PPCChat | PPC Holiday Wish List | 10th December 2024

Posted December 11th, 2024 by Amita & filed under PPCChat.

PPCChat is a forum where experts share their insights and concerns about leading PPC platforms. This week, PPC professionals shared their holiday wish lists for Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising, Meta, and more. Here’s a recap of this week’s PPCChat session, hosted by Julie F. Bacchini.

Q1: What is on your holiday wish list for Google Ads or Microsoft Ads?

Search term data? The old look and feel (interface) and lower cpcs. @runnerkik

If I could make my Google Ads wishes come true, they would include: @NeptuneMoon

Better support
More transparency
Bring back all query data

Exact search being exact search. @adwordsgirl

CLS filtering for placements, search term data, ability to direct PMax spend towards prioritized channels. @navahhopkins

Also, search term data and better support would be the next items on my list. @adwordsgirl

More transparency – especially in PMax, Demand Gen, and RSAs. Would love to know exactly what is working! @revaminkoff

I would also love to see Google and Microsoft Ads use some of their allegedly super awesome amazing AI to show actual insights like: @NeptuneMoon

you are paying more than your direct competitors, this might be why
here are placements that are wasting your spend
your ads get fewer clicks than your competitors – this might be why

I would love to get the dedicated agency teams back. Miss the old structure. @revaminkoff

As long as we are wishing… how about some standards for sites that can have ads placed on them???? The amount of trash placements out there is STAGGERING. @NeptuneMoon

Small things: @duanebrown

day of the week starts on Monday by default
Not rename things in GMC Next that was not broken
That Google Analytics and other Google products has a similar Manager Account for Google Ads or Advanced Accounts like GMC
Looker Studio would not break as often
That you can sort by any column in GMC Next

Ohhh how about data on the AI overviews that keywords trigger? @NeptuneMoon

@NeptuneMoon that’s where my cls wish comes from. @navahhopkins

Accepting we’re stuck with the new UI, please at least let us collapse/shrink the side bar. @ChrisMurray

Q2: What is on your holiday wish list for Meta or any other ad platforms?

I wish that Microsoft would merge LinkedIn with Microsoft Ads already. @NeptuneMoon

That they stop trying to shove all their AI down our throats and that we have to turn it off each time we duplicate an ad. @duanebrown

That Meta would have any type of actual support for advertisers who are not mega brands. @NeptuneMoon

I don’t run me ads, but it drives me crazy to see all the clickbait non-friend stuff in the feed…It’s wildly inappropriate. I’d actually like to only see my friends and family content on a timeline format versus algorithm and I’d like to see ads for brands that I wanna discover like the good old days …@runnerkik

Shouldn’t retargeting be better with all the AI capabilities? It is especially bad on FB where if you interact with an ad, you immediately see ads for very similar things like every third post. It is terrible for advertisers. I miss the days when you could get more insights from audience data on platforms like FB too. I did a project 5 or 6 years ago where we were literally running ads on FB to figure out what kind of content resonated with which audiences and their particular characteristics. It was the most interesting project I have ever worked on. And you cannot do that kind of insight acquisition today. @NeptuneMoon

I also wish more of the tech would work outside the USA and in countries with smaller populations like Canada, UK, Australia…ect. @duanebrown

If AI/ML are meant to help us, then let it off the leash. If placements are trash, tell us. If we’re spending $5K a month on lookalikes and it assesses the data and finds that interests are best, tell us to turn of LLA & maximize interests ad sets. Give the AI a personality based off data – not sales-driven knowledge graphs. Let off-leash ML doesn’t worry about maximizing shareholder coffers. Let it give us all the advice based on data only, not scripts. Pmax, Advantage+, ASC, etc. It’s like a friend of your friend that tries to get in with you, at first you think it’s friendly, but you notice every word out of there mouth feels manipulative, like they have hidden agendas. Same with Google/Meta ML. @timmhalloran

I would love Microsoft to improve the bulk editing capabilities both in MSFT Ads and LinkedIn. Too many clicks to make repetitive changes. @ChrisMurray

Agreed. LinkedIn has crashed on me so many times when filtering or making large changes. @timmhalloran

The MSFT editor has so many frustrating UX inconsistencies that I’d happily use a wish on getting standardised. @ChrisMurray

Want to edit an RSA? Now you have to scroll to save it…
Want to edit a sitelink? Select it, click edit, *click edit again, and then it opens in a side bar…

Q3: What is on your holiday wish list for PPC clients or stakeholders? What do you wish they knew, did or stopped doing, etc.?

List goes: @adwordsgirl

Making changes to their site without telling us and thus breaking tracking
Making changes to their site and removing GTM entirely
Think that just because there’s a high CTR means it’ll result in a high CR

#2 feels like a story. (a story I want to hear sometime) @timmhalloran

It’s happened too many times. It’s a whole freaking series. @adwordsgirl

Ohh good god… @runnerkik

Actually value what we do (management)
Don’t ask me to outline everything on a proposal so you can either do it yourself or take it elsewhere.

I wish they had more realistic ideas about the demand for their products or services… the early internet mythos is still pervasive. Like a lot of businesses think if they just have the right Google ad their business will blow up to the point of crashing it. And that just isn’t where most businesses are. Having that mindset gets in the way of being able to do good work for them and get them reasonable results. @NeptuneMoon

Come to discovery meetings with – at minimum – a guideline budget, instead of being surprised their ‘ideal’ strategy is out of their price range. @ChrisMurray

We’ve had clients be cagey about their numbers (margins etc) and that doesn’t help anyone. @adwordsgirl

Stop asking for reporting that no one reads…@NeptuneMoon

I also want the number of no-shows to calls about their campaigns to reduce as well. @adwordsgirl

Going into Google to check if their ads are running. @adwordsgirl

Take landing pages & CRO seriously. @alimehdimukadam

Making changes in the accounts goes without saying, right? @NeptuneMoon

Also, provide or consolidate all their campaign prep feedback on the first round, why am I getting 5 different opinions spread across a week. @NeptuneMoon and not mentioning they’ve made those changes. @ChrisMurray

@ChrisMurray A single point of authority is key to not losing your mind. @NeptuneMoon

We shifting and going 100% into ecom, DTC and retail next year. I wish most realized and accepted that the market has changed in so many ways. 2023 results are rarely what brands will seeing 2024. Some of our clients are but some are flat and some are also down. If I could make it rain cash I would tomorrow….but so much are out of our control. @duanebrown

What they knew? Lack of collaboration on requested assets slows down experiments and tests. If I need it Dec. 2, that means I won’t them in-channel till Dec. 9 (unless I hurry or switch priorities), which means I won’t have conversion data till late Dec, early Jan.If you change priorities, it’s going to take a while to switch gears across your account. Especially when you’ve already trained value-bidding models on a different priority. KW research, kw tests, bidding, conv. setup, ML learning windows. It’s a lot of work. Rarely is that understood. If you ignore my strategic advice re: product, pricing, necessary UI/CRO requests, it’s going to hurt your performance. Similarly, if I do an honest audit of a lack of performance and it points back to those items which were ignored or put off being the culprit, it’s hypocritical to point the finger back on my team. Especially when the data, logic, & recommendations were clear as day.Impatience during learning periods.Contradictory goals. @timmhalloran

@duanebrown similar story in B2B, market is changing fast, and throwing more money at it isn’t necessarily going to fix the target shortfall. @ChrisMurray

Especially heading into 2025 – there is much outside of our control that can significantly impact PPC performance. Listen to us when we bring these topics up. @NeptuneMoon

@ChrisMurray About 30% of our biz is B2B ecom and that is changing even faster we have found in the last 18 months. More are looking to modernize their tech and get better at conversion tracking. B2B is anything but boring for those who think it is. Hottest space in 2025 I will say. @duanebrown

Q4: What is on your holiday wish list for the PPC industry?

I will take suggestions or wishes for PPC Chat here in this thread too! I would like more voices heard. There are so many really smart PPCers who want to publish articles or speak at conferences or be on webinars or podcasts. I’m doing what I can on that front, but I’d love to see more! @NeptuneMoon

Less of a wish and more a point of interest is the rise of new channels. Although it means more complication I’d like to see new search engines start legitimately challenging Google for market share so we’re not as beholden to them. By way of examples, I’m thinking of Perplexity’s new ad offering and Brave as two interesting ones. @ChrisMurray

That churn & burn agencies burn to the ground. Client stop just looking at the cost and everyone stopped doing free account audits. We are leaving so much money on the table as an industry that we are kicking ourselves in the arse and it anit pretty. We sold and worked on TWO $10K audits this year, among dozens and dozes of others paid account audits. When I say there is tons of money… I mean tons of money. @duanebrown

An industry-wide agreement to charge for all discovery would be very lucrative. @ChrisMurray

In honor of my Irish gramma:”May your pipeline be full and your hours brim o’er,
With tasks so abundant you can’t count them all more.
May your clients be gentle, their budgets so kind,
To trust in your wisdom and not change their mind.
As the data flows true and each conversion takes flight,
May your dashboards shine bright in the glow of the night.
And when all’s said and done and each metric is met,
May your fortune and favor grow richer yet!” @timmhalloran

Master the basics + embrace AI. PPC is a subset of marketing and not a replacement of marketing
Look at all areas holistically. Try to tie in results with business KPIs. Cross-functional work is going to be a must. @alimehdimukadam

@timmhalloran Nothing wrong with the Irish Tim. They know what they are doing. @duanebrown

Enjoy the last few days of the year. Spend time outside of work on rewarding activities that bring joy to your life and the lives of others. @robert_brady

It has been a hot minute since we have been in a rough or very uncertain economy, so maybe some education on surviving and thriving in more difficult economic times? @NeptuneMoon

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