share is dropping to nothing. And you're not showing up on some of your more important keywords because now your search terms are multiplying exponentially. So you're covering more and more of the field and not necessarily the area that you want. So what do you do? Well, rather than expanding, which is what AI Max would do, you need to regroup, you need to narrow, and then you need to expand. And I'll give you a short answer of what that looks like. Regroup means you need to review what has worked in the past and what has been the worst, the least effective for you. Okay, now you regroup and then you narrow. So now you take that information that has been the best and you double down on that. Start doing very specific targeting. Try and get some even more narrow ad groups that really target that as best you can. Write ad copy to try and just lure people in if they're searching for this. So say the best thing you can to bring them in. That's, that's what's performed the best. Push into that as much as possible. Narrow sniper shots straight into that and block the worst. So that's what narrowing looks like. Shrinking your pipe, blocking the junk and targeting the good stuff. Okay, so the last part, expansion is building a new campaign. Building a new campaign with a wider reach, maybe even broad match. Test new ideas. Don't just narrow, you narrow and expand. But this needs to be a separate campaign. Do not do them in the same campaign. Okay, so try other things. Try some smart, broad match testing, you know, low CPCs with some, maybe, you know, different types of, you know, only, only you know how this can apply. But do not just narrow, narrow in one area and expand in another. And test, test, test, test, see what it can do. I final thought is here, I'd rather you do a DSA campaign than a AI Max. DSA is dynamic search ad. So there's such a thing as a dynamic search ad campaign which you can set up. I'd rather do that than AI Max. I could talk a lot about why DSA is better than AI Max. DSA is the the grandfather of AI Max. Amax is the snotty little kid that thinks he's better. You know, little teenager bouncing around thinking he's the new hot stuff. He's not. He's not. DSA has been doing this a long time. DSA is the grandfather of AI Max and it is superior in almost every way. All right, last question from Dan. As I said is my favorite and reminds you. Please go check out optio.com p they are my sponsor. They keep this show on the air. So tweet at them, email them, try their software, whatever you need to do. Just make sure they know that you heard about their awesome software on this podcast. It helps keep me going and I appreciate you guys helping my sponsors because you're helping me. Last question from Dan. Dan says, are site links a trap? The sentiment on this is confusing. Some say it brought it provides improved ctr more screen real estate. But my personal experience is that site links are quick way to burn cash. Mostly small to medium business sized accounts is what it happens in. But I Dan side note, I can tell you it burns cash in big accounts as well. So our site links a trap? Dan asks. Chris says yes, yes they are. I cannot tell you the number of times I have brought up people's conversion rates, lowered their cost per conversion, done what they thought was miraculous improvements in their Google Ads where they were not able to do otherwise just by optimizing their site links or sometimes just turning them off. I really dislike site links. In many instances for smaller businesses their site links are an about us page. It's a staff page. It's a page product description page that sucks. It's a link to their homepage or it's a, you know link to their some other page that is not ideal. And then they write really catching appealing headlines for that site link, right? They say learn get, get get a price for our services or get a quote today. They put that as the headline. And what does it do? It takes people to the contact page. Contact page trash. It's just a form. It just says contact us at the top and there's a form. Nobody likes that. Nobody's going to fill that out. They don't know who you are. They just clicked on an ad. They're like oh this I don't know what I'm doing. Maybe they'll navigate back to the homepage Maybe they'll click the back button and then click on your link again, your actual headline link, and go back to your site. Now you pay for it twice. So you played, you paid double CPC for the same person because they clicked on a site link. So here's, here's the thing. I'm going to lean in close because this is just between us. Listen, this is going to sound shocking. This is going to sound ridiculous. I don't want CTRs. I don't want a high click through rate, okay? I don't want them. I'm actually quite abrasive about who I want clicking on my ads. I want conversion rates. I will take extremely low CTRs and extremely high conversion rates if I had a choice because I'm saving money and getting value with high conversion rates. Higher CTR if I typically. What I find the rule is this, if you have an extremely high ctr, you probably have a very low conversion rate. Why? Because you're building campaigns that encourage people to click. You don't just invite everyone in, you invite people that are likely to convert. Don't click on my ad. If you're not likely to want what I'm selling, don't click on it. So I build and manage my campaigns to exclude a lot of those moderately interested customers. They are not something I want coming to my site or my client site more specifically. So site links lead to higher CTR because it takes up more screen real estate. Right. And there might be something in the CT in the site link that's appealing. You know, there might be something that says get information about pricing. You know where I usually see most of sitelink clicks happening is whenever people put anything about price or cost in a site link, you might have a beautiful landing page and then someone clicks on a site link that says pricing and they go straight to your pricing page like, oh, that's too expensive. Leave. They didn't even get your pitch. All they got was your price. That's called a bad salesman. If your salesman, if your salesman is picking up the phone and the person says hello and they say $150 an hour and the person hangs up, is, is that the customer's fault or is that your salesman's fault? Don't just shout price at them and expect conversion rates to happen. And that's what site links do. They immediately divert someone from your best pitch into some side page that you're not really thinking about, but you don't realize it. But there's like 30, 40% of your traffic going to that. And it is not converting. You're wasting money. So, Dan, thank you for my favorite question, because I really hate site links. I am. I am Chris Schaefer, the site link link destroyer. All right, so end it there. If you guys want to reach out to me to get help with your Google Ads campaigns, you can find me chrishaefer. Com. Otherwise, you'll find me right here every Monday. We'll catch you guys next week.