mchugh

Understanding PPC conversion tracking

gerard@clickspotters.co.uk (Gerard McHugh) — Fri, 24 Nov 2023 10:45:11 GMT

You don't need to know all the technical details. Just the three stages to aim for.

You don't need to know all the details or how to implement tagging in GTM. But what you should know are the 3 levels of conversion tracking for a lead-gen website and the advantages of each -

1 , Set up GA4 / Gads conversion tracking on all forms / downloads and if applicable - telephone calls on your website.

If you didn't have this in place, you have made the single biggest improvement in measuring campaign performance. Now you can track site interactions like contact forms back to the campaign/keyword that user clicked. And from that you can see which campaigns are really working, and those that are not.

2, Move to value based bidding. Step 2 involves assigning relative values to each goal - e.g. a lower value for downloads, higher values for contact forms.

If you have already got step 1 in place, by moving to 2 you are instructing the bidding system (assuming you are using smart bidding etc) that you (as a business) place more value on someone completing a signup form than downloading a PDF. In effect you are giving the system further guidance on how to bid.

3, Create a off-line feedback loop from your CRM. This can be more complicated to setup. But, it is the gold standard for lead-gen accounts.

This imports leads 'graded' by their true value as recorded in your CRM, rather than simply assuming a signup form is more likely to convert than downloading a PDF.

Now you just need to make sure 'sales' are keeping the CRM up to date

Confused? It’s Not Surprising, We All Are Sometimes

Fri, 20 Oct 2023 09:46:36 GMT

Why we need to use language everyone can understand.

I was exchanging emails with a client the other day - having reviewed the performance of a previous group of campaigns they wanted to allocate some more budget to them and asked to put them live again.

The campaigns in question were a group of search campaigns and a single display campaign , which we put live.

An hour later I got a follow-up email asking ‘ just to be sure, this is PPC only, not GDN ?’

To cut a long story short, in their mind PPC = search , whereas in my mind PPC = everything Google Ads.

(No harm done, we switched the display/GDN campaign off)

What this did highlight to me though, is how easy it is in our industry to be talking about two different things without realising it. And we also really don’t make it easy for a non-expert to truly understand what we are saying.

Terms and acronyms get bandied around as though everyone is an PPC expert and understands all that's being said. (If you ever read an article on LinkedIn from a PPC pro you’ll see this. It often takes me a couple of read throughs to fully understand what they are trying to illustrate).

For a business owner or marketer, we expect them to understand the difference and nuances between a max-conversion v a Tcpa bid strategy, PMAX v other campaigns UA v GA4 and so on.

As an industry, we really need to learn to explain ourselves more clearly. Clients don’t always want to know the nuts and bolts, but they do need to understand the implications of what we tell them.

Google Recommendations

gerard@clickspotters.co.uk (Gerard McHugh) — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 10:50:31 GMT

Otherwise known as Google recommends you spend more money.

Have you ever looked at the recommendations tab which Google promotes in your account? It’s full of ‘helpful’ suggestions that at a click of a button will instantly ‘improve’ your account performance. In fact, they are so useful, that sometimes Google reps will even contact you directly and suggest you action the changes, even when you are paying someone to manage your account (like us!)

The reality is that yes, Google would like your Ads account to work for you. They want you to continue advertising with them after all. But more than anything, they want you to spend MORE money with them. They care less about your business goals and far more about how many times a month your credit card gets billed. It’s obvious in most recommendations they suggest.

Call me cynical. But here are 2 recommendations I guarantee you will NEVER see in your account –

Lower your campaign budget

You are spending too much budget on this low performing campaign. Your CPA is too high. Lower your spend or move it to a higher-performing campaign.

Lower your Target CPA

Your campaign is limited by budget, by lowering your target CPA you could achieve more conversions for the same campaign budget.

I've had a lot of conversations with clients over the years and from memory I'd say they rarely go along the lines of "can we spend more money for the same number of leads please?"

Clickspotters is no more…Hello McHugh Marketing.

Fri, 07 Jul 2023 10:12:59 GMT

After 10 years of loyal service, we have put the Clickspotters name to rest.

After 10 years of loyal service, we have put the Clickspotters name to rest. It was supposed to be fun, we could play on the idea of trainspotters (i.e. a bit geeky, awkward) and have some fun with it. But we never really did. It got to the point we didn’t really like it.

Of course, choosing a new name isn’t easy. We didn’t want to pick something else that we would grow to hate. Given that everyone looks for Gerard by name, we thought why don’t we use that. So we finally have.

We have a funky new website, please do take a look at mchugh.marketing and let us know what you think.

How A PPC Agency Survived The Pandemic In 2020

Thu, 15 Jul 2021 15:31:53 GMT

Who thought at the beginning of 2020 we would spend most of the year staring in a real-life version of the film Contagion ?

Well hindsight is a wonderful thing, so this year in preparation for anything that may come up in the future I’ve used some quiet time to rewatch The Towering Inferno and the Poseidon Adventure just in case I pick up any tips that might prove useful on future holidays. It is probably a longshot, but I also watched Jurassic Park. Well, after this year you never know.

If anyone had told me at the start of the year that by the end of March, a third of our clients would go on hold in a single week, I think I may well have had a little cry. But we were lucky. The lockdown brought a lot of new opportunities through business’s being forced to embrace digital, being forced to review their current digital efforts and business’s pivoting – moving their operations online and changing their offering. By June, our monthly revenue was higher than ever with new clients coming onboard and existing clients able to start trading and advertising with us again.

Was it luck though?

Call it luck or design but over time we have built a pretty broad portfolio of clients. Locally, nationally, and overseas in Europe and the USA. Our clients sell products online: including Furniture, Oil Tanks, Heating Systems, Swimming Pools & Bike Accessories. They sell services online: including Data Centers, Training Courses, Property Rental, Home Care, IT Infrastructure & Software. They are in B2B and B2C industries.

We have a lead-generation plan bringing new enquiries through a range of channels. We have also built a network of agencies we work closely with delivering white-label services to their clients.

It turns out we have built a pretty robust business.

If I have learnt one thing this year it is that the old idiom “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” remains true.

Why PPC is like surfing a wave

Thu, 15 Jul 2021 15:22:29 GMT

I’ve compared managing a PPC account to surfing more than once in the past. The comparison being that on a wave you start slowly, build up momentum and enjoy rising and falling sensations or peaks and troughs. The whole time anticipating what lies ahead whilst acutely aware of what is behind you.

A lot of this also happens through the life of a PPC account!

Start slowly

It’s rare to build an account that nails it from day one. Depending on your starting point, you may have historical data from an old account, or SEO data which can make the getting up to speed process quicker. But even with that, you still need to get some data into all of the AdGroups before decisions about bid levels, pausing keywords etc can be made. On top of that comes all the more advanced bid adjustments, Ad testing and numerous other adjustments. None of this can be done at the start, but takes time as you build momentum.

Peaks and troughs

Trends can be useful, comparing relative date ranges to view (hopefully) uplift of performance over time. But comparing a 7 day period from this year to the same period last year is really not going to give any answers. The range is too small. In the past I’ve had clients reviewing weekends YoY (year on year) and asking for feedback. The feedback is politely don’t make decisions based upon it!

Over shorter time periods accounts will ALWAYS display peaks and troughs, a good few days followed by less good days as it naturally corrects itself along its trendline. Remember, no account has ever improved day on day continuously forever!

Anticipation

Most of the time optimising a Google Ads account is about reviewing the HISTORICAL data i.e. looking backwards. But we are trying to get the best performance moving forwards. This requires a heads-up approach to what is coming, it requires some slightly broader thinking than simply analysing what happened in the last 30 days. The next 30 days may be significantly different for bigger macro-economic forces or for example - school holidays, Christmas sales periods, the weather and other ‘bigger’ events. All of these factors need to be taken into consideration when reviewing current performance and making any decisions about what to do. This is also an area where fully automated bid strategies can fail, although that’s another story.

Don't spend your life on bidding, it's targeting that is going to win out

Thu, 15 Jul 2021 15:22:28 GMT

Often reviewing an account, I’ll have a look through the account change history and the sum total of changes made are bid changes. A couple of pence up here, a couple down there. Up one week, down the next. Sometimes agencies do it to justify their fees by leaving a trace in the account. Sometimes people do it because they are probably fresh out of other ideas to improve performance – so best do SOMETHING.

HEADS UP - Google Ads is moving towards automated bidding and has been for some time. If you are self-managing your account consider using an automated bid strategy suitable for your goals. Please also be aware there are valid reasons NOT to use auto bidding though, such as putting a campaign live, low conversion volumes, anticipating a seasonal change etc.

The point of this post is not to get into bid strategies though, the point is simply to say if you are NOT targeting the right search queries and audiences then manually adjusting your bids is pretty much a waste of time.

It’s like randomly waving a machine gun around squeezing and releasing the trigger. When really you should be adjusting your telescopic sight.

Spend less time on bidding and more time on targeting.

2020 in PPC. What the dickens went on?

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 16:47:28 GMT

Forget the big talking point of the year, there will be no mention of a pandemic here. What you ALL really want to know is ‘what nuggets do I need to know about PPC in 2020’.

Sorry, What’s Your Name Again?

I am including this in 2020. But it happened in 2017, or 2018 or 2019 – I really cannot remember exactly when, but it definitely occurred at some point in my adult life. I still regularly refer to them by their old names, so I’m not surprised clients do as well. But in the interests of clarity:

AdWords is now was rebranded in 2020 / sometime in the last 5 years to be known as Google Ads .

Bing Ads is now was rebranded in 2020 / sometime in the last 5 years to be known as Microsoft Advertising .

If we ALL make an effort and pull together we may adopt their new names into common vernacular by the time of the next rebrand. I’m doing my bit by highlighting it here.

Google Taxes The UK

Was it a penalty for leaving the EU, or was it imposed for being part of the EU. Do the legalities really matter? What does matter is that Google slipped out a new 2% digital tax on all UK advertisers (also Turkey and Austria) starting November 1st 2020.

https://searchengineland.com/advertisers-to-absorb-googles-digital-services-taxes-in-uk-austria-turkey-340065

This will be billed monthly and clearly shown on your statement or invoice. You know, the statement or invoice that is REALLY HARD to find in the AdWords Google Ads interface.

Missing In Action – Google Search Query Data

For years, this report was where it all happened for PPC practitioners. Forget keywords, this showed the actual search queries used to find and click on your Ads. Work through the report and add negatives / add exact match keywords where appropriate. It was literally GOLD DUST. (Note – if you do work in PPC and don’t know about this report, it’s time to find a new career, or at the least a new agency) .

Then in Q3 we find that not all search queries are going to be included in the report anymore. Estimates vary, but something like 20% are not being shown right now. Why you may ask? Well there are all sorts of theories out there, but I’m not going to cover them here. If you want to know why then the Godfather of Google Ads, Brad Geddes has published an article on it here .

New Campaign Formats

Announced in 2019, but rolled out in the UK in 2020 one of our favourite new campaign types are Google Discovery campaigns . These are suitable for top of the funnel campaigns and work best (in our opinion) with aspirational, lifestyle type brands. If your business manufactures micro-widgets in an industry no-one can spell they probably aren’t for you.

Time To Stop The Manual Labour

Automated bid strategies are not new. But in 2020 they suddenly seemed to get REALLY GOOD. Target CPA / ROAS seem to be working particularly well for a large number of our accounts now.

A side effect of this and something that seems to be a general trend for search is campaign consolidation. For years, search has meant segmentation and isolation – keywords in SKAGs, single products in Shopping campaign AdGroups etc, you know the drill. Now, machine learning requires big chunks of data, in one place. So forget everything you knew, forget everything you broke down – it’s time to start putting it all back together again.

Who Sold That?

Bid automation needs accurate tracking of sales or enquiries through a website. It needs those data points to learn and optimise bidding. And yet so few websites have this set up correctly. This goes beyond installing Google Analytics. It means using GTM (generally) to track forms, calls and transactions and this is not straightforward to configure for the average Joe. Without it, all the data being collected is limited in its usefulness – even once it has been setup correctly (there’s no hindsight option available in GA yet).

Our big hope for 2021 is that aside from all the money Google and Bing invest in their Ad platforms and Analytics, they develop an easier way for anyone to implement tracking systems that include the GOAL.

How To Tell In Under A Minute If Your AdWords Campaigns Are Working Properly.

richard@innuo.co.uk (Richard Jaques) — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 16:08:56 GMT

When Google AdWords was launched in late 2000 it was a fairly simple platform. You put a few keywords in, wrote an Ad or two and you were pretty much done. Not so any more, it’s a huge platform with more settings than ever. Even those of us who work with it full-time can find ourselves struggling to remember how to navigate to a particular feature or report.

Taking that into account, you would think that quickly understanding whether an account is working well or not would be more difficult? Well in reality it isn’t, the pulse of any campaign is still the same – the search query report.

(Disclaimer 1 - Now before any experienced PPC’ers start saying this isn’t true etc, I appreciate this doesn’t apply to Display ,Remarketing, Gmail campaigns. But I’m sure you’ll agree that it is for Search and Shopping campaigns. Which for most accounts is where the bulk of the action and spend still is.)

What the heck is the search query report and why is it so important?

Ok, here’s something an awful lot of people don’t seem to know and it's really VERY IMPORTANT TO KNOW. My experience of talking to a lot of clients is there is a generally held assumption when you add keywords to a campaign and later review all the impressions and clicks generated by them. The assumption being that the keyword was what the user typed in and searched for...

This is not true.

The keyword is only used to match relevant search queries and trigger the Ad to be displayed.

You may know there are different keyword match types (EXACT, PHRASE, BROAD, Modified BROAD and NEGATIVES). We are not going to go through how each works here, but it is worth knowing that one of the key skills in building an AdWords campaign which will perform well is careful use of these match types to ensure that Ads are only displayed against relevant search terms.

Back to the question, how do I know if my campaigns are working properly....?

Well the short answer is to review the search query report. To find it, just navigate to Keywords and then along the top menu ‘search terms’. Set a date range and you’ll then see the actual search terms that triggered your Ads to display and be clicked on.

Read through them, are they relevant to your business? Do you they match what you thought you were promoting?

Generally the answer is not always. If you want to get more analytical and understand how much wasted spend (and potential savings!) you can download all the search queries for a certain time period (say 30 days) and split by relevant v non-relevant. Compare relevant v non-relevant costs and you’ll have a good idea of how much money is being wasted on searches you are not interested in over that period of time. All that wasted spend can be viewed as either a potential saving, or could be spent better.

The more accurate search terms are in the search query report, the more healthy your account is.

If all the queries are relevant, you have the fundamentals of a good campaign. If a chunk of them are not, you need to have a long hard chat with yourself.

(Disclaimer 2 - Now before any experienced PPC’ers start saying what about Quality Score, what about keyword sculpting, bidding, ROAS, Ad Testing etc etc…yes, yes, yes I agree! But fundamentally there is no point working on these elements if the search queries are not relevant is there?)

Save budget and improve your Google Ads ROI by eliminating click fraud

Wed, 13 Nov 2019 16:08:53 GMT

It’s something that isn’t talked about very much in PPC circles. Possibly it is seen as some kind of dirty, grubby secret that is best forgotten? I’m not sure.

Maybe it’s because it is essentially highlighting a weakness in the product we spend our lives promoting the strengths of.

The majority of click fraud can be grouped as either comes from malicious clicking on Ads from competitors and bots to increase click budgets spent, or by advertisers looking to boost their click income on Ad Networks.

Google take click fraud seriously and have their own series of algorithums running, analysing click patterns, IP behaviour to block this activity. You’ll see in your billing tab regular refunds for what are known as invalid activity.

We were interested to see if we could do anything more to protect our clients accounts and budget than simply relying on Google’s in-build systems. With this in mind, we have been testing a product for the past couple of months on a client account.

We were told by the developers that fraudulent clicks could amount to anywhere between 5% and 20% of the monthly total clicks in any one account. This seemed a huge number and we were pretty sceptical at the outset.

After 2 months of testing, we have concluded that on the test account (a UK based account targeting the UK only) just over 5% of total clicks have been blocked. The vast majority of which are either clicks coming through VPN software (outside of the geographical radius we are targeting) or clicking over the pre-set threshold i.e. multiple clicking in a short space of time.

Is it worth running click fraud software?

Well the short answer is yes, we believe that the relatively low cost of the software means it makes sense for any advertiser with a click budget of over £500 a month.

They are going to save more money in fraud prevention, than the software will cost. We are now offering this additional protection to all new and existing advertisers.