PPCChat | Changes Announced by Google Ads,New Strategies for Bidding | 27th August 2019

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Hosted by @NeptuneMoon, today’s PPCChat discussion started with the announcements made by Google Ads over the past few months (End of accelerated ad delivery and Average position sunsetting). She also sought PPCers views on Facebook Ads Campaign Budget Optimization, New bidding strategies and more.

 

Q1: Google Ads has announced a few changes over the past few months, let’s talk about the end of accelerated ad delivery – do you care? Does it change anything for you?

 

I’m sort of “meh” on this one. I didn’t use accelerated delivery a ton, but like most things, I prefer more options rather than fewer. @NeptuneMoon

Not used it in a while so not that bothered. But I am very curious to see how other bidding/budgeting strategies change due to this no longer being available. E.g. push towards the bidding strategy?? @mindswanppc

Google’s stated reasons for the switch to standard are disingenuous (to keep CPCs down? really?) but it doesn’t really affect my accounts. @amyppc

I’m a little upset about it, if I had the budget and was trying to maximize reach I’d turn on accelerated delivery. @NathanK_TX

I used to use Accelerated Delivery a lot. But now it doesn’t seem to have as much impact as it used to have years ago. I even forgot with Campaigns were using it. @mikecrimmins

Honestly this doesn’t change a ton for me. I can see it changing potentially for B2B where they may only want to show certain times of the day and need to make sure their budget is fully allocated. Just a thought. @BrookeOsmundson

I’m not mad about accelerated delivery ending. I mostly avoided it except in accounts where budget was strapped, but now I can use automated bid strategies if spending the budget is what has my client concerned. @amaliaefowler

I liked the ability to know FAST if an ad was going to work or not. I can see from a user experience how annoying it is to see multiple ads in a given period, which makes sense why Google would move towards it, doesn’t mean I have to like it though. @RyBen3

I’ve never really been a fan of accelerated ad delivery for various reasons, and thus haven’t ever used it. So this won’t affect the accounts I work on. That said, I rarely see it as a good thing when features/options are taken away. @keithaldrich

I’m more upset about losing control than I am about actually losing accelerated delivery. @jord_stark

Yes, I wish they would leave it and give us the additional metrics. More information is always better when working on accounts. It really feels like they are trying to push us into automation by taking away information. @keithaldrich

Accelerated delivery doesn’t affect me much. I turned it off when I flipped to shared budgets. @JuliaVyse

I didn’t really use accelerated for purposes this would effect. If you’re setting your budgets appropriately, then Google won’t have a problem spending them :). I personally don’t have a use case for needing to spend a lot in a few hours. @markpgus

I don’t really care to be honest, never really used Accelerated Delivery so it won’t change much for me. @adwordsgirl

I’ve never really used accelerated delivery much. Never found a need for it. @JXTGroup

 

Q2: Google Ads is also sunsetting (don’t you love that term?) showing ads average position – do you care? Does it change anything for you?

 

I’ve tried clearing my cache and using different browsers but nothing is working. Bottom line is that under my MCC login, I can’t see changes to individual accounts and I don’t know why. @Matt_Umbro

While I did rely on avg. pos. for keyword bidding, I understand why it is not a perfect bench mark. How do we optimize around absolute top/top of page? Can we get conv. performance for each one? @NathanK_TX

With the change in SERP structure, average position has become less and less relevant over time. So, I’m not too upset about this. When they had your top and right rail ads, then it was important.@BrookeOsmundson

I’m SO GLAD they’re doing this! the positions are so meaningless now with personalized to the device level content that anything keeping my clients from asking me about position bidding is a blessing. @JuliaVyse

I say “good riddance” to avg position going away. It conflates rank with position on page and encourages clients who are prioritizing the wrong metrics. (#1 on Google doesn’t mean what you think it means.) @amyppc

Average position used to be a big factor in my bid optimization process and I freaked out when the announcement came out. Now I’m feeling better about it sunsetting. Still though, aren’t there better things for them to work on. @mikecrimmins

I used average position a lot – including for identifying when google thought an ad had low relevance. So, sad to see it go. But getting % for top of page v bottom will soften the blow. @stevegibsonppc

It did also help that SA360 had already released their impression share bidding functionality. So I guess it’s about talking to clients just about that metric instead of avg position. That’s what we’ve started doing.. @mindswanppc

I liked using it to see how things were trending. If average position started slipping, it could indicate new competitors, increasing bids from current competitors, or slipping in the account. It’s not a gigantic loss though. @CJSlattery

I am pretty “meh” on the average position change too. @NeptuneMoon

I don’t personally care, but clients do. Vanity metric. @Mel66

Not a fan of the change b/c it’s……change…..but never really used it as anything other than an informer, so not a huge deal from where I sit. @SEM_PPC_Mattv

This was handy to have but the metrics that have replaced this give you a much better understanding of where your ads place so not too worried. @PittAlung

I had some rules etc… that had to be changed. With bid adjustments for times, days, audiences, demos, etc… this metric had lost its steam however and become almost irrelevant except in some cases. @Ichasse

As much as I LOATHE the push towards automation internally, externally I have been preaching adaptability to my team a la @bigalittlea – we gotta work with Google here. As soon as I knew avg pos was going away, I taught my team to stop using it. @amaliaefowler

(sure this time)…hehe…yes love a good “sunsetting” use. But yh…as someone who is a fan of quantifying things in numbers…not a fan of this. The whole convo of “You need to be at the top but not Absolute top” I don’t think will fill clients with confidence. @mindswanppc

I care and it makes no sense, who cares if we have that metric, I find it extremely helpful. @ronzmahoney

I think the metric is outdated so I’m not upset. I understand some have rules and processes based off it but in reality you probably shouldn’t. @bloomarty explains it pretty well here! ppc-epiphany.com/2019/04/26/fro @markpgus

I’m more “meh” on this one. We really see a lot of important data with SIS, Clickshare, and Absolute Top IS… and I’m used to not bidding for Avg Pos because Shopping Ads doesn’t have it so, meh. It’s fine once we update some of our bid rules. @PPCKirk

Again, I don’t really. It’s not a benchmark I rely heavily on so I’m okay with saying goodbye to it. @adwordsgirl

 

Q3: Facebook Ads will start having Campaign Budget Optimization only next month – do you care? Does it change anything for you?

 

I’m more annoyed at the organization of it. I like to group campaigns as a big funnel (targeting, prospecting, video etc.) & use ad sets to make them more specific and now I will have to create individual campaigns for each one. Not how I ideally want to work. @RyBen3

Comments on CBO It’s a great way to test! If you find a winner in a CBO I would then test it with a designated Ad Set Budget though. I’m a big fan of using it for testing though! If the ad set budget test doen’t win then I keep it running in the CBO. @markpgus

I’m annoyed by the whole thing because it took a long time for me to get my brain to think in ad set budgets and when/if it rolls out I will need to rethink structures to make sure budget isn’t eaten up by one piece. @NeptuneMoon

Slightly annoying as i feel i have more control over my campaigns if i am able to set the budget by ad set and monitor them daily. Have only used campaign budgets a few times! @PittALunG

Like anything it’s a tool. It works really well for my B2B clients, but plays havoc with franchisee budgets. A platform with no implementation support and no offline editor now needs me to make one campaign per region. @JuliaVyse

If you are running an ad set budget this is actually going to be pushed out to February FYI @markpgus

This is where my ‘too long as a manager’ is showing. My Facebook team has been discussing testing it out, but I rarely work IN Facebook anymore. I slacked my senior FB person this question. @amaliaefowler

For those that want ad set level control… You can keep it by using SPEND LIMITS at the Ad Set Level. Despite the name, you can set MINIMUM spends. @markpgus

Slightly annoyed with this as I’d prefer to have more control over everything. I’ve been testing it out a bit lately and it works well when there’s one ad in the ad group which just means a little bit more work when it comes to ad testing. @adwordsgirl

Will probably have to restructure some campaigns for optimal performance. @JXTGroup

 

Q4: Are you at all concerned about Facebook letting users block third party data usage?

 

I also think the impact will likely be pretty minimal, at this point. I don’t see FB being super pushy about pointing people to these settings.. @NeptuneMoon

I am with others here, just don’t believe many people will use it. People are still going to take all those crazy tests to see what kind of dog they are or what celebrity they most resemble..@Ichasse

LOL On the surface it’s scary. In reality, no one will do it except for the tin foil hat types. The only time I’d be concerned is if they started showing a GDPR type pop up about it. @markpgus

Isn’t this Facebook’s version of Ad blocker and there being a nervousness about whether we will loose customers based off of this? Like in that situation…don’t think there’s anything to worry about. @mindswanppc

Like everything else, this setting will be so far buried in FB that nobody will know where to find it. FB is trending older now anyways, and I guarantee you my Mom and her book club will continue to pay limited to no attention to these settings. @amaliaefowler

It’s a pretty meagre nod to privacy. I don’t think many people will actually opt out of these things. @JuliaVyse

MY GO TO BLACK FRIDAY STRATEGY! -Gather all time lists of people using promo codes or purchasing sale items IF POSSIBLE. (They like deals) -Ramp up non-brand/competitor search 2 weeks before to get nice remarketing pools -Wow with Offers and creative! @markpgus

Not really. I feel like they’ll bury the feature so people can’t easily find it. I don’t see it causing a massive change on our end. @adwordsgirl

 

Q5: Have you tried any new strategies for bidding lately? How have the worked or not worked?

 

Yes. While I still prefer manual bidding I am seeing some automated strategies outperform. And… with tiny clients with small ad spend I’m *shudder* seeing smart campaigns outperform everything (I tested it, but then I couldn’t leave it) @amaliaefowler

Not surprising I’m sure, but we’re doing a lot of experimentation with Smart Shopping. Definitely seeing it work sometimes and crash and burn other times. Other concerns too that I’ve noted elsewhere. @PPCKirk

Tried and true maximize clicks, then flip to maximize conversions when there’s enough volume. Though I’m interested in install rate vs cost per install on my app campaigns. @JuliaVyse

I’m starting to roll out some tests with “Maximize conversions” but only including certain conversions in action sets. Pray for me. @BrookeOsmundson

I’ve had my eyes on a lot of FB accounts lately. I think Minimum ROAS and Cost Cap are interesting but I haven’t seen consistent results across accounts. So not much to report. A go to test for larger budgets and broad TOFU campaigns. @markpgus

Impression share bidding and SA360 auction time bidding. support.google.com/google-ads/ans Relatively good results. I am a fan of automation. @mindswanppc

I tried an experiment for target CPA bidding strategy optimising on offline imported conversion (purchase) valued at 10x lead CPA and it horribly went wrong. The campaign bid very aggressively resulting in 3x cpc’s and no leads. Had to end it. @bufoting

With smaller budgets, it seems to take too long to get campaigns rolling if you use automated bidding strategies. Clients are not generally being patient about that & I can’t really fault them. @NeptuneMoon

YES This is my experience too. Start manual and then switch to autobidding once you have data to make the ML work. If you don’t have clicks in that campaign how can they maximize them well? Same with conversions! I love bid strategies but we need to teach the machine. @markpgus

I’ve been slowly moving some accounts over to some automated bidding strategies but it hasn’t been long enough to really make a decision so nothing to report on my end. @adwordsgirl

 

Q6: Are you planning to do anything new or different heading into Q4? If so, what and why?

 

More Amazon, more cross-platform harmonization, and more ongoing learning time for me and the team. @JuliaVyse

In all seriousness, I’ve introduced learning segments to my team meeting, and I am focusing on building a team of versatile and agile marketers. Also keeping up myself. @amaliaefowler

Brace for Amazon’s explosive eCommerce SERP dominance in Q4. @PPCKirk

Deal with better clients who actually leave you to do your work instead of sending you 10 emails the first day back from long bank holiday wknd. @mindswanppc

 

Q7: There’s been enough time to try reports out on clients for RSA’s. Does anyone see a report format getting +ve reviews by clients? We’re still trying to present data in way they’ll like.  @heyglenns

 

We have not tried any special RSA reporting, for this reason. @amaliaefowler

Don’t have an answer to this, but I would like to reiterate my position that RSAs should be launched into the sun. @CJSlattery

There’s been enough time to try reports out on clients for RSA’s. Does anyone see a report format getting +ve reviews by clients? We’re still trying to present data in way they’ll like. @heyglenns

I have a half formed blog post going on RSAs and how they are such a departure to what Google Ads has preached to us since the beginning – tight relevance between keyword/query, ad copy and landing page content…@NeptuneMoon

 

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