Q: How are you different from other agencies?

Our Qualifications and Experience : We’ve been successfully at this since 2006 Google Ads certified Hubspot Certified Partners Digital Marketer Certified Partners Google Ads Partners Our Ads team is a Google Ads Premier Partner Forbes Agency Council Members Named one of the Best Digital Marketing Agencies in Phoenix by Expertise We are digital marketers; however, we specialize in PPC ...and get a load of our case studies Our Tracking and Reporting Methods : We only use Google Analytics and Google Data Studio Monthly reporting and tracking methods are easy to understand We never use proprietary reporting or dashboards where data can be manipulated or hidden Our Communication, Pricing, and Transparency : You always maintain administrative ownership of your accounts There is always a primary contact in charge of your campaign (i.e. a dedicated client manager) We have clear communication schedules We are clear on the work you need to contribute (and what your time investment will be) Our fees are transparent and there are no long-term contracts Our Strategy, Setup, and Tools : We have a rock-solid onboarding process We take the time to understand your business before offering a solution We offer a marketing strategy in addition to tactical, campaign-based recommendations We are clear about the tools and software we use We don’t use automated tools to manage our campaigns — everything is done manually Our Culture : We work with clients who reflect our values and work ethic We have the brand recognition necessary to pull in (and retain) top talent We care. A lot.

Question 1

Adding Solutions 8 to your Google Ads account

Accepted Answer

To begin, we’ll need you to send us your 10-digit Google Ads Customer ID. Please send this information directly to your Solutions 8 contact requesting this.

Here is a screenshot of where to look for the ID in your Google Ads Account:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/MpD6OKc9u8/resources/qshsy3lVaU/2020-10-07_2-55-46.jpg (2020-10-07_2-55-46.jpg)

We will send an email from our Google Ads Manager Account requesting that you grant us with access. This email will go to the email address that is connected to your Google Ads account.

The email will look like this:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/MpD6OKc9u8/resources/0mjr8eByHz/account-access-email-1.jpg (account-access-email-1.jpg)

Please press "Accept Request"

From here, you will be prompted to log in to your Google Ads account.

Go to your Tools & Settings > Access and Security

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/MpD6OKc9u8/resources/7HfA7c6hQS/2020-10-07_2-42-35.jpg (2020-10-07_2-42-35.jpg)

In here, you'll see a pending invite from Solutions 8 - Google Partner

Hit Accept and we will get notified

After we receive access to your account, it typically takes us 3 to 4 business days to complete a full evaluation.

Should you choose to engage Solutions 8 for regular Google Ads management, we'll need to perform this process a second time in order to transfer your account access from our review account to our management account.

Question 2

Can I add a logo or text to my product images to show in the shopping remarketing ads?

Accepted Answer

Google doesn't allow any logos or text on a product image. They call it a "promotional overlay." Most of the time when a logo is added to a shopping image, we get disapproved for "promotional overlay." Even though that is not the case, Google will still flag it as such. We add the logo to the responsive ad for shopping, but sometimes there is not enough room to display it depending on what digital property your seeing the ad.

If a promotional overlay is detected on a main image, that product will be disapproved because it doesn’t meet the image requirements. Here is their article all about this.. Google automatically detects any logos or words and automatically disapproves it.

The Smart Shopping campaign has a remarketing aspect to it. This means it will follow recent website visitors around the web and show the product that they looked at. These ads can often appear simple with very little text, however Google's algorithms have determined that this is the best way to remind interested leads to come back and complete their purchase. These are dynamic (which means that Google's algorithms decide whether to show a logo, what text to include, etc. based on the person they are showing the ad to and the space they have available).

Question 3

Can I have multiple smart shopping campaigns in order to sell in different countries or one smart campaign with all countries selected. Please whats best practice in your experience?

Accepted Answer

Yes! Best practice for multiple countries is to actually create a new feed in GMC for that target country, then, use a new Smart Shopping campaign to target that country, or, a specific geographical area in that country

Question 4

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 5

Can we spend more money on a specific product or in a specific location?

Accepted Answer

Begin with $50 per day (or an amount that makes sense to you). Try to split the Smart Shopping campaigns to two different geographical locations, then allocate the ad spend to each campaign based on performance.

So two identical smart shopping campaigns.

1: All of (ex: Country), excluding (ex: State)

Whatever ends up being limited by budget, or having the best ROAS, gets the most ad spend.

Since they both will have their own dedicated daily budget, you will want to balance that on how each of the campaigns performs.

Question 6

Can You Join Our Company Slack Channel?  (...Or Other Communication/Project Management Channels)

Accepted Answer

We take communication seriously. And that’s why we don’t join external client communication channels or project management applications (like Slack, Ryver, Asana, Basecamp, or TeamWork).

Here’s why:

1. Juggling channels is inefficient

Each of our client managers may work with dozens of clients at a time. So you can imagine that joining every client’s Slack channel would get a bit noisy; not to mention each client uses a different platform type, which would result in a lot of clutter.

2. We have rock-solid processes inside our own agency

From onboarding to account setup to ongoing management, our communication processes are about as efficient and streamlined as it gets.

We have automations and purposely-redundant methods in place to ensure each client account is managed with the sharpest eye.

Which brings us to our final point:

3. Limited access and workflow

Each client is assigned a powerhouse team dedicated to their account: a client manager, a specialist, a backup specialist, and two strategists.

To provide the best service, client managers frequently rope a specialist or strategist into conversations with the client.

However, if a client manager joins a client's external communication channel, it is nearly impossible to rope in those other team members—and it is similarly clunky to forward client information out to the rest of the team.

With our communication systems, we can move efficiently, tie automations to our emails, and allow access to our entire team.

We prioritize frequent and meaningful communication

We try to set clear expectations early on regarding our time and yours.

While adding your client manager to your internal Slack channel might seem like the best way to reach us, our policy to stick with internal communication processes actually results in more availability to speak with you and higher-quality communication.

As always, we’re happy to chat with you about any questions or concerns. Reach out anytime.

Question 7

Can you provide some guidance on image ads?

Accepted Answer

There are two types of image ads: shopping ads & display ads.

Shopping Ads

Shopping ads are only relevant to you if you sell physical products online & are planning to run shopping campaigns. The images needed for these campaigns are imported into Google Ads directly from the product image on your eCommerce site.

This type of images are relatively straightforward:

Make sure the product is clearly displayed & takes up the majority of the image.
Ideally have a plain background. It can have a subtle pattern, a shadow, or a gradient, for example, but it shouldn't distract from the product itself. Light colored backgrounds tend to convert at a higher rate on Google Shopping. We recommend going to shopping.google.com (or you can use isearchfrom.com if you live in a country that doesn't have Google Shopping yet) and doing a few quick searches to find your competitor's shopping ads to get a sense of what will catch the user's attention & what won't.
Any text in the image must be text that's on the product itself or it's packaging. If you add a logo or a call-to-action to this image, Google's bots will crawl the ad eventually & disapprove it.

FYI if the first image (the primary image) on the product listing is less ideal than one of the other images, our team can override the product image directly in the product feed. This way we can use the best image for the shopping ad in Google Ads while keeping your favorite image as primary on the product landing page.

Display Ads

Display ads are typically used in remarketing campaigns (this means it only shows to website visitors & YouTube channel viewers) and also be in outbound campaigns (meaning it will show to cold leads).

Here's what you need to know:

These should be lifestyle images. If your business sells products, this ideally means images of a person (with their face showing) using the product in some way. If your business sells services, this ideally means images of an employee (with their face showing) either offering the service or a customer receiving the service or benefiting from it's results. Yes, you can absolutely use stock photos.
We can ideally use 7 square images and 7 horizontal images. Google Ads will help us crop them to the perfect aspect ratio, so don't worry too much about getting it perfect.
These images can have text on them if you would like, although they don’t need to have text on them because we use something called “responsive display” which basically uses ad copy & images to create an ad into the perfect aspect ratio needed for whatever placement Google is trying to fit it into. Here’s a video & article from Google that shows how these work. If you want to experiment with adding a short call-to-action as text on these lifestyle images, go for it! We believe that can be very effective if the there are only a few words in total (pick one short phrase). Just don’t make fake buttons on the image, because Google will disapprove those.

Question 8

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.

Question 9

Here's What You Can Expect Now That You've Been Onboarded As A Client

Accepted Answer

Now that you have been onboarded as a client there are just a few technical things that we need to set up for your website, in order to properly track calls and conversions in order to better understand what optimizations need to be made.

This is a guide for you to know what these tools are, why they're important, and how they're paramount to the success of the campaign.

Don't worry. You don't need to do any of these things (that's what we're here for).

We might need to request access from you for some of these tools. If that's the case, we will reach out to you and make the process as easy as possible.

Google Tag Manager (GTM) Installation

Google Tag Manager is a tool that we use to track specific actions and events that happen on your website, such as conversions.

This tool integrates with Google Analytics, and allows us to see how your website visitors behave on your website.

By setting this up, we can track things like which forms a user has filled out, who has visited the website (important for remarketing), what links users are clicking on, etc.

Similar to how video cameras work to see what's going on in a physical store, Google Tag Manager with Google Analytics allows us to replicate that in a digital environment.

Call Tracking Metrics (CTM)

Call Tracking Metrics is important to set up, particularly if your goal is to have leads call your business.

This feature allows us to track conversations that leads have with your business. Our team will be listening in all of the phone calls to gauge the level of quality conversations that are being had. If lead quality is excellent, Call Tracking Metrics allows us to identify what campaign generated that phone calls so we can increase the frequency of calls from that campaign.

Conversion Tracking (Google Analytics)

Conversion Tracking helps us as advertisers to see when a user completes a desired action on your website, e.g. filling out a form, completing a purchase, etc.

Conversion Tracking utilizes Google Tag Manager in order to track actions and conversions.

Pixel Installation (Facebook)

Should your business goals require advertisements on Facebook, we will need to install what's known as Facebook's "Pixel".

The Pixel is Facebook's version of Google's "Tag", and it accomplishes many of the same functions that Google's Tag does.

Competitive Analysis

It's important to understand that other businesses in your space are likely advertising on Google as well.

Part of the process of creating a successful campaign is to see how your competitors are advertising. We uses a myriad of tools to identify what your competition is doing, if it's working, and how we can improve on it.

Ad Copy Creation

The Ad Copy is what a potential customer is going to see on Google when they type in their keyword to the search bar.

Every ad that we create will be relevant to the product/service that you sell and will be specific to the group of keywords that best describe your product.

Campaign Creation

Once we've received all the information relevant to your campaign, we can start the process of actually building out the PPC campaign. This is a complex process that involves taking the information that you filled out in the on-boarding process and translating that into keywords and advertisements.

Having the proper keywords, key phrases, ad budget, ad schedule, ad groups, landing page destination, etc. in place make sure that your ads are being shown to the right people, at the right time.

Also, depending on what your campaign goals are, it's at this stage that we configure the campaign to fit your desired customer actions, i.e. increase quality phone calls with potential customers, eCommerce transaction, contact form completions, acquiring customers for a particular cost, etc.

After The Campaign Has Been Created, But Before Launch

After the campaign has been created, we will schedule a time to review the campaign and discuss what has been created, why it's been created in that way, and the expected outcome.

Question 10

How are you different from other agencies?

Accepted Answer

Our Qualifications and Experience:

We’ve been successfully at this since 2006
Google Ads certified
Hubspot Certified Partners
Digital Marketer Certified Partners
Google Ads Partners
Our Ads team is a Google Ads Premier Partner
Forbes Agency Council Members
Named one of the Best Digital Marketing Agencies in Phoenix by Expertise
We are digital marketers; however, we specialize in PPC
...and get a load of our case studies

Our Tracking and Reporting Methods:

We only use Google Analytics and Google Data Studio
Monthly reporting and tracking methods are easy to understand
We never use proprietary reporting or dashboards where data can be manipulated or hidden

Our Communication, Pricing, and Transparency:

You always maintain administrative ownership of your accounts
There is always a primary contact in charge of your campaign (i.e. a dedicated client manager)
We have clear communication schedules
We are clear on the work you need to contribute (and what your time investment will be)
Our fees are transparent and there are no long-term contracts

Our Strategy, Setup, and Tools:

We have a rock-solid onboarding process
We take the time to understand your business before offering a solution
We offer a marketing strategy in addition to tactical, campaign-based recommendations
We are clear about the tools and software we use
We don’t use automated tools to manage our campaigns — everything is done manually

Our Culture:

We work with clients who reflect our values and work ethic
We have the brand recognition necessary to pull in (and retain) top talent
We care. A lot.