Author: Nils Rooijmans

Do you want to know where your ads show in Performance Max campaigns?

As you are probably already aware, Performance Max is a new campaign type that shows your ads on all of Google’s networks: Google Search, Google Shopping, Google Display Network (GDN), Google Discover (Newsfeed), YouTube, Gmail, and Maps. 

I am still experimenting with this new campaign type, but here’s an early lesson I think is worth sharing:

You can create placement reports for your Performance Max campaigns that show where your ads are shown!

SOURCE: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/11465047?hl=en

In theory, you could use that information to exclude BAD placements at the account level (like we do with Smart Shopping) to prevent wasted ad spend on sites like parked domains.

The great PPC Kirk shows us just how to do this here: https://zatomarketing.com/blog/how-to-exclude-placements-in-google-smart-shopping-campaigns

Let’s test if this works for your Performance Max campaigns?

– Nils

PS: If you are experimenting with Perf Max campaigns, please let me know. I would like to create a small community of PPC freaks that are on the fringe of testing this new campaign type.

“Man, you’ve got so many scripts in your list. Please tell me, which ones are must-have scripts for any Google Ads account?“

long time list member Karl

This is a question that pops up in my inbox like wayside lodgings on route 66.

So, let’s create a list of must-have scripts together, shall we?

Here’s my first:

Script to Check If Account Is Offline

URL: https://bitbucket.org/snippets/fvallaeys/nLEoj/check-if-account-is-offline

What it does: 
Checks whether a Google Ads account has gone offline, possibly due to a declined credit card, or accidentally pausing all campaigns, or suspensions, or…

Why you’d care: 
Accounts go offline for many reasons. Billing issues are a well-known problem in managing Google Ads accounts, especially for advertisers with smaller budgets. When this happens, you want to be alerted straight away so your client does not unnecessarily miss any leads and/or revenue.

What scripts do you think should be on the list? Share by hitting reply.

– Nils

PS: The list mentioned by Karl is the list of all freely-available scripts I have found. You can find it here. If you’re already subscribed to the list and enjoy some of the scripts in the sheet, please consider sharing this link with some of your colleagues:  https://nilsrooijmans.com/free-google-ads-scripts-the-ultimate-list/

Do you know how much Google can charge you when you make changes to your daily budget setting?

I had to look up the exact details myself today, so I might as well share the answers with you 🙂

First, some definitions and theory.

Your average daily budget:
The average budget amount that you set for each ad campaign on a per-day basis. It specifies how much you are roughly comfortable spending each day over the course of the month.

Your daily spending limit:
The max amount you pay on an individual day.

Your monthly spending limit:
The max amount you pay for the given month.

Your daily spending limit is 2x your average daily budget, because of Google’s disputable over-delivery feature. Your monthly spending limit is 30.4 times your average daily budget (because 30.4 is the average number of days in a month).

Now… what happens when, today, you make a change in the daily budget setting?

The impact on your daily spending limit:
On the day you make a change (or more than one change) to your average daily budget, your daily spending limit will be based on the highest average daily budget that you chose for that day. So, let’s say you have a campaign with an average daily budget of US$100. On the same day, you first increase your budget to $150, and then lower it to $75. The daily spending limit for the day is going to be the highest of your average daily budgets multiplied by 2, therefore $150 * 2 = $300.

The impact on your monthly spending limit:
When you change your budget, your spend for the rest of the month won’t exceed your new average daily budget multiplied by the remaining days in the month. Let’s look at a hypothetical monthly spending limit for this month Jan 2022, which spans from Jan 1 to Jan 31. On Jan 1, you set an average daily budget of $500, for a monthly spending limit of $15200 ($500 * 30.4). Then assume that today, Jan 13, you’ve only spent $5000 and you decide to increase your average daily budget for the remaining days of the month. You then change your average daily budget to $600. The maximum you’ll be charged for the month of January will be: $5000 spent so far + ($600/day * 19 days remaining in January) = $16400 monthly spending limit.

As you can see, pacing budgets via the daily budget setting is far from easy but also no rocket science. 

This is also something that highly benefits from automation, so be sure to check out these scripts to help you manage your budgets:

https://nilsrooijmans.com/daily-budget-overdelivery-alerts-script/

https://nilsrooijmans.com/top-5-google-ads-scripts-for-budget-management/

– Nils

Thanks to /u/theytakemydragons for the drawings and inspiration for this cartoon.

– Nils

Yesterday, we talked about Google’s Search Partner network and how its performance changed dramatically since November 17, 2021. 

The mail generated a lot of responses — thanks for that!

Many of you saw sort of similar results: a drastic increase in clicks without corresponding increase in conversions –> higher CPAs.

I also received quite a few questions on “how to check the performance of your search partners for Q4 2021.”

Luckily for us, Google made it very easy in the interface. It’s less than 30-second work.

Simply go to your campaign (or ad group) view and then:
1. Click ‘Segment’
2. Click ‘Network (with search partner)’
3. Change the metric to impressions (or click) to see a nice graph that shows the impact of the November 17 change

Here’s an example of one of my ad groups (click image to enlarge):

Also, while you’re at it — why not explore some more segments to see how your impressions and clicks are distributed?

– Nils

Yesterday, we talked about leads. 

Not all leads are equal. 

That’s why smart marketeers score leads based on their likelihood to convert into a sale. This likelihood changes based on interactions with the lead; some turn into serious high-value prospects, others are labeled “worthless tire kickers.”

When a person moves through your lead funnel, the predicted value of that lead changes.

Here’s the good news:

We can communicate the updated value of a lead to Google, so that Google can make the distinction between high-value prospects and the leads that go nowhere!

That way, the Smart Bidding algorithms can learn to increase the number of leads that turn into high-value prospects and reduce the number of people who are just there for the free stuff.

The feature is called “conversion adjustments” and it allows you to adjust the value of a conversion after it’s reported in Google Ads.

More details here: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7686447?hl=en

Score those leads!

– Nils

Leads are like drinks.

They come in all shapes and sizes.

You don’t REALLY want just any lead any more than you REALLY want just any drink.

What you REALLY want is the thing they bring you.

Here’s the thing: unless you tell the Smart Bidding machine what you REALLY want (leads that convert into sales), it will bring you just about any lead (such as cheap conversions that bring the tire kickers in your funnel).

– Nils

One of the perks of running a remote PPC business is you get to work from any location at any time you want.

Currently, I am in the Caribbean, escaping Europe’s lockdowns.

Every morning, I go swimming in the turquoise blue water of the sea in front of the house.

While swimming, I like to watch the fish and think about how I can improve the performance of my Google Ads accounts. (Jeez, is that really me?! Yep, I am afraid so…)

When I have an idea, I’ll memorize it using this memory trick.

Many of the best optimizations in my Google Ads accounts have come from this habit of thinking about my accounts.

Here’s the thing: no one will ever know your Google Ads accounts as well as you yourself know the ones you set up yourself and manage every day/week.

Outside advisors and tools (like a consultant or an audit tool) can provide some new insights, but you, dear reader, are the person who best knows your accounts.

And because you’re the person who best knows your account, it’s good to spend time thinking about your account (as opposed to be working in your account):

• What went well in 2021?
• What would you change?
• What will you do differently this new year?

I like to think about questions like these while swimming. And I’ll do breaststroke. And think. And breaststroke some more.

And when I have an idea, I’ll memorize it using the memory trick.

And then I’ll swim some more, think some more, and ask myself questions: 

1. Where am I leaving money on the table for my clients?
2. What is the one change that would reduce 10% of wasted ad spend?
3. How can I increase conversions by at least 30% over the next three months?
4. What experiment can I come up with to test one of the latest features in the Google Ads platform?

When I get out of the water, I’ll write down the ideas as I have them. Some will be great and some will be terrible. That’s fine. What’s important is spending time thinking about my accounts (instead of working in my accounts).

And the good news: you don’t need to be swimming in the Caribs to do this. 

You can block out 30 minutes on your calendar to really think about your Google Ads account (without interruption) and write down ideas as they come to mind. That’s a highly productive activity!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for my swim.

– Nils

This question landed in my inbox the other day:

“If a user is on two audience lists, do both bid adjustments get applied to compute the final bid? And what audience gets the conversion if no bid adjustments are used?”

Good questions, and I had to look up the details on the second one myself.

1) The final bid

When you set more than one bid adjustment in your campaign (e.g., device, location, and gender), those adjustments are typically multiplied together to determine how much your bid will increase or decrease. 

However, for audiences it works somewhat differently: if a user is part of multiple audience lists that have been targeted in a campaign, the highest adjustment among the matching audience lists is used.

SOURCES:
https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2732132?hl=en
https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9244122?hl=en

2) The attribution

Attribution credit can only be given to one audience type.

If a user is on multiple audience lists in the same ad group, the audience with the highest bid adjustment will get impression, click, cost, and conversion attribution.

If a user is on multiple lists which are tied for the highest bid adjustment, then impression, click, cost, and conversions attribution will be distributed according to a defined hierarchy:

More details here: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/10562924?hl=en

So, now we know 🙂

Keep sending in those questions!

– Nils

Question of the day:

What is your primary Google Ads objective for this coming year?

Bonus question:

What strategy do you intend to use to achieve your objective?

Hit reply and let me know!

– Nils

FYI: Google scripts are having some issues at the moment.

Scripts that have been running for years without problems suddenly are returning a failed status with no error logs.

Multiple users (including me) have experienced the same problem. The issue does not occur with all the scripts, but many scripts do not run. Here’s what it looks like:

SOLUTIONS:

1. There is a quick workaround for single account scripts: switch to Beta and back. That way, the scripts are working again (for me, at least).

2. For scripts at the manager account level (MCC scripts), the only option right now seems to be to copy and paste the code, create a new script, and authorize the new script to get the script running again.

Hopefully the Google Ads Script team will quickly fix this issue. Until then, make sure you check if your scripts ran, and (if needed) apply the workaround for your most critical scripts!

I guess it doesn’t hurt to let Google know you if you’re experiencing this issue as well, so they’ll feel the need to fix this quickly. Here’s the support thread  –>
https://groups.google.com/g/adwords-scripts/c/uODGS_-3iBI

– Nils

ICYMI: Google is rolling out enhanced conversions in beta to all eligible advertisers.

See https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/11192862.

WHAT IT IS

Enhanced Conversions is a feature that can improve the accuracy of your conversion measurement. It supplements your existing conversion tags by sending hashed first-party conversion data from your website to Google in a privacy-safe way. The feature uses a secure one-way hashing algorithm called SHA256 on your first-party customer data, such as email addresses, before sending them to Google. The hashed data is then matched with signed-in Google accounts to attribute your campaign conversions to ad events, such as clicks or views.

More details here: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9888656?hl=en-GB

WHY YOU’D CARE

Enhanced conversions is a way for Google to help recover conversion data that is lost due to a decline in the available cookie data. This is especially valuable when you are using conversion-based smart bidding; by adding enhanced conversion tracking you are better educating the algorithm as to what audience will convert into a sale/lead.

MY TAKE

I’m not sure what to think yet. I can see some privacy concerns and how Google will match my first-party data is a complete black box, but in theory, it should recover some conversions. I’ve decided to implement it for a few of my clients and test it.

One interesting observation I had when reading the documentation: 

“What you’ll see after you set up enhanced conversions

A few days after you set up enhanced conversions you’ll see “Recording (processing enhanced conversions)” in your “Status” column. This means we are currently processing your enhanced conversion data and will notify you once it’s integrated into your conversion action.

Enhanced conversions currently need up to 75 days to train before you’ll start to see impact to your reporting. In the meantime, your conversion tracking will still function as it normally would, and once the training is complete, you’ll also have enhanced conversion data included in your reports.

After your enhanced conversions learning period, they will be included in your reporting and the conversion “Status” column for that conversion action will say “Recording (enhanced conversions)” That means we have started using enhanced conversion data in the reporting for your conversion action. If you hover the status You’ll see the date enhanced conversions started being included in your reporting and the impact on reported conversions for this conversion action. We’ll tell you the campaign type and the percentage of reported conversions.

You’ll only see this card for 30 days after you are eligible to see the impact on your reported conversions. After that, the status will return to “Recording conversions” and if you hover over the status, you will see a card which explains that enhanced conversions are being recorded, but will no longer show the impact.“

How about you, have you already tried enhanced conversions?

– Nils

With all the changes going on in our industry, it is pretty easy to lose track and get lost.

“iOS 14 — what will it do to our conversion tracking?”
“Data-driven attribution — can we still trust the numbers?”
“Performance max campaigns — how to seriously compare results to our current setups?”
“What bidding strategy to choose?”
“How to not waste too much spend with the new keyword matching and broad match?”

You might even question yourself, “Am I still fit for this job?” 

Whenever you get imposter syndrome, here’s a quick fix:

Provide some second opinions or do some account audits.

You’ll be surprised at the amount of crap you’ll discover that YOU can turn around in no time.

– Nils

If, for some reason, I feel lost (or fail to understand), I often consult the Stoics. These extraordinary days are no exception.

“Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and can’t control that inner tranquility and outer effectiveness become possible.”

Epictetus

With that in mind, on to today’s notes…

SIGN: Petition to Opt-Out of Non “Significant” Search Terms in Google Ads

ICYMI, Google started hiding search terms in our SQRs. If Google won’t give us the data for search terms with “insignificant clicks,” we ask for the ability to opt out of showing ads on all queries not deemed to be “significant.”

➥  ACTION: If you are serious about your job: sign. Hey, at least we tried, didn’t we?

LISTEN: Your Attribution Problem

Attribution always leaves me in the dark. After reading this article, I still have no answers, but at least I learned about more things I don’t know.

➥  ACTION: Why not forward to your colleagues and discuss?

INSTALL: “f.lux” software to make your life better

If WFH has ruined your daily routines and you end up working late, best make sure your eyes don’t suffer and sleeping does not feel like mission impossible when work is done.

➥  ACTION: Give it a try. My screen feels “warm at night and like sunlight during the day.”

Thanks for being here, I really appreciate it.

– Nils

PS: If you’ve ever considered installing a Google Ads script but somehow decided not to, please hit reply. I’d love to learn about your doubts.

Be warned! Beginning in July 2022, you will no longer be able to create new ETAs or edit existing ETAs in Google Ads.

However, as the Godfather of PPC Ad Testing says:

Pinning will enable us to use RSAs as if they were ETAs!

Simply copy-paste your ETA headlines and descriptions to a new RSA and pin them at the corresponding positions. That way, you will still have the same ETA control and still be able to edit them.

And here’s the good news: scripts will allow you to do so at a great scale, with little effort, in no time!

Hence, the idea for my second script in this series: automatically create RSA versions of your ETAs.

Here’s the logic of the script:

For all campaigns labeled ‘ETA2RSA’,
  for all ad groups
    for all ETAs
      create new RSA based on RSA copy,
      pin RSA headlines and RSA description to their corresponding ETA position,
      and label the ad ‘Copy of ETA’

Stay tuned!

– Nils

Last Monday, I sent out an email with the subject: “ETA -> RSA migration toolkit, script #1.” (Details are provided at the bottom of this email, for your convenience.)

Since then, I’ve been working on the script.

Here’s the result:

https://nilsrooijmans.com/Report-Missing-RSA-AdGroups.txt

Have a great weekend and happy scripting!

– Nils

PS: As mentioned, here’s more info on the email -> https://nilsrooijmans.com/daily/eta-to-rsa-migration-toolkit-script-1

Google recently announced that they will be sunsetting Expanded Text Ads (ETAs). Beginning in July 2022, you will no longer be able to create new ETAs or edit existing ETAs in Google Ads.

Although existing ETAs will continue to be shown after the change, we all need to prepare for a world where Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) are the only option for your new ads.

To help you prepare for this change, I will be creating a small library of new scripts that will help you make the most of this transition.

There are still 10 months of runway, so let’s do this: let’s make those RSAs outperform your ETAs!

The first script in this series solves a simple problem: knowing what ad groups do not have an RSA yet and where to best allocate your time in the creation of new RSAs.

The script will check all enabled ad groups in all enabled search campaigns, and:

• for each ad group, it will check if you have at least the minimum number of RSAs enabled (threshold configurable),
• if the ad group does not have the minimum number of RSAs, it is logged in a Google Sheet, and the rows in the sheet will be sorted by the number of impressions of the ad group
• also, if the ad group does not have the minimum number of RSAs, AND if the ad group has had over X impressions during the last 7 days, an email alert will be sent (where X is also configurable).

Stay tuned,

– Nils

Last Tuesday, you received an email with the subject: “how ‘maximize clicks’ took me by surprise.” (I’ve repeated it at the bottom of this email for your convenience.)

Be sure to re-read the story before you continue, otherwise this won’t make sense.

…

Now, let me share what I think happened.

First, I need to tell you about the product my client is selling and her audiences.

The product is sort of like ketchup, and my client is the only one that sells the brand that we can compare to Heinz; most of the target audience knows her brand, wants the brand, and has a tough time naming any other brands.

Also important: my client sells both to consumers and B2B clients;  you and I would be ordering a bottle or two (B2C), and restaurants ordering tens of bottles if not hundreds (B2B).

Based on analysis of the search terms and the transaction data of the campaign that runs on Maximize Clicks, both before and after increasing the budget, here’s my current explanation of why spend went up and profit went down:

1. Because of the big brand recognition (‘Heinz’), my client has a far-above-average conversion rate for generic searches (‘ketchup’). Competitors get low value per click for these types of searches -> competitors enter the auction with low bids -> it’s easy for Max Clicks smart bidding to get a lot of these cheap clicks for my client. Increasing the budget of my campaign allowed Smart Bidding to set higher bids for extra clicks from auctions that have higher competition. These are auctions where the competitors enter with higher bids because for these less generic, more bottom-of-funnel-type searches (i.e., “buy spicey ketchup online”) they can convert the click. This resulted in me getting more clicks at higher CPCs that did not have higher conversion rates (sometimes even lower, because our ketchup is spicey, just not as spicey as our competitors).
2. Increasing the budget did not significantly increase the number of B2B orders. It did increase the number of B2C orders, but since the average order value of a B2C order is <15% of the value of a B2B order, overall performance went down.
3. The number of B2B orders did not significantly increase because a lot of the B2B orders are from repeat customers. These customers go to our website simply by entering the same generic search they used the last time they ordered. 
4. Increasing the budget for the Max Clicks campaign did not allow us to attract more repeat customers in the B2B segment; we were already showing up for them most of the time.

Lessons learned:

• Google’s claims and recommendations about smart bidding may be true on average, but that does not mean they are true in your specific situation.
• The dynamics of the ad auction and smart bidding are complex, very complex. It is hard to predict the effect of applying major changes to your settings/targeting. So, Always Be Testing.
• Maximize Clicks can be a very interesting bidding strategy if your value per click for the targeted keywords is much higher than the value of the same for your competitors.

Analyzing the results of your test takes a lot of effort. However, this is how you separate yourself from the other advertisers that simply apply Google’s recommendations. This is how you create a competitive advantage in a world where Google is automating easy tasks.

Next steps for me and my client:
– Improve conversion tracking; create separate conversion actions for B2C and B2B orders
– Create audiences for B2B clients and B2C clients
– Restructure campaigns to target both audiences individually (split remarketing and prospecting)
– Retest smart bidding using data from the new conversion actions

It’s going to be fun!

– Nils

PS: Here’s a link to the email, as promised -> https://nilsrooijmans.com/daily/how-maximize-clicks-took-me-by-surprise

It looked all too promising.

My new retail client wanted to grow revenue as much as possible. 

The only constraint was a POAS target of 1; gross profits should not decrease below the level of the ad spend.

Given that the actual POAS of the account was almost at 3 and my monthly fee is a percentage of ad spend, this felt like my ticket to the FED’s money printer.

It should be very, VERY easy to grow ad spend while meeting both revenue and profit goals. Especially since some of the bigger search campaigns were showing amazing profits, were having conversion rates above 5%, were limited by budget, AND were running Maximize Clicks.

My reasoning at that time:

• Since the campaign is limited by budget, and a POAS of 4.3 is waaay above the target, I can safely increase the budget by 50% for starters and get more clicks and conversions. 
• CPCs might increase a little bit because the budget allows for it, but this will also allow me to enter auctions for clicks that show higher conversion rates.  

The assumption here is that Max Clicks will try to find as many cheap clicks as possible, thus increasing clicks from less competitive auctions with lower CPCs — auctions where the conversion value is relatively low. These are the auctions where other advertisers (and their Smart Bidding) predict low conversion values for the clicks -> low CPC bids -> little competition.

I thought increasing the budget would allow me to enter more competitive auctions with a higher conversion value per click, resulting in more clicks with higher conversion rates. More revenue!

The cost per conversion might go up a little due to increased CPCs, but probably POAS would not suffer greatly because of the increase in conversion rates and/or conversion value. 

Right?

Here’s what happened:

1. Ad spend grew by 40%. (As expected)
2. Number of clicks only grew by 20%. (Also, sort of to be expected)
3. Number of conversions increased by 10%. (Not really what I was hoping for)
4. Conversion value roughly stayed the same. (Definitely not what I expected)
5. Profit (-6%) and POAS (-32%) decrease…

HORROR!

My assumptions on how Max Clicks bidding operated on this campaign were completely wrong.

Tomorrow, I am going to share my thoughts on what happened and how I proceeded with this particular case.

In the meantime, I urge you to question your assumptions.

Especially about Smart Bidding.

Always Be Testing
Always Be Testing
Always Be Testing

– Nils

Hoppa, there we go, ICYMI: beginning in July 2022, you will no longer be able to create new ETAs or edit existing ETAs in Google Ads.

Source:  https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/11031467

For most of us, this move will not come as a surprise. The writing has been on the wall for some time now. Still, a pretty shitty move Google if you ask me.

I like being in control of my creatives and although we still (for now at least) have the option to pin headlines and descriptions, RSAs give us much less control of what exact ad copy is shown to the user.

Let’s hope Google will give us some more data on the actual performance of the different ad components and combinations that show up before removing ETAs altogether. We’ll have to see.

In the meantime, here are some scripts that can help you prepare for the change:

• https://www.karooya.com/blog/rsa-responsive-search-ads-ad-performance-script/
• https://searchengineland.com/will-rsas-help-or-hurt-your-account-this-script-will-help-you-figure-it-out-330199
• https://adsscripts.com/scripts/google-ads-scripts/create-responsive-search-ads
• https://github.com/google/responsive-search-ads-builder/blob/master/rsa_builder.js

– Nils