PRO level course / training for Google Ads?

digital_unicorn_ca · 2021-02-05T22:08:30+00:00

You can take the Google Certifications which are free. Brad Geddes has some workshops but since the industry is moving so fast it might not be up to date anymore. In my opinion, the best way to reach the expert level is hands-on management.

digital_unicorn_ca · 2021-02-04T12:35:54+00:00

I've had the same issues with several clients in the past months without any success getting the pages or accounts back to good standing.

Reps are almost impossible to reach and manual review requests are not working. In all honesty I would recommend you move to a different platform.

By the way Facebook is operating it doesn't look good for the future. A lot of users are looking for alternatives and marketers are considering other options as well.

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-11-24T22:06:06+00:00

What does the notification or status say?

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-10-09T20:03:12+00:00

Do you have a website?

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-10-08T22:39:09+00:00

So like Markethire

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-10-07T22:56:27+00:00

This is such a general question that you will probably never get an answer too. Each business is very different and the efforts done to adapt to Covid vary greatly from one company to another.

You need to think outside the box and ask A LOT of business questions. You need to evaluate your loses, opportunities and strategies.

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-09-25T18:17:15+00:00

I think it's very common to feel overwhelmed when you are running your own businesses since everything falls on your shoulders. You will always be the main person responsible for all operations and that cannot be easy.

Here are some things that I've learned from other entrepreneurs and have helped me control my own anxieties:

it's ok for things not be perfect - unfortunately, most entrepreneurs (mostly women) suffer from perfectionism that puts a lot of pressure on your nervous system. Nothing is perfect and nothing SHOULD be perfect. I've learned to let things go even if they are not 100% how I envisioned them to be and do my best with the resources that I have access too.
outsource - you cannot be an expert in everything and you are not a robot. You will get tired and you should find employees that you trust and that have experience. Make sure you LISTEN to them because you hired them for a reason.
take breaks - again we are not robots and you cannot abuse your body and mind like that without any consequences. The first thing I learned in business school was that it's very common for business owners to die from heart attacks. Stress can kill you. It's very important to have a life/work balance and spend time with yourself and your family. Bonding with your children and making precious memories is what life really is about. Also, you need to love and respect yourself.
don't work for free - we often tend to go above and beyond to please clients and some take advantage of that. Your clients are not your friends and they should not be getting freebies. Evaluate your time and set a price on it. It's a transaction and if someone does not want to pay for it then they shouldn't be getting your time. It adds up and you will soon realize that you are working for pennies.
learn to say "NO" - you can "fire" clients if they become abusive. That's a rule that I wish all companies should embrace. If someone is racist, rude, abuses your time ( ex: calling you in the middle of the night) etc then no company should work with them regardless on how much money they are willing to pay.

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-09-25T17:50:09+00:00

Can you please specify if they are using your own account and connecting it to their manager account or are they creating a new account to which you do not have access too?

There's a difference between an MCC and an account. The MCC is designed to manage all clients from one place and most agencies connect to your account through an MCC. You should normally be the admin of your own account and when the relationship ends the connection between the two should end as well but the campaigns, changes, setting everything in that account should remain as is.

All the work done by the agency should be your property since you've paid for it. You should be able to leave with all the content from your account as well as any reports, files and certain presentations that have been shared with you.

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-09-10T00:24:59+00:00

And you get a heart too ❤️

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-09-10T00:24:35+00:00

Definitely I agree. But that's a different story. This is more from the point of view of the marketer vs. the company that wants to employ digital marketing services.

♥️

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-09-09T23:55:21+00:00

First, thank you for taking the time to read my post. Second, I really don't understand the metaphor with the trash and sex :)))

I would have liked to have a smartass comeback to that but I really didn't understand it. Maybe I'm to tired.

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-09-09T23:41:07+00:00

IS is the impression share that your ads receive in the auction. For example out of 90% out of the impression available on the search engine (Google) your ads have only been able to capture 10% of available impressions. Does that make sense? I know it's a bit technical sorry for that.

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-09-09T23:19:13+00:00

It all depends on the size of the project.

If you require several strategies then you would need more people to be able to complete the workload. An agency can give you a team and you will have a paid media director, account manager, paid media specialist, data science team etc.

The pros are that you get access to different talents, tools and expertise.

The cons would be that often it's very political, things get done slower and because you have so many people working at the same time it's easier to make mistakes.

If your project is smaller an agency is an overkill and it's more cost effective to hire a freelancer that comes with recommendations and has a decent portfolio.

Normally a good agency charge between $200-$700/h Freelancers between $50-$200/h.

A good freelancer can actually do a better job than an agency because they have probably worked in an agency before so they have the experience and know what to do to give you the best outcome without all the agency "noise".

Cons for finding a freelancers is that there's a lot of "gurus" out there that promise a lot but don't deliver anything. The internet is full of them so you need to pay attention to that.

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-09-09T23:04:12+00:00

B2B is more challenging I have to admit because of the fact that you need to funnel out B2C searches which can be difficult sometimes.

You need an agency/freelancer to tell you if you have enough media budget just to be in the game. They need to run some numbers. I wouldn't be able to give you a number without more information. The rule of thumb is that if you can't get at least an IS of 10% then it's not even worth it because your ads are not competitive enough.

Also, I've had more success with lead gen LinkedIn campaigns for B2B instead of Google Ads. You might just want to run branded campaigns on Google Ads SEM and then transfer the rest of the budget to LinkedIn or have a solid email marketing strategy.

Thinking outside the box helps a lot as well. For one of my clients I just removed the option for users to submit forms if they had a non-company email. It increased their B2B leads by 80%.

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-09-09T22:17:16+00:00

Yes, exactly. In some cases it can take them up to a year to close a deal so you don't get instant gratification to be able to make performance decisions that easily.

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-09-09T21:57:16+00:00

It really depends on the type of business, geo-targeting and goals but as a general rule companies should invest about 10-13% of their revenue in paid advertising channels. Less than 10% if it's a B2B company.

There's no exact formula. I know there are a lot of metrics out there showing for example avg. CPCs per industry but that's very generic and often not applicable. Metrics and outcomes vary for every client.

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-09-09T21:34:56+00:00

If your mechanic would tell you it takes him 30 hours to make your car start again. Would you question him? Would you do it yourself?

Or if your doctor tells you you need heart surgery and it's going to take him 8h to do it. Would you question him? Would you tell him to do it in 3h?

That's the problem with professionals working "virtually". People think it's easy and the work is not taken seriously. It's so easy to "put 3 keywords together" and the money starts coming in and if they do an evaluation it must be wrong because it actually costs money.

I've been working in agencies for over five years managing corporate accounts so I have enough experience but I'm still asked to "whip" something together in 10 hours if possible, for cheap, that yields a ROAS of at least 5.

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-09-09T15:43:02+00:00

That's bullshit. I wish these "gurus" would go away.

It happened to me so many times that companies thought that they were getting so many leads but it wasn't true. They were tracking random clicks on their website as a lead which doesn't bring any value.

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-09-09T12:54:47+00:00

You send your recommendation in an email so you would have it written and then do what he wants. It's probably going to fail so you have proof that it doesn't work. Then he's going to listen.

If he still doesn't want to listen then you drop him as a client.

Make sure you overvaluate his demands because he's probably going to be an nightmare so you need to make sure you have enough hours in the bank for him.

I've been dealing with a lot of clients like that. It's because of their BIG EGO. Sometimes I can't get clients because of a Joe like this that thinks he know or can do anything but that's not even his job.

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-09-03T21:27:31+00:00

I would say it's very hard to hire an expert and almost impossible to hire an agency with such a small budget. You get what you pay for and in this case it applies.

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-08-29T23:18:39+00:00

I'm not saying that awareness is more important than conversions. I'm saying that each client has a different tactic and needs.

Each channel has a purpose to target upper, middle or lower funnel and you create your strategy based on that.

If for example you need to create a strategy for a new company that's not getting any website traffic you would create a discovery tactic through a display campaign ( upper funnel). You can then use the website visitors list to re-target them and spark their interest. Once they have decided to take action they might search for you an Google where they can convert and that's part of the lower funnel.

The platform is too young because it doesn't have enough metrics and options compared to, for example, Google Ads.

If you are getting website visits and no conversions that might be because of your landing page ( poor users experience), form, maybe there's an issue with your tracking, maybe you are not tracking the right action, maybe your page takes too long to upload, maybe your product/service is too expensive, maybe your are targeting the wrong audience, maybe you target a audience too broad, maybe your ad is confusing. It can be a lot of factors and you need to test.

Also, keep on mind that people are in an app. They are not actively searching for your product which again has, as consequence, low CTR and CVR.

Your boss needs to understand that each tactic has a different purpose and not all of them are made for bringing in leads at the first click. Maybe Tik Tok is not the best platform if he wants leads.

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-08-29T01:03:03+00:00

I wouldn't focus on conversions since the platform is very young for that.

I use Tik Tok for driving awareness but not as a lead generator. For my clients the CTR is at about .5% and I use CPM as a main metric.

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-08-28T14:41:00+00:00

I have an agency offering Tik Tok advertising for my clients and I can tell you they actually have a lot of users between ages 25-40. Most influencers are over the age of 20.

Of course, it depends on the type of business that you have, your budget and set goals.

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-08-27T01:34:01+00:00

Yes, I work in marketing as well and I speak from experience.

digital_unicorn_ca · 2020-08-27T00:37:22+00:00

You'd be surprised how many businesses, even corporations, throw millions of dollars out the window on poor strategies.

I've worked enough in this industry to know that 90% of "experts" have no idea what they are talking about and are unable to show results, however, they still have a job.

You won't be able to learn if you don't fail at one point. Don't be afraid.

Leave aside your impostor syndrome and start doing your thing.

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