This week’s PPCChat session was an engaging discussion! Host Julie F. Bacchini gathered experts’ opinions on the biggest bait-and-switch tactics in PPC, which ad platform is the most misleading in its communications, and which updates or changes feel like an April Fools’ joke—plus much more.
Q1: What are some changes or announcements from platforms that when you heard them you thought “this obviously is for April Fools Day, right”?
I feel super guilty about mine https://www.linkedin.com/posts/navahhopkins_new-google-ads-policy-no-alcohol-ads-whil[…]m=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAALhXhoB5-Uc_9_791hQ9qzSrgGmsB82A1I …absolutely caused some heart attacks there XDOther pranks that made me chuckle but were obvious include: The Vibes campaign type Editor being deprecated IoS backtracking on privacy…@navahhopkins
The very recent Google Ads “oh yeah, ads can totally double serve. In fact it has always been a separate aution for each position…” one. @NeptuneMoon
…But that isn’t a prank…that’s just the timeline we live in now..Oh! I misread the question…@navahhopkins
The first pMAX announcement that kinda spelled doom and gloom – this is the end of search. @alimehdimukadam
Yes, I meant the question as what have platforms done that you’re initial reaction is “that can’t be real”, But sharing posts that are for April Fools today is also awesome. @NeptuneMoon
Changing my answer to impression-based remarketing from Microsoft…@navahhopkins
Search Max…@revaminkoff
This one today from PPC Greg is hilarious…@NeptuneMoon
I wish that were true… @revaminkoff
When LinkedIn became part of Microsoft and it was not followed by “we are merging the ad platforms” @NeptuneMoon
I mean – it’s clearly coming. but the timeline is wonky..@navahhopkins
Is it though? @NeptuneMoon
Aging myself perhaps, but when Yahoo + Bing merged and when Broad Match Modifier was announced, I def thought those were jokes at first. @revaminkoff
Honestly, every time I see the gemini sparkle, I’m sure it’s at least a joke. @JuliaVyse
Yeah @revaminkoff it is wild to think back on how BMM sounded when it was announced. Ok I am really old, cause you used to be able to see competitor bids and bid $0.01 more like on the Price is Right @NeptuneMoon
When certifications stopped costing money. @navahhopkins
ok youwanknowhat? the do the test in a locked room, monitored…sir, that is inSANE. @JuliaVyse
This is a bit of “drama” but when Google rolled out their recommendations and they were essentially verbatim the WordStream work week @navahhopkins
I mean the Recommendations seemed like a joke at first too a little bit… or at least, some of them…@revaminkoff
Auto applied recommendations were pretty WTF to be honest too. @NeptuneMoon
When Amazon Ads recommended to lower bids on keywords, it is real, but I couldn’t believe my eyes the first time. @alimehdimukadam
When Meta Ads removed exclusion for detailed targeting. When Google announced different auctions for different ad locations on SERP. Seemed like jokes to be honest. @ratanjha
Q2: What do you think are the biggest bait & switches in PPC?
New Google Accounts – Smart Campaigns. @alimehdimukadam
Confidential Match and TEE…I was so ready for that to be the golden ticket to finally getting folks comfortable with sharing profit numbers and full offline customer journeys…and then it’s just for customer match…@navahhopkins
“Broad Match is Smart Now”. You: “I sell vegan dog treats.”…Google: “Great! Let’s show your ad to people searching for ‘steakhouse near me.’” @alimehdimukadam
Remember when Google Ads used to advertise saying “It just takes 5 minutes to set up Google Ads”??? @NeptuneMoon
Recommended Budget: 10x More Than You Planned.. Because apparently, your $100 budget is ‘limiting performance’ in a niche with 3 monthly searches. @alimehdimukadam
Impression Share. it seemed fine until the lawsuit… @JuliaVyse
Getting an email every quarter from your new platform “rep” who will read you help documents and push whatever will make the platform the most money. @NeptuneMoon
@alimehdimukadam – Agreed. I’ve had a few friends and family that ask me if I can take a look at their Google ad accounts, and it’s always the same thing. Smart Campaigns with conversion objectives like “Clicked ‘Get Directions'” or “Engagement”, etc.”Hey Al, why are you targeting Massachusetts? Isn’t your local business in Minneapolis?””Ya, it is, why? I just set it up the way Google told me to…” @timmhalloran
Other keywords…@AndrewRios
Default targeting if you’re in the US being US & Canada..@NeptuneMoon
Not seeing all the keywords we paid money for.. @AndrewRios
Search Term reports – lol jinx @navahhopkins
@NeptuneMoon same if you’re in Canada. come on Google! @JuliaVyse
The biggest – Trust the Algorithm @alimehdimukadam
TikTok in general is a bait and switch.. @navahhopkins
LSA @AndrewRios
Facebook’s “more accurate conversion tracking” that doesn’t match anyone else’s @revaminkoff
Not being able to see full phone numbers to what search terms they used for click to call. Offline conversions / enhance conversions @AndrewRios
close variants are not always actually close variants…@revaminkoff
Every single time I see (Exact Match Close Variant) in a query report. @NeptuneMoon
I will debate that – I actually see a better match rate on close variants (especially in the past 2-3 years) @navahhopkins
Negative keyword limit being 100k…@AndrewRios
And the queries are pretty on point (the only exception to this being niche industries – which in that case there should be robust negatives anyway to protect against that bad matching) @navahhopkins
It’s leading to a lack of query control though, even when they’re close. @revaminkoff
The massive liability shift clicking that one little “I have permission to upload this data” from platform to advertiser when sharing customer lists. It is such a big deal and so casually presented as if it is nothing. @NeptuneMoon
@navahhopkins i am yet to see close variants work well for local ‘near me’ businesses. @alimehdimukadam
@NeptuneMoon that’s why TEE was such a bait and switch for me. @navahhopkins
The entire concept of “customer support” for an ad platform too. @NeptuneMoon
@alimehdimukadam they do if you pick your champion – you don’t need to bid on both “attorney” and “lawyer” for example. @navahhopkins
Not disputing the results you’ve seen and that they may not work well for you, I just know a lot of folks hate on close variants because the Google took liberties with “trainer” and “trainers” @navahhopkins
@navahhopkins The part that is missing there though in the example of attorney vs. lawyer is that in the good old days we could test and see which converted better. Like, actually converted better. And now it is all up to machines that do not always have the same “better” criteria that an actual business does.I miss getting that data too to use on landing page and ad copy. @NeptuneMoon
there’s enough data to know which will work best for each market though @navahhopkins
When Google removed 70% of search term visibility “for privacy” but kept charging us for the clicksPmax eating branded search like it’s a buffetMsft auto-applied ad suggestions. Went live with little/no warning, campaign somehow spent $300 on an ad we never wrote for a product we don’t sell cool. Cool cool cool. Exact match not meaning exact. Phrase not meaning phrase. Broad meaning “would you like to light your own money on fire, or have us do it for you?”These are my jaded responses. I purposely removed nuance and context because today’s special. @timmhalloran
Google Trends exists. @navahhopkins
The biggest April Fools joke is whenever Google says “We are listening to you”. /sorry. @Ichasse
Google does not bother to differentiate though. They pick a winner (lawyer vs attorney again) and never look back and often pretty quickly. I find that piece frustrating. @NeptuneMoon
that’s what negatives are for… I do a lot of legal ppc and in almost every instance, lawyer will work out better for most customers. That said, there are some markets that do really well with attorney – ironically, Google will sometimes get me to swap to attorney based on the data I see in search terms. @navahhopkins
@navahhopkins how do you deal with attorney names, firm names etc ? @AndrewRios
Exclusions in non-branded and build out branded campaigns and competitor campaigns if the lawyer is willing…@navahhopkins
Competitor campaigns I’ve built out, but never seen a decent lead quality from it. I’m in the divorce, family law legal fields, so that could be it. @AndrewRios
Audience Expansion and Optimised Targeting. Promises you additional conversions but your ads end up showing on places I bet you had never imagined, that too, for mostly nothing. @ratanjha
Competitor campaigns should not be as responsible for leads as non-branded service campaigns. One is a holding place for lower conversion rate/cheaper CPC budget, while the other is table stakes. The main reason you would include it is to keep the lower metrics out of your non-branded. Most firms are not good at converting competitor traffic – if you want to be serious about it, you need to actually train them @navahhopkins
Q3: Which ad platform do you think engages in the most misleading and/or poor communications?
Oh man, it is a bit of a toss up between Google & Facebook IMO. Not sure which one is worse, but both are pretty misleading. Especially if you compared how they “used to be”. I feel old whenever I say stuff like that because it feels like “back in my day” talk, lol @Ichasse
Meta hands down…though X suing potential customers and bribing people isn’t a great look. I also don’t love TikTok partnering with the US government. @navahhopkins
I don’t think they necessarily try to be bad or misleading, but man does Google Ads achieve it.For the resources they have, their comms are often terrible on announcements. @NeptuneMoon
Meta is probably worse than Google…@revaminkoff
Did you all see where Zuck said that advertising isn’t a big part of Meta? Let me find the quote…@NeptuneMoon
I went to the LinkedIn talk at heroconf and and they recommended stuff that leads to insane spend too @runnerkik
I will say…Amazon and Microsoft are pretty honest. I may not love everything they do @navahhopkins
@Ichasse I feel that too. I never want to be the marketer that can’t move on.
But come on. Focus groups. Usability tests. Polls. Surveys. PPCChat & similar paid marketing communities have TONS of ideas to improve your ad product, make you (shareholders) more money, while keeping privacy top of mind. But I don’t really see them prioritizing feedback. So @timmhalloran
but they are honest about it. @navahhopkins
Google, glad to have @Ginny Marvin for clarifications and getting back to us in case of any issues. @alimehdimukadam
Meta is incredibly worse than Google. @JefersonVenancio
I do think Ginny Marvin does her best to get feedback to the powers that be at Google Ads @NeptuneMoon
Meta, undoubtedly. 16 years doing advertising with it. It’s getting more and more mysterious day by day.@ratanjha
I was actually part of a focus or advisory group for Google Ads for a hot second years ago. They actually recruited people at search conferences to be part of the group to provide insight and feedback to the product folks. Sadly, it did not last very long…@NeptuneMoon
They still do feedback sessions. I feel like the shortage of sessions is because folks don’t comply with NDAs (not you Julie – I know you always respect NDAs) @navahhopkins
I feel like the sessions they used to do were about things that were in development. And now it’s more like – hey we are going to roll out this fully finished thing, what do you think? And people not honoring the NDA is so crappy. Things were always embargoed with a clear date for when they could be publicly discussed too. @NeptuneMoon
Btw, did you hear this earlier. Sneak peek on some updates before GML: Performance Max to Auto-Migrate All Standard Search Campaigns
All Standard Search campaigns will be automatically upgraded to Performance Max by July 1st. Migration includes dynamic assets, audience expansion, and full-funnel bidding. Manual targeting will be deprecated. I’ll grab the link in a sec. @timmhalloran
That feels like a prank. but if it’s not….I don’t understand @navahhopkins
But only in speed. Because I think we all know that PMax would eventually be the one campaign type to rule them all, right? @NeptuneMoon
Q4: What/who are the most unreliable sources of PPC information out there?
That is easy, the marketing bros by far. @Ichasse
I feel like answering this will get me in trouble. I have a lot of folks I’d love to name but then politics @navahhopkins
Well, I’ll say it…Neil Patel @NeptuneMoon
I will say…there are some individuals who built up a cult following and refuse to acknowledge that anyone else knows ppc…they may have blocked me for asking them to be inclusive. @navahhopkins
Also…please stop listening to Larry Kim. he employs wonderful and brilliant people..@navahhopkins
Google Growth Specialists – no contest here. @alimehdimukadam
but he is not a reliable source of information. @navahhopkins
As with everything, I would encourage you to find at least 2 sources for anything you read before getting too far down the road. My other caution note is anyone who is regularly posting how awesome they are at PPC with zero context. Beware. @NeptuneMoon
Some Google Growth Specialists are good – but you need to do your due diligence and not take everything at face value. @revaminkoff
I think it’s worth celebrating some of the most trustworthy sources. @navahhopkins
Like good investment folks like Warren Buffett, you want to listen to folks who do not try and sell a get-rich-quick scheme and give you the long, hard road of testing and trying out stuff to see what works. To be good long-term and get the best results long-term term it takes a lot of testing and work. And yes, when Google makes changes, we need to test again and find what works the best if we want to do right by our clients. I remember when Warren was asked why most folks don’t listen to him, he said because nobody wants to know how to get rich slowly. @Ichasse
@revaminkoff is an underrated specialist. more folks should pay attention to her content. @navahhopkins
@revaminkoff I meant the official Google Reps who’ll grow the account by auto-applying recommendations. @alimehdimukadam
Ok, so funny story about Larry Kim…Years ago, he and I got into a bit of a feud, which was ironically fueled by other people taking his content (ahem, Neil Patel among others) and when I called out that content, Larry thought I was continually attacking him. Which I was not purposely doing? Anyway, we met at a Hero Conference and talked it all out and took a pic together. @NeptuneMoon
Thanks so much for the shoutout @navahhopkins ! Means the world. @revaminkoff
1. Google reps – advice is ~ 90% incentivized by factors outside your profitability
2. Platform certification courses – 90% of it is sipping that koolaid to keep your creds.
3. Marketing influencers/brooos who never show data @timmhalloran
Official Google Reps/Customer Support/BD people who position themselves as ‘growth specialists’ in their introductory email. @alimehdimukadam
To be clear, I disagreed with a ton of what Larry Kim put out there. But we did clear the air between us personally. @NeptuneMoon
PPCChat Participants
- Reva Minkoff @revaminkoff
- Julie F Bacchini @NeptuneMoon
- Sarah Stemen @runnerkik
- Navah Hopkins @navahhopkins
- Lawrence Chasse @Ichasse
- Ali Mehdi Mukadam @alimehdimukadam
- Tim Halloran @timmhalloran
- Julia Vyse @JuliaVyse
- Ratan Jha @ratanjha
- Andrew Rios @AndrewRios
- Jeferson Venancio @JefersonVenancio
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