Question 1

Should I be running video ads and what can I expect?

Accepted Answer

If you want to remind recent website visitors about your offer, running video ads will help. Some videos show on YouTube while others show on the Display network (meaning, your videos can appear on other sites.)

When budget is limited, video ads are best used with Remarketed Audiences––those who have already gone to your site and completed a conversion. People who watch your video aren’t necessarily searching for a solution at that moment. So, using video ads to remind the right audience (remarketed) about your offer can help increase their desire to buy.

Later as the budget grows, adding in some video ads to Outbound Audiences can be a good idea. Especially with impulse-buy products or products/services that don't have a pre-existing market of users who are already looking for it.

What should my videos be like?

This varies wildly depending on the industry, the product/service, the target market, the business branding, etc.

Here are a few ideas to choose from. Our recommendation is to make as many as possible because it's tough to know what will be the most effective until you test it with your audience:

Customer/client testimonial videos
"How to" style videos that address common hesitations or questions prospects have
Business owner "mission statement" videos where the company founder introduces themselves & their "why"
Professional commercial-style videos showcasing a product/service or a category of products/services
Affiliate amateur-style videos where a partner figure recommends the product/service

Here is our helpful 1-minute script template that could come in handy if you plan on making a video soon.

Here is a succinct article that Google created to offer tips and guidance on video ads.

Here are 5 video ad sequence ideas to provide ideas for different video ads:

Tease, Amplify, Echo (3 videos).
The Direct Shot (3 or more 6-second videos).
The Mini Series.
The Follow Up (2 videos).
The Lead-In (2 videos).

Pro Tips:

Since videos are often skippable, it’s critical that you mention your brand or company name and your offer within the first 6 seconds.
For a bigger impact (but not mandatory) show your company logo within those first 6 seconds, and place it anywhere except the bottom right.
Start with a question or shocking statement in the first 10 seconds.
Tell the viewer "what's in it for them" (make them the hero of the story).
Video length and aspect ratio aren't important.
Don't mention time-specific details. Keep the content evergreen, because Google has to re-optimize every time the video is replaced.
Make a handful of videos & let Google rotate between them to find the winner. Don't limit yourself to one video.
Google will create sequences from your videos automatically (i.e. it will show video A to a user and then video B to the same user if it finds that to be the order that gets the highest engagement)

How long should my videos be?

The most important thing is the first 5 seconds because most video ads are skip-able after that. Make sure to include a value statement in the first 5 seconds. As for the final length of the video, it doesn't matter too much!

Where should I host my videos?

Videos will need to be hosted on your YouTube channel.

How will video ads impact my conversions?

Videos are often not clicked on directly. Instead, leads will watch the ad a few times then search the brand on Google afterwards.

This makes conversion hard to track directly, but you should see a rise in the conversion rate of your Branded Campaign and View-Through Conversions report.

How do I keep my audience engaged?

It’s important to remember that if your video ad is not engaging right off the bat, you’ll lose a big percentage of your audience immediately. So if you want to build effective video ads, you need to grab your audience’s attention with a great hook.

4 Tips to getting your audience hooked and engaged:

1. Start from the climax. Drop your viewers in the middle of the action––the most exciting, dramatic, or interesting scene in the plot. When you start at the peak of the climax, you successfully catch their attention.

2. Make sure that the story is relevant to your audience–and specifically made for your avatar. Address your viewers’ wants and needs and make them feel like the story is about them.

3. Use imagery and language (e.g. script) that your viewers aren’t expecting. This helps in disrupting behavioral patterns, beliefs, and any preconceived notions about your story or offer.

4. Keep your viewers guessing. Add some element of surprise to keep the anticipation going. Only reveal enough information that will make your audience curious to find out more.

Question 2

Is my website ready for PPC ads?

Accepted Answer

In order to satisfy Google, there are a few of their policies that we must abide by as advertisers in order to gain the full scope of the platform's capabilities.

Google's primary goal is to keep its users happy, and Google has a plethora of people wanting to advertise to Google's users. In other words, Google gets to pick and choose which ads they present to their audience.

The bad news is that we have to compete against those other ads. The good news is that Google doesn't discriminate as long as you follow their guidelines and rules.

Individual "Thank You" page For All Forms

Essentially, this means that after a user has completed a desired action on your website (e.g. a purchase has been completed, or someone filled out a form) a "Thank You" page needs to be displayed.

Mobile Responsive

This is a big one. Have you ever visited a website on your mobile phone? We're positive you have. Have you ever visited a site on your mobile phone, only to have the end result be some "zoomed-in" portion of the main website?

Pretty annoying, right?

Google actually pays attention to these kinds of things, and classifies these seemingly minor things as "user experience".

Basically, the better the user experience is on your website, the higher your quality score for your advertisements. This, in turn, leads to happier users and better ad ranking for your advertisements (which oftentimes means more sales).

Site Speed

This is another factor that Google looks at heavily. According to a study done by the website Hubspot, if your website makes you an average of $100,000 a day, a 1-second decrease in page load time can increase your sales by about $7,000.

It seems like such an insignificant detail, but in the hustle and bustle of today's environment, people want things and they want them now.

Moreover, if your site takes too long to load, you run the risk of people bouncing off of your site. That means that they click on your advertisement (you pay for that click) and then they leave the website before it fully loads, before you have a chance to sell them your offer, all because it took just a little too long for the site to load for them.

Again a minor detail, but it has huge consequences.

Privacy Policy

A privacy policy is a requirement that indicates to your website's visitors how their personal information will be stored in your system. Things like website cookies, email addresses, credit card information all fall under this category.

Don't worry, you don't need to pay a lawyer the big bucks to write you one of these. You just need to explain to the website visitor, in a transparent way, where their information is being stored (if at all) and what is being done with that information.

Have A Physical Address On Your Site

This is something that Google looks for to see that you are a legitimate business and not some scammer who's claiming they're in California but really on the other side of the planet.

The benefit of this is that it satisfies Google, but it also makes your website visitors feel more at ease when they are considering purchasing your products/services. It instills trust in your website visitors, and often times more trust equals higher conversions and more sales.

Your Phone Number On Your Site Should Be Coded Text

This is a bit of a more technical detail. Google is very smart, but sometimes it needs some help. Having a phone number on your website is another thing that you can do to instill more trust in your website visitors, and possibly boost conversions.

However, from a technical standpoint, Google can't recognize that phone number if it's in an image and not coded onto the page.

If you have a web developer, they should be very familiar with the difference.

Have An Email Address Listed On The Site

Just like having a phone number and physical location, Google wants you to have a way for website visitors to reach you by email.

Again, just like a phone number, this needs to be coded into the webpage and not an image so that Google can read it.

eCommerce Websites

These next two points are specifically for eCommerce websites that sell physical items.

Have A Published Return Policy

A return policy is standard practice for physical stores, and it should be no different for online stores.

Just like the privacy policy, you don't need a lawyer to create this for you (although, by all means, if you feel more comfortable having a lawyer write it for you, have a lawyer write one for you).

A return policy can be very simple. It just tells the user what to expect should they want to return their item or get a refund. Questions that could be answered include: How long do I have to return my item? What's your policy if my item arrives broken?

Have A Published Shipping Policy

People want to know how long it's going to take for their item to arrive from the moment that the order is placed.

It's always a good idea to set expectation ahead of time. So be sure to tell your website visitors in your Shipping Policy how long it takes to process an order, and what kind of shipping speeds your business offers.

That was a lot! Don't worry though...

These are all seemingly minor things, but the devil is in the details. Not only are you satisfying Google's guidelines by having these things in place, but you are also boosting trust with your website visitors.

Higher trust with your visitors means higher conversions, which means higher sales.

Question 3

Why is Google Ads reporting different numbers than Google Analytics?

Accepted Answer

Google Ads and Google Analytics handle the same data very differently. And for good reason: The two platforms have very different focuses.

Google Ads is focused on tracking 100% of the people who interacted with it and attributing those interactions to a sale.

Whereas Google Analytics, on the other hand, is simply a tool that has been developed to show you what's going on on your website...This means it's more focused on tracking where users came from immediately before converting.

Google Analytics doesn't care that the direct traffic will be high -- and that many of those conversions attributed to "direct traffic" could have interacted with Google Ads at some point on a previous session/day/week/month.

Google Ads does care about that. Because Google Ads wants to show you ALL of the conversions that it helped convert.

The reality is, before a customer converts, they usually go through multiple sessions first – they might click an ad, come back to your site the next day, and purchase on a different day.

Because of this, your conversion data can & will look differently depending on the platform you're using at the time.

Think of the platform like a lens for data interpretation: Google Analytics cares about sessions and Google Ads cares about ad interactions.

Google Ads and Google Analytics show different data because their purpose is different:

Google Ads is trying to show us which ads are profitable, when, why, etc.

Google Analytics, on the other hand, is trying to show us the most straightforward picture of what exactly happened on the site and when.

If you'd like to understand the technical details of how this works, read on...

The Two Platforms Use Different Technology To Keep Track

The two platforms have different levels of tracking capabilities to recognize the same user across different channels, devices, etc:

Google Analytics measures session data using browser cookies. This is all it needs, since it's only looking at data that happens within a single session.

Google Ads measures session data using browser cookies, too. But it also uses IP address, session ID, and even WiFi. It also can recognize Google users if people are logged in on their phone or their Chrome browser and connect the dots that way.

With that said, Google Analytics’ method of storing data can often cause about 15-25% decrease in conversion value compared to Google Ads. In other words, Google Analytics drops data.

The Two Platforms Attribute Conversion Data Differently

If a user clicked on an ad, didn’t buy, and then came back to the site directly the next day to purchase, Google Analytics will likely mark that person as “direct” traffic.

Even if the user clicked your ad, the credits would still go to “direct” traffic because it’s the last action the user took before converting. Why? Because Google Analytics uses the Last Click attribution as its default attribution model.

Depending on which settings your ad manager chose, Google Ads can use several different attribution models.

If a user clicked on an ad a month ago but only converted today, some or all of today's conversion will appear a month in the past – it all depends on the attribution model used.

As you can see, the two platforms almost always end up attributing conversions based on different rules (and attribution models).

Keep this in mind when using Google Analytics:

It is a tool that has been developed to show you what's going on on your website. It only sees where users came from immediately before converting, which means its direct traffic will be high since many people who interact with a paid ad will come back to the site directly when they're ready to convert.

If you’d like to explore this further, here is our chief account strategist, John Moran, on the subject:

Question 4

Should I Always Listen to Google’s Suggestions?

Accepted Answer

Google’s suggestions don’t take the entire picture into account.
They are usually focused on making more money for Google, and focused on hitting the high-level bid strategy’s target (which it perceives as the campaign’s main goal) at all costs.
There can be consequences to overstretching in one area in order to hit the bid strategy target.
Here is a video explaining a campaign’s “Limited by Bid” message & suggestion. The video explains why it’s best to ignore it in this case.

Question 5

What time period should I use to judge ad performance?

Accepted Answer

It's tough to look at things on a week-to-week basis. Our team aims for hitting the ROAS goal on a month-to-month basis. Performance is intentionally bumpy throughout the month because we do things like using the Stair-Step Method to push the algorithm to grow, or testing small changes, etc.

Question 6

Why shouldn't I judge the performance of each campaign individually?

Accepted Answer

It is tough to look at a single campaign's performance. Our team views account performance holistically. This is because campaigns often interact with the same leads/customers and depending on the attribution model, those conversions can get divided up in a way that makes one campaign look worse than it really is.

Question 7

How long should I wait to see an accurate Performance Report in Performance Max?

Accepted Answer

According to Google, whenever you make any changes to automated bidding, strategies, and budget, you have to wait for at least 14 days (plus your conversion lag) to view accurate and complete performance reporting.

Conversion lag is simply “the delay when people click an ad and when they perform a specific conversion action (for example with, install, purchase, add-to-cart, etc.)”

What happens is the system will optimize towards what we tell it to do, so you must wait to make any changes for 14 days when Google can accurately assess performance.

Making any changes prior to that learning period will reset the account back into the learning period. This means, you’ll have to wait for another 2-3 weeks.

Question 8

Can I show my product ratings in my ads?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can. However, we don't have a process to check for product ratings on our accounts with shopping campaigns. And here’s why:

We haven't seen a measurable performance boost by adding product ratings to the ads.
We don't recommend showing the ratings unless the average review capture is high.
The 3rd party review aggregator apps are expensive (popular ones like Trustpilot & ShopperApproved charge about $200/month.) We believe that money is often better spent on ad spend pulling in sales.
Google doesn't show the reviews if they are less than 30 per month (they don’t mention this in their help articles.) So most clients get frustrated when they pay for an expensive app that doesn’t even show reviews for that month.

Question 9

Why is there a discrepancy between Shopify & Google Ads?

Accepted Answer

When you're viewing your Shopify report called "sales from marketing" (not available with all levels of Shopify) to see the total revenue from Google Ads, you'll likely see a lower quantity than what Google Ads reports.

It's not unusual to have a 20-30% loss in conversion value when in Shopify's marketing report when compared with Google Ads.

The lost conversions can be attributed to two things:

Shopify uses UTM parameters, which are often dropped, whereas Google Ads uses a robust tracking algorithm.
Shopify removes conversion value from the reporting if the customer made a return, whereas Google Ads doesn't know about the return so it doesn't get removed from the dashboard.

Here's a video Kasim made on this topic -- Although the video talks about Google Analytics reports rather than Shopify reports, it's still the same phenomenon, because Google Analytics also uses UTM parameters:

Question 10

Do you do Bing search campaigns?

Accepted Answer

Yes!

Typically, we wait until we have maxed out Google Ads. But in some cases, if your target audience is older, Bing can be a great channel to reach them.

Bing has about 10% of the traffic compared to Google, but it is very inexpensive and full of high-quality leads.