← 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
Answering Questions from Listeners! (Episode 472)
00:32:35
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Chris Schaefer
Foreign hello and welcome to the paid search podcast. My name is Chris and I'm back. Have to say thank you to Joey Bidner for giving me a bit of relief for the couple weeks that I was actually visiting my northern neighbor, Canada. I took a nice little vacation trip and enjoyed some cooler weather. So I appreciate Joey filling in there for a couple of weeks. Hopefully you guys enjoyed that really informational podcast. I I'm back. Have to say it was a wonderful trip. I rode a train across Canada, hiked up some mountains, saw some beautiful clear cold water. All of these things are things I don't usually get to see in Texas, certainly not in the height of summer here. So it's a great trip. And I'm back and I have questions from listeners. I have several questions from listeners who asked some really interesting things. I'm going to dive into that. I'm going to talk about questions actually about how to sell Google Ads. So if you're in the PPC industry and interested in that, I'm going to talk about that towards the end of the show. Also going to talk about, you know, some processes of how you can manage your campaigns and how you can manage the automated aspect and what the do's and don'ts Are also going to talk about display campaigns and and something that we have not talked about, a term that you may not have heard. It was new to me. What do you know about the taxonomy of Google Ads? I had to look that up, figure out what that meant exactly, and we're going to talk about that shortly. Before we do, I want to talk about my sponsor who helps me make this podcast possible. It takes a lot of time and effort and as a Google Ads PPC manager, time and effort is something I have a limited amount of. And if you also find yourself struggling with the amount of effort that it takes to dig through the numbers to make the right decisions day in and day out. Well, I will tell you, you've got a tool that will absolutely come in handy. That is optio.com PSP I give you that URL specifically because you go to that URL you can get a long, a longer free trial of this tool. A 28 day free trial that you won't get anywhere else. This is exclusive for listeners of this show. That's optio.com PSP to try the tool that helps Google Ads managers around the world save hours and hours in their management processes. What I talk about here on the podcast is the daily grind of decision making. This tool helps you make those decisions in in strict priority order, right? Number one, you plug it into the system and you see oh my goodness. I need to make an adjustment to my budget. I'm over budget or I'm under budget. Oh wow. I need to make adjustments to my bids. Oh wow. There's a couple of ads that are disapproved. There's some search terms that need to be addressed. There's some keywords that have overtaken my spend and are sucking up 70% of my overall spend. The these are things that you're going to want to know about and you might miss them. Even if you check the account every day. Optio can help you get those things done, those daily tasks done faster and more efficiently. Try for free@optio.com PSP for the 28 day free trial. So back to work. Not on vacation anymore. I've got stuff to do. I've got people that need answers to questions and Matt is first on the list here. Matt emailed me, which you can do as well. Get your email in pagesearchpodcastmail.com send that in there. Paid search podcastmail.com I will read your question and I'll reply back if I'm going to be putting on the show so you won't be in suspense and wondering what happened there. So I always try and reply whenever I'm going to answer. So let's read Matt's question. Hi Chris, love listening to your show. I'm still quite a novice with paid search ads, but I'm doing my best to grow. So Matt has two questions, so I'm going to run through the first question first. He says, I have an ad campaign that was set up very recently, probably only a few days ago. However, I noticed a few things that I feel should be adjusted and removed entirely. Should I wait for Google to learn the ad first or make these changes as soon as I see them? One of them's based on locations, another one is my maximum CPC bid limit. So he's seen some really expensive clicks come through and then another is adding negative keywords. So that's the first question. Matt has some hesitation because he's wondering how much time does Google need to learn? Should I adjust these? Should I approach these? And this is a great question. Something I absolutely find this to be a pet peeve of mine where I find that people become algorithm babysitters instead of managers of their own account. If you're running anything other than manual bidding, then you're using some form of an algorithm to help your account adjust bids for you. Whether it's based on conversions or clicks. So what I see a lot of people do is they hesitate. Should. Should I touch that? Right? Should I. Should I move that? Is that gonna hurt the algorithm? You know, it's like a. A baby in a crib. You know, it's like they. They have. They brought this baby in a crib, and they're trying to do work, right? And they're hammering and building things and adjusting things and making all these tweaks and adjustments. And there's this baby in the crib where they're just kind of tiptoeing around it, wondering, you know, I don't want to disturb it. I'm not sure what's happening with it. You know, it's very delicate, very mysterious. What. What should I do? I don't want it to. To break or, you know, get hurt in any way. But I'll tell you what, this is something that bothers me a lot because this is your account. This is your account. This. You're the one that's responsible for the performance, and the algorithm is there to help you. And I find a lot of people become inhibited by the algorithm. They, as I said, become babysitters of the algorithm. So here's the facts. If you're running max clicks, maximize clicks, if you're running that bid strategy, you should ignore any learning phase to your account. So, Matt, to answer your question, it sounds like you're doing maximize clicks as your bidding strategy. In that instance, ignore any learning. Absolutely. Make those changes right away. Okay? Do not hesitate. So change your location, change, you know, add a maximize CP max maximum CPC bid limit. Add those negative keywords. Absolutely. There is no learning period that's going to be more important than these changes that you discussed. Okay, so these are practical things. You should be concerned about where your ads are showing how much you're paying for these clicks, what negative keywords you should be adding. These are important. Now let me talk to those of you that are using the other side of the algorithmic bidding system. Maximize conversions or target CPA or maximize conversion value or target roas. Those four, you should be making all changes to the account that are providing unqualified traffic. Okay, so these, the changes that you're making should be changes that are based on the conversion performance. That's when you should hesitate. So whenever there's something based on the conversion performance, you should. You should hesitate and make that more slowly. But when it's based on the traffic, when it's unqualified traffic, straight up, just wrong geographic area, Wrong time of day. This is the wrong keyword. This is the wrong search term. These bids are way too expensive. You know, these are things that are based on the traffic and not the conversion. Make those changes right away. But whenever you're adjusting something because you know, you want to try and bring your cost per conversion down, or you want to try and improve your conversion rate, or you want to see what happens if I adjust the budget right, changing these things like your target cpa, your target roas, increasing them, decreasing them. These are things that should be done cautiously. Anything else that deals with traffic. Do not be a babysitter of an algorithm. Don't worry about the algorithm. The algorithm should be there to help you. It will, it may go into learning phase, but you should not treat the learning phase as though this is, you know, a something to avoid all the time. You know, shaking the crib and waking the baby a bit sometimes just needs to happen. I mean, it's. It's going to happen, and you cannot tiptoe around as you're trying to manage and optimize just to avoid waking the baby and, you know, re setting this learning phase. So, Matt, I'm glad you asked and I maybe spoke a little bit more than I should have about that, but I'm serious in that it is a. It is a pet peeve of mine. It's something that I highly concerned about because I feel like people make too many, too many. They're inhibited too much by their. By their fear, and they're in the mystery around these algorithms in this learning phase and this automated bidding. So don't be. Get in there, get the work done. Let the algorithm figure it out for themselves. All right, I said Matt had a two, two pointer here. So we're going to do question number two for Matt. And this one's a little completely different. Not a little different, but he says this. I've been trying to advertise in Facebook and I'm having all kinds of issues. And what he wants to know is he wants to try Google display ads and believes perhaps that these will behave similar to advertising and Facebook and meta, stuff like that. So essentially the question is, if I jump into display, will I experience the same kind of situation that I do in Facebook? The answer is display ads can act in a similar way to Facebook, but if you're expecting the same kind of results or same kind of expectations, you will be absolutely disappointed. It is a completely different system, and I think the best way to describe it is Google Ads system is much less precise. Not because it's a bad system for display, but because it doesn't work with the same level of data as Facebook. I mean, people don't provide the same level of input to Google that they do with Facebook. You provide your name, age, who you're married to, you know, who you're dating, pictures, and you like certain things. You leave comments. I mean, there's a massive amount of personal data that you input into the system. This is going to be extremely valuable for understanding people who have a trend or an, in an interest in something. And these Google Ads systems absolutely have interest audiences, much like you would in Facebook, but it's very different. This is based on interest that is assumed. You don't go in and say, I like trains. And so it knows that you like trains and it can serve you, you know, toy train ads or you know, you might say, I work at this facility, I work at an H VAC company. And then it could, you know, possibly serve you ads based on, you know, certain tools that might fit that profile. I mean there's a lot of things in there that, that you provided information and it can feed you ads based on that. That is not the way it works at Google. The precision that we have with Google Display is in no way as deep. And I have to say this, this is something that I feel even more strongly about in the past three years or so because the fact is is that the precision of our Google Ads accounts have crumbled for display because Google took away the ability for us to target complex mashups. So we can no longer target someone who's interested in clothes and at the moment is viewing content about running or marathons. Right. There's no more mash up to be able to do an and situation right in audience for clothes, in market for clothing, but currently viewing a video about how to run a marathon or you know, how to improve your, Your, your, your 5K or your 3 mile run or something like that. Right. We can't do that anymore. There might be ways to, to try and put stuff like that together with some of the performance max and things like that, but in no way is the system what it used to be. So again, I, I spoke a lot about that. I hope that provides some detail and information for you about that. The short answer is no. If you're jumping over to Google Ads display expecting the same situation, the same kind of tools, the same kind of depth and precision and results, you're, you are mistaken. You're mistaken. All right, well, thank you Matt for your question. I have two more questions here, and stay tuned because there's a. I. I've got my notes and it's packed. Gonna have a question from Grace here, who says this. I've been a listener of your podcast for over a year now, and I really enjoy the content, structure and style of each episode. Wow. Thank you, Grace. That's very specific. So mostly this is a huge thank you for what you're doing and what you. And just want to affirm that you are delivering immense value to total str. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah, that's. That's cool. Thank you. And I think that's cool. I've never felt like I needed a podcast for professional development, but I finally found one. Wow. That. What a. What a great compliment. Well, thank you, Grace. Okay, so on to the question. And I alluded this at the top of the show, Grace, the fact is, is I had to use AI to help me understand what you meant by taxonomy, because Grace asks, can you provide some tips and pointers for doing taxonomy on traffic in Google Ads specifically? Can you do a taxonomy of traffic in Google Ads specifically? And is that something that is only available in Google Analytics or, you know, can it be done? Is there a type of taxonomy that can be done in Google Ads to. To help, to specify, you know, what's happening? So let me first explain what I discovered, you know, by what Grace means by taxonomy. What I believe she was referring to here is taxonomy, meaning the labeling and the organization and definition and tracking of different types of traffic. So, you know, being able to say that this is this kind of traffic and being able to measure it in different ways depending on how it is organized and labeled and. And structured. And the answer to that is, yes, you absolutely should and can organize traffic in Google Ads in a. In a certain taxonomy method. In fact, in my belief, this is the most important rule in Google Ads. And in fact, it's the very first rule of my Google Ads principles. Rule number one, strategic relevance. And the short answer for strategic relevance is you ask yourself, do the keywords, the ads, the landing pages, the tone of the keywords, the call to action, do these all relate to each other? If you want to go back, that episode is 385, almost what, two years ago, I believe, at this point, but 300 episode 385, I go into the 10 principles of Google Ads, which is a core message that's 100% still relevant today. I use this messaging all the time, and it's absolutely still relevant now. So the answer is, yes, you can do A type of taxonomy in two different ways. You use this strategic relevance approach and you organize your traffic by topic and by value. So for example, you say, you know, in this ad group, I'm going to push all of my traffic about, you know, topic A. Okay. So topic A is going to be in this ad group and it's only for this kind of service. Right. I'm currently working on a dog breeder dog training account. So it's what's on the top of my head. So I'm going to use that. So for example, some people want to board and train. So they want to ship their dog off and have them stay with the trainer for several weeks and then come back, right. This is board and train. This is a specific topic. And you're going to categorize and put that into one ad group because that is one service that provides, you know, specific ad copy, landing pages, call to action that would all be united in one main theme. Now the other method is by value. So an example of this, keeping to the same kind of, you know, board and train example. You might have an ad group around board and train. Board and train near me, you know, dog, dog, board and training services near me, Something like that. Right. Then you have another ad group that you might create that is specifically around people who are interested in board and training, but they don't know that term, but they're searching for it. So they might do something like overnight or long term or live in or in home, you know, dog training stuff. I'm not sure. But there's a lot of ways people might look for it. And they would be very interested in board and train because they're interested not in classes, but something that takes place out of a classroom for a long term. That would be a separate ad group. You have categorized these two different areas based on, you know, one's looking for this, another one's looking for this. You have now separated those and you have them in different ad groups, not campaigns, but different ad groups. This is the type of taxonomy in Google Ads that allows you to sort and separate different types of traffic and measure the success of it. So that is strategic relevance. That's the core of what you must get right. Or nothing else will be right in Google Ads. The other aspect is this labels a whole nother level of Google taxonomy. Google Ads taxonomy is labels using labels to organize traffic so that you can actually create labels of different keywords, different ads, you know, different campaigns, different ad groups. You can add labels to all of these and it doesn't Matter. They could be across different campaigns. You could have, you know, 15 different keywords that are labeled in Google Ads with a specific tag and that, you know, it all might be, you know, VIP most most valuable. It might be Vik, most valuable keyword most. I'm mixing my vip, very important keyword. Vip, Vik, Right, so Vik, very important keyword. Right. So these might be your number one priority. And you, you, you tag all of your exact match, let's say where you're bidding really highly on these specific exact matches. Then you go and label all your keywords that are a little bit less valuable. You're bidding lower on them and they might be in 10 different AD groups. Look into the label system because this is a way for you to sort and tag different things and measure them independent of their location in the account. This is absolutely, probably, perhaps what you're talking about when you talk about the categorization and the taxonomy of Google Ads. That is a very deep reporting system for you to be able to make changes quickly and find data very quickly. So that is the end of Grace's question. But Grace has one other thing that she added here and I'm actually, I'm going to read it because it's speaking directly to you guys. So I'm gonna let Grace say this here. Grace says if there's anything I would like to contribute to your show, it would be an encouragement to others. That's you guys talking. She's talking to you guys. Encouragement to others to keep writing in their questions, comments and contributions because those are super relatable and helpful. So there you go. She has confirmed what I believe is very true about this show. When people write in their questions, you guys ask things that I don't think about. And if one person asks it, there's probably a bunch of other people that have the exact same question or didn't even know they had that question and are immediately interested in learn something from it. So if you have a question popping around in your head that you've considered, write in. Now's a great time to do it. Um, I, you know, I've got, I'm back, I'm fresh, I feel good. I took a little bit of a break. I've got all summer to get through now. All right, send me some, send me some questions so I can keep my content fresh and not static. So again, paid, paid search, podcast, all1wordmail.com. All right, thank you, Grace, for giving that push. Alright, so if you've stuck around, as I teased at the top of the show. I am going to talk to those of you that have considered starting a PPC company. Maybe you already have a PPC company. I'm going to talk about a question from Chris who specifically is considering in person sales pitches to grow his paid search. His paid paid. His paid search business that he's trying to start. So stick around for that. Before I tell you about that, I want to tell you about how you can get more done in Google Ads. Remember optio.com PSP Wonderful tool to help you get more done faster. They can absolutely improve and speed up your process. I love to use the tool. Joey told you in previous episodes about the tool, about what he does and how he uses it. I'll tell you it it's impossible to describe the scope of what this tool does, even performance Max shopping search. It does everything from display all the way down even to Microsoft ads. It covers that as well. So try the tool for free for 28 days. That's o p t e o.com PSP. Let them know you heard about it from me, Chris Schaefer here on the paid Search podcast and they'll give you that special offer exclusively available because you know the passcode@optio.com PSP all right, here we go. Chris writes in a question to Chris, me says, hi Chris, I'm a longtime listener and a big fan of your podcast. I'd like to ask a question. I currently work as an in house PPC manager. So what he means is a company has hired him to manage their ads internally. Okay. So he's not a, he's not a part of an agency. He's managing one account, maybe a couple accounts. All right. But Chris says, I'm at a late stage in my career where I'd like to start taking on my own clients. I live in a very large city and I'm planning to approach businesses in person by going to their location asking if the owner manager is around. Do you think this is an approach that could work? If so, which industries would be your top recommendation? I want to add specific value so I need to approach businesses with plenty of room for expansion that would really benefit from using Google Ads. Well, thank you, Chris for your question. I don't really have industries that I suggest, you know, in particular, I can't really say, oh, these will be the best because really any industry, I think it'd be easier to say ones that I don't suggest, you know, but I wouldn't go to. And I've said this before, you can hear me Say this at a much more detailed level in other episodes. Sorry, I don't have the episode for you. But the ones that I find to be least valuable for using Google Ads are businesses that don't offer any real difference or value compared to the competitors. Now, arguably, you know, anybody could offer some kind of difference, but I'm talking about, you know, real estate agents, you know, that can't necessarily do anything different with price. It's more about personality and in their sales pitch. You know, I mean, there's a reason real estate agents put their face on the billboards. You know, they can't really offer anything that's necessarily unique from anyone else. So I'd say, you know, go with, go with a place that can really offer and has the ability to pitch something and offer something different. You know, it could be restaurants, it could be dry cleaning, it could be a, you know, H vac company, it could be, you know, anything. But they need to at least have some maneuverability in their ability to sell their services and, you know, otherwise it's really difficult to do that Google Ads if you have no ability to pitch it or try a different approach. But that's not actually the answer I came here to give you. Here's the answer that I really want to speak to. Your in person approach, I think is a great way to get started and here's why. I believe one of the biggest issues in PPC management is actually trust, getting companies to trust you because this is a digital product from someone that you don't know. All right? So I, Chris Schaefer, manage a product that no one can hold in their hand. You cannot hold a Google Ad click in your hand. You cannot, you know, come to my office and shake my hand and see me. So there's a level of trust that is really must be extended quite far to work with someone like me. Not just me, but, you know, a lot of other people, they're selling Google Ads management for an invisible product. And you cannot speak to them in person, shake their hand, see them in real life for many people. So this in person approach I think absolutely overcomes that. I think that could be a huge advantage to say, oh, I like this guy. You know, he approached me, he was dressed well, he spoke well. You know, this, this is great. This would be an advantage over me because, like, I got a good feeling about this guy. I like this guy. I'm gonna go with him. All right. But let me give you a tip, Chris. My many years of experience, I will tell you, you are possibly setting yourself up for, for a lot of work. Not in a good way. I mean workload, you potentially could have a major workload shift from what you're used to with in house PPC management because your workload to, to do in person discussions requires much, much, much more time. Okay, so this is something I learned early on in my career that you know, yes, local businesses, I can spike up the trust very easily because I'm in the same area and you know, I can meet with them but doing that, driving there, you know, traffic and coffee discussions and meeting them at their office. This 10x's the amount of effort you have to put in for just one client and scaling that becomes extremely difficult. You spend a lot of time not doing other work. Alright, so my tip for you is set up expectations from the beginning to say I'm meeting you now but you know, I really want to focus, you know, communication most of the time is going to be over. Email, phone calls, stuff like that. You know, meeting them in person may not be a big deal to them because you came to their office, right? It's nothing to them, oh, you knock on the door, here he is. Right. It took them no time. But for you it might have taken an hour and a half, you know, from the point of, you know, getting dressed and driving and driving back and getting back to work. So consider that. But I think you absolutely are onto something. I think this could be very valuable and you can write back and let me know how it goes. I'm interested. It's not something I have done much at all. Whenever I first started my foray into getting new clients was calling people in my immediate area, sending emails, things like that. But that was, that was a very long time ago and I don't quite remember all of those tough days. But good luck to you and I hope it works out. For those of you that are trying to grow your PPC business from the ground up, if you'd like to reach out to me, I am available for consulting and manager management of Google Ads campaigns. You can find me@chrishaeffer.com link to everything I talked about is in the description. Thank you so much. I'll catch you guys next week.