Inside Google Ads podcast: Episode 116 - New Strategy

Is your Google Ads strategy upside-down? 

If you've been running Google Ads for some time, then the strategies and tactics you used a few years ago may not be working as well today. This is a very common challenge I see with my Google Ads coaching clients.

And I get it. When something has worked well for so long—even as it starts to lose its edge—it can be difficult to change your entire approach.

In this episode, I'm going to share the story of a real Google Ads coaching client of mine who we'll call Matthew. He came to me with a very common Google Ads strategy that unfortunately was just not working well for his business anymore. So I'm going to tell you what happened and how we fixed it. 

I'm your host, Jyll Saskin Gales. I spent six years working for big brands at Google, and now I work for you. 

This is Inside Google Ads: Episode 116, New Strategy.

I've met with Matthew a few times. He's the marketing manager for a company that sells online language learning courses.

In his Google Ads account, he was leveraging Search, PMax, Display, and Video, and his targeting was quite narrowly focused on people who are interested in learning a new language. 

Makes sense, right? 

Search keywords around language learning, custom segments using competitor URLs in the language learning space, custom segments using his search keywords–love it–and of course, retargeting.

His ad creative, on the other hand, was quite generic, in my opinion, and designed to appeal to everyone. The headlines, for example, focused on general benefits like, “Learn a New Language”, or “Start Speaking Today with our New Course.”

This is a really common way to set up a Google Ads account, but it has a key problem. It puts you in direct competition with every other advertiser targeting the exact same people. It also limits your reach to people who are already at the very end of their customer journey. And then when they get there, you have generic messaging?

I advised Matthew that in order to truly grow the business, we needed to shift his strategy from a narrow audience with broad creative to a broad audience with narrow creative. 

Let me illustrate with an example.

I asked Matthew to show me the audience insights for his customer list. You can do this by going to Tools, Shared Library, Audience Manager, and Your Data Segments. Click on a segment and then click Audience Insights from the three dot menu.

When we analyzed his customer list, we saw that a large segment of his customers has a strong interest in “Open online courses.” I guess that's to be expected. These are people interested in learning online. 

We also saw that a significant portion of his customers were age 65+, and this was the key we needed.

I said to Matthew that instead of only targeting people already looking for, “Learn French,” or “Spanish course,” or “Duolingo,” we could broaden the audience with a new campaign targeting those who are simply in a position to take up a new hobby or challenge. 

For example, people who are recently retired. Yes, that's a life event segment you can target in Demand Gen, Display and Video campaigns. And then with this broader targeting of just people who are in a position to take up a new hobby, the ad creative can work to narrow the audience with messaging like, “Retirement is the perfect time to learn a new skill. Our language course makes it easy.”

OK, I'm not a copywriter, but you get where I'm going with this? 

This approach uses the creative itself to filter the broad audience, training your smart bidding to attract the most qualified leads. I call this creative-led targeting, and it's one of the most slept on Google Ads strategies today.

Remember, instead of targeting super duper narrow and then having generic creative, you want to broaden your targeting, open up your ads to potentially show to a lot more people, but then use your creative to be what filters out the people who are not the right customer just as much as it attracts in the people who are exactly the right customer.

So how can you turn your ad strategy upside-down with creative led targeting? 

1. First, use your data. 

Your own customer list is a treasure trove of insights, even if you're not actively using customer match for ad targeting. This is yet another reason to upload your customer list to Google Ads so you can glean audience insights from it. If your customer list isn't big enough, you can also get audience insights from a YouTube remarketing list, a website remarketing list, even the Google engaged audience. However, the most powerful and useful insights will come from your own customer base. 

2. Next, tell a story. 

We are all inundated with ads 24-7, so generic messaging just won't cut it. When you try to appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one. Use specific creative to connect with a broader audience on a personal level.

This applies to your text, image, and video choices. It has to really stand out to your target audience, and just as importantly, really not stand out or not appeal to your not-target audience. That's how you make the broad audience targeting work.

3. And then lastly, think beyond your typical competitor set. 

Remember, Netflix's biggest competitor isn't Hulu or Disney+. It's sleep. Your biggest competitors may not be your direct industry competitors either. 

For Matthew, my hypothesis is that he should be competing against other hobbies, not just against other language learning courses.

If this story resonates with you and you need help turning your Google Ads strategy upside-down, you can book a call with me at jyll.ca. That's J-Y-L-L dot C-A and we'll find the right strategy for your campaigns now and beyond.

By the way, I first shared this story in my bi-weekly free Google Ads newsletter, The Insider. It's become one of my most popular issues, which is why I wanted to share it with you here today. 

You can subscribe to get real stories from real Google Ads accounts in your inbox every other Tuesday. Follow the link in the episode description to subscribe to The Insider for free.

I’m Jyll Saskin Gales, and I'll see you next time Inside Google Ads.