Q: How do I advertise holidays and promotions?

Holidays & Promotions Promotions Temporarily change all ad copy to include mention of the promotion. Simply swap out the landing page URL but keep the ad copy the same. Run a promotions-focused campaign (which is described in the holiday campaigns section below). Holiday Campaigns Here is a recommended strategy example surrounding Valentines Day with a $15k spend on holiday-specific ads: Spend $3k three weeks prior to V-Day & then spend the remaining $12k during the last two weeks. Swap out the landing page used in the Branded Campaign to the holiday-specific page temporarily so that anyone familiar with the brand can learn about the limited-time products. Set up a new Smart Shopping Campaign for the holiday-specific products. (If the products are new, then start with a regular Shopping Campaign in order to build conversion data first and then switch to Smart Shopping. See the Bidding Strategies FAQs for more on this.) Set up a new Display Campaign for holiday-specific products. Do not set up a new Search Campaign targeting V-Day Gift search terms (not product specific).

Q: What is the best way to test my existing conversion action setups

The best way to check that a conversion action is working/set up: Login to Google Tag Manager (GTM) (https://tagmanager.google.com/?authuser=1#/home) and go to your account and enable the Preview Mode If you refresh (or access a webpage) after you've enabled the Preview Mode, on the bottom (or on the right side) of the webpage you'll be able to see GTM data (tags which fired and which didn't) Complete the contact form and you'll be redirected to the Thank You (TY) page. On the TY page, verify if the Google Ads Conversion tracking tag fired, If it did, everything is ok. Testing The Landing Page Used In The Ad - If you want to test the landing page URL, it’s best to Google the brand name and click on the ad. Yes, this will spend money (although the CPC for the branded campaigns is always super low), but it’s necessary because of parallel tracking. Parallel tracking is complex, but it has to do with the fact that there’s the actual URL and then there’s the version of the URL with UTM parameters added to it (if you set those up). Sometimes, the UTM “tracking template” version of the URL can work without the actual URL working...which is dangerous, because it might give you a false positive if you just click on an ad from inside the account.

Question 1

What impact does running PPC ads have on my brand?

Accepted Answer

Brand Recognition is a by-product of running advertising - Companies that run PPC ads consistently receive more organic, more post ad click calls, & more direct traffic as a result. In fact, Google even takes some data from PPC ads and factors it into Organic rankings (like time spent on page, click through rates, etc.) This is anecdotal, but there is always a correlation when you look at the amount of money spent on ads and compare that with organic traffic to the site. Take this into consideration when you are calculating the impact running PPC ads has on your business.

Question 2

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 3

Why shouldn't I show an email address on my site?

Accepted Answer

If Google Ads sends someone to the website and that website visitor copy & pastes the email address into their inbox, then we will never know we got a lead.

So, the algorithm won't have that conversion data point and neither will the ads management team.

Not only does it hurt the learning & optimization process, but it also makes it impossible to calculate the CPL.

Question 4

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 5

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 6

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 7

How do I advertise holidays and promotions?

Accepted Answer

Holidays & Promotions

Promotions

Temporarily change all ad copy to include mention of the promotion.
Simply swap out the landing page URL but keep the ad copy the same.
Run a promotions-focused campaign (which is described in the holiday campaigns section below).

Holiday Campaigns

Here is a recommended strategy example surrounding Valentines Day with a $15k spend on holiday-specific ads:

Spend $3k three weeks prior to V-Day & then spend the remaining $12k during the last two weeks.
Swap out the landing page used in the Branded Campaign to the holiday-specific page temporarily so that anyone familiar with the brand can learn about the limited-time products.
Set up a new Smart Shopping Campaign for the holiday-specific products. (If the products are new, then start with a regular Shopping Campaign in order to build conversion data first and then switch to Smart Shopping. See the Bidding Strategies FAQs for more on this.)
Set up a new Display Campaign for holiday-specific products.
Do not set up a new Search Campaign targeting V-Day Gift search terms (not product specific).

Question 8

What is PPC?

Accepted Answer

That's a great question that deserves a great answer. Read more here.

Question 9

Is my branded campaign stealing all my traffic from organic search?

Accepted Answer

In some instances, yes.

If you have a good organic ranking and good organic traffic, branded campaigns can steal your organic traffic. The way to subvert this is to bid very low ($0.05 per click) so it's not costly.

**But, the pros far outweigh the cons: **

First, running a branded campaign protects your brands from competitors.

The first four spots on the Google search engine results page are all Google Ads listings. So, competitors who bid on your name can show as the first listing.

And because the highest you can rank organically is #5 on the page, all your organic traffic in this case would end up seeing your competitors first.

Let’s keep in mind that the #1 spot on Google has an average 20% click-through rate. So, competitors who bid on your name can be detrimental to your brand.

Suffice to say, you should always want to be #1 on Google for your brand name.

Next, running a branded campaign gives us the ability to see what keyword a user searched to get to your site (before leaving and coming back to search your brand name next).

This allows us to bid efficiently on keywords that introduce your brand to the masses, and also brings them back to the site to convert.

Question 10

What is the best way to test my existing conversion action setups

Accepted Answer

The best way to check that a conversion action is working/set up:

Login to Google Tag Manager (GTM) (https://tagmanager.google.com/?authuser=1#/home) and go to your account and enable the Preview Mode
If you refresh (or access a webpage) after you've enabled the Preview Mode, on the bottom (or on the right side) of the webpage you'll be able to see GTM data (tags which fired and which didn't)
Complete the contact form and you'll be redirected to the Thank You (TY) page.
On the TY page, verify if the Google Ads Conversion tracking tag fired, If it did, everything is ok.

Testing The Landing Page Used In The Ad - If you want to test the landing page URL, it’s best to Google the brand name and click on the ad. Yes, this will spend money (although the CPC for the branded campaigns is always super low), but it’s necessary because of parallel tracking. Parallel tracking is complex, but it has to do with the fact that there’s the actual URL and then there’s the version of the URL with UTM parameters added to it (if you set those up). Sometimes, the UTM “tracking template” version of the URL can work without the actual URL working...which is dangerous, because it might give you a false positive if you just click on an ad from inside the account.