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.

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

Using tools such as Google Keyword Planner , iSpionage , SpyFu , and SEMrush , we craft a keyword strategy. Next, we: Add the total monthly impressions of those keywords Divide that number by a standard 2% click-through rate Multiply that by the keywords’ average cost-per-click This will give you a total amount of monthly leads/sales and cost-per-lead/sale.

Question 1

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 2

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 3

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 4

How to use Local Campaigns to drive traffic to your physical store

Accepted Answer

If you have a brick and mortar business and you’re running a special offer or a promotion, you can use Google Ads to drive traffic to your local store.

By using a “Local Campaign” in Google Ads, you can promote Google Maps listings and track conversions every time someone looks up the driving directions to your store or shares the location with a friend.

Here’s what you need to do:

Update

Update your Google My Business account first. This includes updating information like:

Your cover picture and mention the promotion so people can see the sponsored listing in Google Maps.
Your GMB listing. Add imagery, maps, hours, phone numbers, and relevant links.

Optimize

Talk about your promotion in your ad copy and extension.
Set your keyword targeting to anything around your main keyword (e.g. if you’re selling shoes, keyword target should be “shoes”)

A few things to remember

This campaign tracks conversions differently than the rest of the campaign, which means it will skew the average ROAS for the overall account.

Since the local campaign has its own separate budget, it will make the ROAS look lower than it really is.

But don’t be alarmed. This simply means that the campaign is spending the ad budget without bringing in conversion value that Google Ads knows about.

So our team has to calculate the ROAS manually. Here’s how we do it:

ROAS = conversion value / the total cost from all the other campaigns

For more information on how How To Use Local Campaigns in Google Ads, check out this video:

Question 5

How Long Google Ads' Learning Phase Takes

Accepted Answer

You launched your Google Ads campaign. You have a ROAS goal you want to achieve and a daily target budget to support it.

But after a few days (or weeks), you noticed that you’re not hitting your ROAS goal…

And worse, Google isn’t spending enough to reach your ad budget.

What’s happening?

One of the most common mistakes people make is setting a ROAS goal and expecting Google to reach it right away.

By doing that, they’re not only slowing themselves down from hitting their goals, they’re also preventing Google from spending their target budget.

And here’s why: Your campaign needs to undergo the “learning phase” first.

It’s that initial time period where Google gathers all the data you’ll need to successfully optimize your campaign and position it to scale.

In this post, you’ll learn about all the different factors that might affect your “learning phase” and how to deal with them so you can reach a point where your campaign looks profitable and scalable.

But first, let’s answer some of the most common questions asked and get them out of the way.

An important update to the "90-Day Rule of Thumb"

In the past, our rule of thumb was 90 days for a campaign to be fully optimized. This meant that after 90 days, we would typically have enough data to know whether or not the campaign would work long term.

With the introduction of Performance Max, the 90-day guideline no longer applies in most cases. Instead, it takes roughly 45 days just to see what we've built and how it's going to work.

Essentially, Day 46 is now Day 0.

This new campaign type is seven campaigns in one—Search, Shopping, YouTube, GSP, Discover, Display, Local, and Remarketing—and all of them are being optimized at the same time. Once Google has gathered and analyzed the available data, then we can start to see how the foundation we've put into place will perform over time.

Put simply, it takes time to successfully optimize a campaign and position it to scale. But more often than not, being patient during that initial learning period pays off in the long run.

How do we "optimize" the campaign?

Optimization means the “things we do to improve a campaign’s performance.” We do that with either one or both goals in mind:

To bring your cost per conversion (CPC) down
To increase your return on ad spend (ROAS)

To reach our goals, we stick to a proven process, go through the learning phase, and make optimizations. Here’s a just few of them:

Implementing data-driven strategies
testing different assets (e.g.keywords, copies, landing pages)
Adjusting the ad budget
Listening to every phone call

These are just a few optimizations we do from the start. The conversions may cost a little more in the beginning, or may be inconsistent. But as your campaign goes through the learning phase, you’ll see results.

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

The experimenting and learning will slow down a bit after the campaign is fully optimized, but it is important to 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, poorer-quality traffic because it is 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.

So, how do you get past the learning phase and more importantly, what are some of the factors that affect your campaign from moving quickly?

That’s exactly what you'll learn today.

1. State of the Ad Account

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/MpD6OKc9u8/resources/CDPbaOjSgr/Google%20Ads%20account%20historical%20data%20.png (Google Ads account historical data .png)

No or inaccurate historical conversion data

If you recently launched a brand new account, it won’t have any historical data. Google doesn’t know your target market and it doesn’t have a data-driven and well tested algorithm yet to find your ideal customers.

Unlike an older account that has at least 2-3 months of consecutive and recent historical data, a brand new account takes longer time in gathering enough data.

“But what if my account is about six months old?”

If it’s at least 6 months old but there’s no recent historical data in the past 2-3 months, the algorithm might have already changed, like:

target market
competitive landscape
price points

Which only means one thing—it’s outdated. Unfortunately, that’s worse than a brand new account with no historical data. Here’s why:

Let’s say you were running a campaign and your conversion was set to count “everyone who visits the product page.”

Whether the person who visited your site only viewed the product, added to cart, or bought the product, you counted it as a conversion. This gives you a false conversion value that actually hurts your data.

Instead of having real data, you now have to fix and refocus the algorithm first. And that can take longer than having no conversion data in the first place.

Not running sacrificial campaigns (inbound)

If you’ve been checking out our videos and blogs for awhile now, you probably already know how much we LOVE Smart Shopping.

The problem is while Smart Shopping is pretty darn powerful, it’s kind of a slow learner especially in the beginning.

That’s because it’s still gathering data to figure out what an interested lead or customer looks like.

So if you’re only using Smart Shopping, it’s going to take a very long time—you might as well take that vacation you kept cancelling while waiting for Smart Shopping to scale. (Hey, that’s not a bad idea! ;p)

The trick is to run it alongside other additional campaigns like branded, remarketing, competitor, display, or even YouTube. We call these sacrificial campaigns.

They might not directly bring in profits, but if you’re struggling to get enough traffic that will feed back into your Smart Shopping campaigns and bring more users to your site…

Sacrificial campaigns will help you do the job by monetizing Smart Shopping and feeding it data from other sources.

2. State of the Industry

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/MpD6OKc9u8/resources/jIUyeXliKC/Google%20Ads%20different%20types%20of%20industries%20.png (Google Ads different types of industries .png)

High CPC (high competition)

“More clicks equal more conversions,” they say. That’s true...until you run out of budget.

See, it’s not uncommon to see a high cost per click in a highly competitive industry. Hopefully, your average order value or your lifetime customer value will be able to balance your expenses.

However, if your clicks are too high and your margins are thin, you have to be very strategic. You might run out of budget faster than you know.

Low market demand

Another factor that can lower your learning phase’s speed is if your product is something new.

While Google’s multi-faceted ecosystem gets over 1.3 trillion global searches per year, it doesn’t mean you can instantly get tons of people searching for your product.

At least not in the beginning or if your product is something new.

Maybe it’s a niche product or a unique product that has yet to be discovered in the market––if people aren’t aware of it, they probably won’t search for it.

This is another reason why using a sacrificial campaign like YouTube is recommended. Not only does it help to increase your traffic, it also helps to increase your conversions – especially if you use remarketing.

3. State of the Business Itself

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/MpD6OKc9u8/resources/0vvmRxxsFn/Google%20Ads%20remarketing%20.png (Google Ads remarketing .png)

No remarketing audience (low website visitors)

Dynamic Remarketing shows ads to those who previously visited your website or engaged in your ads. Running Smart Shopping with remarketing makes your campaign unstoppable.

That said, if you’re running Smart Shopping without remarketing for a while, it won’t be as profitable because there’s not a lot of existing traffic to convert.

And if you have a small number of website visitors, then it's going to take a long time for the remarketing audience to pixel.

Low ad spend

Low ad spend can result in low conversions. So if you’re spending $1,000 a month, you’re going to get less traffic to the site than if you’re spending $2,000 – assuming your CPC stays the same, of course.

Low CTR (Untested or out of date website design)

Even if you’re using these 5 tips to increase your CTR, and you’re sending 200 people to your site every single day…

If your bounce rate is high and people aren’t converting, it’ll take longer for Google to get enough data to build profiles of your customers. Plus, you’re going to lose more money.

So make sure that you update your website’s design and split test it (if possible) to know which version works best.

4. State of the Products

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/MpD6OKc9u8/resources/KxcPsHVtPV/large%20quantity%20of%20products%20affect%20Google%20Ads%20conversions%20.png (large quantity of products affect Google Ads conversions .png)

Large quantity of products

The number of products you have can affect the time it takes for the algorithm to reach a point of certainty. Not only that, but the number of conversions for each product determines how reliable the data is.

For the data to be viable (and reliable), the algorithm has to find a pattern first. Think of it like a survey. If you asked the same question to a hundred people, and they all have different answers, then you can’t rely on that data to come up with a solid conclusion.

But if at least 20 of them have the same answer, then you’ll be able to see a pattern – either demographically or psychographically.

Do they all have the same jobs? Do they live in the same city? Do they have the same interests? And so on.

Once you see patterns, you can now create a profile. And based on that profile, all you have to do is tell Google “Hey, this type of person lives in this city, does this type of job, and is interested in these things. Get me more of them.”

Here’s what an account that has a large quantity of products (about 4,000) look like:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/MpD6OKc9u8/resources/QDA5EfO6Jf/low%20ad%20budget%20with%20large%20quantity%20of%20products.png (low ad budget with large quantity of products.png)

As you can see in the image above, there are multiple products in the campaign. But each product only has one conversion. Even though some of them have a high ROAS, we still can’t rely on that.

The product you want to scale should have, say, at least 3 conversions to get an average going for it to be certain and avoid getting analysis paralysis.

One of the reasons why we’re only getting 1 conversion per product in this account is because the budget was divided and spread out to different products. That itself––having a low budget––limited our ability to effectively test each product.

If you have fewer products, like this account shown below, it would be a lot faster for the algorithm to see patterns.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/MpD6OKc9u8/resources/CCeO7bLVVg/low%20ad%20budget%20with%20low%20quantity%20of%20products.png (low ad budget with low quantity of products (1).png)

But that doesn’t mean you can only sell a few products. The solution is to place your bets on a target ROAS goal and choose specific products first.

By choosing specific products and putting more budget to test them, you’ll get more conversions. Once there’s a conversion pattern, you’ll have enough data to scale that product.

That can help you get past the initial learning phase.

No GTINs

Let’s be clear. You don’t need GTINs (Global Trade Item Number) in order to scale. As long as Google approves your products, you can scale without having a GTIN.

However, you run the risk of losing all your optimized data without it. And you lose the ability to tap into the existing historical conversion data of your products.

Here’s what I mean.

Any product that’s been sold in the market with GTIN has valuable conversion data. If you’re selling the same product, you can use the same GTIN and...voila! You now have data in your products.

It’s like borrowing someone else’s flash drive and uploading their files on your computer instead of searching for files and doing the work yourself.

The problem is if you’re selling a unique item, you’ll probably need to create your own GTIN. Which means there’s no valuable conversion data yet – you have to create it.

That’s one of the reasons why having no GTINs can cause your learning phase to slow down.

New market creation (a new widget no one has heard of)

As mentioned earlier, if it’s a new invention (a product that’s unique), there might be no audience for it yet. You have to educate people about it first – usually done via a discovery campaign – before your product gets momentum.

5. Purchasing habits of the target customer

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/MpD6OKc9u8/resources/LxuhukGTcs/purchasing%20habits%20of%20your%20customer%20.png (purchasing habits of your customer .png)

Large conversion lag

A conversion lag means the time it takes between product discovery and product purchase. The larger your conversion lag is, the longer it takes for the algorithm to gather data. Ultimately, it affects your learning phase.

There are a few factors at play when it comes to conversion lags:

Price. The higher the price, the more time it usually takes for a person to purchase it.

Needs. The lower the demand or urgency is, the slower the purchase will be.

Decision maker. Even if your lead can afford the product and he needs it right now, if he needs someone else’s permission first, it will delay the purchase. Those decision makers can be the spouse, boss, or a group of people.

Low average cart value

If your average cart value is low, it’s going to be harder to achieve the ROAS you want. Unfortunately, this will impact how long your learning phase is going to last.

And that’s it! Remember, you have control over most of the factors that affect your learning phase. For those you can’t control, just stick to the process. Test as much and as often as you can. Have the patience to wait and go through the learning phase.

In the words of Leo Tolstoy, “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”

If all this sounds overwhelming and you need more help, we got you covered. We’ll review your existing accounts (if applicable) and provide a Google Ads Action Plan for FREE. Get your action plan here.

Question 6

How we organize and execute our client management process

Accepted Answer

Ever wonder what the team here at Solutions 8 does behind the scenes to get our clients the results they want?

Here’s a sneak peek:

Clear communication, detailed instructions, and exceptional collaboration.

More specifically, our whole process helps our team execute a million to-do lists without sacrificing quality and ad performance. We follow proven SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) that never fail, giving our clients a delightful experience as soon as they get onboard.

The result? Deadlines are met, campaigns are well-optimized, and clients are satisfied. Here’s what the process looks like:

Ongoing Account Management

We always want to get the client updated about what’s going on in their account. The Ongoing Account Management is simply a list of things we do to keep their campaign in top performance. This is handled by the Client Manager (CM), Specialist, and Call Tracking Metrics (CTM) reviewer.

Weekly Check-ins

Our specialists see to it that they identify, capture, fix, and report all issues on a weekly basis. Here are some of the activities that they do achieve this:

Check & Optimize CPA & ROAS Bid vs Target

Our client manager (CM) makes sure that:

Budget is on track for the month. Whether that’s making incremental adjustments or totally increasing the budget to get more and better results, the client manager and specialist work together to make the data-driven decisions.

Client’s goals are reached. To maintain pulse on the campaign’s performance, the CM monitors and ensures that the campaign is getting the lowest possible cost per lead (CPL) for lead generation and a high return on ad spend (ROAS) for eCommerce. If at any point we’re not close to hitting the main metrics (CPL or ROAS), we figure out how to fix it by:

Looking at the total month’s spend and comparing it with the client’s budget. Depending on how long the account has been running for and the data gathered so far, we calculate the difference (total spend and budget) and make adjustments. We also look for other alternatives by;

Brainstorming with all the specialists during weekly meetings. Getting inputs from our veteran specialists help us bring results-oriented decisions.

CTM Review

Every time a lead calls from an ad extension or from the client’s website, we track it using a platform called Call Tracking Metrics. Our CTM Reviewer listens to every call to identify whether they’re good, bad, or low-quality leads, and manually scores each call. This process also helps us uncover any issues that might be negatively affecting conversion rates during the calls and gives us enough data that we can use to make improvements.

All call leads that we received in the previous month are imported into Google Ads and sent to the client.

Monthly Check-ins

After all the weekly check-ins, our specialists meticulously go through a detailed 14-point checklist to make sure that nothing slipped through the cracks and we’ve done everything we can to optimize the campaign. We send a detailed report to the client every month.

Schedule of Communications and Optimizations

Once the onboarding is complete, our client manager takes care of the client’s account–from campaign creation to scaling–and walks them through the next process in each phase of the campaign.

Weekly Check-Ins

When an account is new, the CM provides useful information– the things that they’ve been seeing, learning, and testing–on a weekly basis for the next three months. This helps the client understand what’s happening, why they’re happening, and what we’re doing about them.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) Recommendations

The CM works with the specialist to perform a site-wide website audit to uncover what it needs based on it’s product/service, target customer, and the client’s goals. Inch by inch, the CM looks for details (even the smallest ones) that would greatly increase conversion rates–from the website design, call-to-action buttons, text size, to the titles, descriptions, and content of individual pages.

Bi-Monthly Updates

Every other month, the client receives insights about more growth opportunities in different areas:

This is done every other month because for new accounts, it usually takes at least 60-90 days to understand patterns and get solid, realistic data to use for the long run. That’s why the insights that we’re going to share aren’t based on “common tips and strategies” that anyone can find on the internet. Instead, they are personalized insights based on proven methods that we have improved over years of consistent success and from the optimization results we have made on the client’s account.

Question 7

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, iSpionage, SpyFu, and SEMrush).

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.

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.

Question 8

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.

Question 9

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

Accepted Answer

At Solutions 8 we use a tool called Call Tracking Metrics that records any calls that come in from your campaign. Then, we manually score every call as either a lead or not a lead. This score gets sent into the Google Ads campaign to ensure we're working with only the highest quality conversion data.

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.

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.

For more info, read our guest post "How to Track Your Phone Calls in Google Ads Using CallTrackingMetrics"

Question 10

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

Accepted Answer

Using tools such as Google Keyword Planner, iSpionage, SpyFu, and SEMrush, we craft a keyword strategy.

Next, we:

Add the total monthly impressions of those keywords
Divide that number by a standard 2% click-through rate
Multiply that by the keywords’ average cost-per-click

This will give you a total amount of monthly leads/sales and cost-per-lead/sale.