Author: Nils Rooijmans

It is my mission in PPC life to help you be more productive, and enable you to spend more time on what makes you happy.

If you’re targeting ads to show up in the neighborhoods surrounding your clients’ offices/stores, you know adding radius targeting is annoying beyond belief.

Here’s another tool that I think will benefit a lot of you (discovered on Reddit via /r/PPC today): a Google Sheet that converts your locations into a format that is ready for bulk upload via Editor.

Explainer video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f6S7CMyotU

The sheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ElPaPdflb3a-IGApt361eZ7zOi_23yFL95NcOSr4HzY/edit?usp=sharing

– Nils

Just outside my houseboat, there is a small pathway that connects the street to my front door. The pathway is shouldered by a parking space.  On this pathway, two motorcycles usually decorate the view out of my window.  

Today, some idiot bumped into one of these motorcycles while trying to park his car…

My Ducati fell. Mirror broken.

The point of the story is this: I had to go online and buy a new mirror for the Hypermotard. The transaction was easily paid via iDeal (the favorite payment gateway for Dutchies). And PPC-nerdy me immediately started looking for conversion tracking tags being fired on the thank-you page (please tell me I’m not alone). I couldn’t find the Google Ads conversion tracking.

Most probably, this vendor is tracking conversions via Google Analytics.

And this reminded me of an expensive lesson from my not-too-distant past:

If you are importing transactions via Analytics into Google Ads, and you did not add all the payment options in iDeal (or any other payment processor) to the ‘Google Analytics Referral Exclusion List’, these transactions will not be imported into Google Ads!

The reason is: let’s say furious Nils discovered your super-duper-Hypermotard-mirror-selling-webshop via a Google search and clicked on your ad.  To complete the payment, still-grumpy Nils goes to the website of the selected payment option (e.g., klarna.com, ing.nl). After completing the payment, Nils is slightly relieved and sent to your thank you page. Now in Analytics, this initiates a new session with the website of the selected payment option being the referral. Since Analytics attributes conversions to the last non-direct source/medium, the transaction is being attributed to the domain of the selected payment option (medium: referral). This transaction is not imported by Google Ads.

Here’s my advice: when importing transactions via Analytics into Google Ads, be sure to frequently check your Referrals for attributed conversions. You might want to add some domains to your Referral Exclusion List.

NB: This is especially important if you are running on Smart Bidding, because not having these types of conversions tracked in Google Ads strongly reduces performance.  

– Nils

A list member asked me this question today:

“How do you feel about Brand bidding? (on your own brand)”

Here’s my response: 

“If you want to maximize profits, don’t care about market share, and don’t need to control the brand messaging: Don’t do it.

Reason is: people searching for your brand will almost certainly be able to find you organically (free clicks), and your competitors’ ads will most probably have little impact on them converting on your site.
(Note: for branded searches, it is your business that GENERATED the search query in the first place)

If competitors are bidding on your brand and you want to maximize market share, or you want to control the brand messaging: Do it.

Reason is: first, even if conversion rates for your competitors are gonna be low, there’s still a small portion of your audience that will go for plan B if their ad shows up. Second, your PPC ads’ messaging is almost 100% in your control. You can’t say this for competitors showing up or even your organic listing.
(I love to use sitelinks in my brand campaign to highlight that new product/latest event/black Friday deal/…)“

Now, bidding on your competitors’ brands, that’s a completely different story…

In the end, my conclusion is that Brand bidding mostly benefits the party that allows it. 

Cheers to Google.

– Nils

Which bidding strategy is best?

If you are tied by a small budget and operate in a market with high CPCs, I suggest you go manual.

If you are tied by a small budget and operate in a market with low CPCs and high conversion rates, I suggest you go for Enhanced CPC.

If you don’t have a lot of time to get started, and short-term profitability is not important, I suggest you go for Maximize Clicks.

If your boss told you: “Just use tCPA or tROAS”, I suggest you flip a coin, choose the winner, and look for a better workplace.

– Nils

“As someone who likes to work smarter, not harder, I’m always on the lookout for time-saving inspiration.”

This quote is close to my heart and from a blog post that arrived in my inbox recently. 

The author addresses a “big gear grinding time sink” for PPC Marketers: audience creation in the Google Analytics property admin. 

I agree.

The good news is, he created a Google Sheet to bulk-create Analytics audiences with ease!

If you find yourself spending multiple hours setting up Audiences in Analytics for your clients, be sure to check it out.

Here’s the link: https://www.bedrock42.com/blog/paid-marketers-free-bulk-google-analytics-audience-maker

– Nils

An e-commerce manager walks into a PPC meetup. Asks:

“What is the most disturbing fact you know?”

Crowd screams:

“3 million+ retailers run smart shopping”

– Nils

PS: What’s your response? Would love to know…

As you manage PPC accounts, you need automation.

For instance, measuring conversions requires something like Analytics and/or a tracking script on your thank you page.

Great Google Ads scripts do one of two things:

1) They automate something that is nearly impossible for any human to do

GOOD IDEA: Create a script to check for redirects in all of your campaigns every day (impossible to do manually when the number of landers exceeds double digits)

BAD IDEA: Create a script to disable the “auto-applied ad suggestions by Google” (you should disable this horrible feature, but this is a one-time action that can easily be done manually)

2) Or, they relieve you from a time-consuming or ridiculously mundane repetitive task

GOOD IDEA: Create a script to automatically calculate and set bid adjustments

BAD IDEA: Create a script to update price extensions if you only have a few product price changes every year

Scale beyond what is humanly possible, or drastically reduce your workload. 

That’s what a script should do for you, really.

– Nils

Should you use Broad Match?

That depends…

What’s your goal?

If you are trying to grow your account, your current campaigns aren’t limited by budget, and you are meeting your CPA/ROAS performance targets, then yes, you should.

But if you are still struggling to make a good ROI, then no, you shouldn’t.

Here’s the thing: Broad Match is great for Exploration, not so much for Exploitation.

This goes for both you and the Smart Bidding algorithms.

Embrace with care.

– Nils

Are you running your Shopping campaign on tROAS?

If so, my latest rather surprising (or maybe not) experience might be of interest to you.

Last week, roughly 35% of the products of one of my clients went out of stock. I wish I could say that was because of me, claim victory, and pop another Veuve Clicquot. Unfortunately, it was a supply-side issue that caused the dramatic decrease in inventory.

Since the Shopping campaigns were still early in the game (we started tROAS bidding 4 weeks ago) and the ROAS targets have yet to be met, the campaigns are running on a fixed budget. And then suddenly, the smart AI had one-third of the products missing.

Now make a guess: what happened?

I won’t keep you waiting: CPCs increased by 40%. ROAS tanked.

Why?

Well, “out of stock” items won’t show up in your Shopping ads. But we told Google they are allowed to spend the daily budget right? So, it will.

If you have a lot of products that are out of stock, Google will increase bids on the remaining items to spend the budget. In our case, ignoring the fact that the ROAS target had not been met.

Lesson learned: don’t trust the Google AI to be able to handle dramatic increases in the number of out-of-stock items in your Shopping campaigns.

And, you best believe this little script kiddie here is going to make sure the next time this happens, he will be alerted in time.

Expect a script soon for alerting you of dramatic increases in the number of out-of-stock items in your Shopping campaigns!

– Nils

Are you always looking for new opportunities to spend less time managing your accounts?

Do you want to improve your account performance without the endless clicks in the GAds interface, Excel, and the Editor?

Google Ads Scripts are great for that!

That’s why I’ve spent countless hours searching the web for loads of free Google Ads automation scripts that are out there.

Yesterday, I shared my UPDATED Google Ads Scripts Library, now with over 400 free PPC scripts and examples so you can reap the same benefits I enjoy every day.

You should have received an email with a link to the Google Sheet (check your inbox for ‘Ultimate Google Ads Scripts Collection’).

If you haven’t received the email or haven’t signed up already, here’s the link: https://nilsrooijmans.com/free-google-ads-scripts-the-ultimate-list/

Sharing is Caring: if you enjoy this list, please consider forwarding this email to one, two, or maybe even three other PPC practitioners in your network.

Thanks a ton!

– Nils

Heatmaps are the bomb.

They immediately point your attention to anomalies in your data when looking at large data tables.

Google Analytics and Google Ads present your data in tables but unfortunately don’t offer a heat-mapped view.

This is where our friends from Supermetrics come into play. They created this nice Chrome extension to easily create the heatmap for you:

Here’s the link:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/da-vinci-tools/pekljbkpgnpphbkgjbfgiiclemodfpen

– Nils

PS: If you’re a big fan of heatmaps as well, have a look at this script from Brainlabs –> https://www.brainlabsdigital.com/marketing-library/heat-maps-script/

Do testimonials work? I know they do because I owe my business to one.

Picture a nervous 21-year-old software nerd, sweating like a pig in his worn-out Star Wars t-shirt, and desperately trying to pitch his skills to a Fortune 500 VP of marketing on the way to a formal marketing event. 

The stammering wannabe entrepreneur, of course, is me. The odds were long, and in fact, it’s fair to say I didn’t know anything about sales, let alone how to sell my big idea.

Just walking up to the VP was a gut-wrenching flashback to the job interview from only a year before.

Somehow I did manage to deliver my pitch, but only through the magic of the testimonial.

Instead of the direct approach, I asked a good colleague to prepare the way with a lavish dose of my extremely unique skills. Luckily, this colleague ignored me and instead presented a more humble and accurate picture. This way more true-to-life testimonial surprisingly clinched the sale.

What does this tell us, other than the obvious reflection of my wantrepreneur pitching prowess?

Testimonials work!

• They work because they’re convincing.
• They convey trust.
• They can provide the much-needed social proof that tips a wavering prospect into a paying customer.

Here are my five tips for making the best use of testimonials in your ad copy:

1. Research; go read tens of the most positive reviews on Trustpilot, Amazon, etc.
2. Pick two or three vivid sentences that best describe the benefit the happy customer enjoyed (bonus if it also addresses an objection)
3. Use specifics when available; rather than “I saw a big improvement,” pick one that states exactly what the improvement was, such as, “My hair grew 10 inches in one week” (uhh, well… that brings me to…)
4. Don’t over-edit and never fake it. Testimonials work best when they are in “real” language. Those small grammar and language quirks help the reader connect and demonstrate they are real.
5. Add it to your mix of descriptions in the ad copy and start testing.

– Nils

PS: One of the best ways to get GREAT testimonials is to simply ask. So, here’s my question:

I was wondering if you could share with me some stories of how my work has been helpful to you so far. Hearing about your wins inspires me to keep writing these resources because it feels fulfilling to know that they have a positive impact.

So, if I may ask: has my work been helpful to your GAds account, or career so far? If so, how?

The client is always right about what they want.

(For example: “I want to be the biggest player in horse-shaped jewellery.”)

They are rarely right about what they ask you to do.

(“Put me on top of Google for the keyword ‘jewellery’ and put banners on all gift-related websites.”)

Your job in managing the Google Ads is to reverse engineer what they really want from what they initially asked you to do.

– Nils

Today is my birthday AND it’s been over two months since you last heard from me. That’s why today, I am treating AND giving you an update on what’s going on on my end.

1. The Treat

The treat is one of my favorite homebrew scripts: Negate low-performance search terms.

This script monitors your search term data and automatically creates negative keywords for search terms that had over X clicks and little to no conversions. Negatives are added at the ad group level. If new negatives are added, the negatives are reported via email. The email contains a link to the Google Doc spreadsheet documenting an archive of all the negatives that have been added.

Instructions for the script are in the comments at the top of the source code.

Here’s the link:
https://nilsrooijmans.com/negate-low-performing-search-terms.txt

Now, if this script does not get you to play Stevie’s-greatest-ever (thank you, thank you), I hope this update will:

2. The Update

In the last months, I’ve been working on something I’ve been planning to do for a looong time: offer a workshop to help you create your very own script yourself. And finally… the “Google Ads Scripts for Beginners” workshop is ready! If you want to be on the list for early bird access, hit reply.

Next to finishing the workshop, I also have an update ready for my “Ultimate List with FREE GAds Scripts.” The list grew from 250 to over 400 scripts! If you signed up for the list, the update will be delivered to your inbox later this week.

And to finish, you’ll be receiving my daily emails with “tips & tricks to improve your account and productivity,” restarting today.

Thanks for being here, talk soon!

– Nils

Manual versus Smart Bidding:

– Nils

“How much is a click worth?”

My immediate reaction to this question is: “Whose click?”

My 70 y/o dad would be happy to take that 40% discount on the bottle of whiskey.

My 8 y/o niece wouldn’t convert for at least the next 10 years.

Here’s the thing: the value of a click is NOT solely a property of the keyword.

It’s a combination of many (targeting) dimensions.

Don’t fall into the trap of relying solely on the keyword. 

If you don’t layer the right audience on top of it, you’re effectively leaving money on the table.

Yours,

– Nils

It’s Friday afternoon.

Google Rep picks up the phone and throws a dice:

1. “push Smart Bidding”
2. “push Data-Driven Attribution”
3. “push Broad keywords”
4. “push Dynamic Ads”
5. “suggest to increase budget” 
6. …

What’s 6 on your dice?

– Nils

It’s September 2020.

The earth shattered.

People from all over the world muttered furiously under their breath.

The word was out:

“We are updating the search terms report to only include terms that were searched by a significant number of users. As a result you may see fewer terms in your report going forward”

Signed, your anonymous friends at Google

Another monumental garbage move by the almighty less-do-no-evil-getting big G. 

But hey, what can we do? Not much… except maybe promote Bing some more?

What we can do, however, is monitor the size and impact of this change.

Our friends at smec created a nice little free script to do just that (sign-up required):

The Search Query Illuminator

Here’s what the script will do: the script generates a Google Sheet reporting the percentage of Clicks, Impressions, Cost, and Conversions from unknown search terms, for periods before and after the change.

And here’s what that looks like in one of my accounts:

(I am seeing sort of the same pattern in most of my accounts.)

How has the search term data change impacted your accounts? 

Hit reply — I read every one of them.

– Nils

A fellow list member asked me this question today:

“How do you run search and display in one campaign?”

Here’s my response:

“It’s called “Display Expansion” for search ads.

See details: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7193800?hl=en

I highly recommend to NOT use this because it will make analyzing performance much harder and the performance of the Display part almost always sucks (pardon my language).”

The reason the Display part of this campaign type shows horrible results is hidden in this one sentence in the Google documentation:

“Search campaigns that have spare search budgets and are opted into display expansion” 

Sure, you might reach a lot of extra people by adding Display to the mix, but they most likely won’t be the right people.

Search ads and Display ads almost always require a different strategy, different targeting, different messaging, different creatives, different budgets, etc. 

Avoid “Display Expansion” like COVID. It is designed to make Google money, not you. Choose ‘Search Network only’ to start.

– Nils

Here’s a thought:

Add a separate (second) conversion action with additional value for each new customer to push the SSC algorithms to attract more new customers.

– Nils