Google Ads & Competitor Bidding [interview with Navah Hopkins] — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00all right welcome and today I have got
2. 0:02the absolute pleasure of having NAA with
3. 0:04me and NAA so that I don't mispronounce
4. 0:07your name or misrepresent uh what you
5. 0:10what you do and who you work for um
6. 0:12please why don't you take 60 seconds to
7. 0:13give everyone just a bit of introduction
8. 0:15of who you are what your experiences a
9. 0:16bank hi friends uh Nava Hopkins I'm the
10. 0:20brand evangelist at Optimizer I've been
11. 0:22in digital marketing since 2008 I
12. 0:24started off in SEO transitioned to PPC
13. 0:27in 2012 I have spent predominant we
14. 0:31we'll call it 10 of of that almost 20
15. 0:34years experience working in SAS uh and
16. 0:36I've also worked in house I've worked um
17. 0:39in agencies and my marching orders are
18. 0:44the ethical and enable honorable profit
19. 0:48and glorious victory for everyone in the
20. 0:50ways that they Define it amazing amazing
21. 0:53well that's actually a really really
22. 0:55good leading into what we want to be
23. 0:56talking about we're going to go through
24. 0:58a couple of different topics but the
25. 0:59first thing we're going to be talking
26. 1:00about is just the whole thing of um
27. 1:03competitors bidding on your branded
28. 1:04terms so yeah let's firstly talk about
29. 1:07um to be great to hear your I guess an
30. 1:09explanation of some of the reasons that
31. 1:11you have for why competitors bid on your
32. 1:13branded and or high intent uh search
33. 1:15temps so it's really important to
34. 1:18identify when a competitor is actively
35. 1:21versus unintentionally or passively Bing
36. 1:23on your terms by the nature of close
37. 1:25variance by the nature of match types by
38. 1:28the nature of performance Max and we'll
39. 1:29talk talk about all of those in depth
40. 1:31don't worry it is very easy for a
41. 1:32competitor to accidentally be bidding on
42. 1:34your terms so we'd have to take some of
43. 1:36that and put in that bucket over there
44. 1:38and we'll talk about that but for the
45. 1:39intentional uh reasons why folks will
46. 1:41bid on competitors there's the
47. 1:43politician play where you bid on sniping
48. 1:46to grab your competitor's leads looking
49. 1:49to cancel where they're looking to look
50. 1:51at reviews whether you're spamming or
51. 1:54scammy and the keywords might be kind of
52. 1:57going going for the jugular but the ads
53. 1:59that they're going to put put up there
54. 2:01are the kissing baby the very nice very
55. 2:04mellow there's also going to be
56. 2:06comparisons so they might put themselves
57. 2:09in a direct head-to-head comparison and
58. 2:11looking to see how they do against you
59. 2:14and there might be some actually really
60. 2:15useful content there um so sometimes
61. 2:18it's actually nice to see which
62. 2:20competitors will make the active content
63. 2:23investment to compare themselves to you
64. 2:25to see uh what features uh that you've
65. 2:28developed that they think their
66. 2:30competitor for so you can almost make
67. 2:32that as content ideas for yourself and
68. 2:34then finally there's just people being
69. 2:37toxic people who just love nothing more
70. 2:42than to to just aggressively go after
71. 2:44someone and drive up their Cofe clicks
72. 2:46thankfully that third bucket is super
73. 2:48small most people have a very practical
74. 2:52pragmatic reason why they will
75. 2:54intentionally go after branded terms now
76. 2:57for non-branded terms where it's high in
77. 3:00this is where we live in an open market
78. 3:03no one has copyright trademarks on those
79. 3:06High intent terms if you're going after
80. 3:09a fairly simple way of talking about
81. 3:12your product or service odds are you're
82. 3:14going to have competitors if you start
83. 3:16to shift into some of those more low
84. 3:19search volume ways of searching you can
85. 3:21get some really good discounts and and
86. 3:23and you can avoid your competitors but
87. 3:25you're probably have low search volume
88. 3:27yeah so you kind need to balance how
89. 3:29much are you afraid of going
90. 3:31head-to-head with competitors and what
91. 3:33tools you're prepared to bring to bear
92. 3:35uh to mitigate that versus do you want
93. 3:38to just avoid competition altoe and
94. 3:40think about creative channels to go down
95. 3:42uh creative of staring things like that
96. 3:46well let's let's firstly just break down
97. 3:47a couple of things here because You'
98. 3:48given a lot of amazing information but
99. 3:50let's I'd like to firstly just sort of
100. 3:52flesh out I think the first thing when
101. 3:54you said the three different types I do
102. 3:56agree that the by far the largest area
103. 3:58would be unintentional uh and I think a
104. 4:00lot of it has come down just purely by
105. 4:02the changes to match types performance
106. 4:04Max where other companies just don't
107. 4:06know what's happening um correct but but
108. 4:09it's coming through so in terms of that
109. 4:11way I mean do you have any I guess
110. 4:13probably sort of guess strategies or
111. 4:14things that you so kind of recommend
112. 4:16firstly find it and then secondly fight
113. 4:19against it hello there and I hope you're
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163. 5:57description below yeah so one of my
164. 6:00favorite ways to check is of all things
165. 6:03to actually check your Search terms yeah
166. 6:05for your
167. 6:07non-branded campaigns and see which
168. 6:09competitors naturally come up as the
169. 6:12Search terms for your non-branded
170. 6:14queries because that will tell you that
171. 6:16Google thinks that competitor is a
172. 6:19competitor for you and or is a good
173. 6:22solution for that product or service of
174. 6:24course checking your branded is also a
175. 6:26really good uh thing to do and that will
176. 6:28be the most obvious but I actually
177. 6:30prefer checking the non-branded campaign
178. 6:31Search terms first yeah um because that
179. 6:33will give you the biggest clues of who
180. 6:36Google understands to be your competitor
181. 6:38versus who it's just happening
182. 6:40willy-nilly yeah um the other thing
183. 6:42that's really helpful is under auction
184. 6:44insights you can see the overlap rate so
185. 6:48how often for the same query you both
186. 6:50are showing up um you can see whether
187. 6:53the competitor is serving above you more
188. 6:55often than not now what's really
189. 6:57interesting I have found ESP especially
190. 7:00for local services that if the
191. 7:02impression share of your competitor is
192. 7:05less than 10% and usually these guys are
193. 7:08going to be less than 10% yeah it's not
194. 7:10intentional like you you don't need to
195. 7:12to go to war with with this with this
196. 7:14brand it's just you're probably showing
197. 7:16up on their auction insights report
198. 7:18they're showing up in on yours it's kind
199. 7:19of the cost of doing business write
200. 7:21compelling ads being wonderful win the
201. 7:24business but for anyone that's above say
202. 7:2820% um that's where it starts being a
203. 7:30little bit more intentional and so for
204. 7:32those folks you can start to actually
205. 7:35weave into your creative hey get the
206. 7:38real fill-in the blank service or turn
207. 7:41to The Trusted Fillin fill-in the blank
208. 7:45product what whatever whatever uh you
209. 7:47want and something I'll actually do for
210. 7:50really high CPC or high cost per click
211. 7:52Industries is I'll actually outright
212. 7:54saying in the ad want to save 20% scroll
213. 7:58and click our uh organic listing now
214. 8:01sometimes the ad will get flagged um and
215. 8:03get disapproved sometimes it won't the
216. 8:05reason I'm making this suggestion is
217. 8:07because it's not officially breaking the
218. 8:09rules to do this but sometimes Google
219. 8:12will say um if you say to click it can
220. 8:15be incorrect so you just want to be
221. 8:17careful how you phrase the ad yeah um
222. 8:19but telling people to engage with your
223. 8:21organic listing it's not in any way
224. 8:24breaking the rules so for any
225. 8:26competitors that are starting to really
226. 8:28creep on your search result page you
227. 8:31actually might want to start turning
228. 8:32your ads into organic fuel where the
229. 8:35goal isn't to get them to click on your
230. 8:37ad because you're paying an increased
231. 8:39price because the competitors are there
232. 8:41you instead want to direct them to that
233. 8:42organic link and by the way you should
234. 8:44tell your organic team your SEO team
235. 8:47that you're doing this because they
236. 8:48don't want to start taking credit for
237. 8:50all these queries that yeah you're
238. 8:52actually helping to to it definitely
239. 8:54wants to be a partnership yeah another
240. 8:57thing that I always do if you do really
241. 8:59recommend is in ad copy is especially if
242. 9:02you're seeing some high competitive
243. 9:04markets is get away from generic terms
244. 9:06and say something that your your
245. 9:08competitors can't say uh so rather than
246. 9:11so we you know perfect example this we
247. 9:12had a um e-commerce brand or baby UF
248. 9:16they first to the market and they had a
249. 9:18whole hip of imitation start coming in
250. 9:20the market and his main point of
251. 9:21difference was he was the only brand
252. 9:24that actually had it met both the US and
253. 9:27European safety standards for hearing so
254. 9:30that's what we started marking in there
255. 9:32so rather than just saying we the best
256. 9:33it would actually go the only muffs baby
257. 9:35ear muffs and because that was so
258. 9:36powerful because obviously parents were
259. 9:38buying this they didn't really care
260. 9:39about the cheapness of the product it
261. 9:41was more about the safety of the product
262. 9:42because it's got to do with their baby's
263. 9:43hearing so that's what I always look to
264. 9:45go to too is is if you've got something
265. 9:47that you can say that you know your
266. 9:48competitors can't say that's going to be
267. 9:50more powerful as well and there's
268. 9:52another I should have mentioned this at
269. 9:54at the start there's another type of
270. 9:57competitor which is and say you're a
271. 9:59franchise and you're working with
272. 10:01corporate or you're a reseller sometimes
273. 10:03corporate will have a very firm list of
274. 10:06terms that you're not allowed to go
275. 10:07after and they could be the most
276. 10:09important terms the name of the product
277. 10:11or service so sometimes you need to get
278. 10:14very creative in terms of how you talk
279. 10:17about the product or service and how you
280. 10:20potentially localize for yourself and
281. 10:23and distinguish yourself from corporate
282. 10:26and vice versa on corporate you don't
283. 10:27want your franchisees you don't want
284. 10:30your your resellers cannibalizing your
285. 10:32business the business that you want to
286. 10:34own you should own set those rules it is
287. 10:37100% within your purview to say reseller
288. 10:42you can bid on whatever you want save
289. 10:44for these terms yeah and if I patch you
290. 10:47with these terms it's a it's a fine or
291. 10:51or we revoke trademark rights for for
292. 10:53your ad accounts then they can't
293. 10:54advertise at all like there's a number
294. 10:56of penalties that you absolutely can um
295. 10:58impose as a franchise owner and working
296. 11:01with resellers so definitely make sure
297. 11:04that when you get into those sorts of
298. 11:05agreements to be a reseller or or to
299. 11:07work with franchises ask the questions
300. 11:09what sort of lines are drawn in
301. 11:12marketing and also ask the question of
302. 11:15am I allowed to just put budget into an
303. 11:18overall corporate account or do I have
304. 11:19to own my own marketing yeah um because
305. 11:22it is very easy for you to be a
306. 11:24competitor of yourself just by accident
307. 11:27yeah and you want to make sure that you
308. 11:28go in eyes open about what those terms
309. 11:30are and especially to I would also say
310. 11:33just on top of that is just be mindful
311. 11:35as well especially with Google moving to
312. 11:37you you're better off doing that by a
313. 11:39negative keyword list not only just
314. 11:41keyword targeting because with the with
315. 11:43the Google Now targeting obviously the
316. 11:46it's been for quite a number of years
317. 11:47now targeting the meaning of the word
318. 11:48not the actual keywords like we've even
319. 11:50seing in some Industries like say for
320. 11:52example motor insurance here in
321. 11:54Australia where Google actually assigns
322. 11:56um brand names as the meaning of motor
323. 11:58insurance so it's just something to keep
324. 12:00in mind there too that it is the meaning
325. 12:02some of the larger niches you can
326. 12:03actually get larger competitors names on
327. 12:05an act non- ranted term it's purely
328. 12:07because of the meaning that Google is
329. 12:08are signing and it's worth noting in
330. 12:10performance Max there is that brand
331. 12:12exclusion option which is wonderful you
332. 12:15might need to add the brand in as a
333. 12:18brand exclusion so I actually had this
334. 12:20happen with a client where there are
335. 12:23very strict rules that the client is not
336. 12:26allowed to uh come at all for another
337. 12:31another brand and if they do there are
338. 12:33fines Associated yeah and so I had to
339. 12:36add that termine as a net new company
340. 12:40for Google yeah um and there was an
341. 12:41approval process so kind of that that
342. 12:44checklist we go through and we're
343. 12:45launching campaigns or starting a new
344. 12:47initiative we starting a new account
345. 12:48building the time to put in not only
346. 12:51negative keyword lists placement
347. 12:53exclusions things like that but to
348. 12:54actually add in those exclusions for
349. 12:57performance Max because that is a a
350. 12:59campaign type that's not going away um
351. 13:01and just for anyone that doesn't know I
352. 13:03I know this is an advanced audience
353. 13:04performance Max combines Google search
354. 13:07shopping display YouTube local discover
355. 13:10I believe is still in there as well as
356. 13:12also with and it is a lovely bias free
357. 13:17way of allocating budget it is not
358. 13:19designed to be the Standalone campaign
359. 13:21type and with the new announcement that
360. 13:23Google is bringing how they matched you
361. 13:26whether it was keyword lless targeting
362. 13:28or the search themes that you added in
363. 13:29you get up to I believe it started off
364. 13:32at 25 and I think they they're upping it
365. 13:33to 50 themes now I'll need to check it's
366. 13:36either 25 or 50 that that you can use
367. 13:38for search themes you just want to make
368. 13:40sure that you're auditing that report
369. 13:42because that report if you see a higher
370. 13:46match rate of your search themes versus
371. 13:49keyword lless matching than your other
372. 13:52Search terms to what actually gets
373. 13:54matched out in In Search terms for your
374. 13:57traditional search campaigns you may
375. 13:58decide that your more specific campaigns
376. 14:01where you you have stricter rules about
377. 14:03how you engage with competitors needs to
378. 14:05go to pmax and vice versa if you see
379. 14:07that the keyword list targeting tends to
380. 14:08take precedence in pmax you'll probably
381. 14:11want your stricter rules enforced by
382. 14:14Standalone search Standalone display
383. 14:17Standalone YouTube so and soth and I
384. 14:19guess this is probably where we can get
385. 14:20to as well is is with all of this
386. 14:22whether it's pmax or your I you also use
387. 14:24the terminology that you used before
388. 14:26about like aggressive and defensive
389. 14:27campaign so I would say you know you're
390. 14:29aggressive sometimes you do have
391. 14:31customers who actually even want to go
392. 14:33out and start going on to other
393. 14:35competitors is for me I always just come
394. 14:37back to is always just think about your
395. 14:38structure and what you want to be using
396. 14:40each campaign for I see a lot of
397. 14:42benefits for competitive market places I
398. 14:45know a lot of brand owners don't like it
399. 14:47but having a branded search campaign
400. 14:50just so then you can at least control
401. 14:51the costs or you can actually see an
402. 14:54extra an extra benefit of it and play it
403. 14:56through that way you're mentioning some
404. 14:57things there with performance Max so one
405. 14:59thing would be also too I mean have you
406. 15:01got any insight or any I guess
407. 15:03predictions on what's going to be
408. 15:04happening with the search Max keyword
409. 15:06typ coming into play this year so I'll
410. 15:09I'll admit up until a few days ago I
411. 15:12thought search Max was just something
412. 15:14that everyone was blowing out of
413. 15:15proportion it was going to be a big
414. 15:16nothing Burg it's but when Google
415. 15:19actually took the time to spell out that
416. 15:21this is going to be a combination of DSA
417. 15:25yeah and all match types and I was
418. 15:27thinking quite about one of the
419. 15:29stipulations that the doj put out that
420. 15:32Google would either need to share all
421. 15:34search term data or collect and share
422. 15:37none search Max seems like the easiest
423. 15:40way for them to keep search text ads
424. 15:43without actually having to worry about
425. 15:45it being true search text ads because at
426. 15:48that point match types just start are
427. 15:49completely gone I don't know if it will
428. 15:51still be because I'm not going to make
429. 15:53this political things are just
430. 15:56interesting and no one knows what's
431. 15:58going to happen in in the US with with
432. 16:00the Department of Justice and what's
433. 16:01going to happen with Google and Chrome
434. 16:03and yeah Search terms and AdSense so my
435. 16:07prediction would have been say in
436. 16:10October that search Max would replace
437. 16:14binning on Broad or bidding on phrase or
438. 16:17bidding on exact and you would have
439. 16:18search Max and then you would have
440. 16:20performance Max and that would be a way
441. 16:23for Google to navigate any potential
442. 16:25privacy compulsions by the doj in
443. 16:28today's world world I actually suspect
444. 16:30that search Max might not even make it
445. 16:32to Prime Time and that everyone will get
446. 16:34access to it because the amount of work
447. 16:36that they're putting into performance
448. 16:38Maxs for recording um for control lovers
449. 16:41it just doesn't make sense that they
450. 16:43would do that and then have search Maxs
451. 16:46which is essentially the same thing
452. 16:48because at that point just do
453. 16:49performance Maxs so we'll see yeah I'm
454. 16:53what do you think I still I still think
455. 16:56there'll be a need for a level of um
456. 16:59exact match targeting and the reason why
457. 17:01I think that is because I know and I've
458. 17:03worked with some really really like so I
459. 17:06look at say for example the
460. 17:07superannuation niche Insurance niches
461. 17:09even in Australia where and and Europe
462. 17:12where you get into the regulations
463. 17:14around supplements or vitamins there's a
464. 17:17lot of industrywide focuses that um
465. 17:20companies can't use performance backs
466. 17:22because they need to be able to control
467. 17:23ad copy even down to the point of they
468. 17:25need to be a to control that if this is
469. 17:27in headline one this has to appear one
470. 17:29two and turn to the text correct for the
471. 17:30claims they're making so I'm not on the
472. 17:32camp that traditional search is going
473. 17:34away however I do think that that's
474. 17:37probably going to be a smaller subsect
475. 17:39on the market it's the same reason why I
476. 17:40think the demand gen there'll still be
477. 17:42video campaigns because there are some
478. 17:44very valid reasons and very big markets
479. 17:47that Google would not want to lose the
480. 17:48spend off that they do need a level of
481. 17:50control over the over who sees their ads
482. 17:53and where their ads go I want to clarify
483. 17:55I 1,000% agree there is need for exact
484. 18:00match this the question was what do I
485. 18:02think will happen yes yeah definitely
486. 18:06yeah versus what I think will happen are
487. 18:09are are actually two different answers
488. 18:11yeah um but you mentioned something
489. 18:13about video that I think is worth
490. 18:15talking about everyone that has shied
491. 18:17away from video has deprived themselves
492. 18:20of a super transactional amazing search
493. 18:23engine yeah um and discovery engine
494. 18:26that's pennies to the dollar compared to
495. 18:29search text ads and performance Max
496. 18:32evolved to get people to just bias free
497. 18:36start doing YouTube start having
498. 18:39placements on YouTube now I think the
499. 18:41way they went about it wasn't terribly
500. 18:44clever um because if your Brand's
501. 18:47guidelines are you have to appear in a
502. 18:50certain way you have to have visuals
503. 18:52render a certain way and the AI doesn't
504. 18:55do that and we know that the performance
505. 18:56Max video ads are pretty bad that are
506. 18:59automatically generated that wasn't
507. 19:00terribly clever but the Mandate of start
508. 19:05thinking about video not even just from
509. 19:07a platforms are pushing it but consumers
510. 19:10more and more are are looking to consume
511. 19:13content through audio through watching
512. 19:16tutorials things like that they're not
513. 19:17necessarily looking to search and read a
514. 19:20whole big long wall of text yeah and
515. 19:23when we think about the future of search
516. 19:27campaigns and even competitor campaigns
517. 19:29it's a lot easier to sell your message
518. 19:32in a video where you speak as a human to
519. 19:36another human than a little Haiku text
520. 19:40ad trying begging for attention in a
521. 19:43wall of Fairly similar creative yeah uh
522. 19:47so I think when we're thinking about
523. 19:48competitors one way to beat competitors
524. 19:51is to be where they're not and most
525. 19:52people have not taken the leap into
526. 19:54video so if if you can do video you
527. 19:56definitely should and honestly think is
528. 19:59it's the cuz we have a lot of this you
529. 20:01know in our industry which I'm sure
530. 20:03you're aware there's the people who are
531. 20:04still trying to hold on to the old way
532. 20:07of going through Google ads um and
533. 20:09search and they they really anti
534. 20:11anything with performance Max really
535. 20:12anti anything any type of new I guess my
536. 20:14view on it is that what they're missing
537. 20:16is they're missing fundamentally the way
538. 20:18that people are going to be carrying out
539. 20:20search is changing rapidly and I see
540. 20:23video being a lot more important
541. 20:24especially in the Google ecospace is
542. 20:26because yeah they may lose out on search
543. 20:28but obviously because they own YouTube
544. 20:30that's why they're wanting to go down
545. 20:31this because it would be you know people
546. 20:33are using more chat boot or whatever
547. 20:35technology they want to do for search
548. 20:36voice search video is still a really
549. 20:38really big part and it's a way that you
550. 20:39can still engage with your your
551. 20:41potential audiences and I think just to
552. 20:44kind of put a bow on video CU I know
553. 20:45that we we want to talk mostly about
554. 20:47predators and then kind of where where
555. 20:49things are heading there are is more to
556. 20:51video than just a 30second not skippable
557. 20:55ad so yes 100% the 30 to 90 second
558. 21:00skippable ads are a steal you get your
559. 21:03message out they skip you don't pay you
560. 21:06you still have started to kind of get
561. 21:08getting into their awareness but when
562. 21:09you start looking at the 15 or 30 second
563. 21:13non- skippa bles or you even look at the
564. 21:15bumper ads there's six seconds there is
565. 21:17some really impactful things you can do
566. 21:19with video yeah um and one of the things
567. 21:21that was actually very interesting is
568. 21:23that when video action campaigns got
569. 21:24rolled into demand gen a lot of
570. 21:26e-commerce folks were very upset because
571. 21:29that was an amazing format it drove
572. 21:32incredible Rass I'm not going to plug
573. 21:34Optimizer too much on on this but I do
574. 21:36want to point folks to um we did a study
575. 21:38looking at different ad creative and I
576. 21:41was actually very pleasantly surprised
577. 21:43how much demand genen actually drove
578. 21:45return on ad spin that people were
579. 21:47actually able to make profit off of what
580. 21:50should be top of funnel or introducing
581. 21:54and educating not actually get getting
582. 21:56the sale so the more that you can start
583. 21:58to test with video now the better off
584. 22:02you'll be because I think in 2026 we are
585. 22:05going to be having a conversation about
586. 22:07turning off our search text ads to just
587. 22:10run video because that's where everyone
588. 22:12is yeah as opposed to ah I got to get on
589. 22:16video I got to get on video this is I
590. 22:17think one of the final years folks have
591. 22:20to just do it yeah because every other
592. 22:22AD platform is really leaning into video
593. 22:23as well it's not like it's just a Google
594. 22:25thing Amazon is doing it meta is doing
595. 22:28it moft is doing and the other thing I
596. 22:30would say there too is the people who
597. 22:31are starting to you know dabble or
598. 22:33starting to invest in video is I'm
599. 22:35always really big to is not just looking
600. 22:37at the individual campaign life the
601. 22:39success of the of the the account like
602. 22:41I've got a lot of examples like people
603. 22:42are still like with in terms of
604. 22:44something like a a display ad format
605. 22:46we're still using a lot of display ads
606. 22:47but we don't count the success of it
607. 22:49just by what we're seeing in that line
608. 22:51so things like you view through
609. 22:52conversions and even just looking at the
610. 22:54total success of the account before you
611. 22:56started U video and after you started
612. 22:58video the things that we're looking at
613. 22:59as well the main thing uh for
614. 23:01attribution and thinking about video and
615. 23:03in the funnel I don't know that we can
616. 23:06think about reporting the way we have in
617. 23:09years past because privacy makes it so
618. 23:11that we don't have full reporting anyway
619. 23:13but that's not to say that we can't have
620. 23:15some accountability so Google has two
621. 23:18different really useful AI models for
622. 23:21tracking conversions and for helping to
623. 23:23model that out one is on a 7day period
624. 23:25one is on a 20 21-day period yeah and
625. 23:28and the more that you can feed in data
626. 23:31of what happened the better you will be
627. 23:35understanding if video was responsible
628. 23:37for empowering the sale or not the
629. 23:39better you'll understand if the
630. 23:41messaging is going to the right groups
631. 23:43of people think things like that but I
632. 23:45think the question of attribution isn't
633. 23:46just a video one it's it's for everybody
634. 23:49unless I totally misunderstood the
635. 23:50question no no no no not be interesting
636. 23:52to say do you want to just sort of break
637. 23:53that down a little bit so just to
638. 23:54explain to some people some of the
639. 23:56options that are there for attribution
640. 23:57and how
641. 23:59what your recommendations would be
642. 24:01around that sure so uh with Google you
643. 24:04effectively have two two types there's
644. 24:07data driven attribution which is the
645. 24:08default and then you have last click
646. 24:10which no one should be on it's still
647. 24:13technically there but yeah don't don't
648. 24:15be on it and then beyond the data driven
649. 24:18attribution which will have that
650. 24:19fractional conversion action Associated
651. 24:22based off of multiple different factors
652. 24:24how Google assigns value to each step in
653. 24:27the journey you'll also be able to start
654. 24:29to feed in those offline conversions
655. 24:33provided that you again have gone
656. 24:35through consent mode and and you've
657. 24:37verified yourself and and you have all
658. 24:39those cookie permissions in place so I'm
659. 24:41not going to try to remember off the top
660. 24:43of my head the two names of the AI
661. 24:44systems but I'll just I'll break them
662. 24:46down I'll send you offline the link to
663. 24:48them one is and we'll put it in the
664. 24:51description as well uh with the video um
665. 24:54one is leg gen oriented which has a
666. 24:5721-day look back window that can
667. 25:01understand and put back the conversions
668. 25:03based off of what you upload some people
669. 25:05will say 21 days isn't enough 21 days is
670. 25:08nothing in leg gen how on Earth is that
671. 25:11useful 21 days is still useful to know
672. 25:14if someone completed a trial or not 21
673. 25:17days is still useful to understand if
674. 25:19someone booked a call with the sales
675. 25:20team and showed or no show like you can
676. 25:23still need something approaching
677. 25:25information and especially if you start
678. 25:27putting in micro conversion sort of
679. 25:29conversion values uh to go with each
680. 25:31step in the journey it actually can be
681. 25:33very very powerful because the ad
682. 25:35platforms do tend to do better when they
683. 25:37interact with conversion valys instead
684. 25:39of just yet conversions now when we are
685. 25:42thinking about e-commerce um there it
686. 25:44has a really lovely 7-Day look back
687. 25:46window and part of the reason that that
688. 25:48AI modeling is a 7-Day is because a
689. 25:52e-commerce purchases tend to be faster
690. 25:55but also the input systems um tend to be
691. 25:58more continuous especially through the
692. 26:00the API connection through like a
693. 26:02Shopify or woocommerce bit Commerce it's
694. 26:06much easier for Google to have that
695. 26:087-Day rule so the 21-day rule so the
696. 26:10reason I'm kind of getting into the
697. 26:12weeds here is very tempting to look at a
698. 26:15campaign and the results for today or
699. 26:17yesterday and be really upset that it
700. 26:19didn't do anything when in fact you
701. 26:21probably need to give it 7 14 even 21
702. 26:25days to really see the results and so
703. 26:27the fact that those are the look back
704. 26:29windows that Google is using in their AI
705. 26:31modeling for conversions gives you
706. 26:33really good Clues into how its systems
707. 26:36process information and adapt I'll also
708. 26:39throw a plug for conversion exclusions
709. 26:42in in here as well um I think it's a
710. 26:44very common mistake that people make
711. 26:46that they will test lots of different
712. 26:48things they'll test lots of different
713. 26:50conversion types and then they leave
714. 26:52everything and so Google is like I got
715. 26:54no idea what to do with this like
716. 26:56there's there there's too much yeah so
717. 26:58data exclusions um in case you're not
718. 27:00aware it's under the tool section in
719. 27:02bidding and budgets and it's to make
720. 27:05exclusions or adjustments yeah and you
721. 27:07can do it to seasonality too but the
722. 27:08exclusions will let you actually tell
723. 27:10Google here this during this period of
724. 27:12time the conversion tracking was messed
725. 27:14up just ignore it don't don't look at it
726. 27:17it's not worth factoring in and what
727. 27:18that will do is it will help Google
728. 27:21understand that that period where you
729. 27:22had say 50 conversions where you
730. 27:25actually only really had five but page
731. 27:28or something tagged is a conversion
732. 27:29don't assume that that cost per
733. 27:31acquisition is a correct cost per
734. 27:33acquisition don't assume that that
735. 27:35conversion volume is actually a
736. 27:38reasonable conversion volume for your
737. 27:40campaigns so it won't then push budget
738. 27:43to parts of your account that shouldn't
739. 27:45get access to budget yeah um and
740. 27:46bringing it back to like the original
741. 27:48topic of competitors this is really
742. 27:50important here too because competitor
743. 27:52terms much like branded terms typically
744. 27:56have much lower costs per clicks yeah
745. 27:58than your non-branded traffic and so if
746. 28:02Google is accidentally driving a whole
747. 28:04bunch of traffic to competitor queries
748. 28:07because that's getting people to click
749. 28:09your ad and they land on the page where
750. 28:11they don't actually get in touch with
751. 28:12you yeah you don't want that like that's
752. 28:15not a good use of your budget so that's
753. 28:17why it's really important to audit your
754. 28:18conversion tracking if you need to do
755. 28:20exclusions to those and just be mindful
756. 28:22about how long it takes for Google to
757. 28:24reset itself yeah no and exactly right
758. 28:26and my my biggest things any anyone at
759. 28:29the moment is that the your your your
760. 28:31data points what you're fitting back
761. 28:33into Google is really probably already
762. 28:36argue to say the most important thing to
763. 28:38make sure that you're you're getting
764. 28:40good data points back so that you you
765. 28:41can then yeah feeding the right
766. 28:43information of Google so that it can
767. 28:45make the because you're not going to be
768. 28:46able to stop the automation but you've
769. 28:47got to be able to feed the right data R
770. 28:49so it's it's getting the right Baseline
771. 28:51data so it knows what to Target more
772. 28:53what what you don't want and what you do
773. 28:54want while we're down on this topic as
774. 28:56well let's now talk about just in your
775. 28:58role obviously with the brand of engal
776. 29:01for Optimizer what are some of the
777. 29:02biggest guidelin biggest changes that
778. 29:05you've seen or the biggest data point
779. 29:07changes there's probably a couple of
780. 29:08things we could talk about so let's
781. 29:09let's go down the data Avenue I think
782. 29:11because I I I think you be to play play
783. 29:13better there have there been any sort of
784. 29:15big I guess data changes that you've
785. 29:17noticed since the increase of you know
786. 29:19performance Max increase of automation
787. 29:22since you know 22 23 that people should
788. 29:25be aware of that it should be changing
789. 29:27the way that you approach Google ads I
790. 29:29know that's a very very broad question
791. 29:30and I hope you've you've got what I got
792. 29:32there all right for everything I don't
793. 29:36cover yeah I will link to our wonderful
794. 29:39blog page where you can read all the
795. 29:41lovely studies that the amazing
796. 29:43Optimizer data team puts together and
797. 29:45that I'll help evangelize and amplify
798. 29:48Shameless plug Optimizer has uh over
799. 29:51five billion dollars in ad Revenue that
800. 29:53runs through our system so we are in a
801. 29:54very privileged position to be able to
802. 29:56look at a lot of different trends
803. 29:58and because we provide essentially PPC
804. 30:00insurance through automation layering
805. 30:02we're able to help you manage your
806. 30:03Google your Microsoft your Amazon your
807. 30:05meta soon to be LinkedIn so we we we we
808. 30:08help you with a lot yeah Shameless plugs
809. 30:10out of the way one of the things that I
810. 30:12found incredibly depressing really
811. 30:15depressing is that the majority of
812. 30:17advertisers in our Pac study had more
813. 30:21than 50% of their budget going to pmax
814. 30:23in an audience cohort that had only 30%
815. 30:27e Commerce advertisers so why that was
816. 30:30depressing to me is that I hear a lot of
817. 30:33people complain about performance Maxs
818. 30:36but then they make the choice to put a
819. 30:38lot of budget into performance Max and
820. 30:40at the same time don't actually use the
821. 30:43exclusions at their disposal so I don't
822. 30:45know how many people were are aware
823. 30:47there was a form that would let you
824. 30:49exclude placements at the account level
825. 30:51yeah exclude negatives at the campaign
826. 30:53level before the beta got rolled out to
827. 30:55everyone to do it in the eyi there were
828. 30:56a number of things that were available
829. 30:58to advertisers to take the bull by the
830. 31:00horns and and and and fix it the fact
831. 31:02that we had a lot of performance Max
832. 31:04usage and not a lot of safeguards put in
833. 31:07place was interesting what I also found
834. 31:09really fascinating is that the
835. 31:11performance was essentially flat between
836. 31:13those that used exclusions and those
837. 31:15that didn't so that was a really good
838. 31:17argument in the case of Google that hey
839. 31:19you know what Google's actually not so
840. 31:21bad at protecting from brand
841. 31:23cannibalization that they're really good
842. 31:26at understanding what's useful so on so
843. 31:28forth now on budget allocation in
844. 31:31performance Max that's a slightly
845. 31:32different story this the healthiest
846. 31:34budget allocation for performance Max
847. 31:36seem to be somewhere around between 10
848. 31:38to 20% of the budget going to
849. 31:40Performance Max and the rest being
850. 31:42search or shopping or display like
851. 31:45running other campaign types and I found
852. 31:47that really fascinating because Google
853. 31:49was telling us the truth Google said you
854. 31:52should not use performance Max on its
855. 31:54own performance Max should be layered on
856. 31:56top yeah and then the data played out
857. 31:59that yes in fact when it's used as a
858. 32:02bias-free wild and crazy kind of find
859. 32:05that incremental value performance Max
860. 32:08does great when you try to make it be
861. 32:10everything it struggles yeah so that was
862. 32:13really fascinating the other thing that
863. 32:15was really interesting on performance
864. 32:16Max is that no one could really decide
865. 32:20how they wanted to structure their
866. 32:22performance Max campaigns so we had
867. 32:24effectively equal groups between our
868. 32:27multiple campaign single asset group
869. 32:29multiple campaigns multiple asset groups
870. 32:31single campaign single asset group
871. 32:33single campaign multiple asset groups
872. 32:35but performance-wise having multiple
873. 32:37campaigns with a single asset group Far
874. 32:39and Away was the best performance okay
875. 32:41um it is worth again noting this is in a
876. 32:44predominantly lead gen oriented cohort
877. 32:47e-commerce has different rules of
878. 32:48engagement but even still especially now
879. 32:51that uh shopping campaigns and
880. 32:53performance Max campaigns enter the
881. 32:54auction equally yeah all that really
882. 32:57decides who's spitting more I found it
883. 32:58really fascinating that advertisers are
884. 33:02still testing all these different styles
885. 33:04and no one kind of raised their hand and
886. 33:06said hey it seems like single asset
887. 33:08group with multiple campaigns seems to
888. 33:10be the way to go so that was kind of a
889. 33:12really interesting Insight the one thing
890. 33:14I ask about that did you look at the
891. 33:15data points in terms of the website
892. 33:18setup so what I mean by that is that the
893. 33:22campaigns that performed best was
894. 33:23separate performance Max campaigns with
895. 33:24one as a group but was that going to a
896. 33:26website that had a really good segment
897. 33:28around different Services because you
898. 33:29were saying this is in the service space
899. 33:31so they had a good menu structure where
900. 33:32they could go here and then did they in
901. 33:34the separate campaigns did they have
902. 33:35exclusions saying so don't go to this
903. 33:37part of the website just go to this part
904. 33:38of the website so disclaimer we did not
905. 33:42Factor individual landing pages um in
906. 33:45into the analysis in large part due to
907. 33:47the fact that there were
908. 33:509,199 PS in the Cort so going through
909. 33:539,199 websites yeah it would have would
910. 33:56have been a lot um I think actually in
911. 33:58today's world with AI agents we might be
912. 34:01able to look at it like I'll I'll talk
913. 34:03with Fred and see if if we can use some
914. 34:05of our GPT budget to look at the actual
915. 34:07websites and and and analyze the
916. 34:09websites that that we for me it would
917. 34:11more be the structure not the actual
918. 34:13page it would more be about the menu
919. 34:15structure as to whether they had a if
920. 34:17they had a very very clear menu
921. 34:18structure that then allowed them to do
922. 34:21the I I I fully agree with what you're
923. 34:24saying my two cents on this is because
924. 34:28so few people used exclusions I don't
925. 34:31know that it's fair to say that that
926. 34:34amount of intelligent effort was applied
927. 34:37in that case now when we run the data
928. 34:40again because these are the sorts of
929. 34:41studies that we like running annually to
930. 34:43kind of see how how are things changing
931. 34:45are people using different tactics um of
932. 34:48course we'll we we'll take a look and
933. 34:50that that's a good add-on to add in a
934. 34:52menu structure because I agree that from
935. 34:54an SEO standpoint that is a very
936. 34:56powerful enhancement to performance Max
937. 34:58but again one of my struggles yeah um in
938. 35:012024 was dealing with how lazy and how
939. 35:06loud people were complaining and I think
940. 35:09if 2025 is a shift and his growth it's
941. 35:13that people feel empowered to take
942. 35:15action and they feel empowered to
943. 35:17instead of screaming loudly into the
944. 35:19void they actually say okay I find this
945. 35:22problematic I'm going to go take action
946. 35:24yeah um and go do those actions so the
947. 35:27actions that the actuals that came out
948. 35:28of the performance Mac study were that
949. 35:30it seems like there is Roi on time by
950. 35:34dividing your campaigns into multiple
951. 35:35campaign single asset groups if you can
952. 35:38do that with your account structure if
953. 35:40you can't that's fully understandable
954. 35:42you can experiment the other major
955. 35:44action item that came out was that
956. 35:47search themes and audience signals
957. 35:50didn't really seem to be worth the
958. 35:51effort to apply which I found very
959. 35:54frustrating because that was what I was
960. 35:57counting on being the the golden hero
961. 36:00lever Moment Like This is Our M to talk
962. 36:03to the system so when Google released
963. 36:06the um search theme usefulness tool for
964. 36:10the beta that one was actually the my
965. 36:12favorite thing that they announc because
966. 36:14that's a way for us to understand are we
967. 36:17picking the right search themes because
968. 36:19my suspicion is that was a case of human
969. 36:22error because the way search themes work
970. 36:24if you have an exact match keyword and
971. 36:26it exactly matches the query that the
972. 36:27user is searching that will win every
973. 36:30single time there is no world in which
974. 36:31the exact match keyword will not serve
975. 36:34before performance Max yeah um but
976. 36:36performance Max has a chance to snipe
977. 36:38placements in the auction ahead of every
978. 36:41other match type yeah so what my
979. 36:43suspicion is is that a lot of people
980. 36:45were using the same exact keywords that
981. 36:48they had on an exact match in
982. 36:49performance Max and so like performance
983. 36:51Max was never going to have the chance
984. 36:53to shine on their search themes and so
985. 36:55it was only going to be the keyword L
986. 36:58targeting and so that's why you ended up
987. 37:00with such weird performance or
988. 37:03negligible impact on search scenes being
989. 37:05present I'll be interested to see in
990. 37:07some of the more anecdotal data where we
991. 37:09actually look at the individual accounts
992. 37:11and what's being done if that plays out
993. 37:13again this year with all of these
994. 37:14changes that that Google has bring off
995. 37:16yeah and I I think the big thing you
996. 37:18sort of touched on the big thing with me
997. 37:20with performance Max is I'm always
998. 37:22really really clear with anyone we're
999. 37:23talking to about performance Max is
1000. 37:25understanding what it really plays best
1001. 37:27in and the thing for me about success in
1002. 37:31Google ads as we're moving forward it's
1003. 37:33more the core understanding of
1004. 37:35understanding how each campaign works
1005. 37:37and then how to put them all together
1006. 37:39and that's really I think where success
1007. 37:41is coming in the accounts that we're
1008. 37:42seeing are going really really well is
1009. 37:43they have a really clear idea on why
1010. 37:46they've got their search campaigns to
1011. 37:48set up the way they have why they got
1012. 37:49the performance Max campaigns whenever I
1013. 37:52wear auditing an account and I'm talking
1014. 37:54to them and they don't really know
1015. 37:55they're go we're just trying performance
1016. 37:56Max and there's no exclusions that's
1017. 37:58where it always runs into trouble for me
1018. 37:59so that's where yeah so I is interesting
1019. 38:01to hear that data I'll have to have a
1020. 38:03look at the performance of my
1021. 38:04performance backs accounts to see if
1022. 38:05there is any difference between multiple
1023. 38:08campaigns or allinone campaigns so yeah
1024. 38:11that we we'll go through and have a look
1025. 38:12at it the only thing we'd have to think
1026. 38:13about is the way that we roll out
1027. 38:15performance Max is we also very much use
1028. 38:17performance Max for for bidding for new
1029. 38:19customers so we will look to own high
1030. 38:22intent traffic branded traffic
1031. 38:23competitive traffic in Search and or
1032. 38:25shopping and we segment and a
1033. 38:28performance Max layering on top to go
1034. 38:30for new customers so we've got only
1035. 38:31bidding on new customers brand
1036. 38:32exclusions campaign specific goals so
1037. 38:35that it's uh it functions out that way
1038. 38:37but no it's definitely you've given me
1039. 38:39some H work to have a look at um the
1040. 38:41other interesting data point and this
1041. 38:44was in our ad copy study is that title
1042. 38:47casing which we all default to yeah uh
1043. 38:50underperform senten sentence casing
1044. 38:53which I find mindblowing yeah but I have
1045. 38:56a suspicion as to why that is we have
1046. 38:58seen a rise in forums just really taking
1047. 39:01hold in the search result page and those
1048. 39:04are much more trusted than corporate
1049. 39:07websites that very polish buttoned up
1050. 39:11and so users like the human effect of a
1051. 39:14sentence versus title casing so that's
1052. 39:17been a test that I started to run and
1053. 39:18I've actually seen some pretty decent
1054. 39:19results um even if the click the rate is
1055. 39:23marginally lower the conversion rate is
1056. 39:25actually miles better and so that's a
1057. 39:29test I would highly encourage everyone
1058. 39:30to run is see how you do on say a b Lev
1059. 39:34product or a ble service not your best
1060. 39:37but mid- tier experiment running with
1061. 39:39sentence cased ads and just find out
1062. 39:43does do you get better click theories do
1063. 39:45you get better conversion rates do you
1064. 39:46get worse everything is is it
1065. 39:48essentially the same because if it's
1066. 39:49essentially the same it actually works
1067. 39:51out better for you because then your ad
1068. 39:53stands out amidst all those title cased
1069. 39:56ads that just look the same yeah yeah
1070. 39:59and I guess that would be the other
1071. 40:00thing you'd always come back to I'm
1072. 40:01always big thing when you are writing
1073. 40:03your ad copies have a look at what your
1074. 40:04competitor is doing because you just
1075. 40:05want to be able to do it see how you can
1076. 40:07stand out how can you say things
1077. 40:08differently so hey it has been I am
1078. 40:12going to give you a chance for final
1079. 40:13comments but it's been absolutely
1080. 40:14amazing having you here I'm going to
1081. 40:16pass it over to to NAA just to give her
1082. 40:18any recommendations or anything she sees
1083. 40:20uh sees bit if you do want to get in
1084. 40:22contact with NAA I'm going to put all of
1085. 40:24the details in the description of this
1086. 40:26video and podcast but yeah I'll hand
1087. 40:27over you to no do you have any last
1088. 40:28comments or anything before we uh finish
1089. 40:30up for the day well first this has been
1090. 40:32a delight it's very rare that I get to
1091. 40:34have a really lovely amazing
1092. 40:35conversation as opposed to just talking
1093. 40:38yeah so I'm I'm happy because this this
1094. 40:41is like a really really fun fun
1095. 40:42conversation so a couple things number
1096. 40:45one give yourself Grace this is a crazy
1097. 40:48time to be in PPC and we live in the
1098. 40:51unfortunate timeline that AI is coming
1099. 40:54to a head at the exact same time as
1100. 40:56privacy is coming to a head and so the
1101. 40:58data we need for AI is now being
1102. 41:01obscured so all that is to say give
1103. 41:03yourself Grace do not beat yourself up
1104. 41:06if things you're testing go sideways or
1105. 41:09if reporting isn't quite how you imagine
1106. 41:12again give yourself Grace I I love
1107. 41:16helping folks um I participate on the
1108. 41:18ASD Journal PPC once a month I do also
1109. 41:21holy column for search into land you can
1110. 41:23check out Optimizer uh PPC town hall and
1111. 41:27the Master Class automation but yeah
1112. 41:30really just give yourself Grace um I
1113. 41:32know that seems really really cliche but
1114. 41:35that that's my biggest advice yeah no
1115. 41:38and and it's the same thing I go is it
1116. 41:39you keep going you want to be really
1117. 41:41looking at um you know everyone has bad
1118. 41:43weeks and sometimes even bad months uh
1119. 41:45in campaign performance but yeah look at
1120. 41:47the long term and obviously yeah just
1121. 41:48keep going thank you so much it's been
1122. 41:50an absolute Delight having you here and
1123. 41:52yeah we look forward to sharing this
1124. 41:53with everyone thank you cheers bye