Question 1

How did you create the estimated projections in the action plan?

Accepted Answer

Using tools such as [Google Keyword Planner](https://ads.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/), [iSpionage](https://www.ispionage.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIr8C8oKHy5wIVDfDACh11eAdMEAAYASAAEgJl5PD_BwE), [SpyFu](https://www.spyfu.com/), and [SEMrush](https://www.semrush.com/), we craft a keyword strategy.
 
Next, we: 
1. Add the total monthly impressions of those keywords
2. Divide that number by a standard 2% click-through rate
3. Multiply that by the keywords’ average cost-per-click
Finally, we produce results based on a 3%, 5%, and 10% conversion rate.
 
This will give you a total amount of monthly leads/sales and cost-per-lead/sale.

Question 2

How do you track phone calls (leads and sales)?

Accepted Answer

Tracking phone calls is incredibly important for accurate reporting. Any calls that come in from your campaign are recorded using a tool called [Call Tracking Metrics](https://www.calltrackingmetrics.com/).
 
Here’s how it works: 
 
First, a lead calls from an ad extension or from your website. 
 
When this happens, we can see some really useful data:  
What page of your website the individual was on when they called
What keyword they used to land on your website 
Which campaign generated that user 
Then, a member of our team manually scores every call. After listening to the call recording, we manually import the quality conversations and the associated data into Google Ads.
 
Most agencies use a time threshold to determine lead quality (for example, any call over 45 seconds is automatically recorded as a conversion); however, we ensure lead quality manually, which makes for far superior data.

Question 3

How do we spend more without lowering ROAS?

Accepted Answer

When a campaign isn’t limited by budget, we can often increase the spend without lowering ROAS by much at all.

However, when that same campaign has maxed out its spend (meaning it reached its entire audience), **using a lower-spend outbound campaign** (such as YouTube or display) **can increase brand awareness and introduce your offering to a new audience**.

So, we recommend starting these campaigns with a lower budget to see how it affects the overall campaign performance. The main campaign should become more active, thus allowing us to increase the budget.

You will sacrifice ROAS with these new outbound campaigns, so it's best to keep the ad spend low in the beginning to test this.

Question 4

Why do you charge a 10% fee?

Accepted Answer

Nearly all of our costs are based on how much we spend (this includes click fraud prevention, vendors, and software and monitoring tools, such as [Google Keyword Planner](https://ads.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/), [iSpionage](https://www.ispionage.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIr8C8oKHy5wIVDfDACh11eAdMEAAYASAAEgJl5PD_BwE), [SpyFu](https://www.spyfu.com/), and [SEMrush](https://www.semrush.com/)).

So, we simply cannot scale profitably without a benchmark set against spend.

More to the point:

**The larger a campaign gets, the larger the workload to manage.  **

As data-driven marketers, everything we do is based on data-driven optimization. Every dollar spent is a data point and every data point requires action.

The more you spend, the more work involved in managing and optimizing the campaign.

The benefit to both of us is **you'll never choose to spend more without a high-performing campaign**. So, the system ends up being meritocratic in construct.

And, because we charge a base, plus a small percentage (unlike many high-end agencies that simply charge a much larger percentage across the board), **our campaigns become more profitable as a percentage as you grow**.

As far as the agencies that don't charge a percentage fee…

They're actually showing their hand in doing so.
They've completely limited their ability to service the campaign.

In fact, we would bet every single one of them is using automated bidding tools to attempt to manage your campaign through the use of "AI" — without the expenditure in human capital.

Still concerned about the fee? [Let’s talk about it](https://sol8.com/contact/).

Question 5

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.

If you would like to check your current site speed and get suggestions on how to boost the speed, check out [this article](https://faq.sol8.com/faqs/how-important-is-it-to-have-a-fast-website-and-does-that-affect-ads).

### 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 6

Providing Solutions 8 with access to your Google My Business (GMB) account

Accepted Answer

1. Sign in here: https://www.google.com/business/ 2. Choose the account you would like us to have access to 3. Choose "Users" on the left hand side 4. Select the "Invite new users" icon 5. Enter the email address you have been provided by your customer manager 6. Choose the role: "Manager" 7. Select "Invite"

Question 7

Adding Users To Your Google Analytics Account

Accepted Answer

In order for your PPC campaigns to perform at the highest level, Solutions 8 will need access to your Google Analytics account. Having access to your Google Analytics account will allow us as an agency to link your AdWords account to it, which will allow us to do a number of really useful things. For instance, once your Analytics account is connected to AdWords, we will be able to track website conversions as well as the paths user took to complete a conversion. This is extremely valuable information for us as advertisers and for you as a business owner, because it allows us to spot areas of possible strength or weakness along the customers journey. This will in turn aid in the overall strategy of the PPC campaign. Pretty neat, huh? So it is absolutely imperative that we connect your AdWords account to your Google Analytics. In order to do that, you or your webmaster will need to ad us as a user in Google Analytics. If you aren't familiar with the process, don't worry. Simply follow this step-by-step guide, and you'll see it's as easy as a walk in the park. ### Step 1 The first thing you need to do is to go to Google Analytics and login to your dashboard. ### Step 2 Once you're logged in, go ahead and click on the "Admin" icon in the lower lefthand side of the screen. ![step 2.png](https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/MpD6OKc9u8/resources/F8bP8kYmCX/step%202.png) ### Step 3 Once you've clicked on "Admin", you should see your Admin panel. In the Admin panel, there will be 3 columns labeled "Account", "Property", and "View". In the Account column on the left, click on "User Management". ![step 3.png](https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/MpD6OKc9u8/resources/YhAbTetvDr/step%203.png) ### Step 4 After you click on "User Management", a tab will popup labeled "Account users". In the upper righthand corner of the "Account users" tab, you should see a "+". When you find it, click on it. ![step 4.png](https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/MpD6OKc9u8/resources/mVOO4Em4NG/step%204.png) ### Step 5 Once you're on the screen above, please make sure that the "Edit", "Collaborate", "Read & Analyze", and "Manage Users" boxes are all checked. This is a very important step, and it is vital that it is done correctly. We need access to all 4 of these things as we have a team of people who will need access, and this will allow us to add and remove people on our side without the constant back. This limits the drag on your campaign and the makes it much easier for all parties involved. ![step 5.png](https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/MpD6OKc9u8/resources/pK7hN3oZZ0/step%205.png) ### Step 6 In the "Enter email addresses" form field, enter "Solutions8ads@gmail.com". Also, make sure that the box "Notify new users by email" is checked. That will notify us that you've added us as an account user. Once you've done that, go ahead and click on "Add" to finish things up. ![step 6.png](https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/MpD6OKc9u8/resources/CcjsqpUljh/step%206.png) You're all done! That wasn't so bad! Right?

Question 8

Why Do We Exclude Certain People In Remarketing Campaigns?

Accepted Answer

Setting up a remarketing campaign in Google (or "retargeting" as it's known in Facebook) is a powerful and effective way to capture conversions from people who did not initially convert.

### Cookies and Tags
Before we dive into what remarketing is, we first need to understand what a "tag" is. Whenever someone completes a desired action on your website, a cookie gets installed in their browser. A "tag" is recorded and this information is collected by Google Tag Manager and sent over to Google Analytics for us to track.

For instance, a cookie can be fired and recorded as a tag whenever someone simply visits any page on your website, if they fill out a particular form, if they click on a link, if they make a purchase, etc.

In order to configure tagging, you need to set up an account with Google Tag Manager then have the tag installed on your website or desired web pages. Don't worry though, if you're a client of Solutions 8 we do that all for you!

So now that you know what a tag is, let's talk about remarketing.

### The Purpose of Remarketing
The overall goal of marketing and sales is to show the right offer, to the right person, at the right time.

If a person doesn't initially complete an action (i.e. fill out a form, make a purchase), they're not a lost cause. Why? Because they've been tagged.

We know that they didn't take the desired action, and now they are anonymously put into a list of people who also didn't take the desired action.

The goal then is to re-market to these people with different advertisements at different times, in an effort to get them to convert into the desired action. The more "touches" a prospective customer has with your business, the higher the likelihood of them converting into a customer.

### Why Do We Exclude Some People In Remarketing Campaigns?
If someone has already completed the desired action, we don't want to keep making them that same offer.

For instance, if you own a shoe store and are promoting the new Brooks Adrenaline GTS for men, you don't want to keep showing this advertisement to the people who have already bought this item.

It's a waste of ad spend and can annoy your customers. It is much wiser to change the ads that are shown to these people.

"They're already customers. Aren't they prime prospects to advertise to?"
They are! In fact, studies have shown that once someone becomes a customer they are far more likely to buy again when compared to someone who has never bought before.

However, to reiterate our earlier point, advertising the same products that these people have already bought isn't an effective way to spend your advertising budget. They already know your product exists, what about showing them another product of yours that you think could help them too? Now you're thinking!

Question 9

What to Expect With Competitor Campaigns

Accepted Answer

Competitor Campaigns:
* These campaigns tend to have a shorter sales cycle.
* They are also known to drive more branded search (because someone shopping a competitor’s site, might come back to Google after not finding what they were looking for, remember your name, and type that in).
* Don’t expect to have a high quality score on campaigns like this because the content on the site will never have the keyword (the competitor brand) in it.
* It is almost always a trademark violation to put your competitor’s business name into your ad copy.
* If you do not have a direct/obvious competitor, some nuance needs to be taken into consideration: 
	* For example, you might want to target a big brand who steals most of your business, but since the big brand sells more than just the products that you sell, you will need to target keywords that include both the competitor’s name and the product. 
	* Sometimes this is the case with smaller competitors, as well, in which case try both strategies (target just the competitor’s name and also the competitor + product as keywords).

Question 10

What are Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) Campaigns? When should I use DSA?

Accepted Answer

DSA Campaigns are used as learning experiments - You may choose to build dynamic search ad campaigns because they help you learn what ad copy & keywords to use in the other campaigns, in case you missed any important and effective words. Adding new words to the other campaigns can be helpful to optimize -- and it can be especially helpful if you’re hitting a spend ceiling and would like to raise the budget. It’s a way to identify, rather than guess, which keywords to target.

When to use - These campaigns are 100% created by the algorithm based on the words used in the landing page -- the algorithm decides what ad text and what keywords to use. These are only good for websites that are extremely specific and have content centered on a set of keywords.

How to use - Give the campaign a small budget. These campaigns have the ability to spend a lot of money very quickly, and DSA campaigns usually have a lower conversion rate than other types of campaigns, so it’s okay to let it be in the “limited by budget” status.

Optimize - When you’re ready to see it’s results, go to the DSA campaign and click on Search Terms. Sort by impressions to see which terms have a high amount of search volume. From there, find the ones that are actually getting clicks. Use those terms in the other campaigns.

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