Where Do You Sit on the Google Advertiser Happiness Curve?

Working as a campaign manager and consultant with Google advertisers across sizes and industries, I found that they fit into three different categories based on how big their budgets are and how happy they are with their Google Ads:

Category 1: Not enough data

You are either just starting or do not use conversion tracking or do not have enough budget to generate a significant amount of conversions (You want a minimum of 15 per month, better 30).

That means that you cannot start the flywheel that is Google Ads automation. Therefore you struggle and probably burn quite a bit of budget in the process. Most of the recommendations do not work for you (yet), and applying them leads to more budget burn and frustration. 

Category 2: Leveraging automation

Your campaigns generate sufficient conversion data to inform the bidding, targeting, and responsive search ads algorithms, and everything is ticking along nicely. 

Category 3: Mourning the lack of control

Everything from category 2 applies to you, and you leverage automation even better because you have even more data. But you are not happy. The one thing you lack is (the feeling of) control. Especially if you have been working in PPC before 2019, you long for the days when your ads appeared precisely the way you wanted them to, your bidding was tedious but predictable, and exact match meant exact match. 

Here is my advice for you, depending on your category.

Category 1: Not enough data

The way to be successful with Google Ads is by getting the algorithms to work for you. And for that, you need data. 

• Try to get sufficient, meaningful conversion numbers to leverage smart bidding. 
• Use portfolio bid strategies. 
• Experiment with conversion events that take place before your key conversion (for example, an add-to-cart vs. a sale or a form view vs. a form submission). I say “experiment” because the value of these higher funnel conversions can sometimes be sketchy. 
• If hitting the conversion threshold means a steep increase in your budget, calculate how much is needed and if you can afford it, take the plunge. Staying in data-scarce mediocrity forever is ultimately going to cost you more. 
• If you cannot track conversions or cannot afford the budget needed, you can still make Google Ads work, but it will feel like a fight against windmills. You have to actively go against most recommendations and keep tight control of your ads account, as most automations will not work for you.  

Category 2: Leveraging automation

• You have a good thing going, so based on what I see in my work; the number one advice is: Don’t do anything stupid. Making significant changes to your campaigns will mess up the algorithms, so be as gentle as possible. 
• Use automation layering, which I discussed in an Optmyzr town hall, to make sure the algorithms don’t do anything stupid, either.  
• Can you improve the data going into the system (by feeding the system margin vs. revenue data or offline conversions that indicate lead quality)? In that case, you can push the bottom line of the results of your ads even more.
• Keep a good relationship with Google, so they can help when needed and keep you in the loop on betas and new features.
• Be ahead of the curve on betas and new features (where sensible). That will give you an edge over advertisers who do not use these yet.

Category 3: Mourning the lack of control

• Everything I recommend to advertisers in the second category applies to you, but you probably know that already. In addition to those recommendations, my writer colleague Rachel @cachebyte is sharing essays with stoic lessons for marketers, which you might find helpful 😉

Which category do you belong to? Would you add anything to the definitions or recommendations?