Author: Nils Rooijmans

Here’s a day-to-day reality for many PPC specialists: ad extensions get disapproved, out of the blue, for various reasons.

Call extensions get disapproved because of an “unverified phone number.” Sitelinks get disapproved because of “destination not working.” The list goes on…

Today’s catch is a script that alerts you when this happens.

https://medium.com/@postman31/disapproved-extensions-report-314bff9539ae

Tip for the pros: you can create a script to alert you and/or resubmit disapproved extensions (i.e., changing the number on Call extensions to something random and back automatically resubmits them). This will save you a lot of headaches.

– Nils

Sometimes, the simplest tools can have the biggest impact.

“In October 1935, US Army Air Corps brass gathered at an airfield in Dayton, Ohio. They’d come to see two aircraft builders pit their planes against each other in a series of trials, with the best-performed aircraft getting its builder a lucrative contract for new long-range bombers. In theory, the two rivals, Boeing Corporation and Martin & Douglas, had an equal chance of winning the contract. But in reality, the result seemed a foregone conclusion.

The smaller Martin & Douglas plane just couldn’t compete with Boeing’s bigger, more powerful Model 299. This imposing aircraft boasted a 103-foot wingspan, four engines (the norm was two), five times the specified number of bombs, and twice the range of its predecessors. Rumour had it that the army had pretty much already decided to order 65 of what one newspaperman had dubbed ‘the flying fortress’.

The Model 299, carrying five crew members, made for an impressive sight as it taxied onto the runway and then roared off to rise gracefully into the sky. But as the army chiefs and manufacturing executives looked on, the plane stalled at 300 feet, tipped sharply and crashed to the ground. Two of the crew were killed, including the pilot, Major Ployer P. Hill.

An investigation found that Major Hill had been preoccupied with the many procedures required to fly the complex new plane, from monitoring the variable oil–fuel mix in each engine to adjusting the pitch of the constant-speed propellers. Because of this, he’d forgotten to release the rudder and elevator controls. But while the tragedy was blamed on ‘pilot error’, the implication was that the Model 299 was too complicated to be safe – as one reporter put it, it was ‘too much airplane for one man to fly’. The army contract was awarded to Martin & Douglas; Boeing’s business was ruined almost to the point of bankruptcy.

But some in the Army Air Corps still thought the Model 299 was the better aircraft. So a group of test pilots got together to work out how further accidents could be avoided. They ruled out more training – Major Hill had been in charge of flight testing and couldn’t have been more experienced. Instead, they came up with a stunningly simple idea. Previously, flying a plane had been fairly easy for a pilot to manage. But aeronautical advances now meant there were too many things going on in the cockpit for one person to handle. What was needed, the test pilots decided, was a checklist.

The pilots kept their checklist straightforward but comprehensive, including even the most obvious actions – release the brakes, close all doors and windows, unlock the elevator controls, and so on. Everything a pilot needed to remember was there, on a single index card. And it did the trick. Using their checklist, the pilots flew the Model 299 for a total of 1.8 million miles without incident. The Army Air Corps subsequently ordered thousands of the flying fortresses, renaming them B-17s and using them to devastating effect during World War 2.“

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right (2009)

Google Ads is a flying fortress. 

Surprisingly, even more so now big G is trying to dumb it down.

Too many things can go wrong. 

And when they do, you don’t want to be the Major Hill.

Luckily for us, we can automate the monitoring of our accounts and have our checklists ready.

– Nils

Fellow list member Hana Kobzová sent in this success story about applying yesterday’s tip on using Twitter search to find expert advice on PPC-related topics (shared with permission):
 

Hello Nils,

How are you? Thank you for your quick tip everyday!

Today I have found a real gem thanks to you!

I was thinking, people don’t use #ppcchat globally, so lets try #googleads search terms and I have found this awesome trick. 

When adding new keywords directly from the search terms report we often add them as exact keywords (not broad).

By adding the javascript I discoverd as a bookmark we are able to do so in bulk, with just with one click for all keywords!

[…]

I have already tried it and it works! 

Here is the source I found using your tip:

https://twitter.com/bastien31/status/1171828235950338048

Have a great day and thank you!

Hana

That’s right, folks! Tinker with the Twitter search queries and be surprised by the results. It doesn’t always work, but it works more often than you think.

Give it a shot. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
 
– Nils

Quick tip for today — whenever Google pulls one of its tricks or releases a new feature, this is where I seek expert advice:

1. https://twitter.com/search?q=%23ppcchat%20search%20terms
2. https://twitter.com/search?q=%23ppcchat%20lead%20form%20extension

TIP: Try replacing the ‘search terms’ of the ‘lead form’ part with one of the latest features you’ve been experimenting with.

Let me know what you find, I am curious to learn. 🙂

– Nils

Back in 1986, Optimus Prime, the primary hero of the Autobots, was actually killed off in the Transformers movie. He was killed because merchandise manufacturer Hasbro needed to make way for new, more expensive toys.

I saw the movie in the theater with my brother. I had to console him for days. There was no one to console me. 

Eventually, Optimus Prime was resurrected due to Hasbro underestimating the backlash of his death.

Me and my brother, we could sleep again.

Sort of the same thing happened to one of my clients recently.

They paused a high-volume keyword with low conversion rates, to spend more budget on better-performing keywords.

Performance tanked.

It turned out they were using last-click attribution and did not take assisted conversions into account when pausing the keyword. The client underestimated the amount of demand that was being generated by this top-of-funnel keyword.

The moral of the story: always, always, always take assisted conversion value into account when judging the value of top-of-funnel keywords.

ACTION: Why not check the assisted conversion value for your top keywords today?

– Nils

Today’s inbox had a surprise for me.

One of the subject lines reads:

“[GAds Script | BRAND Alert] Impr Share below target for account xyz”

The email was generated by one of the scripts that monitor my BRAND campaigns.

Like many of us, I like to aim for 100% absolute top impression rate for brand keywords.

My script was originally created to alert me whenever a competitor starts bidding aggressively on keywords with my brand name. This kind of competitor bidding often results in my brand keyword’s absolute top impression rate dropping below 95%. When that happens, you know it is time to increase some bids and call some of your best “friends”.

Not this time, though.

Upon further inspection, it turns out the drop in my impression share wasn’t caused by any of the competitors.

It was Google!

The “close variant matching”-thing is working its magic and matching something like [eazzysleep] to ‘eazzzy mattress’.

You gotta love the creative genius in that, right?

Ughhh…

Here’s today’s advice: if you haven’t done so lately, you might want to check those SQRs in your brand campaigns and negate some keywords. (Pro tip: add it to your calendar as a recurring monthly check.)

– Nils

Let me share a secret with you.

Ever since I watched ‘That Sugar Film’ I’ve been hypochondriacal about sugar.

“Does it come without sugar?” has become one of my favorite lines.

Not only IRL but also on Google:
“granola without sugar”,
“tasty food without sugar”,
“buy bitcoin without sugar”,
“sugar without sugar”…

You get the idea.

However, when I look at the ads that show up, they rarely promote this feature. Instead, headlines scream all kinds of other benefits like “Granola that Nourishes your Body,” “Tasty Food for Less,” etc…

Missed opportunities if you ask me.

That’s why I started testing the ‘without-modifier’ in my accounts.

The recipe is simple:

1. Create a new ad group 
2. Add your product or service keyword plus ‘+without’ to the ad group
3. Monitor your search terms
4. For every search term that your product/service can deliver upon, create a new ad group
5. In the new ad group, address the users’ wishes as your USP in the ad copy 

Examples:

• “Need Granola without Sugar?”
• “Zero Sugar Food that just tastes great.”

This strategy will dramatically increase your chances of getting the click. And the conversion too, if your landing page is in sync with your messaging.

What are your favorite adjectives, adverbs, or any other kind of word that will bring the searcher more specific results?

– Nils

Here’s a question of nonsensical proportions:

“Ever experienced a terribly slow-loading Google Ads interface?”

It’s probably the biggest time suck for any PPC professional managing Google Ads.

Next to using Google Ads Editor as much as possible, here are some fixes:

1) Open up all your views in separate tabs. 

Simply right-click the link to that campaign or ad group, open it in a new tab, and navigate your way in there. If you need to go back, simply click on the prior tab. This will save you a ton of frustration because you would not need to reload every view every time.

PRO TIP: All these tabs consume a lot of RAM, so use an extension like The Great Suspender to close them when you are not actively using the view.

2) Next time you’re confronted with the spinning Google Ads interface, click this link to keep you mentally sane.

3) Still frustrated and struggling with brutal load times? Try clearing your browser cache and cookies.  

4) The last resort: get yourself a more powerful computer.

The Google Ads interface is computationally expensive. More CPU power and RAM will go a long way.

– Nils

We all measure our return on our ad spend, right?

We all know we need to track both the cost and the conversion value.

That is simply because we improve our account’s performance by measuring
and analyzing both the ad spend and the return.
ROAS (or its nephew CPA for that matter) guides us on what parts of our
accounts to improve. Without the data, we would be shooting in the dark.

Yet, when it comes to our own personal performance we track nothing.

How do we as PPC Specialists perform?
What parts of our actions really made a difference?
What tasks are merely a time sink?

If we want to increase our performance as a PPC Specialist,
we need to keep track of both our investment (time & energy), and
it’s returns (improvements in the results of our ad accounts).

Analysing the resulting data will give us trustworthy insights into
the different PPC-related tasks we need to optimize.
We want to spend more time on the things that really move the needle, and
we want to reduce the cost (time & energy) of tasks that have low returns.

That’s why today, I started tracking my Return On Hours Spend.

For every PPC-related task I track the time involved in finishing
the job, and I force myself to quantify the impact of the changes I made
next week/next month.

It might not be any fun. But I know a month from now, it’ll make me happy.

— Nils

Hi All,

Happy New Year!

2020 had been a chaotic year. I’ve only been emailing you once a month or so. Sorry for that.

Thank God it’s 2021. Finally! The year we get back to spending time on the things we love doing most.

Today, I want to thank you for sticking around. I am humbled by your trust! (And I’m working really hard to make my material as helpful as I can.)

This year, I am going to start off with something crazy. I am going to experiment with short, sweet daily emails to help you get the most out of your PPC efforts. I guarantee you are going to get value out of each mail that drops in your inbox. 

You are automatically subscribed to these emails already. If you do not want to receive these daily PPC Productivity snacks, you can click “Unsubscribe” below. 

But if you want to hang around, stay tuned for Monday’s first message which is going to be on how to significantly boost your performance this year.

Here’s to 2021. May you become the best of all that you admire.

– Nils

I’m a lucky guy. I am in the Caribbean right now, trying to escape lockdowns and keep life sane. My current view consists of a blue sky, and a bright, breezy bay. The water is blue with a twilight blue-greenish undertone. The only thing between me, the beach and my surfboard is the screen and keyboard that I am using to type these letters. You best believe I want to spend as less time as possible behind this device right now!

That’s why I’ll keep this one short and share with you my latest discoveries to increase my PPC Productivity. So you can spend less time behind your screen as well, wherever you are. 

Be safe, stay sane. 

– Nils

---

INSTALL: Stay Focusd Chrome Extension

I have to admit, even though I consider myself a productivity geek, I find myself refreshing the BTC price tab waaay too often lately. Luckily, this extension crossed my path. Stay Focusd increases your productivity by limiting the amount of time you can spend on time-wasting websites.

➥  ACTION: If you check the news more than twice a day, or refresh your social timelines every 10 minutes, this one is for you.

---

USE: Google Ads Keyboard Shortcuts

Really, really, really saves you a lot of clicks when managing your campaigns via the interface.

➥  ACTION: Try every one of the 10 navigation shortcuts for the next 5 days and you will thank me next week.

---

LEARN: Learn How to Export Google Ads Data to Google Sheets, Using Scripts in 20 mins

My latest writing to help you discover and apply the power of Google Ads Scripts; step-by-step instructions to automatically report (alert) data in Google Sheets.

➥  ACTION: Block 20 mins of your time today, easily recouped in the near future. I promise.

Please check out my selection of the best Google Ads scripts 2020 has to offer thus far. Short descriptions are provided along with links to the scripts.

https://nilsrooijmans.com/the-best-google-ads-scripts-of-2020/

What is the latest script that got you overexcited? I’d love to know!

– Nils

Many of us are enjoying a vacation right now, so I’ll keep this one short.

---

READ: Why More Traffic Can Mean Less Revenue

A golden oldie.

➥ ACTION: Take 5 minutes to read it. Then, answer these 3 questions:

• Who/what are you using as your “smart Bob”?
• How do you ensure your “tools to measure value are very accurate”?
• How do you “keep Bob from wasting money on customers who were walking into your store anyway”?

---

LISTEN: PPC Rockstars

The PPC Rockstars podcast is your ticket to the juiciest tips, tactics, and techniques on all things PPC, straight from the industry’s foremost paid marketing thought leaders.

➥ ACTION: Relax at the beach. Take a sip of that cocktail. Listen to the latest updates in our field.

---

INSTALL: Script to check if account is offline

You are not the only one enjoying the summertime. Your client might be doing the same right now. And she just might have forgotten to add some money to the credit card… resulting in the account being down due to payment issues. If/when this happens, you want to be alerted straight away so your client does not unnecessarily miss any leads and/or revenue.

➥ ACTION: A no-brainer. Just install the script to be the first to know when an account goes down.

---

LOOSE ENDS: Tired of Zoom meetings that serve no purpose? Here’s an escape: https://imgur.com/k9p0AJQ

– Nils

Here’s a quick update on my latest endeavors.

Scripts Done For You (Coming Soon)

Maybe the language of code looks like ancient Greek to you. Or you’re afraid that installing scripts will result in disaster: completely ruined setups and account performance. Your worst nightmare.

It seems safer to just keep doing things manually. Spending hours in Excel isn’t as bad as scripts automagically removing all of your ads, is it?

You know scripts can make your working day feel like a breeze… you just don’t think YOU can get them to work for YOUR account.

You’ve tried copy-pasting some scripts in the past, but error messages were all over the place. Or, you tried to run it, but then… nothing. You felt dumb.

You THINK you simply don’t have the skills to have scripts make you shine like a real PPC Rockstar.

BUT WHAT IF YOU COULD?

Well, you can.

Safely install and run scripts in your accounts with my ‘Scripts Done For You” – Google Ads Script Installation service.

Start with the best scripts. Master script installation like a pro. Run your scripts with total confidence.

You’ll be able to order this service before the end of the month.

Right now, I’m looking for thoughts on some of the details I’ve added lately. I’d like to get your feedback and opinion on it. In return, you will receive early bird access to the service once it goes live later this month.

Interested? Hit reply.

Now, on to today’s notes…

---

READ: SMB Google Ads Onboarding Checklist

A nice checklist shared by one of our PPC friends on Reddit.

➥ ACTION: Compare the list to your own. Anything missing?

---

WATCH: Google Ads Automated Rules Tutorial And Best Examples

Last week, I posted a Q on Linkedin: “What do you think are the most underused features in Google Ads?”

The response was overwhelming and one of the features that got mentioned the most was Automated Rules. So…

➥ ACTION: Get yourself a coffee. Watch the 12-minute video (TIP: 1.5x times the speed). Try at least one new automated rule today!

---

LOOSE ENDS: Here’s a tweet I’m pondering…

– Nils

Here are some quick updates on what has been keeping me busy lately.

New Service (Coming Soon)

“What scripts should I be running in every one of my accounts?”

“Scripts are scary! How can I be 100% sure the scripts do not mess up my account?“

“How do I safely re-configure this script to meet my specific needs?”

These are the types of questions I get the most during my Strategy Calls when people consult me on how to boost their Google Ads performance via scripts.

In fact, I get these questions so much that I decided to create a new service.

It’ll be called: ‘Done For You – Google Ads Script Installation & Configuration’

In a 1-hour video call, you and I will select, install, and configure the 5 most valuable scripts for your account. By the end of the call, you will have the scripts running smoothly in your accounts, improving your productivity AND account performance regardless of the industry you’re in. As a bonus, you will have an increased understanding of what scripts can do for you and how you can safely make minor changes yourselves.

I’m aiming to have my agenda and scheduling software ready before the end of June. Stay tuned. Also, the first 3 people to respond to this email with their favorite color will get it for 0 dollars, 0 cents. Just hit reply.

Now, on to today’s tips and tricks…

READ: How Making Pages 2 Seconds Faster Boosted Conversions By 66%

According to the article, 18% of people who abandon their shopping carts blame slow load times. Imagine that for 2 seconds.

➥  ACTION: Test the page load times of your landers using both webpagetest.org and Google Lighthouse.

—

WATCH: How to add bold text to your headlines

A nice little hack: how to add bold text to your headlines and descriptions.

➥  ACTION: While we still can, use it to improve the CTR for your number one ad group. 

—

LOOSE ENDS

Music: The recent past turned out to be a great place to go through my 2,500+ vinyl record collection. Here’s a gem that has been hiding from me far too long: Ignacio – Organa

Exercise: No need to explain further — the whole world is upside down, best make the best of it.

– Nils

Hi All,

Here are 3 quick things I’ve been enjoying or pondering.

---

3-minute READ: Three Great Google Ads Filters

➥ ACTION: Test these three in your account, then come up with three more filters that are even more valuable.

---

3-minute WATCH: Google Ads IF Function Run Through

➥ ACTION: If you’ve never used the IF ad customizer feature — watch the video, and why not try it for ‘device’ as a starter?

---

3-minute CHECK: PPC Management Checklist

Get the rhythm when you get the blues.

– Nils