Question 1

Why isn’t the Facebook remarketing campaign running?

Accepted Answer

It's common for Facebook remarketing campaigns to struggle to acquire a large enough audience in order to run. Facebook says their minimum audience size for a pixel-generated audience is 1000.

This means the Facebook pixel on your site needs to be able to match at least 1000 website visitors to Facebook users.

What factors into this?

**Match Rate** - Facebook doesn't reveal their average match rate (the rate at which website visitors can typically be matched up with Facebook users), and this likely varies greatly depending on the type of user who visits the site (do they tend to have Facebook accounts? Do they tend to reset their cache & cookies often?) as well as a number of other factors.

**Pixel Age** - The pixel is only able to see website visitors in real time, which means it can't see people who visited before the pixel was added to the site. So, if you've had the pixel on the site for 6 months then it will have 6 months worth of website visitors to try to mach to Facebook users (as long as the settings inside the Facebook ad account are set to look back 6 months, which is the maximum amount of time Facebook allows a pixel to look back).

So, the best thing to do is get the Facebook pixel onto the site early, make sure the settings inside FB pixel area are set to look back 6 months, and consider sending more people to the website with proactive (aka not remarketing) ad campaigns in order to populate that Facebook remarketing pixel audience.

Question 2

Why are 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.

When you’re dealing with multiple sessions (meaning a website visitor came to the site more than once before converting) the conversion data can be displayed in multiple ways. This is called “attribution modeling.”

Google Ads and Google Analytics tend to use different attribution models 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.

So, the two platforms almost always end up attributing conversions based on different rules:
* **Google Analytics** uses a same-day attribution model. This means the day that the conversion happens is the day that Google Analytics will show the data.
* **Google Ads** uses one of several different attribution models (whichever one your ad  manager chose in the account settings) to analyze the performance of the ads. So, if someone clicked on an ad a month ago, but then converted today, some or all of today's conversion will appear a month in the past.

In addition to this, the two platforms have different levels of tracking capabilities to recognize the same user across different channels, devices, etc:
* **Google Analytics** measures session date 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 cookie, too, but also by 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.

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 it's 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.

Question 3

How long will it take to build my campaigns?

Accepted Answer

10-12 business days.

Question 4

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

Accepted Answer

Video Ads - Video ads are best used with Remarketed Audiences. This is because those audiences have already expressed good intent (meaning they’ve already gone to the site and completed a conversion), which is important since video ads are outbound (meaning people who see them aren’t necessarily searching for a solution at that moment.

You can run YouTube video ads, like the 15 second ones that are non-skippable, or you can run video Display, which means the video can show on sites other than YouTube, much like a banner ad.) and so they are primarily for promoting brand awareness.

Videos are often not clicked on directly; rather, leads will watch the video ad a few times and then go to Google later and search for the brand. This makes tracking a bit difficult, so you can expect to see a rise in the conversion rate of your Branded Campaign, as well as a rise in the View-Through Conversions report.

Videos will need to be hosted in YouTube and the Google Ads account will need to have the YouTube account connected under “Linked Accounts.”

### Here are some general recommendations for creating videos:

* Since they are skippable, you will want to mention the offer within the first 6 seconds.
* Mention the brand within the first 6 seconds.
* If you choose to put your brand logo in the video, put it on the bottom left side of the video.

[Here is our helpful 1-minute script template](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iZ703xaRWwGjjb-HyD0j8is7dVizEq-4_PwwkZwlUFw/edit?usp=sharing) that could come in handy if you plan on making a video soon.

Steps to making a video:
* Go to Videohive.net and search for “Explainer” to find explainer video templates.
* Find the one you like and write the script.
* Then send the script to someone who makes videos on Fiverr. (We use Demitri. He makes videos for about $50. His email is: blog.dbl@gmail.com.)
* Then find someone else on Fiverr to do the voiceover (Nicholescott369 is great). You can also get a famous person to do a cameo on this [[site]](https://www.cameo.com/c/voice-actors).

Question 5

How long should we stay in the experimenting & learning phase with our Google Ads account?

Accepted Answer

The experimenting and learning will slow down a bit after 90 days, but never stop making changes to the campaign. With live bidding, you often won’t use automated bidding strategies because they won’t optimize performance. For example, if you tell it to automatically focus on getting the maximum amount of conversions, then it will set the bids in order to get the most amount of conversions, which favors cheaper, less quality traffic because it’s not focused on the quality of those conversions. You could potentially set a goal for the automation to target a specific cost per click, but you don’t have enough activity to use that feature because you would need to have a conversion or two every single day for it to have enough data to form patterns. So, use Manual CPC with enhanced CPC enabled, which means you set the bid based on what you think the keyword should be worth to you, how many clicks per day, and if there are conversions for that campaign. You could probably not touch a campaign for a month and it would likely perform relatively systematically, but as new competition comes in, old competition falls out, people increase bids or increase their budget, you need to hop back in there and make those adjustments.

Question 6

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.

Question 7

What are some high-level recommended campaign bidding strategies?

Accepted Answer

Bid Strategies

Step 1:
**Non-Shopping Campaigns**: Start with manual CPC with eCPC enabled (because eCPC is the option that uses a bit of Google’s automation, but is mostly manual). This is nice because you can control the bids, but it’s not very scalable because it’s high maintenance, and because a machine will do it better than a human ever could. After you have around 100 conversions with high frequency (like a sale every other day, for example), at this point we’ve given the algorithm enough data for it to pick up where we left off and make it better. Now you can switch from eCPC to a smart bidding strategy like Target CPC. It leverages the data that you’ve already provided.

**Shopping Campaigns**s: Start with a regular Shopping campaign before switching to a Smart Shopping campaign, because regular Shopping campaigns are inbound (meaning people are searching for the product when the ad appears) whereas Smart Shopping is outbound (meaning Google will try to show it to the type of people who might be interested), so the Smart algorithm can’t do outbound well, and therefore will never prove ROAS, without plenty of data. So, start with Shopping campaign using Manual CPC (usually w/enhanced enabled unless you have super low profit margin and you're trying to prove concept)

After 35 - 45 days of gathering consistent conversion data (aka converting at a normal cadence with a reliable pattern), then pause all shopping campaigns & replace it with a new Smart Shopping campaign using Maximize Conversions (which is the only bidding option). After 35 - 45 more days if the campaign isn’t hitting an acceptable ROAS, you can turn on the optional ROAS goal within the Maximize Conversions bidding strategy.

You don’t want to start off with a ROAS goal because it won’t get any conversions because it doesn’t have enough outbound data yet. Once you've given it that data, turning on the ROAS goal will restrict it to only spend when it thinks it can hit that goal, so spend starts to decrease, the campaign gets less activity, you get less clicks per day, but you should get a higher quality click and conversions that are making your ROAS.

One additional strategy is to spend more $/budget to force Smart Shopping campaigns to go find new markets by removing the Target ROAS goal.

Step 2: 
Now you can begin to step the ROAS goal higher. For example, if the campaign was at 300% when you first turned on Target ROAS, then try for 325%. If the campaign hits that or surpasses it, then try for 350%. At some point, you will hit a ceiling. Once you know how high the automation can go, get it back to the top and keep it there steady.

Step 3: Now that your ROAS is high, you can begin to give it more daily ad spend to see if you can increase the amount of conversions. So now, instead of spending $100/day and getting $300, you can try spending $500/day and getting $1500. Just make sure the ROAS doesn’t dip.

**Display Pay Per Conversion** - This is a new type of campaign/bid strategy in which you only pay for a conversion, and it’s only when the conversion doesn’t go above what you said you would pay. Begin with a super high CPA and then decrease it slowly. The idea is to get the CPA as low as possible (at which point you'll just turn off any regular Proactive Display campaign and just use this one). These types of campaigns can get lots of fake conversions generated by bots. Captcha prevents the bots from submitting forms and wasting ad spend.

Question 8

What do you recommend for a new product launch?

Accepted Answer

If you are launching a new product, there are a few things we can do to get it out into the ad ecosystem.

First of all, if you add the product to your eCommerce store, then it will automatically be added to the Smart Shopping campaign through the product feed after a few days. However, depending on how large your store is, it could take the algorithm quite some time to give the new product ad spend and gather conversion data on it. If you want to speed that process up, we can give the product it's own campaign(s) to force the account to devote ad spend to it more quickly.

We can give it it's own budget and run the following campaigns:
* Shopping (eventually the product will be switched over to the main Smart Shopping campaign once we are done with the "push")
* GSP and Display - These work especially well with remarketing audiences of recent website visitors
* YouTube - Do you have a video to promote the product? If so, we can try YouTube shopping to get eyes on it.
* Search - Temporarily running a search campaign on a new product can help the ad account gather conversion data more quickly because it allows the algorithm to see what the ideal, target customer looks like.

Question 9

How do the ads get switched over during a site redesign or a new website with a new domain?

Accepted Answer

If it's the same website that's getting a re-design, setup tracking on all the new landing pages & forms during the week before the switch over takes place. If not, the only way to do it would be to pause the ads for a few days while you re-setup tracking.

Make sure you/your developers to make sure the same Google Tag Manager code and Google Analytics code get copied & pasted into the new design.

If it’s a new domain, then it’s considered a new website. It will need a new Google Tag Manager code and also a new Google Analytics “property”. Both sites will need to be up for about a week while you are switching over the tracking.

Question 10

How do I know the cost per aquisition of a client if Google Ads is only bringing in leads?

Accepted Answer

If your Google Ads account is gathering leads (as opposed to revenue), then it will be important to manually determine the cost per aquisition of a customer. Cost per aquisition, or CPA, is your bottom line, after all.

Getting to the bottom of this number is not always straightforward, but it is always worth the effort.

THe goal is to look through your recent sales and leads, and then to try to determine the average conversion rate of a lead that comes from Google Ads. That way we can apply the conversion rate to the performance reported by Google Ads in order to determine the CPA of a customer/client.

### Here is an example of the math equation that needs to be done:

If your CRM/sales reps are able to find 19 leads that originally came from Google Ads in the past 4 months.

And 8 of those leads converted into a customer/client.

Then, 8 converted leads out of 19 total leads is a 42% conversion rate from Google Ads.

If Google Ads is reporting 63 leads in the past 4 months and spent $20,000 in ad spend to do that, let's apply the 42% conversion rate to those numbers:

42% of the 63 leads gathered by Google Ads is 26.46 leads that were converted into clients, theoretically.

$20,000 spent on ads divided by 26.46 clients means each client cost $756.

Now that you know each client cost $756, you can ask yourself: Is that a profitable amount to spend aquiring a client based on how much revenue clients bring in over their lifetime with the business, on average? If so, then it's probably time to start talking about increasing the monthly ad spend to begin scaling how many leads are coming in each month.

### How to find the leads that came from Google Ads

Leads that submit a form will need to be tracked using [UTM parameters](https://help.sol8.com/faqs/how-do-i-set-up). This will need to be done ahead of time, so that the contacts in your CRM can be identified as having Google Ads as their source.

Leads that call your business won't have any UTM parameters attached to their contact record (and, in many cases, won't have a contact record unless the person who answered the phone added them into the CRM). In this case, we can send you a list of names & phone numbers from our call tracking app, and then you can manually match up your recent sales/new customers/new clients to the list.