Inside Google Ads podcast: Episode 38 - Search Struggles
Ever worried that your Google Ads results may be too good to be true?
No, I'm not paranoid. I've just been there, done that, and broken hearts too many times to stay silent about it.
Search advertising is hard and confusing and constantly changing and honestly, a struggle.
Today, we're going to explore three common search struggles that I encounter with my coaching clients and how you can navigate your way through them.
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: 38, Search Struggles.
Our first question comes from Martin Oddy on LinkedIn, and they ask, I'd be interested to hear more about search term visibility. Have you seen a significant increase in the amount of data available in search term reports?
Over the last couple of years, we saw a sharp decrease in the amount of data visible in your Google Ads Search Terms Report, followed by an increase.
This is a really interesting, often-overlooked area of Google Ads. You choose keywords and match types, and then the Search Terms Report shows you the actual things people typed into Google, which triggered your ads.
Now, a few years ago, for privacy reasons (you can believe that or not, but that's what Google's told us), we started to see a lot less search terms and a lot more data aggregated under “Other search terms.” It's not unusual now to see maybe half of your ad spend going towards these “other search terms” that you can't see.
To be clear, that doesn't mean you're advertising less. It just means that a lot of the search terms you're advertising on, you can no longer see.
However, in the last year or so, maybe a little longer, Google started letting us see some of the search terms that got impressions but no clicks. Previously, you could only see a search term if you got at least one click on it. But now, you can see if you have search terms getting you lots of impressions but no clicks, which is really helpful for optimization, either for adding negatives or improving your ad text.
More recently, Google announced that misspellings will be aggregated in Search Term Reports, which means you're going to get more visibility into the types of low search volume searches that previously, we couldn't see. Because, of course, a misspelling would be searched for way less than the proper spelling of something. So by aggregating that together, you'll be able to see data on more of what people are searching for that triggers your ads.
I think Google absolutely deserves credit here in finding ways to try to give us more transparency and control through negative keywords at a time when a lot of transparency and control has been decreasing in the ad platform.
So while I wouldn't say, Martin, that I've seen a significant increase in the amount of data available in Search Term Reports, I have seen what I will call “sufficient data” available to allow me and my clients to optimize our Search campaigns.
Inside Google Ads is exclusively sponsored by Optmyzr, one of the leading automation PPC management suites to help you run your Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and paid social ads.
Thanks to Optmyzr, I can continue to bring you this podcast for free every week so we can continue to answer your burning Google Ads questions.
In preparation for Q4, Optmyzr is sharing new data to help you achieve the best results from your ads. For example, do you know what factors have the strongest correlation with Smart Bidding success? It's not budget!
Do you have a guess in mind?
Okay, I'll tell you. It's conversion volume and values. This is why I advocate for things like micro-conversions to ensure you're setting up your Smart Bidding for success. And it's great to see hard data backing that up based on more than 10,000 global ad accounts. You can learn more insights like this on the Optmyzr blog at optmyzr.com/blog. That's Optmyzr, O-P-T-M-Y-Z-R.com/blog.
Our second question today comes from Kriselda Rocchi on LinkedIn. And they ask, why did the high click-through rate (CTR) make you nervous though? This is in response to a client story I posted where I was meeting a new client and they had this campaign and the Click-through rate, the CTR, was really high, like too high - so much so that it made me nervous.
Now, we usually worry about CTR being too low, but too high can mean we're inadvertently advertising on brand, that's the most common culprit, or we're getting search terms that are too generically appealing and not relevant enough for our business. So we get a bunch of clicks, but no conversions.
For example, I don't know, let's say you offer a free consultation. You probably wouldn't want to advertise to people searching for “Free Consultation” because when someone's searching for something free, they want something free only. You would want to advertise to people searching for your services, and then your ad or landing page might say that you offer a free consultation, instead, to get them into your sales funnel and get them to buy from you. But just advertising to someone searching for something free, most businesses wouldn't do that.
This would be an example where maybe due to keyword matching or dynamic ad targets, you're inadvertently advertising to a bunch of people searching for something free. So you're getting a ton of clicks on your ad, but no conversions. Those are the kinds of things that we typically find when CTR is too high.
Similarly, I get worried if your CPC, your cost per click, is too low. If you have a Non-brand Search campaign and your CPC is below $1, I've never seen that be a good thing. It usually means you're tossing a bunch of money into Display out of your Search campaign, or you're unintentionally matching to brand searches, meaning you think it's a Non-brand Search campaign, but the results are so good because it's actually a Brand Search campaign. Or there's another issue. It's just too low. It's a red flag.
If you've got some red flags in your Google Ads account and you'd like a second opinion, I'm here to help. I offer Google Ads account audits for accounts of all sizes in all industries. With one week turnaround time, I'll let you know exactly how your campaigns are performing and where there might be opportunities to improve. You can learn more on my website, jyll.ca, that's j-y-l-l.ca. The direct link to my Google Ads account audit page is in the episode description.
Our final question today comes from Adswisard on Instagram, and they say, great video. How often should we review and adjust our Quality Score to ensure we're maximizing our Google Ads performance?
I love this question. You should be checking on your Quality Score on a monthly basis.
Now, to be clear, you can't adjust your Quality Score, but you can adjust your campaigns to improve them to achieve a stronger Quality Score, which in turn means you'll have a higher ad rank, which means you can pay less for your ads, which means better results.
So it's not that Quality Score itself drives different results. It's just a really helpful guide to help you improve your ad rank.
So how do we find and improve our Quality Score? You do this from the Keyword view, because Quality Score is determined at the keyword level, and you want to make sure you have these four columns in your keyword report:
Quality Score
Expected Click-through Rate (CTR)
Ad Relevance
Landing Page Experience
Now, the first thing I'll say is you do not want to obsess over each individual score you get. Look at your ad group and look at your scores for all keywords in the ad group together to see some trends.
Next thing I'm going to say is don't expect a 10 out of 10 Quality Score – 7 is a really good Quality Score, 8 is an amazing Quality Score, even 6 can be a good Quality Score. It's usually 5 or lower where we get nervous.
For Ad Relevance, that's usually where I start, you want that to be Above Average. That's the easiest of the three components to control because Ad Relevance has to do with the relationship between the user’s search and your ad, and your ad and your landing page. So that's things like keyword optimization and ad optimization. Your Ad Relevance should always be at least Average, if not Above Average. And if it's not, it’s easy to fix.
Next, we'll take a look at Expected CTR. And again, we want that to be at least Average. Now remember, Expected CTR isn't just about if your click-through rate is good or bad. It puts your click-through rate in the context of your competitors' click-through rates. Because remember, Google only makes money when someone clicks on an ad, so even if you're willing to pay a lot more than your competitor is willing to pay for a click, if people are more likely to click on your competitor's ad, then Google's going to want to show that ad.
Like, let's say you're willing to pay $100 per click, for argument's sake, and your competitor's only willing to pay $10 per click. If you're unlikely to get the click, and your competitor is very likely to get the click, then Google's going to go for the $10 it can make off the competitor rather than the likely $0 it will make off of you.
I find this framing a really helpful way to think about this. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. The point is to improve Expected CTR, you're going to want to check your Auction Insights to see if you can see who you're competing against, and you're going to want to improve your click-through rate, whatever it is.
The two key ways to improve click-through rate are:
to make sure you're showing ads to the right people, and
that your ad is enticing to them
So for showing ads to the right people, that's looking at your keywords and match types and search terms and negatives and things like that. And then making sure your ad is appealing to them is looking at your ad text and making sure it relates to those search terms you're advertising on.
Now, Landing Page Experience is the hardest to fix, especially because usually, as the person running Google Ads, you're not the person controlling the website. Even if you're a business owner who wears all the different hats, we obviously have an expert trying to take care of those things for us, or we don't have an expert and we don't even know how to improve Landing Page Experience. So I will usually ignore the Landing Page Experience.
Usually, the things to improve Landing Page Experience are faster page speed and mobile friendliness. That kind of stuff is always a good idea. But if you just focus on improving your Ad Relevance and your Expected CTR, you'll be in pretty good shape for Quality Score, even if you do have a Below Average Landing Page Experience.
Search is full of struggles, but in my opinion, the struggle is worth it for the potential end results: reaching millions of people who are typing into that little white box exactly what they're looking for. And, like magic, you can reach them at that exact moment. You can match their intent, answer their questions, solve their problem, and turn that searcher into a customer. How cool is that?
Today's Insider Challenge is this. What would you do, if anything, if 80% of your Search campaign spend was coming from hidden “other search terms” and 50% of your conversions? What would you do? Would you do nothing?
You can participate by sending me your response to this challenge or any episode's challenge. The beauty of the Insider Challenge is there's no right or wrong answer, just an opportunity to stretch your brain on real-life Google Ads problem solving. Shoot me an email at thegooglepro@jyll.ca, that's J-Y-L-L.ca, or send me a voice note in my Instagram DMs. I'm @the_google_pro on Instagram.
Last episode's challenge was this. You've been running Search campaigns, Display, Demand Gen, and Video for a lead gen client, and the results are good. You don't have full-funnel conversion tracking implemented, but things are still working okay. Your client wants you to test Performance Max. So what do you do? Do you launch a Performance Max campaign? Do you not?
I would probably not. Well, my precursor to launching PMax is to test the individual components first, like we're doing here. PMax for lead gen does not work, or rather, does not reliably and consistently work without full-funnel conversion tracking, meaning some type of offline conversion tracking letting Google Ads know which leads turn into customers and which don't.
Since my client is so gung ho for PMax, I would try to channel their energy into a renewed pitch to implement full-funnel conversion tracking. They liked Google's pitch about PMax, I'll send them Google's pitch about implementing Offline Conversion Tracking. Shiny new toy syndrome is exciting but the last thing we want is to take a new toy for a test drive when we have no idea how to drive it, because we're just going to crash and burn.
If my client can't, or won't, implement full-funnel conversion tracking, would I test PMax anyway to appease them? I probably still wouldn't.
It would end up cannibalizing my Search and other formats. And I've seen PMax giveth and then taketh away so quickly. Even if it could initially find good results, I couldn't rely on them because at any moment PMax could decide to go all in on Display or all in on some random audience that likes filling out lead forms, not becoming customers. If that's an issue for my client, so be it. That's a hill I'd be willing to be fired on.
For lead gen and Performance Max, it’s full-funnel conversion tracking, or bust.
Do you agree? Disagree? Shoot me an email at thegooglepro@jyll.ca, that's J-Y-L-L dot C-A, or send me a voice note in my Instagram DMs. I'm @the_google_pro on Instagram.
I'm Jyll Saskin Gales and I'll see you next time Inside Google Ads.