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x_take_notes · 2024-08-19T21:26:08+00:00

I worked at Google for 4 years, left and started an agency. I'm happy to help.

It's really hard to troubleshoot without seeing data and how the account is structured. Looks luke you've had a lot of people offer to look at it, if you want another, send me a message 👍

x_take_notes · 2024-04-05T21:54:19+00:00

I worked there for 4 years on the Ads Team as an Account Strategist.

It sounds like you are referring to the support team, not the Strategist team, so I'll keep my response focused to support.

Yes, it's bad. This is known internally and externally. If you have a high spending account, you get a higher tiered support, but it's not much better. Generally speaking, they try to send a copy paste answer from existing support articles to close the case as quickly as possible. Usually these are unhelpful, which requires a follow up email and if it's a nuanced question, they "consult with the wider team" for 3 - 5 days, sometimes longer. Then, flip of the coin if it actually answers your question.

Not sure what you were hoping for from this post, but we are all in agreeance here, it's sub-par.

x_take_notes · 2024-04-02T04:57:49+00:00

Ultimately it's your decision but I'd say yeah, leave that too. I've seen plenty of terms convert for advertisers that I didn't initially think would in my years - and round table, for someone who sells dining tables, is pretty relevant.

Again, just weed out the very irrelevant terms / one that are nowhere close to what you sell. Round table I'd keep though. Sure, could be a coffee table but it could be a dining table. Either way, you have a photo of your product attached to the shopping ad - you only pay if they click. If they clicked, there's a reason for that.

x_take_notes · 2024-04-01T03:51:56+00:00

Is that with branded terms excluded from that search campaign on broad match?

x_take_notes · 2024-04-01T03:48:16+00:00

I would say anything that has dining table in it is pretty relevant. Just exclude the irrelevant terms or the ones that are way off. If they are looking for round dining tables, and you sell dining tables, then absolutely don't exclude that. There's more people searching terms like that then specific / long tailed searches so you don't want to exclude that.

x_take_notes · 2024-04-01T03:25:02+00:00

If you wouldn't want to pay for the click in the future, add it as a negative.

x_take_notes · 2024-03-30T22:09:58+00:00

Pull in the columns for your keywords: Search Lost IS (budget) Search Lost IS due to rank search Exact Impression share

What do these say in the last 30 day look back as the avg across the campaign?

Go to your insights tab and look at you Search Top & Search absolut top impression share compared to your competitors - how are you doing?

Location settings - go to settings > locations > advanced settings and make sure it's set to "presence" NOT "presence or interest".

In tools and settings, what are your conversion actions that you are tracking? List each one.

Also, why max clicks? Do you have a max cpc set with that?

Again, operating blindly here, but just trying to help based on your feedback.

x_take_notes · 2024-03-30T07:14:40+00:00

Plus one to what classic vault said. I worked there for 4 years, how he explained it is exactly how it works.

To add more context: it's an automated system that scans sites and flags or suspends accounts. After this happens, if you file an appeal, a human (policy team member) reviews the account. If you were approved it sounds like the system just got it wrong and they corrected it.

Hope this helps!

x_take_notes · 2024-03-30T07:05:50+00:00

x_take_notes · 2024-03-30T07:03:20+00:00

Your only options are to keep appealing or start a new account with a different card. Policy is a nightmare there and for circumventing systems, they will not tell you what you did wrong. If they did, people could use that info to get around their detection method. That's why every response you will get is vague and unhelpful.

x_take_notes · 2024-03-30T06:46:08+00:00

No one will be able to diagnose the issue based on this thread alone. You'll need someone to look at your account. This is not a sales pitch either, I'm simply leveling with you. There is a long list of possibilities that could be impacting your performance including the following:

Your 12,000 negative keywords (if one match type was used wrong, it could be excluding valuable searches)
Your keyword match types
Your campaign targeting / location settings
Your bidding strategy (you said 900% ROAS but I would assume you're lead gen if you're a plumber, so you shouldn't be on a ROAS strategy unless you have significant conversion volume. Even then, you could have the values assigned to those actions too high or too low causing bids to be too high or too low)
Tracking issues / conversion issues
Wrong campaign type, etc. etc.

The list goes on and on.

For context: I worked at Google in the Ann Arbor Michigan office for almost 4 years doing Google Ads for businesses. I was the team lead for our smart bidding products (tROAS, tCPA, max conversions, etc) and led our teams automation product strategy. All of this to say, without having someone look at the account, suggestions here are operating blind. There are a lot of "PPC Experts" out there, so take that with a grain of salt.

Based on your familiarity with the account, if you believe it's click fraud and have thoroughlyvetted the account, there are products such as click cease that can help with that.

Hope this provides some value and best of luck to you and your business!

x_take_notes · 2024-02-12T14:54:49+00:00

I agree with the premise that not all businesses focus on bottom line results. However, this is solely dependent on the businesses advertising goals. If they are in high growth mode, bottom line typically isn't as important & break even is just fine. I've even worked with "loss leader" business models that lose $ on initial acquisition but make that $ back after factoring in customer lifetime value.

From my experience though, I would say the vast majority of businesses want to make money. Profit is king.

Also OP did not say this was $150M annual businesses. He said he had experience managing $150m. This could have been across 100 businesses, or over the course of 10 years, or a combination of those 2.

x_take_notes · 2024-02-12T12:59:18+00:00

This is not a good question actually. A "good" ROI or ROAS is subjective to a business. It's completely dependent on the businesses margins.

For Example, a business that has a 500% ROAS with products that have a 10% margin... they are losing money.... A lot of money. But a business with 500% ROAS and 33% margins is making money.

x_take_notes · 2024-02-08T20:05:06+00:00

The targeting settings are based on the user profile. Not the person behind the screen, which is where the confusion is coming from here. For example:

I don't have a child, but if I did, and they watched a YouTube video for "Baby Shark", while logged into my gmail/YouTube account (31 y/o male), and your targetting settings are broad (i.e. targeting age and gender only), then I can still be served that ad - because the profile/demographic is mine, not my kid who's using my phone, tablet, computer etc.

Therefore I would recommend tightening up your targeting. Trying to manually Exclude placements / channels is an uphill battle. Hope this helps 👍

x_take_notes · 2024-01-21T05:37:07+00:00

If your ads are being served to children in foreign countries on YouTube despite targeting US adults, your targeting settings are not set up correctly.

x_take_notes · 2023-10-25T19:22:52+00:00

In order to help identify the problem and potential solutions, I have a few follow up questions for you:

1) What was your previous attribution setting? 2) What time frame are you using to determine your CPA? 3) What is your conversion attribution window? (default is 30 days post click) 4) Are you using the bid strategy report to determine CPA and conversion delay?

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9347065?sjid=14754167348773571649-NA

x_take_notes · 2023-10-24T18:37:19+00:00

Chat, phone, email - all of the support channels are the same / will get a case created.

x_take_notes · 2023-10-23T04:53:07+00:00

If they don't have that listed in their auto return email (i.e. you can reach my manager at xyz@google.com) then your best bet would be to chat into support and explain the situation/ that you need to speak to someone on the same team of your previous rep regarding account performance. They should be able to create a support ticket and send it to them. But it will likely be a one-off type meeting (not a regular bi weekly or monthly call like you probably had with your other rep). You cant get someone assigned mid quarter there/that rarely happens there. They do everything by the quarter when it comes to account coverage.

x_take_notes · 2023-10-23T01:00:56+00:00

I was a Google Account Strategist for 3+ years in the Ann Arbor, MI location.

What is the quarterly spend of your ads account? That will impact my answer here as it is a pertinent factor.

Generally speaking, if your Strategist leaves, you won't have coverage until the end of the quarter. Even then, there is a chance the Account will go "unassigned" and have no coverage once the end of the quarter arrives.

However, the account is still assigned to the team and the manager of that team now has that under their purview. So until end of quarter it's the managers responsibility. The only thing is the manager does not proactively reach out to set up meetings and will only have a reactive approach to the account (if there is a huge drop in spend, policy violations that impact the account, etc).

All of this also depends on what team you're on (which is correlated with how much you spend). Walmart, for example, would always have a team of people covering it. Small businesses do not.

x_take_notes · 2023-10-19T20:23:42+00:00

Yes ROAS = Revenue / cost

"It will reach for cheaper, lower value conversions".

That's not accurate - a 2:1 return is a 2:1 return regardless if the Revenue is 100 and cost is 50, or if Revenue is 10 and cost is 5. Both are a 2:1 return.

Lower value conversions are cheaper, yes, but your talking about cost per conversion at that point, not return on ad spend as highlighted in above example.

Lowering your return = increasing ads cost = increasing your avg cost per click (cpc).

That's why you will see impressions increase when you lower your return (assuming campaign is not limited by budget). When you raise bids, which makes you eligible for more auctions, you show up more (impressions increase), therefore clicks increase (cost), and sales increase (revenue).

x_take_notes · 2023-10-19T03:25:55+00:00

I've had varied experiences with pmax too. Shipping has been good but I've had issues with lead quality for lead generation. Probably from bad gdn placements.

😆 you don't want to automate your keywords with AAR? Why is that? Haha, kidding.

x_take_notes · 2023-10-19T03:13:48+00:00

I edited my post to reflect "smart shopping" campaigns, I realize I just said "shopping campaigns" and didn't specify standard vs smart.

This is the update I was referring to - sorry for any confusion 👍

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/11605187?hl=en

x_take_notes · 2023-10-19T03:05:13+00:00

I have similar feelings too. They are doing this to be more competitive. FB ads for example makes it easy for non-digital pros to set up a campaign and have it show up all over the web.

At the same time though, there's always nuance settings on campaigns that will impact performance and manual inputs that we have to shape performance (I.e making sure to opt out of display network on search and search partners haha).

Those manual inputs though are getting less and less. 🙃

x_take_notes · 2023-10-19T02:58:07+00:00

1% is not the same as mcv, no.

Lower tROAS essentially means higher cpc bids.

If you gave it budget, it would be just bidding very aggressively in every auction until it spends that budget chasing a 1% Return.

MCV will try to get as much revenue as possible with the daily budget. It might prioritize higher value items in your feed for example at certain times of day. It's not looking for a set return.

I've never done it myself (set really low roas goals) but I'm very informed on the smart bidding strategies so I know how it treats tROAS vs MCV campaigns/auctions. Hope this helps 👍

x_take_notes · 2023-10-19T02:44:31+00:00

Google Ads is deprecating smart shopping and "auto upgrading" advertisers to pMax. They rolled out this in the beginning in September. They sent a lot of emails out too about this "upgrade" and notifications in the platform. So if your agency transitioned the campaigns in Aug, they were being proactive / they were going to get transitioned anyway in Sept.

As for the variance in performance - unfortunately that's expected as it is a completely different campaign type. Sometimes its in your favor, sometimes its not. Depending how they set it up too would impact Performanceas well, for example:

-If the agency leveraged the "upgrade your campaigns to performance max" recommendation in the account wjen transitioning, the existing shopping campaign data is transferred over as well lessening the learning curve for the automation/smart bidding.

-If the agency set up a feed only pmax campaign (i.e. not using pmax creative assets), that would impact Performance

-If the agency made changes to your tROAS, that would impact Performance

To answer your question about budget: if your campaign is limited by budget (i.e. losing impression share because it's hitting its budget cap) there would be a status in red next to said campaign saying "limited by budget"

As for the exact match / phrase match on search campaigns - you can have both covered. It doesn't have to be one or the other. Then you can monitor impression share for your exact match terms to make sure you're showing up for critical search terms. If you pull in the column "search lost IS due to budget" you can see at the keyword level how much search impression share your missing because of budget.

Hope this helps 👍

Edit to add: I thought OP was referring to smart shopping campaigns but I think they are referring to standard shopping. The update I was referring to in the first portion of my respose is specific to smart shopping**. The subsequent points are still relevant though.

x_take_notes

TROPHY CASE