Speaker 1:        So objective today is to give you guys some insights on ways we can increase your ROI. Obviously, if you're running Google ads or working with someone who's doing that on your behalf, the goal is always to get at the most leads at the lowest cost possible. And so, you know, there are various ways to do that. Um, in this talk, we're gonna talk more about the ways that are hidden [00:00:30] often in Google to sort of get you to spend more money that could impact lower in your, so we wanna highlight those for you. Um, agenda, we're gonna, uh, tap into sort of three core areas, um, creation in settings, uh, which has a lot of little nuances in there. That's good to sort of review and audit. Um, we're gonna talk about a particular network and some hitting settings there and, um, automation features, uh, so without further ado, um, Trenton's gonna take us through, uh, campaign settings and creation, 
Speaker 2:        [00:01:00] Tammy, thanks for the intro. Um, getting right into a campaign creation and settings. So, uh, we wanted to give you a bit of a, a play by play. Maybe you're a new advertiser. Um, you're wanting to get into the game. What have you, so, uh, right from the jump you're creating a new campaign, um, what are some things that, uh, you could be up against in the interface there? Um, so as we've written here, there's a number of default buried campaign settings. Um, we're going to, uh, go through networks, [00:01:30] bidding, location targets and add automation. Um, the little screenshot there is actually from the interface and you're gonna see a lot of interface screenshots. So hopefully they look familiar. Um, but yeah, without further a due Tam me, I think we can get into the next one here and launch into it. So search network with display, select, uh, if any of you are, are veteran advertisers, like the three of us are, um, you may remember that from, I don't even know how many years ago it's, uh, it's resurface. 
Speaker 2:        Uh, so [00:02:00] to take a step back, uh, search network with display select, when people think about advertising on Google, Google ads, I think people tend to think about the text ads on, uh, the search engine results pages, google.com, google.ca. Uh, obviously you've got those text ads up there, and I think that's what comes to mind with, uh, with Google ads, uh, what people don't maybe realize or don't think about are the myriad other networks, uh, that we can buy on within the Google ads interface such as in this case, [00:02:30] the display network. Uh, so there are literally millions of websites, apps, cetera that are monetizing through the ad sense program. If you're advertising on Google ads, you could potentially, uh, be paying to put your ad one of these websites. Now that could be, uh, a problem there's numerous apps on there that are monetizing that are kind of fly by night, looking for quick cash, grab, get some traffic, uh, get some ad clicks coming in and some ad revenue. 
Speaker 2:        Um, what we found is [00:03:00] that a lot of this display inventory, it's not super relevant again with the apps, a lot of unrelated websites, uh, you could potentially have your ads up on, uh, let's say, uh, controversial, um, areas, uh, websites that maybe you don't want your business featured on or associated with. Um, we would definitely recommend opting out of display select, and you can see the interface shot there. Uh, display network is actually a default, uh, selected network when you create a search campaign. So again, we would [00:03:30] recommend just clicking out of that. Uh, it will probably save you quite a bit of money since most of these display placements they don't perform very well. So, and, uh, a lastly quick audit at the bottom there, uh, Chris posted a, a good little, uh, interface shot there of, uh, what you would see on the left hand side of the interface, if you actually are opted into the display network. 
Speaker 2:        So check that out and, uh, reference that and maybe do an audit of your account, just make sure [00:04:00] geotargeting automation. So this is a good one. Um, when you're creating a new campaign, there is a, uh, location menu that by default, uh, is collapsed. Not gonna see what's in there when you reveal that, uh, that menu by clicking that location options button there that you can see on the screen, you actually see these three radio buttons. Um, and so we've highlighted with an arrow there, uh, what you wanna be selecting presence, people in are regularly in your targeted locations now [00:04:30] by default, um, as you're gonna sense through the theme of this, uh, Google does not actually have you, uh, opted into where you want to be. So the first, uh, button that you see there or interest, uh, that would be the default setting for locations. 
Speaker 2:        So what does that mean? Um, if you wanna advertise in a specific area by default, Google is gonna show your ads, not just to people in that area, but to people that are interested in that area. So I've ran multinational campaigns across the us. [00:05:00] Well, it might not be an any surprise that quite literally, everybody in the world has some interest in the United States. So I have spent by mistake, a lot of money advertising to people in India who were very interested in the United States and saw all of my ads. So I urge you, if you are advertising yourself, uh, just go into the settings and reveal that location's option menu and, and make sure that you're just advertising to people present in that location. Otherwise your ads [00:05:30] could be showing up who knows where? 
Speaker 3:        Yeah, I wanted to piggyback off that for a second or two, because even, even this option isn't Bulletproof. Um, so one of the things that we usually do to dial this in just the actual little step is utilize, uh, negative locations. So go into your accounts, go to locations, go to exclude, and then, uh, you can do an entire country list if you want just negative, everybody get 'em all out of there and that'll help dial in just that one step further. 
Speaker 2:        That's true. And, and Chris, thanks very much for bringing that up. Um, yeah, especially [00:06:00] for some of the states, uh, some of the particular states that are located close to the border, uh, Maine, uh, top of mind for me, uh, sometimes we get some rogue Canadians, uh, trickling in there, our ads show up across the border into, uh, new Brunswick for Maine. So, so that, uh, that's a great point. Chris just, uh, negative out some of those locations, especially if you're a border state, you don't want pesky Canadian, senior ADSS, rogue Canadians, just the worst rogue Canadians. That's how we, uh, that's how we roll here. [00:06:30] Okay. So bidding automation versus manual. So, uh, this is maybe for, for more intermediate advertis advertisers, I would say, um, by default Google, uh, they, they want to automate the bid, uh, bid strategy for you. So rather than you selecting how much you pay for a click, uh, Google has myriad options for determining in a time auction setting, what that click should cost [00:07:00] the advertiser. 
Speaker 2:        Uh, now it sounds great when it works, um, sometimes just like everything else. It doesn't. Uh, so once again, the default option is automation. Now, something that I personally have found is that, especially for higher budget campaigns, uh, campaigns with daily budgets, north of a hundred dollars, um, I've seen some pretty pricey clicks, 50 bucks an up, right? I think a record is a triple digit click cost. So, you know, you do wanna audit how much you're actually paying [00:07:30] for these clicks. Even if it is a campaign running on automation, you can do that in the search terms report in, in myriad, other interface reports. Um, the, but you wanna see what you're paying for clicks because you might have a $50 campaign budget and you might be paying 50 bucks per click. If you're in a tight geographic area with some very niche keywords, you could be spending a lot of money. In which case you may want to select a bid strategy directly as we've got boxed in the slide there, you may want to choose that and then move into a manual CPC, [00:08:00] um, type bid, uh, strategy. So as we've written here, if your average cost per click for your keyword is not assigned or not aligned, excuse me, to your cost per lead goals, uh, consider testing a manual bid strategy. So paying 50 bucks a click might be tough for you to, uh, hit those a hundred dollars. CPLs. 
Speaker 2:        So ad creator, dynamic search ads, uh, dynamic search ads are really just what they sound like. Um, you're basically handing the keys over to [00:08:30] Google to create those ads for you. And you're doing so by providing a URL, uh, by providing particular webpage, uh, where you want traffic landing, Google is gonna through that page and assemble an ad, uh, based on the text on that landing page. Now this can be extremely problematic. Um, obviously there's reasons of compliance. This is, this is the main reason why you would not want to do that. You don't want Google, um, throwing in, maybe Adlib some tech [00:09:00] shooting from the hip and throwing in some stats about jobs, labor market stuff that, you know, maybe should, uh, should be best left out of the ads. You don't want any of that in there. Um, as well as just a lot more difficult for you to, um, to actually manage and optimize your ads. 
Speaker 2:        So one of the hallmarks of running these campaigns is you writing two to three ads, even four ads plus, and testing the ads against one another, right? You really want to constantly be striving for a high clickthrough rate, [00:09:30] uh, and, or, uh, a low CPL high conversion rate, et cetera. This gets that much more challenging when you've handed the keys over to Google to write those ads for you. So we would absolutely urge you to not plug in the URL, not plug into your web, uh, not plug your own, um, landing page into the, uh, blank that you see arrowed in the screenshot. There, we would urge you not to do that and to write your own own ads manually tighten up the creative work on your own sales, copy your own unique selling [00:10:00] propositions, work on your calls to action and test those ads and just iterate on them. We really would urge you to do that, uh, rather than have the keys over to, uh, capital G. 
Speaker 2:        And then I think this is a last one. You guys have me for, um, discovery campaigns. So tying it back, we talked about the other networks, uh, that you can access through the Google ads interface. Once again, it's not just search ads. So in this example, we're talking about [00:10:30] discovery ads. So the discovery network, um, is a network of Google own placements. So looking at ads that appear on Gmail, on YouTube and in the discovery feed. So for those of us Android users out there, uh, we all look at the discovery feed for news, so we can buy ads, uh, on those various Google or alphabet owned placements. So in this example, right here, we're talking about optimized targeting. So discovery is a bit different. We're not just talking about keywords, [00:11:00] it's more audience specific. So we're picking custom intent audiences, um, affinity audiences, all of these different groups, uh, that have personas built around them, who we want to target. 
Speaker 2:        So for instance, education, post secondary education employment. These are all audience groups that we target through the discovery network. It's very powerful. Uh, they're very rich ads. They have images along with text. It's great. Discovery is a great network. However, uh, like with all things Googled, there's, [00:11:30] there's some funky stuff that we're opted into out of the box. And in this case, we're looking at optimized targeting. So as much as we can select, uh, which audience groups see our ads, Google can also select for us, uh, an expanded or optimized group people that the machine thinks should be seeing our ads that maybe we're not selecting in the audience selection process. Uh, the problem here is that Google is more often than not wrong [00:12:00] in their assumptions with the optimized targeting. And we have seen campaigns, uh, or at least I've seen campaigns, uh, where the optimized targeting has just eaten up budget, uh, very high CPLs, maybe in some cases, no conversions at all. 
Speaker 2:        Um, you know, obviously it's that much harder for us to control where these ads are seen, if we don't have any transparency or visibility into the particular placement. So by default optimized targeting is selected. [00:12:30] We would suggest you audit, uh, how your campaigns are performing, how your ad groups are performing and potentially X out of the optimized targeting. So to do that, you have to do it at this at the ad group level, rather than the campaign level. And you have to go into the ad group settings. So it's, it's very much buried in there. It's, it's, it's very unintuitive. It, it flows a bit differently than most of the interface, uh, but at the ad group level, you can definitely check that out, see if it's selected. And then I really [00:13:00] do, uh, recommend you audit that and, and see how well those optimized, um, optimized targets are performing because in my case, I think I've opted out of it. I don't know, 90% of the time, Chris, what, what do you think how's, how's optimized targeting working for you? 
Speaker 3:        You know what, um, they actually rebranded this because it used to be called audience expansion. I'm pretty sure. Um, and they just did away with that and then brought this back on and made it a default setting. So I think there was a little bit of failure on their last attempt. Um, they're trying a little bit harder this time. [00:13:30] Uh, but to your point, you really have to audit this because let's say you're running a rebar campaign and this is enabled, you're marketing out, you're remarketing outside of your list. So that's especially an area that you have to look for. Um, this could be good, but it could be detrimental. So it's, it's, uh, case by case basis. 
Speaker 2:        Absolutely. Yeah. So definitely argue. Definitely we would argue, you should be checking that out at the ad group level, uh, then clicking into those settings and opting out of it if you're not seeing performance. And, um, I think, [00:14:00] uh, with that, I'm gonna turn the mic over to, uh, to somebody else. 
Speaker 1:        Awesome. That'd be me. Thanks, Trent. Appreciate it. Um, yeah. So the last section that we're gonna touch in on our automation settings. So, you know, obviously Google's had a big mandate over last five years to offer a lot of automated solutions for advertisers. Um, and you know, a lot of testing has gone on in those areas. They've also kind of created some automations that have just been slipped in under the radar without, [00:14:30] you know, advertisers knowing. So we've got kind of a bit of a mix of, um, stuff that might be happen in the background already, as well as, you know, how you refine some of those automation pieces. So, um, we've got auto applied ads, research, uh, responsive search ads, automated extensions, uh, location, extensions, and performance max smart campaigns. And, uh, Chris is gonna walk us through this. 
Speaker 3:        Hello everybody. So first one up is auto applied ads. Um, so like the name suggests Google [00:15:00] creates ads for you, um, and implements them, which right off the bat, you can say that's a bad thing for compliance issues. Um, this is something you really gotta watch out. So bear in the account settings, not in the campaign campaign settings is the option to automatically apply ad suggestions. Uh, so by default, uh, Google is gonna try to automatically apply these ad suggestions. And we highly recommend, even though it directly says on this screenshot, uh, that Google does not recommend to turn 'em off. We recommend to turn hump off. [00:15:30] Uh, some action items that you can take is to audit your account settings, to ensure that this is not enabled. And if prompted while you wanna opt out, just select the appliance, sorry, appliance considerations. And this is pretty true because it's, this is a compliance nightmare. 
Speaker 3:        If you like Google create ads and upload them automatically. Yes, next up, we got the responsive search ads. So, um, RSAs are gonna be the only option to create come June 30th, 2022. So, [00:16:00] uh, expanded text ads, like you know them right now that are more manual, you create them, they show as is those are at the door. Um, so responses, search ads are gonna be the forefront of the new, uh, creations. So we have to get a little smart about how to get around Google, taking all the headlines and descriptions that you're putting in here and just making their own ads. So as little background, RSAs tend to favor, um, CTR. So click through rate that's because Google's mandate is making you click or making the prospects click [00:16:30] makes the money, gets people through the, or it's all good. Makes sense. Um, some of the things that we wanna focus on are conversion rates. 
Speaker 3:        So the KPIs don't really align for RSAs and sometimes articles. So some of the ways that we can get around, um, the responsiveness or the dynamic aspect of the response of search ads is pin, which isn't obvious and not, it's sorry, it's not obvious. Um, but it is really, really helpful. So [00:17:00] on the screenshot here, you can see this little pin icon on the, uh, highlight. So what you can do is actually set how many, or which headlines or descriptions you want to show. So if you want one, two or three headlines in each one, and you wanna rotate through them, you just pin them to headline one. And the same goes through all them headline 1, 2, 3, description one and two. So what you can do is use the automation of RSAs to cycle through different headlines, say, you want to use your school name for brand [00:17:30] on headline one, you can use your brand name there, pin it, make sure that everybody know knows where they're going to, and then do the same for, um, the rest of the headlines and descriptions below. So you're putting a little bit more manual aspect to the automation of the RSA, taking back a little bit more of that control, 
Speaker 3:        Automated extensions. So dynamic at extensions are automatically created with no transparency. So just like the dynamic search ads, um, this is pretty problematic [00:18:00] because we don't really know what Google is saying in the background and with no transparency, we don't really know how they're working. So this is definitely something that we wanna make sure that we turn off. Um, you wanna disable these at the account level under extensions. These are actually pretty hidden. Um, it's like a two step process to go and turn these off. So you'll scroll to the bottom of the extensions page to find automated extensions. Um, there will be a list of different automated extensions that are in there. So you just wanna go through an audit and make you turn off [00:18:30] most of the automation things just mainly because of compliance reasons. 
Speaker 2:        Chris, have you ever, uh, have you ever checked this out and seen some surprise extensions that, uh, that you didn't put in there? Have you ever had this, uh, uh, kind of thrown on you, voice it upon you? 
Speaker 3:        I think we've had some with the location extensions before we had some surprises, um, where they've shown some, um, some areas that maybe weren't exactly where we wanted to show. Um, but for the most part [00:19:00] we've, we've gotten ahead of it and we turn them off right away. <laugh> uh, so dynamic link extensions can negatively negatively affect ROI in traffic, off the landing pages. So it could show extensions and bring people to maybe a website or some other area that isn't the landing page that's made for converted dynamic call out extensions and snippets are content created by Google with no transparency on the content that they're, that they're creating. So this is definitely a compliance concern. Turn [00:19:30] it off. All extensions should be created by the advertiser. You wanna know what you're putting out there into the world and you wanna make sure it makes sense. 
Speaker 3:        This is it's pretty par for the core stuff, location, ad extensions. So adding your Google business listing opts you into a location ad extensions and local search ads across search display and YouTube. So you've seen this whenever you kind of search up a little bit. So us or anything this always shows up here. Um, one of the issues with this itself [00:20:00] is that each, um, click or each interaction could count as a click cost. So somebody is, um, clicking on the search ad itself. Uh, that'll be something if they click a direction, uh, that could also be another click. So Google per interaction could charge two times a click cost. So if you're paying $10 a click that could potentially now be $20 because they take it a couple interactions on the same timeframe. So if users click through your GB listing, they [00:20:30] will go to your website and not your landing page. 
Speaker 3:        So this is really important because could be showing up for a location extension. They click to the website, and then they're not going to the actual landing page, which is the high converting area that we wanna push people towards. So this is a little bit problematic. So, uh, location extensions are good. Uh, we just wanna make sure that they're going to the right places and they're being shown in the right light and performance max campaign. So [00:21:00] this is a brand new campaign that's just rolled out on November 2nd. We've been testing this for about, uh, eight months as a beta feature. So what it does is it advertises across the entire suite of Google products, uh, with just the creation of one RSA. So responsive search ad and audience signals. So this RSA for this one will include a little video section as well. So it can show on YouTube and automatically create these things. 
Speaker 3:        And the audience signal part, this is actually, um, giving them list that you [00:21:30] curate. So something like your marketing list or an all visitor 90 day or something of the sorts, uh, and then it uses those audiences as signals. So it doesn't actually market to those audiences, but to people that are signaling the same type of search intent as that. So some of the issues that we have found with performance max, I should, uh, actually say that Google is gonna be pushing this a lot. This is a brand new campaign. Um, it's [00:22:00] taking over the smart campaign, I believe as well. And it's a full automation suite. So they are really gonna be pushing this. Um, they're, they're trying to make this work really hard. So you'll see a lot of, um, recommendations in the future about this. So some of the issues that we've come across is that, uh, we've had overreporting and conversions upwards of 30% that do not match our personal database. 
Speaker 3:        So that means that what we're seeing in Google ads is about 30% higher in the conversions than what we're actually seeing on our like truly forms. So that's something that you really gotta be [00:22:30] aware, cuz completely obscures what the CPL looks like, how many conversions, um, and it is just, it confuses everybody across the board. So you wanna look at true form fills if you can, if that's your action. Uh, and then one of the hidden settings within performance match, which is not very obvious at all, is the final you wear URL expansion and this will send pages outside of your target. So see her on the screenshot on the bottom left, uh, Google says that you use more targeted URLs when it's [00:23:00] likely to result in better performance. Um, you want to turn this off. You want to send traffic to the only to the provided URLs that you give. So that means that it's just your landing page that it's going to, and Google's not gonna delete the website or some site link on your website that goes off page. And you just wanna make sure that it's only the line of page that that traffic is supposed to go to. That'll convert by 
Speaker 2:        Just to clarify, unlike the other things we were talking about here, um, that wasn't, uh, that that's [00:23:30] not a feature that you're automatically opted into that we're suggesting you opt out of. This is an entirely new campaign type much like discovery, uh, that you would actually select this at the campaign creation level. So, so you would select performance max. So this isn't something that, uh, that they're just trying to throw in there and, and unbeknownst to you, you might be running performance max campaigns, you would actually have to select it. So if you're not interested in performance max, you're, you're very unlikely running a performance max campaign right now. Very 
Speaker 3:        [00:24:00] True. Thank you for that. 
Speaker 2:        Yeah, that was, uh, crystal, I believe who was concerned about that. Crystal is on it with <laugh> is not an automated option. Thanks. Do we have anybody here that are, are running Google ads, campaigns, or working with a vendor managing a vendor, maybe that's that's running such campaigns that have any, any questions about the logistics there or any questions about the slides? 
Speaker 4:        I have a, 
Speaker 2:        Yes, I work enroll 
Speaker 4:        Resources. I don't run [00:24:30] Google app that's so just as an, sorry, I just wanna, I had a question about, um, so when Google automates ads in some of those settings where you, where you're, um, advocating that you turn settings off and things like that is that the type of, of thing where, you know, robot Google is, is grabbing various words and headlines and things from ads that you have put in there. And the concern is that they may put in a combination that then contextually puts you outside of [00:25:00] compliance. Like they might end up with saying something about, you know, hiring or job of great demand or something like that, that then puts you in some hot water. Is that, did I follow that correctly as great 
Speaker 2:        Chris? When yeah, that, that question was very clear kitty. Thanks, Chris would, uh, what's your take? 
Speaker 3:        Yeah. So, uh, we've noticed that Google usually gleans from the website. Um, so they'll take any information from there, create some headlines. We've actually seen a [00:25:30] lot of your copy by the way, um, as headlines and descriptions, uh, so pretty great stuff. It can be. Um, but we've also seen some more best practice type of things that I, I can't find on our websites. So something like Eileen demand or, um, something along those lines that might little bit gray area. Um, we've also seen Google suggest these things and I'm not sure if they're exactly putting them in exactly, but they, they are in the, um, in the decks of what Google put out. 
Speaker 2:        Yeah. [00:26:00] And, and I've seen stuff that, um, rather than being non-compliant ads that are just terrible, just, just sure. You know, kinda nonsequitors thrown in there and, and half baked sentences and, um, just really unintuitive stuff that, that seems very much like it was written by a robot. So, uh, you know, compliance aside, um, you know, we would really recommend and just, just do part of it [00:26:30] yourself, uh, rather than leaving it to the robots. 
Speaker 3:        Yeah. And I wanna, um, just get Crystal's last question here. It says your overall Google score will go down with your suggestions. Correct. And we just need to breathe and be okay with it. Um, partially, yes. So I wanna touch on the RSAs that, uh, we were talking about before. So if you were to create an RSA, just like an ETA, so you put one headline, um, one H one, one H two, one H three, one D one D two, uh, and you pin them all your Google score will be quite low. Um, but [00:27:00] that, that is okay. You can breathe and be okay with that because it's going to go towards your KPIs of a higher conversion rate, but something you can do to mitigate is actually put multiple headlines pinned on H one. So you could do like three H ones, three H twos, three H threes. And in that way, you're giving Google the breadth to do the automation, um, while also keeping it really dialed in. And that'll raise your score in that regard, 
Speaker 2:        Right. As, as well with regards to the optimization score, uh, we do recommend you, uh, check out [00:27:30] the campaign or the, uh, the recommendations within your account, the campaign recommendations. Uh, we do suggest that you audit those, uh, these are recommendations that Google's applying, uh, or, uh, in some cases that they're applying, if you have auto apply, uh, clicked into, or simply recommendations that Google's making. So you will find that your Opti score will be going down as the recommendations pile up. Uh, one thing that I generally do is dismiss the irrelevant ones and then apply the few that I do find relevant and the [00:28:00] score consequently goes up. Uh, so that's definitely something that we recommend you stay on top of, is clicking into those recommendations, whether or not you're gonna apply them, uh, is up to your own judgment. But, uh, we suggested at least clicking in there and, uh, checking things out. 
Speaker 1:        Yeah. And I just to clarify too, the OK. Score is more aligned to that recommendations tab, not so much the settings and the defaults that we've discussed today, RSAs do have a heavy weight OnCore but you know, if you're using RSAs, you'll 
Speaker 2:        Be fine. Yeah. [00:28:30] And crystal, you've probably noticed that within your recommendations, you've seen Google suggesting, uh, writing, um, our essays and, and it usually has a high, high weight to it within the Opti score. So, um, yeah, just, just breathe and be okay. And keep in my, the next year. You're, you're literally gonna have to write nothing, but our essays because expanded text ads are, are facing out. So that's next year's project then.