vs
Patience Hurlburt-Lawton, John Moran, Kasim Aslam
Google Ads
The Unauthorized Guide To
Very
This book comes with a massive library of resources and other
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Praise for You vs. Google
“If you are looking to up your game when it comes to Google Ads, get this book.”
Tom Breeze
World Authority | YouTube
“Kasim is THE MAN when it comes to understanding how to get good leads with great clients that
convert into real money.”
Tommy Mello
9-Figure Entrepreneur & CEO | A1 Garage Door
Bestselling Author of Home Service Millionaire
“The book is phenomenal, you´ve got to get it, it’s going to make you smarter.”
Steve Sims
“The Real Life Wizard of Oz” – Forbes
Bestselling Author of Bluefishing and Go For Stupid
“Kasim is the #1 expert in the world when it comes to generating traffic to your business using the
Google platform and ecosystem.”
Ryan Levesque
Inc. 500 CEO | The ASK Method® Company

1 National Bestselling Author of the Books Choose and Ask

“I highly recommend anybody to read this book ... they are the number one experts when it comes to
Google.”
Ralph Burns
Founder & CEO | Tier11
The Top Facebook Ad Agency In The World
“Kasim is the best in the business. If you are looking for someone knowledgeable in Google Ads, this
is where you are going to look.”
Rachel Pedersen
‘Queen of Social Media’
International Bestselling Author of Unfiltered
“Google kinda scared me a lot! And what I love about what Kasim has done is that he has broken it
down into steps so anyone can become a marketer at Google.”
Rachel Miller
CEO | Moolah Marketing

1 Organic Traffic Strategist in the World

“You´ve got to read this book, it is going to be a best-seller.”
Phillip Stutts
CEO | Win Big Media
Bestselling Author of The Undefeated Marketing System
Top Political Marketing Authority in the World (1,535 Election Victories, Including 3 U.S.
Presidential)
“They communicate complex concepts in ways that not only allow you to understand the subject itself
but also to see those issues.”
Neil Moore
Author, Speaker, Revolutionary Educator
Founder | Simply Music (700 locations worldwide)
“He is truly the foremost expert when it comes to Google ads ... The thing he has been able to do to
help us and to show us opportunities to me and to my team are incredibly valuable.”
Justin Donald
Founder | Lifestyle Investor Mastermind
Bestselling author of The Lifestyle Investor
“I highly recommend you pay attention to this.”
Joe Polish
“The Most Connected Man In The World”
Founder | Genius Network
Bestselling Author of What’s in It for Them?
“READ it and LEARN.”
Jacques van der Wilt
Founder & CEO | DataFeedWatch
“When it comes to all things digital, Kasim and Solutions 8 are the cream of the crop.”
Dave Conklin
Inc. 500 Founder & CEO | Conklin Media
Global Authority in SEO
“When it comes to Google Advertisement, Kasim and Solutions 8 know more than anybody else
right now. You better freaking read it if you want to know what is good and what is hot on Google
Ads right now.”
Alex Cattoni
Founder | The Copy Posse
DigitalMarketer Marketer of the Year, 2022
“Inside of this industry, there are many people that profess to know a lot about Google Ads but 9 times
out of 10 when it comes down to it and you ask them how they learned Google Ads they will say over
and over it was Kasim Aslam who helped them crack the code.”
Adam Lyons
“The Millionaire Maker”
CEO | The S.M.A.R.T. Blueprint
Advisor to over 500 brands
“If you want to understand Google, you need to run out and buy Kasim’s book ... The information it’s
got in there is freaking insane. You need that book today.”
Brian Galke
Founder & CEO | Subtle Skills
Master Communications Expert, International Speaker
PART ONE
The Basics of Google Ads
CHAPTER ONE
The Basics: PPC and The Google Network 3
CHAPTER TWO
How Google Ads Works 12
CHAPTER THREE
Helpful Terms to Understand Google Ads 18
CHAPTER FOUR
A Deeper Dive into Google Ads 21
CHAPTER FIVE
Is Google Ads Right for Your Business? 28
CHAPTER SIX
Google Ads: Core Concepts 30
PART TWO
Google Ads for Lead Generation
CHAPTER ONE
Prerequisites for Lead Generation 40
CHAPTER TWO
Google Account Setup 51
CHAPTER THREE
Conversion Tracking Setup 59
CHAPTER FOUR
Campaign Types + Building Key Campaign #1: Branded 86
CHAPTER FIVE
Key Campaign #2: General Campaign 104
CHAPTER SIX
Key Campaign #3: Competitor Campaign 120
CHAPTER SEVEN
Key Campaign #4: Remarketing Campaign 132
CHAPTER EIGHT
Key Campaign #5: DSA Campaign 152
CHAPTER NINE
Key Campaign #6: Performance Max 157
CHAPTER TEN
Negative Keyword List 159
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Campaign Management 162
CHAPTER TWELVE
Go Live! 175
PART THREE
Google Ads for eCommerce
CHAPTER ONE
Prerequisites for eCommerce Businesses 172
CHAPTER TWO
Setting Up The Foundation 183
CHAPTER THREE
Technical and Legal Requirements 191
CHAPTER FOUR
Connecting Your Tech Stack 196
CHAPTER FIVE
Setting Up Your Campaigns: Shopping Campaigns 227
CHAPTER SIX
Search Campaigns 240
CHAPTER SEVEN
Expansion Campaigns 254
CHAPTER EIGHT
Optimization 262
PART FOUR
Google Ads for YouTube
CHAPTER ONE
All About YouTube 269
CHAPTER TWO
Google Ads for YouTube: 101 278
CHAPTER THREE
YouTube Ads: Core Concepts 287
CHAPTER FOUR
Prerequisites 291
CHAPTER FIVE
Creating Your Video Ads 301
CHAPTER SIX
Setting Up Your Accounts 306
CHAPTER SEVEN
General Campaign Setup 339
PART FIVE
Performance Max
CHAPTER ONE
Google Ads Then and Now 361
CHAPTER TWO
Performance Max: New Priorities, New Structure 365
CHAPTER THREE
Performance Max Prerequisites 379
CHAPTER FOUR
Performance Max for Lead Generation 381
CHAPTER FIVE
Performance Max for eCommerce 399
PART SIX
How to Pick a Google Ads Agency
CHAPTER ONE
In-House PPC Advertisers Vs Agencies 423
CHAPTER TWO
Qualifications of the Right Agency (and What Questions to Ask) 425
CHAPTER THREE
A Final Word 442
APPENDIX
Performance Max Best Practices, FAQs, and How-Tos 443
PART ONE
The Basics of Google Ads
Yep, this really is the ultimate guide to learn about Google Ads:
How the platform works, how to set up a campaign according to your business type, and how
to grow and adapt with those campaigns.
But first, let’s tell you what this book won’t do:
We won’t promise to double your traffic overnight.
In fact, we won’t even promise to double your traffic. And how could we? We know nothing
about your business, your current traffic, or your current campaigns (if you’re running Google
Ads already).
Any book or article or “thought leader” who promises anything when it comes to Google
Ads is probably untrustworthy as heck. But promising to double your traffic? Red flag. And
overnight? Get out while you can.
I guess this is an excellent segue to our first lesson in the world of Google Ads:
• There are no guarantees
• Google Ads can only be as successful as the business model
• Google Ads takes time
• Google Ads strategy (and features) change regularly
• Google Ads is the most powerful advertising platform on the planet if you know how
to use it
Ahh, now that last part. This is where our book shines. See, by the time we publish this
baby, Google Ads will have already changed in some small way. It’s the nature of the platform.
However, we are going to teach you the “why” behind our Google Ads strategy in addition to
what buttons to push. So when Google’s platform inevitably changes again (and again), you’ll be
able to think critically without our help. Or, when it comes time to optimize your campaigns or
change your goals—you’ll know exactly what to do using your own brilliant brain.
And one last thing: This guide is for everyone, whether you’re an absolute beginner to digital
marketing altogether or a PPC agency owner. We will meet you wherever you are and provide
helpful guidance and mega value so you can see true, sustainable Google Ads success.
Here’s how it works:
While we recommend at least skimming through Part One, you are invited to jump ahead to
Part Two (if you’re a lead generation business) or Part Three (if you’re an eCommerce business).
Once there, we’ll cover the more technical side of building Google Ads campaigns, including
prerequisites and website checklists and the step-by-step tutorial to set up your campaigns from
start to finish (and beyond).
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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GOOGLE ADS
Chapter One
The Basics: PPC and The
Google Network
Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) is a form of pay-per-click advertising (PPC).
Quick Refresher! What Is PPC Advertising?
PPC is one of the many flavors of digital marketing out there (other flavors include social media
marketing, search engine optimization, and email marketing).
Now, when we use a search engine (like Google, but also Bing or Yahoo) to answer a question or perform a search for us, ads typically appear at the top of the results page (sometimes the
bottom or the side of the page, too):
These ads look just like an organic search result; and the advertiser only pays a fee to the
search engine if the ad is clicked (see: pay per click).
Reminder: Paid Vs. Organic
Paid search results = Ads that appear on the Google
search results page.
Organic search results = All other search results that
are not advertisements.
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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GOOGLE ADS
...But PPC ads are also those pesky ads that play before watching your favorite cat video:
And, PPC ads are also those ads for cotton tank tops that follow you everywhere since you
browsed an online sale the other day.
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The Basics: PPC and The Google Network
...But PPC can also refer to those ads you see while doom-scrolling on social media.
Confused yet ?Don’t sweat it:
TL;DR
• PPC advertising = pay-per-click advertising (advertisers only pay if their ad is clicked)
• PPC advertising = paid ads that appear online via search engine result pages, videos,
apps, websites, and social media
• PPC is effective because it reaches out to prospects who have already shown interest
Now, Back to Google Ads:
The #1 PPC Advertising System on the Planet
There are several platforms under the umbrella of PPC advertising: Bing, Yahoo, Microsoft Ads,
Reddit—remember, even social platforms’ advertising is technically considered PPC (think of
those ads you see on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Pinterest).
Obviously, this book will focus on Google and Google Ads specifically. And you made the
right move by choosing Google Ads as your advertising platform of choice, too.
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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GOOGLE ADS
What Is Google, Really?
Bear with us for a minute…
Google is like a librarian.
The librarian (Google) works inside a library (the internet). And there are a ton of books and
videos and old newspapers and magazines inside that building; basically, every resource that has
been published, good and bad.
The librarian’s primary job is to collect and sort each resource inside the library.
So, when a reader (internet user) visits the library, the librarian (Google) can personally help
them find the best possible resource for what they need.
This “librarian” is a little nosey.
...like, follows you around the library nosey.
Yeah, it’s probably no surprise that Google tracks everything you click, search, and browse—
then, it uses that information to build your user “profile.”
So, using our library analogy again, the librarian is pretty observant as soon as you walk
through the door: taking note of how old you are, what you’re wearing, if you came in with kids
or if you’re wearing a wedding band. They look up your checkout history, what kind of books
16
The Basics: PPC and The Google Network
you’ve taken out before, how often you visit, and if you mentioned liking (or disliking) a particular author or genre…
Creepy? Yes. But, well intentioned. Because:
Google’s number one priority is relevancy.
Google’s job as the “internet librarian” is to provide the most helpful, custom-tailored search
results for its users.
TL;DR
• Google Ads is the #1 PPC advertising platform on the planet
• Google’s main job as “librarian of the internet” is to collect and organize every online
resource and offer the best ones in order, according to your search (this includes ads)
• Google takes your personal information into account to offer these relevant resources
The Google Network:
Much More Than a Search Engine
Now, we tend to think of Google as the search engine, right?
But the truth is that Google’s ecosystem is massive and includes:
• YouTube
• Gmail
• Apps (think Google Calendar)
• Google Maps
• Android
• The Google Display Network
And before we go further, let’s meditate on something:
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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GOOGLE ADS
Google is the closest thing to AI that is
publically available today. It’s a machine
that thinks.
We’ve been trained to turn to Google with every question we have. Your Google search history is one of the most intimate insights into who you are, which gives Google a chance to know
you on a deeper level than you might even know yourself.
Now, we all know that Google learns a lot about you from your searches from good ol’
Google.com. But each limb of the Google ecosystem also learns a lot about you by design. Let’s
take a look:
Google Search
We use Google search to answer our questions and find our
“wants.” From these searches, Google knows:
• What you want
• What you’re afraid of
• What you don’t know
• What problems you have
YouTube
Google’s closest competitor is its own entity: YouTube. Now
think about how you use YouTube to search. How to fix a leaky
faucet. At-home workouts. Music videos from the ‘90s. This is
all intimate insight into:
• When you’re slacking off
• What you want to learn
• What you love and hate
• When you’re vulnerable
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The Basics: PPC and The Google Network
Gmail
Even if you don’t have a Gmail account, Google collects information from the conversations you have with people who do.
Think about the emails you send and receive. Through Gmail,
Google knows:
• How productive you are
• When you work
• Who you communicate with and in what context
Apps
Google’s apps (like Google Calendar) knows:
• What you store on your devices
• Your schedule
• What you and your loved ones look like (seriously)
• Who you meet
Maps
Every time you look up directions to a friend’s house, a store, a
cross-country destination, Google learns:
• Where you live
• Where you work
• Where you go to eat, play, shop
• If you speed when you drive(!)
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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GOOGLE ADS
Android
If you have an Android phone (or communicate with someone
who does), surprise! Google knows:
• Who you call
• Who calls you
• Who you ignore
• When you lie (“Hey, Mom! I’m on my way!”)
TL;DR
• Google is more than a search engine; it is also YouTube, email, apps (like Google
Calendar), Google Maps, and Android
• Google is everywhere and knows everything (only about 4% kidding here)
• Google collects information about you and your life and therefore:
• ...Google can predict intent—which means it can put somebody who’s willing to buy
your product in front of your ad before the user even knows they want to buy
In short, Google is the world’s most powerful data acquisition machine. It’s a trillion-dollar
tool that everyone uses for free. So, if it’s free, how does it generate revenue?
See: Google Ads.
2 0
The Basics: PPC and The Google Network
Chapter Two
How Google Ads Works
Google Ads is Google’s advertising platform. As we mentioned in Chapter One, most people recognize
Google Ads as those results at the top of a Google search results page, branded with a small [AD] box:
And while this is a perfectly fine explanation of Google Ads, it’s actually only one form of
Google Ads, specifically Google Search Ads.
The Different Types of Google Ads (i.e. Campaign Types)
When you advertise your product or service through Google, you aren’t limited to those search engine
advertisements (referred to as “Search Campaigns”), although they are arguably the best place to start.
Remember how vast the Google network is? For every piece of “real estate” owned by Google
(email, search engines, YouTube, apps) there is a way to advertise. Now that we’ve covered the
real estate, let’s explain the different types of Google Ads campaigns:
Google Search Campaigns
Again, you’ll recognize these ads as the first results that pop up on the top of a Google search
results page.
Google Shopping Campaigns
This campaign type is for eCommerce businesses. These ads can also look like search ads but
with more razzle dazzle: including pictures and product features. These ads can also be expanded
to other types of responsive display ads.
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How Google Ads Works
Google Display Campaigns
Let’s say you want to find a new recipe for dinner tonight, so you go to your favorite cooking
website for some inspiration. Chances are, somewhere around the
border of the page, you’ll see a display ad. Websites that allow advertisements to take up space on their pages are paid for each click or
impression, and the advertiser is able to target their audience. The ads
are usually an image (see: “display”).
This is a good way to think of display ads:
• Google is the realtor.
• Websites are the landlords.
• The advertisers are the tenants.
Video Campaigns
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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GOOGLE ADS
The second largest search engine on the planet is YouTube. You
can make video ads that pop up before, after, or in the middle of
a YouTube video.
These video ads can also appear at the top of a YouTube search:
But! Video campaigns are not just for YouTube. These types of
ads can appear through Google display network (see above) and
other areas of Google’s ecosystem.
App Campaigns
App campaigns allow you to promote
your app across Google’s networks,
including Google Search, Display,
YouTube, and Google Play (the app,
game, ebook, and general entertainment store for Android devices).
Google Discovery Campaigns
Google Discovery ads appear on Discover, YouTube,
and Gmail and are a great way to “touch base” with customers by offering coupons, promotions, or unique selling
points to push them to buy.
24
How Google Ads Works
Performance Max Campaigns
The newest campaign type, Performance Max is a goal-based, audience-oriented, algorithmically-controlled campaign on Google and
across the web. “PMax” rocked the world of Google Ads because it is
so wildly different: You give Google a goal, a bunch of images and ad
copy, and it mixes and matches those assets to show your ads across
the Google ecosystem. And as of July 2022, it replaced all Smart
Shopping campaigns.
Believe it or not, there’s more.
But for the sake of this guide, our sanity, and your business, we’re going to do our best to simplify
the campaign structure in a way that’ll apply to the majority of businesses.
Please be aware:
There are many exceptions and it is difficult to offer
“golden rules” because of how unique every business is.
The Foundation: Google (Search) Ads
If you’re new to Google Ads, it’s a good idea to start with search campaigns.
Why? Because Google search is the strongest indicator of intent. And while all Google Ads
campaign types have their place, search is an excellent foundation for your future campaigns.
Remember, when somebody is ready to buy a product or a service, what do they do?
Google it.
So if you have a relevant product or service, where better to meet your prospective customers?
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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GOOGLE ADS
How the Google Search Advertising
Network Works
For this section, we will primarily focus on Google search ads.
This campaign type comprises the (up to four) ads that land at the top of the search results page.
While these are marked with a subtle “Ad” tag, Google really prioritizes ads over organic results.
Whether organic or paid, however, Google values relevance over all. In fact, if your paid ad
is more relevant to the search, you will rank higher (meaning your ad will appear in one of those
top slots) and pay less for a click.
This is Google’s way of getting their user base to trust them. And, even if you think you never
click on the paid results—the data shows otherwise. In fact, 67% of all high commercial intent
keyphrases go to a paid ad. We’ll reiterate:
When someone wants to buy, two out of three(!) of those Google searches result in clicking
on an ad. That tells us that when people are in the learning phase of the buying process, they go
for organic search results. But when they are ready to buy—customers click the ads.
TL;DR
• For every piece of “real estate” owned by Google (email, search engines, YouTube, apps)
there is a way to advertise (i.e. a campaign type)
• While all Google Ads campaign types have their place, we recommend using search first
(the ads at the top of a Google search results page), as Google search is the strongest
indicator of intent
• Paid search results = Ads that appear on the Google search results page
• Organic search results = All other search results that are not advertisements
• If your paid ad is more relevant to the search, you will rank higher (meaning your ad
will appear in one of those top slots) and pay less for a click
• 67% of all high commercial intent keyphrases go to a paid ad (i.e. Google Ads lead to sales)
26
How Google Ads Works
Chapter Three
Helpful Terms to Understand
Google Ads
Before we go much further, it will be helpful to have a glossary of terms to reference for this very
wordy industry of ours. Perhaps bookmark this page and come back if you need a refresher.
Account
A Google Ads account is “homebase” for your business’s online ads, settings, and personal information. If you have a Google account (i.e. a Gmail account), you can create a Google Ads
account for free. Your Google account is where you’ll create your ads, make payments, and review
your data.
For the purpose of this exercise ,we’ll pretend that our Google Ads account is for a shoe store.
Campaign
A campaign is made up of a bunch of ads, organized into groups—all of which share a budget
(as well as other settings). There are different ways to advertise through Google (on their search
engine or on YouTube, for example), so different “locations” or types of ads within the Google
network require different campaigns. Campaigns are often used to organize categories of products or services that you offer.
So, continuing our example from above:
Our shoe store business has a Google Ads account.
Inside that account, we have two search campaigns:
One for men’s shoes.
One for women’s shoes.
Ad Group
Ad groups are a way of organizing ads into categories inside a campaign. Each ad group shares
the same keywords and budget to promote a product or service. So, for our campaign for men’s
shoes, we might create ad groups for:
• Men’s running shoes
• Men’s sandals
• Men’s slippers
Keywords
Keywords are like labels.
We use them to categorize our ads (i.e. ad groups), craft our ads, include them in the copy of
our landing pages (the page of your site that your ad directs the user to), and let Google know
when we want our ad to appear on the search engine results page (SERP) through something
called the Google Ads auction (explained in a moment).
These keyphrases range from product/service descriptions (example: red shoes), brand
name (example: shoe store brand name or a specific shoe brand), geographic location (example:
Chicago shoe store), and questions the user asks about a problem the business solves (example: how to find the right shoe fit).
Ad Rank
Google’s calculation that determines where your ad will be shown on a results page, relative to
other ads (ad position).
Although ad rank is calculated by factors such as bid amount, the competitiveness of the
auction, quality of ad and landing page, the profile of the Google user (geographic location, device, time of search, past searches), and the ad rank thresholds (your ability to compete in an ad
auction), this score is recalculated every time an ad is eligible to appear on a search results page;
therefore, ad rank will fluctuate (and remains unknown to the advertiser).
28
Helpful Terms to Understand Google Ads
Quality Score
The quality of your ad, according to its relevance (including the relevance of the site it links to),
measured on a scale from 1-10.
This score is determined by:
• Expected click-through rate (CTR) - prediction of how often your ad will be clicked,
based on data gathered by Google from every search query
• Ad relevance - whether the language of your ad matches the keyword
• Landing page - the page your ad takes the user to should not only match the search
query, it should be easy to navigate, full of original content, help the user find what
they’re looking for, and fulfill what the ad claims to offer
This score is based on data from exact searches for your keyword. Quality score can be monitored in your account under “Keywords.”
Ad Extensions
Extra information about your business you can tack onto your ad, including your address, phone
number, direct page links, coupons, or even additional websites. Extensions show up in blue
below your primary ad copy.
Landing Page
The page your ad directs the user to after they click. This page should be easy to navigate and
should match the ad (fulfill the promise made to the user).
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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GOOGLE ADS
Chapter Four
A Deeper Dive into Google Ads
Google Ads is made possible by three groups:

The Googler
Enters a keyphrase into “the Google machine.”
The Advertiser
Creates ads and bids on keyphrases that have to do with their product or service in hopes
that they will appear at the top of the search results.
The Google Machine
Processes the Googler’s query, as well as specific information about that user (like how
old they are, what other searches they made recently, where they live, etc.) Using that
information, Google matches the search with all the advertisers who are bidding on
that search term.
The highest ranked advertisers appear in order of ad rank.
Let’s back up for a second to talk about the “bid.”
How Ads Appear: The Google Ads Auction
The Google search results page has a limited number of spaces available for ads. So, let’s say there
is a group of advertisers competing for the same search term, “red shoes.” Each advertiser has
created an ad around the keyword “red shoes,” and placed a bid—essentially telling Google how
much they are willing to pay if a user clicks.
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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GOOGLE ADS
Now, you might think the advertisers who offered up more money are automatically given
the top four-or-so slots at the top of the search results page. But it’s a bit more complicated than
that—and for good reason.
Ad Rank: How to “Win” the Ads Auction (i.e.
Make Your Ad Appear)
How much you bid on your ad is only one of several factors Google takes into account when
determining ad rank (who earns which spot at the top of a search).
The quality of your ad is another key factor, along with the expected impact of ad extensions.
Bid = The maximum amount of money you’re willing to pay for a user clicking on your ad
Quality = The usefulness of your ad and the site it links to, according to the user’s search
Ad Extensions = When you created your ad, you have the opportunity to include additional information (like a phone number), referred to as ad extensions. If you don’t have any ad extensions,
you will have no extensions impact. If you are only eligible for one extension, you will have a low
extensions impact. But if you are eligible for many extensions (so, you include direct page links,
a phone number, and address in your ad, for example), you will have a high extensions impact.
Additionally, Google calculates other factors such as the competitiveness of the auction, the
ad rank thresholds (your ability to compete in an ad auction), and who the user is (based on things
like geographic location, device, and past searches). In other words, the more likely Google thinks
a particular user will engage with your ad, the higher your ad rank will be; but this can change
from user to user depending on relevance.
Brain explodes
Yeah. So, there is no way to know your ad rank because this measurement is recalculated every
time your ad competes in an auction. But, as we mentioned above, Google gives us some indications into what factors will impact your ad rank:
• Your bid (How much you’re willing to pay for the click)
• The quality of your ads and landing pages (well written ads, relevant landing pages,
interesting content, consistent offers)
32
A Deeper Dive into Google Ads
• Competitiveness of an auction
• The context of the search
• The expected impact from your ad extensions and other ad formats
TL;DR
• Google Ads is made possible by 1) the Googler, 2) the advertiser, 3) the Google Machine
• Advertisers must bid on relevant keywords for an ad to appear in the search results page
• Bidding more does not necessarily increase your ad’s likelihood of appearing—this is
calculated by ad rank
• There is no way to know your ad rank because this measurement is recalculated every
time your ad competes in an auction
• Some indicators into what determines ad rank: bid, quality of your ads and landing
pages, competitiveness of an auction, context of the search, expected impact from your
ad extensions and other ad formats
The Auction in Action
So, let’s go back to our group of advertisers who bid on the keyphrase “red shoes.” As soon as a
user enters that search term, Google:
• Does an inventory on every advertiser who bid on the keyphrase “red shoes”
• How much they are willing to pay for a click
• The quality of their ad
• The quality of their landing page
• Whether or not the ad includes extensions
In less than a second, Google fills those slots with the top ranking ads on the search results page.
Just Because You’re Willing to Pay More,
Doesn’t Mean You Will
The more quality you bring to the table, the less you pay and the higher you rank. See, this is
where things get even more interesting with the Google Ads auction:
The highest bidder may win the bid, but only pays the second highest bidder’s price.
This is brilliant because it means advertisers are bidding for the value of the click, instead of
bidding against each other.
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It also means the first position could be paying $15 after bidding $80 for a click, which means
there’s a massive chasm between where they are and where you would need to be in order to be
competitive.
Furthermore: Being #1 Isn’t Always Most Profitable
If you’re position #2 or #3, you’ll pay much less for a click than you would at position #1—and
you might get enough leads to justify the concession of not being in first position. In fact, if you
bid against a competitor who is extremely competitive (think of those companies whose names you
see everywhere)—chances are users already know who they are and may skip over them anyway.
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A Deeper Dive into Google Ads
Quality Score
We may not have access to our ad rank, but Google does provide us with our own system of
measurement: quality score. Quality score is the grade Google gives your ad, according to its
relevance (including the relevance of the site it links to), measured on a scale from 1-10.
This score is determined by:
• Expected click-through rate (CTR) - prediction of how often your ad will be clicked,
based on data gathered by Google from every search query
• Ad relevance - whether or not the language of your ad matches the keyword
• Landing page - the page your ad takes the user to should not only match the search
query, it should be easy to navigate, full of original content, help the user find what
they’re looking for, and fulfill what the ad claims to offer
Quality score is based on data from exact searches for your keyword.
Quality score can be monitored in your account under “Keywords.”
Quality score, while useful, is not necessarily indicative of your ad rank—just your ad quality
compared to other advertisers.
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Why You Need to Know All This
You have to understand how Google works so you can play the game!
…And now that you know how Google works, we need to make sure your business can work
with Google.
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A Deeper Dive into Google Ads
Chapter Five
Is Google Ads Right for
Your Business?
Before we go any further, it’s absolutely imperative to determine that Google Ads is right for your
business. That’s right; while for most businesses, the answer is yes—there is a catch.
It takes time to build, launch, and optimize campaigns—and
ultimately, see results. That means you need to have realistic
expectations. So, let’s start with seven quick questions to
consider first:
Are you ready to commit? It can take months (months) to determine if there’s potential
for a predictable, scalable growth schedule.
Can you afford the cost to get the ball rolling? You’ll want to spend at least $1,000-
$1,500 per month at the bare minimum; but we recommend starting at a $2000
minimum.
What are your business goals? Ask yourself:
• Do I know my close rates?
• Do I know how many leads I need to make a sale?
• Do I know how many leads I need each month to make a profit?
• By establishing your specific goals, you can determine if you can successfully run
a Google Ads campaign in the long term.
How is the quality and speed of your website? We recommend your website is:
• Fast
• Mobile responsive
• Informative
• Easy to use
Can you handle an influx of traffic?
• Are you going to answer your phone when customers call?
• Will people call you directly, or will you have a sales team that’s trained and
ready to take calls?
• Are you fully stocked and ready to ship?
• Can you accurately forecast how much product you need?
What is your audience size and location? If you’re local and rural—with only a handful of people nearby—your audience size might be too small. In this case, Google Ads
probably doesn’t make sense for your business.
Are you ready to be competitive? Make sure your ad spend is competitive enough to
get enough clicks; otherwise, Google Ads won’t work in your favor.
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Is Google Ads Right for Your Business?
Chapter Six
Google Ads: Core Concepts
Before we start building our campaigns, let’s cover what we call the “core concepts” of Google Ads.
Keep in mind:
Performance Max-specific core concepts will be
covered later in this book.
Conversions
Conversions = The action you want your visitor to take on your website
Examples include:
• Fill out a form
• Make a purchase
• Download a document
• Sign up for a newsletter
• Call
Conversion Tracking = A tool inside Google Ads that tracks the actions taken by a website
visitor that you specified as valuable
To run Google Ads, you have to be conversion-minded. The entire machine learning algorithm
that is Google depends on conversions to see what’s working. Everything we’ve talked about up
to this point (all the data collection, the information Google houses, the common denominators
Google seeks to identify), depends on conversions.
So, if a user goes to your website and makes a purchase, Google says, “Nailed it. Now I’m
going to find more people just like this user.” But if you don’t tell Google what you consider a
conversion, Google is unable to go after more people who are likely to convert. And, you also
won’t be able to optimize your campaign.
Or, worse, if your conversion tracking is installed incorrectly, you could get false positives(!),
where Google might count an action (such as landing on the purchase page) as a conversion (as
opposed to landing on the thank you page after making a purchase).
In other words, Google will think every user who goes to their cart made a purchase—even
if they didn’t follow through—and will blow through advertising money to find more similar
users. So, you want to be extremely diligent with conversion tracking (which we’ll explain in
detail soon—promise!).
The goal, after all, is to convert.
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Google Ads: Core Concepts
Let’s emphasize this again: Any action you want a user to take is a conversion.
And you want to track every possible conversion action on your site. Even smaller, less
important conversions are predictive indicators of intent.
We often see campaigns with only bottom of the funnel conversions (finalized a purchase, for
example) that see major improvements after adding a top or middle funnel conversion point.
Why?
Well, you’re still letting Google know which users may be interested in the future. And in the
meantime, this gives Google an opportunity to identify folks who are closer to the buying stage.
In conclusion:
• Do: track every single conversion action possible on your site
• Don’t: spam visitors with pop-ups and form fills to increase your conversion actions
• Do: ask visitors early and often to do the thing you want them to do throughout their
scroll
• Dont: forget that different users may want different conversion options—some may
prefer to fill out a form, others may prefer to call. Your responsibility is to offer both. If
you don’t, your competitor will.
Conversions are the key performance indicator for campaign health and success.
Don’t get distracted by non-relevant vanity metrics like ranking for specific keywords
or outranking competitors. Your focus should be on bringing in money, which is directly
correlated to those conversion actions. Remember, sometimes you even get better conversions
from position #2, because you’re spending less and getting more in the way of permeation and
impressions.
So, don’t get obsessed with or preoccupied by vanity metrics.
The goal is always conversions.
Google Ads is a game where we always try to increase the quality and quantity of conversions
while decreasing the price. And, Google doesn’t do this for you automatically; but Google gives
us the tools to make it happen ourselves.
Keywords
Now, let’s take a moment to define keywords and explain why they are, also, so critically
important.
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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GOOGLE ADS
Keywords are like labels. Google users use keywords to search for answers and solutions. Now,
they don’t think of them as keywords—to a user, “keywords” are just the words they type into
the search bar.
But as advertisers, we use keywords to organize, categorize, and craft our ads (except when
it comes to Performance Max campaigns, which are organized by audience signals—but we’ll
talk about that in Part Five).
Now, we include keywords in the copy of our landing pages (the page of your site that your
ad directs the user to). We also use keywords to let Google know when we want our ad to appear
on the search engine results page (SERP) through the Google Ads auction.
Keywords range from product and service descriptions (example: red shoes), brand name
(example: shoe store brand name or a specific shoe brand), geographic location (example:
Chicago shoe store), and questions the user asks about a problem the business solves (example: how to find the right shoe fit).
Clearly, Google Search relies heavily on keywords (after all, Google Ads was once called
Google AdWords). So when it comes to time to create your ads, here are some things to keep in
mind regarding keywords:
• Empathy - You are trying to use Google Ads to connect with leads and prospective clients. The words you use (keywords!) are powerful. You cannot connect without understanding what they want and need. You have to care about them and understand them.
Use empathy to pick the words you use.
• Semantic Architecture - The words you’re using to describe your product and service
are not always the words your leads will use to describe your product and service.
• What Your Customers Search For - Going off our note above, you can actually find
out what your customers are searching for, using tools like Answer the Public (answerthepublic.com). Just enter your general service or product term and find out what
people are searching for in relation to your industry.
Other useful keyword research tools include:
• iSpionage (ispionage.com)
• Spyfu (spyfu.com)
• Semrush (semrush.com)
• Indicators of Intent - Let’s say you are a realtor. Well, a search for “realtor” could mean
anything, right? Someone who wants to become a realtor is just as likely to search for
that term as someone looking to hire a realtor. Compare that to “sell house,” which is a
bit closer to an indication of intent, and “sell house fast for cash,” which tells us exactly
what the searcher wants.
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Google Ads: Core Concepts
In other words, consider indications of intent when it comes to your keywords.
• Consider Multiple Conduits to a Single Offer - If you are an airline company, your
offer isn’t just flights, it’s getting where you need to go. In other words, an airline shouldn’t
just bid on search terms related to flights, they should also bid on search terms related to
methods of travel (like Greyhound Bus).
Not All Keywords Are Equal: A Note on The Sales
Funnel and Keywords
Here’s a quick reminder of the sales funnel (and how it impacts your keywords):
Top of the funnel - Discovery
Middle of the funnel - Intent
Bottom of the funnel - Action
Bottom of the funnel phrases are the most valuable and most expensive .But ,you want to have
phrases that land at every stage of the funnel—and adjust your campaign according to each stage.
We like to start with the bottom of the funnel and work up. We like to see who buys first and
learn about them to build backwards up the funnel. So, don’t stay at the bottom of the funnel—
just start at the bottom and use the information you gather to travel up.
Research Phrases: Should, why, can, how, where
Qualifier Phrases: Best, top, reliable, near me
Start at the bottom (action-based keywords)
and move up (intent and discovery).
Offers
Everything you present to your visitor should be an offer:
• The search terms you bid on should allow you to present an offer
• The ad copy you use is an offer
• Your landing page should include a very clear and compelling offer
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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GOOGLE ADS
We mentioned earlier that you need to be conversion-minded. Well, a conversion is just the
technical implementation (the action!) of whatever your offer is.
It is “doing the thing.” So, your offer is the thing you’re giving your prospective customer.
Above all else, we want to focus on giving value.
Too often, we see advertisers essentially introduce themselves in their ad copy and landing
pages, rather than inform the user what they will do for them.
What should the visitor do?
What’s the offer?
And why is it valuable?
Credentials mean nothing without a clear understanding of how it will directly change the
customer’s life. And while we’re at it, make sure the offer is compelling and consistent with what
the user searched for. Sure, free consultations are a suitable offer—but consider if there’s another
offer that is more in line and helpful with the needs of your prospective customer.
Crafting Your Offer
• Make sure your offer matches the search
• Always be closing
• Every step of your conversion process is an offer (moving them toward the next step)
• Value based: cheaper isn’t always better
• Your core offer isn’t always the right offer (ascension)
• Features vs. benefits (features tell, benefits sell)
The Magic Formula for Crafting Your Offer
Specificity
+
Continuity
Success
4 4
Google Ads: Core Concepts
The Flywheel
Now that we covered the core concepts of Google Ads, we want to take a minute to lay out what
we call the Google Ads Flywheel.
Before we dig into building our Google Ads campaigns, it’s important to understand the cycle
to success (and it probably isn’t what you expect):
Assume
Yep. While “assuming” typically has a negative connotation, it’s the very first step toward successful Google Ads campaigns. In the beginning, you are going to guess. And
you’re probably going to guess wrong as often or more often than you guess right—and
that is okay.
Test
This is the scary part. Once you’ve made assumptions (about search terms, target audience, offers, ad copy, your landing page), you have to put them to the test.
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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GOOGLE ADS
It’s scary because there’s a chance your assumptions might be dead-wrong and you’ll fail.
But if you don’t go for it, you’ll never find out what works. And remember, finding out
what doesn’t work is also valuable.
Observe
Allowing ample time is imperative to learning more about your campaigns. Once you
launch, you need to let it sit—no tinkering. Google is a machine learning mechanism
that needs data to work its magic. If you don’t let it learn over time, it will not work.
How long? There’s no set rule, which makes this hard.
We optimize off of the statistician’s model (the base 100 model), which is that, in theory,
100 impressions will tell you what your click-through rate is. 100 clicks will tell you
(roughly) what your time-on-site is.
Now, some campaigns aren’t big enough to hit that magic 100 data point. And that’s
okay. The important thing is to give yourself the time to acquire the data.
Optimize
This is the fun part! This is when we find out which ads were successful and try to
identify why. Then, using that data, recreate more of those ads.
But, just to clarify: this is not the place to make assumptions. And it’s important not to
overdo it when it comes to those updates to your ads. This is where we use hard data.
...And then? We look to expand and scale with new ads, starting with step one again.
This flywheel never ends.
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Google Ads: Core Concepts
PART TWO
Google Ads for
Lead Generation
Here we go!
We’re about to tell you everything you need to know about running Google Ads for lead
generation. Not just what buttons to push (and not to push), but the why and how of Google, so
you can be Google Ads savvy long term.
But here’s our disclaimer: We are not following the rules. If you’ve taken courses elsewhere,
gotten certified, or noticed those little [recommended] notes in the Google Ads dashboard, those
are all the things we’ll break rank on.
What’s In It For You?
By the end of this section, you’ll walk away with:
• The ability to navigate the Google Ads dashboard like a pro
• Five campaigns ready to run
• An understanding of the core concepts and philosophy of Google Ads, so you can
adapt to Google’s (many) changes for years to come
While we will touch on Performance Max campaigns, we’ll dive into “PMax” later in this book (it
deserves its own section, trust us!)
Useful resources for this guide:
Google Ads: Ads.Google.com
Google Tag Manager: Tagmanager.google.com
Google Analytics: Analytics.google.com
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Google Ads for Lead Generation
Chapter One
Prerequisites for Lead Generation
Earlier, we asked if Google Ads was right for your business. And, seeing as you’re still reading
along, it’s safe to assume you’ve been “pre-qualified” to run Google Ads.
Congrats!
But before we can start building your campaigns, we need to dive into the prerequisites necessary to make sure you’re set up for success.
Business Planning: Must-Haves
You are hereby (lovingly) forbidden from building a Google Ads campaign until you have the
following seven items:
Reasonable monthly spend
Appropriate time expectations
Quality website
Enough margins to support a traffic campaign
Unique selling proposition
Completed customer avatars and assets
Fifteen-question minimum form fills
Let’s dig in:
Reasonable monthly spend
Think of your monthly budget early on as an investment.
You are buying the data you need to understand what works in your campaign, what
doesn’t, and where to make changes—in a reasonable amount of time.
With that investment, Google will start to build an audience specifically for you that
you will capitalize on later. And it will be worth it! You must have enough monthly ad
spend to accumulate enough accurate data for testing and optimizing down the road.
For context, here at Solutions 8, we won’t take a client whose budget is under $2,000/
month.
Budget under $2,000 per month? Maybe you want to hold off until it’s more feasible.
Google is a learning algorithm. The first three months are going to be the most “painful” part of your campaigns. Which brings us to our next requirement:
Appropriate time expectations
It bears repeating that Google is a learning machine. And learning takes time.
In fact, we’re asking Google to do some pretty spectacular behavioral analysis.
In the past, our rule of thumb was that it took 90 days for a campaign to be fully optimized and ready to see some results. This meant after 90 days, we would have enough
data to determine whether or not the campaign would work long term.
But with the introduction of Performance Max, the 90-day guideline no longer applies.
Instead, it takes roughly 45 days just to see what you’ve built and how it’s going to work.
Essentially, Day 46 is now Day 0.
Once Google has gathered and analyzed all the available data, then you can start to see
how the foundation you put into place will perform over time.
Put simply, it takes time to successfully optimize a campaign and position it to scale. But
more often than not, being patient during that initial learning period pays off in the long run.
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Prerequisites for Lead Generation
Quality website
This one may sound obvious, but here goes:
Your ads will send prospective customers to your site. Therefore, you need an appealing, easy-to-navigate website. See, we live in the age of the educated consumer. Long
gone are the days of the ol’ click-to-convert model.
Site visitors want value.
They want to learn.
They want to feel connected and understood.
Your website should be full of quilty content that showcases your products or services,
learning materials, readily available answers to common questions—all in a site that is
fast and easy to navigate. And with Performance Max in the mix, a campaign type with
more reach and a greater ability to learn from your site, SEO and quality content has
never been more important.
This is why you need more than a single-page website. You need to help potential customers get to know your product or service and who you are.
Enough margins to support a traffic campaign
Running ads takes money. Can your profit margins support these campaigns?
Unique selling proposition
The more heavily saturated your market, the harder it’s going to be to turn a profit from
Google Ads.
So, what makes you different?
And, sorry, being the cheapest option isn’t the answer. Think about your favorite products:
What makes them your favorite? Is it the company’s dependable return policy? The
quality of the product? The materials used?
Your unique selling proposition is key for the success of your campaigns—specifically
longevity and return traffic. After all, it’s six times less expensive to sell to an existing
customer than a new one.
Completed customer avatars and assets
You need to know the people you sell to on a very deep level: Who are they? Where do
they live? What do they read? What are their goals? What are their pain points? We do
this by creating customer profiles (avatars).
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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GOOGLE ADS
Now, a lot of business owners think in terms of demographics—not avatars.
Here’s the difference:
A demographic is a generalized description of your population of customers (physicians,
for example). An avatar is the sub-type of customer that comes from your larger demographic. So, using our physician example, this demographic could easily be split into
two very different avatars:
Dr. Mike: An older physician in his late fifties to sixties, looking at retirement,
with a successful practice and anti-technology.
Dr. Sally: A young physician fresh out of medical school, in debt but looking to
get started with her own practice and a solid understanding of technology.
Here, we can see how vastly different these two avatars are within the same demographic. All this is to say, get specific with your customer profiles.
Once you have your avatars clearly defined, you’ll need customized assets (photos, videos, and copy) specifically catered to these audiences (this is especially important once
you start building your Performance Max campaigns).
Best to start churning out those assets now!
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Prerequisites for Lead Generation
Fifteen-question minimum form fills
When your goal is lead generation, your campaigns (especially a Performance Max campaign or YouTube campaign) will be at high risk of
heavy spam.
For context, there are a lot of “paid growth” YouTube
companies that use fake accounts. To avoid getting
flagged, these “click farms” fill out forms from ads to
show account activity.
The solution? Make your lead generation form more
complicated to complete, with at least fifteen questions, so click farms that are paid to complete forms
don’t target your campaign.
Website Optimization
Assuming you have those must-haves in order, it’s time for some website optimization. We’ll provide
a quick checklist you can breeze through to make sure your site is Google Ads-ready, including:
• On-Site Optimization (Light)
• Website CRO Best Practices (and Checklist)
• Website Speed Optimization Checklist
• Quality Assurance (QA) Checklist
• Product/Service Page Preparation (and Checklist)
• Media (Images and Video)
• Lifestyle Images
• Robust Titles and Descriptions
• Live Chat
On-Site Optimization (Light)
• Define the page where you will send traffic (depending on the ad)
• Homepage (remarketing and branded traffic)
• Service-specific pages
• Site includes a very clear statement of value
• Social proof (reviews!)
• Mobile friendly
• Multiple conversion conduits (CTAs)
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Website CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization)
Best Practices
Next up, here are some CRO best practices to ensure your site is not only presentable, but also
ready to make sales:
The Big Three
Website Issues and Errors
You can’t drive traffic to a broken website. So, it’s crucial to ensure you catch any website issues
or errors.
• Frequently (at least once a month) check your site and make sure everything is working properly and there are no high-risk issues and errors.
Schedule a website audit at least once a month.
Website Speed
Website speed has a massive impact on your quality score; in fact, it is considered slightly more important than content(!) according to Google. A few things to consider:
Mobile users are going to be less tolerant of slower websites due to the smaller size of the device
and often slower connection.
• The biggest contributing factor for slow sites are large image sizes.
Mobile Engagement
• 60-65% of website visits are done on mobile devices. So ensure your site is mobile-friendly!
• Look at your conversion path: although many purchases happen on desktop computers,
research is often done on mobile devices. In other words, consider each step of your
buyer’s journey so you can make it as effortless as possible.
Conversion Rate Optimization Checklist
• Everything works properly
• Website is fast (under 2-3 seconds load time)
• Use PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev) to measure this
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Prerequisites for Lead Generation
• Your email/phone number is in the header or footer
• Customers need to know they can trust you (i.e. get in touch with you)
• Website design is appealing to your audience
• Make sure the design is centered around your product and isn’t a distraction
• High-quality images
• Clear call-to-action (CTA)
Isolate the action you want them to take: Make the CTA a BIG button (not just a hyperlink)
• If you don’t tell people what you want them to do, they won’t do it
• A clear, bold CTA nudges your customer to the next step
• CTAs are in a contrast color (bold!) and easy to find
• Check out BOOM! by Cindy Joseph for inspiration
• Separate “thank you” pages for all conversion points
• Verification badges (secure payment, BBB, SSL, guarantees, free returns, etc.)
• This helps improve the trustworthiness of your site and brand
• Turn anything you offer to a badge (Free shipping? Make it a badge! Free returns?
Badge! Much more exciting than text)
• Call tracking software
Google will track phone calls on your behalf, but you can use more sophisticated platforms
for increased accuracy
• Privacy Policy
You need one on your site! You can easily find a template, but make sure you read through
it first!
• Google site speed optimization
We’ll talk more about this in a moment
• Https Vs. http
You must have a secure page: i.e. https
Website Speed Optimization Checklist
• Choose a “light” theme
• A good developer can improve your site speed a lot—but make sure you don’t rely
too heavily on customization
• Scale your images properly
• Try PicResize
• Decrease the weight of your images without losing quality
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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GOOGLE ADS
• Try TinyPNG
• Limit the amount of plugins/apps
• Limit the amount of displayed products on category pages
• Check in on your page speed
• Try PageSpeed Insights
• Don’t aim for a 100/100 score—just aim for good user experience
Quality Assurance (QA) Checklist:
Include quality assurance checkups in your monthly standard operating procedures to make sure
your site is in tip-top shape. You can do this through internal QA and external QA:
Internal QA: Pretend to be your own customer
• Try to break the site
• Navigate through your site the way a customer would
• Gauge how easy it is for a distracted customer to use your site.
• Ask yourself, “If I weren’t paying full attention, could I still do this?”
• Make an actual purchase
You can hire someone to go through your site on fiverr (fiverr.com).
External QA: Have someone else pretend to be a customer
• Just tell them where you want them to go—but not how to get there
Analyze Top Competitors:
• What is different between their website and yours?
Pro Tip! Diagnosing Issues:
Screen Recording Software
You can install screen recording software on your site that tracks users’ navigation via heat
mapping (note: it will likely slow the speed of your site). This works on desktop and mobile—
so for eCommerce sites that aren’t converting, you can use this software to figure out what’s
going wrong along the way.
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Prerequisites for Lead Generation
Here are a few notable options:
• HotJar (hotjar.com)
• TruConversion (truconversion.com)
• Lucky Orange (luckyorange.com)
Keep in mind: You don’t need to use these apps forever. Diagnostic tools are a great way to assess
the state of your website and determine any site optimizations or product additions. We’ll walk
you through the installation process later.
Product/Service Page Preparation
Product and service pages are the most important pages on your website. In most cases, it’s the
landing page for your traffic: your very first impression.
Many businesses put tons of energy into optimizing their homepage, yet neglect the product/
service pages customers land on. So let’s make sure your product/service pages are ready to shine:
Product/Service Page Checklist
• Product title and subtitle
• Make sure the product or service title is clear, descriptive, and honest enough for
Google to identify the product and send relevant traffic your way (Look at Amazon
for inspiration)
• But avoid keyword stuffing! Honesty and simplicity are key
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• Descriptions
• Descriptions are supplementary to your title
• Use this opportunity to elaborate on the specifics of your product or service: any
particular materials, special features, ingredients that are worth highlighting but
would be too long for your title
• Media (images and videos)
• We purchase with our eyes first
• Custom imagery is always going to be better than stock photos, particularly lifestyle
images that help customers picture themselves using your product
• Nested navigation
• Make sure navigation is clear, easy, and accessible—we don’t want people to get lost
• Use breadcrumbs so users can always find their way back
• Social proof (i.e. reviews)
• Customers buy from businesses they trust—Enter: reviews
• Aggregating enough reviews takes time, so ask your customers for a review after 30
days of purchasing and give them an incentive or reward for completion
• The 30-day rule gives you at least a few days/weeks to resolve any issues—and get
a good review for it
• Once you have enough five-star reviews, you can add them to your site.
Live Chat
We strongly recommend live chat on your website. Here’s why:
Diagnose errors
• Live chat allows you to compile visitor questions and create content that answers those
questions for future customers
• Add helpful information to your product pages and place them near the top of your page
Try tawk.to
Check out Shopify’s app integration at apps.shopify.com/tawk-to*
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Prerequisites for Lead Generation
Identify objections
• Live chat can give you insight into what holds customers back from making a purchase—
what questions do they ask before abandoning their cart? What concerns do they bring up
in the chat?
Improve conversion rates
• Sometimes, all it takes is a little supportive nudge for customers to make a purchase
• By “being there” through their virtual journey, you have a higher likelihood of making a
conversion
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Chapter Two
Google Account Setup
Now, some of you will already have a Google Ads account and a Google Tag Manager account
up and running. If that’s you, you can skip ahead to Chapter Three, where we’ll cover conversion
tracking. Otherwise, let’s get your Google accounts set up.
Creating Your Google Ads Account
It’s time to build your Google Ads account!
• First step: Head to Ads.Google.Com
• Click the bold, blue CTA that says “Start now”
If you already have some sort of Google account (Gmail, for example), Google will automatically
connect that existing account to your new Google Ads account.
This next step is where things get sticky. Earlier, we discussed how critically important it is
to track conversions. Well, in this next step of the setup process, Google will try to get you to
build a campaign before you build conversion tracking(!).
If you aren’t super familiar with Google Ads ,you probably don’t see the problem here:
During setup, Google asks what your main advertising goals are so you can build your campaign around that goal.
Makes sense, right?
But here’s the thing: If you select any of the goals offered by Google for an easy setup (get
more calls, more website sales or sign-ups, or more visits to your physical location), you’ll end
up with a scaled-down version of Google Ads:
Think templatized campaign as opposed to a customized campaign.
So, instead, scroll down a bit to the tiny font below that reads, “Are you a professional
marketer? Switch to Expert Mode”
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• Click “Switch to Expert Mode”
When you click on this, Google will once again try to push you toward a templated campaign, instead of one that is customized to your specific needs:
Which, again, seems easy and helpful enough.
But the reality is that when you select one of these preset goals, Google limits the functionality available to you—and, they aren’t very forthcoming about the functionality you will (or
won’t) receive by selecting a goal.
Think of it this way:
Let’s say you want to build a website for your business.
You go to a DIY website building platform that offers templates.
You find a design you like, download it, and “fill it in” with your business’s information.
Soon, however, you might notice that you can’t add important features or new pages.
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And while the website serves its general purpose, it’s nothing like if a professional designer
and web developer created a site around your business.
So, looking back to our campaign setup, instead of selecting a specific goal:
• Click “Create an account without a campaign”
• Next, fill out the business information requested, then click “SUBMIT”
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• Next, click “Explore your account”
What’s interesting is that Google is going to give you very little functionality until after
you’ve created your campaign:
However, here’s what you can do:
• Click “Tools & settings”
• “MEASUREMENT”
• “Conversions”
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Now, leave this page open:
We’re going to walk through how to set up conversion tracking in the next chapter.
But, before we can connect conversion tracking to your account, we need to set up Google
Tag Manager.
Creating Your Google Tag Manager Account
Next, we need to create our Google Tag manager Account.
Hold Up: What is Google Tag Manager?
Google Tag Manager is Google’s free software that allows you to install tracking on your
website using a snippet of code to track actions taken on your site, and thus, evaluate the
success of your campaigns.
In other words, instead of hiring a web developer to install custom code on your site, Google
Tag Manager acts as your personal developer, so you can install codes more easily using the
GTM interface.
Here’s how to get set up:
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• Go to marketingplatform.google.com/about/tag-manage
• Click “Start for free”
• Create Account
• Fill in your account details, including your company name, country, and website URL,
and target platform (make sure to select “Web”)
• Click “Create”
• Agree to Google Tag Manager’s Terms of Service Agreement
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• Now, leave this tab open (and maybe even save these codes somewhere) and open a new
tab—we’ll go over how to install Google Tag Manager soon!
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Chapter Three
Conversion Tracking Setup
Now that your account is set up, let’s talk a little bit more about Google Tag Manager and how
it pertains to the rest of the Google ecosystem.
...And why, exactly, we use it when running Google Ads.
What Is Google Tag Manager ?
Google Tag Manager is a free platform that allows you to plop bits of code onto your site. These
pieces of code have the important job of tracking the actions visitors take on your site (and when
they arrive on your site from an ad)—and reporting those actions back to Google Ads, so that
Google can “learn” from these behaviors.
Now, technically you don’t need Google Tag Manager to track conversions; however, GTM is
far easier to implement and utilize for testing (and to make campaign improvements) down the
road. So, if you want to be successful long term, use Google Tag Manager.
What Does Google Tag Manager Do?
Essentially, GTM carves out space in your website, allowing you to put anything you want inside
that “box:” analytics codes, new tracking codes, Facebook Pixel—whatever you use or want to
use—while keeping the backend of your website super clean.
How Google Tag Manager Fits with the Rest of
the Google Ads Data Ecosystem:
• Google Tag Manager collects data
• Google Analytics stores data
• Google Data Studio reports on the data
In this guide, we won’t go over how to use these tools. But it would be worth your time to
learn about them going forward. In the meantime, we’ll briefly touch on how GTM works.
How Google Tag Manager Works
GTM is broken into three facets: tags, triggers, and variables.
Tags: The workhorse (what you want the system to do)
Examples:
• Tell Analytics when someone sees my page
• Tell Facebook when someone becomes a lead
• Let TruConversion know when someone is on my site
• Let Google Ads know when someone buys
Triggers: The logic (when you want the system to do it)
Examples:
• Here’s when I want you to do the thing that I want you to do
• Do [this] when [this] happens
Variables: Additional information needed to get the job done
Examples:
• Account number
• Order forms
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Tracking Conversions with Google Tag Manager
Through Google Tag Manager, Google Ads is able to track every conversion—which, as we
have perhaps overstated, is critically important to the success of your campaigns. This includes
conversion actions, such as filling out a form or scheduling an appointment. Most conversion
actions (except for, say, phone calls or chats) allow for their own separate thank you page, which
makes tracking these actions easy.
However, don’t forget to track predictive indicators as well.
For example, Montessori schools often have “schedule a tour” as their main CTA and conversion action; however, not many parents and guardians are ready to take that step right away.
So, instead, these schools might offer a free checklist or brochure—indicators of interest—and
track those actions as well. If a parent downloads a brochure and, several weeks later, schedules
a tour, that is valuable data and feedback for your campaigns and website.
Finally, manual conversions for phone calls or chats should also be tracked.
Later in this lesson, we’ll go over the “easy way” to track phone calls; however, the real expert-mode way to track calls is to use a call tracking software, score the phone calls (so you actually know which calls were high quality), and manually import that data at the end of every month.
How to Install Google Tag Manager
Now, let’s go over how to install Tag Manager!
Earlier, we went over how to create your account and recommended that you keep that tab
open. (If you closed it, no worries! We’ll show you how to get back to your GTM account.)
But here’s something to keep in mind:
Every website is a little different. You might be on WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace—so
depending on which platform you use, the way you install Google Tag Manager is going to be
a little different.
However, it’s basically the same across all web applications. So, as we move forward, just
note that some of the step-by-step instructions might be a little different for you, but you should
still get a solid understanding of how to install GTM.
Here we go:
• First, if you don’t have that tab open from earlier, head to TagManager.Google.Com
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Your codes might be clearly accessible to you on your dashboard, but if not:
• Head to the “Admin” tab of your dashboard
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• Click “Install Google Tag Manager”
Next, it will show us the code to paste in the tag and tag.
Interestingly, we only need the code provided for the tag for our intended purposes.
But we still recommend installing them both, in the event you’d like to dive deeper into Tag
Manager in the future.
If you have a web developer, this may be the part where you simply send the two codes over
to them to install.
But, if you are doing this yourself, we’ll show you how to get these codes installed.
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• Head to the backend of your website
• For our CMS example, we click on “Settings,” which brings us to a page that includes
a box “Head tracking code” and “Body tracking code” (again, your CMS platform may
be a bit different here)
• Once you find the right spot to paste your tag and tag, go back to
Google Tag Manager
• Copy the codes
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• Go back to your CMS platform and paste the codes—ours looks like this:
• Click “Save” or “Submit” to ensure the and tags are installed
Next, we want to test these tracking codes to make sure they work. We can do this using
Google Tag Assistant.
What Is Google Tag Assistant?
Google Tag Assistant is a free Chrome extension that ensures tags on your website are installed
properly.
Go to get.google.com/tagassistant to install .Then:
• Go to the homepage of your website
• Click the Google Tag Assistant icon at the top of your browser, and a dropdown will
appear that should show that Google Tag Manager is installed on the page
Once you confirm that Google Tag Manager has been successfully installed ,you can move
on to tracking conversions with Tag Manager!
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Conversion Tracking Setup
Tracking Website Conversions with Tag Manager
Now that we know it’s installed on your site, we’re going to build conversion tracking inside
Google Ads using Google Tag Manager.
First up:
• Log in to Ads.Google.Com
• Go to “Tools & settings” and click “Conversions”
• Click “Add Conversions” or blue (+) button
• Select “Website” conversions
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• Category
Choose a category that applies most accurately to your conversion action—this can
be tricky!
• Conversion Name
When naming your conversion, use the following formula:
Page + Action
For example: “Page-Contact>Action-Form”
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• Value
Select “Don’t use a value for this conversion action (not recommended).”
Ignore Google’s commentary—we DO recommend this option!
• Count
Select “One”
• Click-Through Conversion Window
“90-days,” i.e. as broad as possible!
• Engaged-view conversion window
Select “3 days”
• View-Through Conversion Window
“1 day”
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• Include in “Conversions”
Check the box to include
• Attribution Model
Recommended: First click
• Click “Create and Continue”
• Tag Setup
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Using Google Tag Manager
In a new tab, go to TagManager.Google.Com and log in
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• Click “Triggers”
• Select “New Trigger” and name it so it matches your conversion action (Page + Action)
• Trigger Type
Select “Page View”
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Conversion Tracking Setup
• This Trigger Fires on
Select “Some Page Views”
(Page URL > Contains > use the URL from your thank you page, not the form page!)
• Save!
• Next, click “Tags” on left-hand side of page
• Select “New”
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• Give this tag the same name as your trigger and conversion action (Page + Action)
• Click “Tag Configuration”
• Select “Google Ads Conversion Tracking”
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Conversion Tracking Setup
• Fill out the Conversion ID and Conversion Label boxes using the information on your
Google Ads account page we left open
Copy
Paste
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• Skip the remaining information boxes
• Trigger
Select the trigger you built for this conversion (not “All Pages”)
• “Save”
• “Submit”
• “Publish”
• Workspace > Preview
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• Paste URL of conversion action page
...Not the“ thank you ”page!
• Click “Start”
• Click “Continue”
• Make sure no tag has fired (but there should be a tag!)
• Go back to your conversion action page and fill out your form (if that is your conversion
action)
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• Go back to Google Tag Assistant to make sure the tag fired after you submitted your form
Woohoo! Success!
Now, you can go in and add your remaining conversion actions.
Wait! One More Thing: Conversion Linker Tag
Conversion Linker Tag was created when Apple rolled out something called ITP (intelligent
tracking prevention).
Conversion Linker Tags assists in overcoming some of the hurdles we face in properly tracking conversions due to ITP.
But good news! It’s a super easy tag to install.
Here’s how:
• In Google Tag Manager, click “Tags”
• Name your new tag “Conversion Linker Tag”
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Conversion Tracking Setup
• Click “Tag Type” > “Conversion Linker”
• Enable linking on all page URLs
• “Triggering” > “All Pages”
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• “Save”
• “Submit”
Now, review your tags! You should have a conversion tracking tag and a conversion linker tag.
Now, it’s time to create those tags for every other conversion action on your site!
Tracking Phone Call Conversions
Hopefully, by this point, you set up conversion tracking for every conversion action on your
website.
But lest we forget, tracking phone call conversions (properly) can make or break your
campaigns!
Quick disclaimer: What we’re about to teach you is not
how we track call conversions here at Solutions 8.
Our process is much more thorough (and probably too much for DIYers).
Otherwise, let’s get to it. Here’s how to set up standard call conversion tracking:
• Go to Ads.Google.Com
• Dashboard > Top right > Tools and Settings > Conversions
(Notice that the conversion we created in the last lesson should be on the dashboard!)
• “Add Conversions” or blue (+) button
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• Select “Phone Calls Conversions”
• Select the source of the phone calls you’d like to track
Calls to a phone number on your website
• Category
Leave as is
• Conversion Name
Something simple is fine! Think: “Phone call lead”
• Value
Select “Don’t use a value for this conversion action (not recommended).”
Again, ignore Google’s commentary—we DO recommend this option!
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• Count
Select “One”
• Call Length
How long does a call need to last for you to count it as a quality lead? Google’s default
is 60 seconds
• Click-Through Conversion Window
We chose the longest option, 60 days
• Include in “Conversions”
Check the box to include
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Conversion Tracking Setup
• Attribution Model
Recommended: First Click
• Click “Create and Continue”
• Tag Setup
Using Google Tag Manager
Remember: we already created a Conversion Linker Tag!
Now, we just need to go into Tag Manager to create this new tracking tag using our conversion ID and label
• In a new tab, go to TagManager.Google.Com and login
• Click “Tags”
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• Select “New”
(You should see your Conversion Linker Tag as well as the other conversion action tag(s)
we created in the last lesson)
You should see many more tags than this though, right? Because you added tracking tags for all your
conversion actions, right? Right?!
• Name your tag
“Phone call lead”
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• Choose a Tag Type
Google Ads Calls from Website Conversion
• Displayed Phone Number to Replace
(Google will see the number on your site and replace it with a tracking phone number—this
only happens when someone clicks on a paid ad! If a user goes to your site directly, they will
still see your number)
• Fill out the Conversion ID and Conversion Label boxes using the information on the
Google Ads account page we left open
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• Triggering
We don’t have to build a trigger because it is for “All Pages” i.e. the default
• Click All Pages
• Save
• Submit
• Publish
Now, you have a phone call conversion tag! To test this, go to your website in a new window.
Click on your Google Tag Assistant plugin: you should see Website Call Metrics now installed
(therefore firing).
Now, we can build some campaigns!
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Chapter Four
Campaign Types + Building Key
Campaign #1 Branded
The Six Key Campaign Types
At Solutions 8, we have six key campaigns that we build for every client who comes through our
agency (with very few exceptions):
• Brand: Searches specifically for you or your business (10% of budget)
• General: Searches for your offer, or relevant pivots (25% of budget)
• Competitor: People searching for alternatives (10% of budget)
• Remarketing: Users who have already been on your site (10% of budget)
• DSA: Fills in the gaps in your keyword-targeted campaigns (25% of budget)
• Performance Max: Goal-driven campaign that finds the best audiences (20% of budget)
An important note about budgets listed here:
This would be a good starting point to divvy up your budget; you would simply adjust budgets
based on campaign performance over time. These are simply the areas to start, but you should adjust
as needed depending on your goal or performance.
That said, let’s manage some expectations up front:
With these initial campaigns, you aren’t paying for customers,
leads, or purchases—you’re paying for data.
And that’s the paradigm you need to assume.
You can’t go into this assuming that you’re going to be successful right away; in fact, most
things won’t work right away. But that is valuable data to use going forward to identify what
does work.
Key Campaign #1: Brand Campaign | 10% of
Budget
It’s time to build your first campaign! We strongly recommend starting with a brand campaign
(using 10% of your budget) because they are the easiest to build and teach the foundational
elements.
Here are a few more reasons why you should build one:
• Establish authority
• Protect your brand
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• Control your sales narrative
• Improve your data acquisition
• Direct high commercial intent traffic
• Monitor your conversion paths
Now, Let’s Build!
• Go to Ads.Google.Com and login
• (+) New Campaign
• Select the goal that would make this campaign successful to you Create a campaign
without a goal’s guidance
• Campaign type
Search
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• Select the results you want to get from this campaign
Don’t select anything!
• Continue
Leave as is
• General settings: Campaign name
“Brand Campaign”
• Networks
Select Search Network
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Deselect Display Network
• Show more settings
Don’t change anything, but take a look at your options for future campaigns: Start and
end dates, campaign URL options, Dynamic Search Ads setting, and ad schedule
• Targeting and audiences: Locations
Select the geographic region based on how likely people are to convert
• Location options: Target
People in or regularly in your targeted locations
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• Exclude
People in your excluded locations
• Languages
All languages
• Audiences
Leave as is
• Budget and bidding: Budget
10% of your budget
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• Bidding
Select a bid strategy directly > Manual CPC
Uncheck “Help increase conversions with Enhanced CPC” (...not for branded
campaigns!)
• Show more settings: Conversions
This is why we set up our conversions first! We want Google to identify those personalized
conversions as our indicators of success—hence:
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Use the account-level “Include in Conversions”
settings
• Ad rotation
Optimize: Prefer best performing ads
Extensions
Extensions are a really important facet of building brand campaigns—and something that a lot
of people skip. So listen up!
What are extensions?
Ad extensions are “bonus links” or pieces of information about your business that you can tack
onto your ad, including your address, phone number, direct page links, coupons, or even additional websites. Extensions show up in blue below your primary ad copy.
Think of them as bolt-ons for your ads:
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These little “additions” appear under your ad and act as featured highlights and callouts (think
“About Us” and “Services” links) to make your ads all the more clickable.
The frustrating part about extensions, however, is that you have no control over when or where
they actually show up as a part of your ad—or even which extensions Google chooses to use.
So, you provide Google with a collection of resources (i.e. extension options). Then, in real
time, Google compiles the ad features based on what they think is most relevant to that search.
The more extensions you create for Google, the more likely they are to use them. Let’s go
through the different types of extensions next:
Ad Extension Types
Sitelink extensions - links to different sections of your website
Callout extensions - little bullet points of information, like an extra description
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Call extensions - A direct link to your phone number for easy calling
Structured snippets - Provides a list of product or service offers based on a selected category
(for example, sunglasses styles)
Location extensions - your business location (you must have a Google My Business account
to add this extension)
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How to Build Sitelink Extensions
...Picking up where we left off in our branded campaign build:
• Ad extensions
Click “Sitelink extensions”
• New Sitelink Extension
• Add new sitelink extension
What are additional pages of your website that you’d like to offer your audience? An
“About Us” page is usually a good place to start.
• Fill out your Sitelink 1 text (i.e. the header for this sitelink extension)
For example, “About Us,” “Read About the Team,” “Who We Are,” or “Read Our Epic
Story”
• Fill out “Description line 1”
Elaborate: Where will this click lead the reader?
• Fill out “Description line 2”
Elaborate: Why should the reader click?
• Fill out “Final URL”
Paste the URL of the page extension
• Repeat these steps for however many additional sitelinks you’d like to include without
repeating yourself
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Remember, each additional sitelink should be an offer of some sort—even if the offer is
just for the reader to learn more!
• Sitelink URL options
Leave as is
• Advanced options
Because we’re building an evergreen campaign, deselect mobile and leave the rest as is
How to Build Callout Extensions
• Callout extensions
• New Callout Extension
• Add new callout extension
What are the “bullet points” that are important for a reader to know about you? Why
are you in business? What makes you different? Take all those unique value propositions
and make each one a callout text.
• Advanced options
Deselect mobile—if you have limited-time offers, you can create a start and end date for
certain callouts, otherwise leave as is
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Review the remaining extension options to
see which may be applicable to you and create
accordingly!
• Save and Continue
Extension Resources
Ad Groups
Ad groups are a way of organizing our ads into categories inside a campaign. So, each ad group
shares the same keywords and budget to promote a product or service.
For our brand campaign, we might create ad groups for:
• Business name
• Branded service #1
• Branded service #2
Let’s Build Some Ad Groups!
...Picking up where we left off in our branded campaign (set up ad groups) build:
• Ad group name
“Brand terms”
• Default bid
1$
• Keywords
Google can help you find relevant keywords by entering your website URL or entering
your product or service—because this is a branded campaign, just enter the keywords
you want to bid on (variations of your brand name, branded products, and how people
might search for you)
• Save and continue
Because we’re building an evergreen campaign, deselect mobile and leave the rest as is
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Ads and Go Live
(Creating the Ads!)
...Picking up where we left off in our branded campaign (create ads):
• Create Responsive Ad
A note on Responsive search ads:
In 2016, Google introduced expanded text ads—a type of search ad that allowed full
control over your text asset and gave audiences more information through additional
headlines and descriptions, but was replaced by Responsive search ads entirely on June
30, 2022
• Responsive search ad
This is where we give Google a number of headlines and descriptions and Google will
choose what to display
• Final URL
Make sure you still enter where you want your user to land when they click on your ad
• Display URL
Again, this is where you can manipulate your “URL” to reinforce your offer
• Headlines
Enter a number of headline options
• Descriptions
Enter a number of description options
• Save and continue
Campaign Review
Look through your campaign information; if all looks good, click publish!
Now your campaign is live!
Because we still have some work to do with our campaign build, click “Enabled” on the top lefthand corner of the page and then click “Pause” in the dropdown menu.
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Navigating Google Ads
Now that one campaign is built (yay!), it’s important to understand how to navigate around the
Google Ads dashboard without being afraid of messing things up.
Let’s take a tour:
From the Overview Page
• Click the slider (>) on the left-hand side
• When that expands, take note of the “All campaigns” button
If you get lost inside of Google Ads, you can always come back to this key and click the
“All campaigns” button!
• After clicking “All campaigns” take a tour of your dashboard
Check your dates and filters. Review the data and get comfortable with the page:
• Overview
• Recommendations
(Beware! This page is dangerous—just take a look and move on)
• Ad groups
• Ads & extensions
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• Landing pages
(This page isn’t super relevant to what we’re doing now—just take a look and move on)
• Keywords
• Audiences
• Demographics
• Settings
This is where you can go to modify the initial settings of the campaign we built
Things to Remember
• Your Google Ads Account houses your campaigns
• Inside your campaigns live your ad groups
• Inside your ad groups live your marketing assets (keywords, ads, negative keywords, etc.)
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Chapter Five
Key Campaign #2:
General Campaign
It’s time to build your second campaign!
General Campaign 25% | of Budget
This campaign type focuses on searches for your offer ,or relevant pivots.
General campaigns are the real money-makers (in time!). These campaigns go after search
terms that are positive indicators of intent. General campaigns:
• Capture high commercial intent traffic
• Attract customers who are ready to buy
• Identify trends in your industry
• Compete for your core offering
• Position your business as an authority in your space
Keyword Research
You need to know what keywords you’re going to build campaigns for. Let’s determine your
keywords before defining your ad groups.
• Start with Google!
• Type in your target words and see what suggestions show up
• Google offers additional recommendations at the bottom of the search results (This
is also a good time to make a note of keywords that you don’t want to rank for and
begin your negative keyword list—more about negative keywords in Chapter Ten of this
section.)
Use an Excel spreadsheet or Google Sheet document to create a rough list of keywords you want to
rank for and don’t want to rank for.
• Other Tools:
• Google Keyword Planner
Inside Google Ads, go to Tools and Settings > Keyword Planner > Discover new keywords
• iSpionage
• SpyFu
• SEMRush
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Now, It’s Time to Decide on Your Ad Groups!
With your keywords in mind, take a moment to consider who you’re speaking to—how does
your audience see themselves?
If you would speak to these groups differently, segment your ad groups accordingly! Consider:
• Does the offer change, depending on your audience?
• Should the ads change?
• Should the extensions change?
• Will the landing page change?
Reminder: Budgets
• Assigned on a campaign level
• Ad Groups will “steal” budget from each other
• To ensure an Ad Group is always active, build a separate campaign
• For complete comparisons or split tests, build separate campaigns
General Campaign: Campaign Settings
Let’s build our general campaign!
• Go to Ads.Google.Com and log in
Psst...you should now see your campaign overview when you log in!
• (+) New Campaign
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• Select the goal that would make this campaign successful to you Create a campaign
without a goal’s guidance
• Campaign type
Search
• Select the results you want to get from this campaign
Don’t select anything!
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• Continue
• General settings: Campaign name
“General Campaign”
• Networks
Select Search Network
Deselect Display Network
• Show more settings
Don’t change anything!
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• Targeting and audiences: Locations
Select the geographic region based on how likely people are to convert
• Location options: Target
People in or regularly in your targeted locations
• Exclude
People in your excluded locations
• Languages
All languages
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• Audiences
Leave as is
• Budget and bidding: Budget
25% of your budget
• Bidding
Select a bid strategy directly > Manual CPC
Important: After about 10 conversions, you should come back and select “Help increase
conversions with Enhanced CPC.” Enhanced CPC allows Google to increase your bid up to
250%, which is significant—by giving Google some solid data first, your enhanced CPC
will be super effective without the risk of needlessly increasing your bid up front.
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• Show more settings: Conversions
Use the account-level “Include in Conversions” settings
• Ad rotation
Optimize: Prefer best performing ads
• Ad extensions
Select applicable extensions from the list you created during your branded campaign
build; you may need to create more extensions relevant to your general campaign. Add
as many as possible!
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Key Campaign #2: General Campaign
A note on call extensions:
We suggest not using call extensions for general campaigns. For branded campaigns, we
know the lead is looking for you specifically and is more likely to call—for general campaigns, folks are likely to click to call before they understand the context around the ad.
• Save and Continue
General Campaign: Ad Groups
...Picking up where we left off in our general campaign (set up ad groups) build:
• Ad group name
Enter your first general campaign’s ad group name
Make sure you have considered how best to strategically split up your general campaign’s
ad groups!
• Default bid
Think back to our estimates and projections at the beginning of this course and stick to
that range, depending on your strategy and goals
• Keywords
Google can help you find relevant keywords by entering your website URL or entering
your product or service, but don’t rely on Google for your keywords
• Create any additional ad groups applicable to your general campaign
Remember: all ad groups share a budget!
• Save and continue
General Campaign: Ads and Go Live
...Picking up where we left off in our general campaign (create ads):
• Responsive search ad
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• Final URL
Make sure you still enter where you want your user to land when they click on your ad
• Display URL
Again, this is where you can manipulate your “URL” to reinforce your offer
• Headlines
Remember to provide as many headlines and descriptions as possible without redundancy
• Descriptions
• Save and continue
Campaign Review
Look through your campaign information; if all looks good, click publish!
Now your campaign is live!
Because we still have some work to do in this campaign, click “Enabled” on the top left-hand
corner of the page and then click “Pause” in the dropdown menu.
In this lesson, we built one ad group for our general campaign.
Now, make sure to build your subsequent ad groups!
RLSA and Exclusion: Remarketing Lists for Search
Ads (RLSA)
We are going to create a list that helps make sure people who have been to your site before are more
likely to see your ads if they start searching for your search terms again.
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From your General Campaign:
• Audiences> Click Edit Audience Segments
• Select Observation
This means we aren’t going to limit our target to the people who have been a part of this audience; we want to see who has been a part of this audience to make a strategic decision later
• Browse
• How They Have Interacted with Your Business
Remarketing and similar audiences
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• Website Visitors
All visitors (Google Ads)
• Save!
You now have an audience in observation mode!
• Audiences > click Show table
• Bid adj.
Now you can make a bid adjustment—increase your bid (we recommend around 40%)
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*What this means: You’ll increase the bid for people who have been to
your site before and search for one of the keywords you’re bidding on.
Exclusion Section
This is very similar to an RLSA list, except instead of targeting people who have been to your site
before, we tell Google not to go after anyone who has already converted with your General
Campaign (filled out a form, etc.).
From your General Campaign:
• Audiences > Edit Exclusions
• Browse
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• Website Visitors
All visitors
• Save
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Key Campaign #2: General Campaign
Chapter Six
Key Campaign #3:
Competitor Campaign
Let’s Build our Competitor Campaign!
Competitor Campaign | 10% of Budget
Competitor campaigns are designed to target folks who are searching for alternatives to your
product. We typically allocate 10% of our budget to this campaign type.
Competitor Campaign: Buildout
• Go to Ads.Google.Com and log in
• (+) New Campaign
• Select the goal that would make this campaign successful to you Create a campaign
without a goal’s guidance
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• Campaign type
Search
• Select the results you want to get from this campaign
Don’t select anything!
• Continue
• General settings: Campaign name
“Competitor Campaign”
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• Networks
Select Search Network
Deselect Display Network
• Show more settings
Don’t change anything!
• Targeting and audiences: Locations
You may be more or less expansive in this campaign than you are with your branded and
general campaigns, depending on your competitors
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• Location options: Target
People in or regularly in your targeted locations
• Exclude
People in your excluded locations
• Languages
All languages
• Audiences
Leave as is
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• Budget and bidding: Budget
10% of your budget
• Bidding
Select a bid strategy directly > Manual CPC
Important: for Competitor Campaigns, never use Enhanced CPC. Because you aren’t
the most relevant result for these particular searches (your competitor is!) your quality score
will never be as high. Don’t offer to pay more money for Google to try to get you to be the
1 result when that is an impossible endeavor.
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Key Campaign #3: Competitor Campaign
• Show more settings: Conversions
Use the account-level “Include in Conversions” settings
• Ad rotation
Optimize: Prefer best performing ads
• Ad extensions
It may be appropriate here to create new extensions that are specific to the competitors
you’re bidding against (but not attack ads!).
• Save and Continue
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Set Up an Ad Group
Split up ad groups by your different competitors!
• Select an ad group type
Standard
• Ad group name
Competitor1#
• Default bid
• Keywords
Qualify your search terms! For example, if a competitor offers some services you don’t offer,
use keyphrases that only include their brand name and the relevant service or product to you.
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• Create a New Ad Group for Every Other Competitor
Using same process
• Save and continue
Create Ads
• Responsive search ad
• Final URL
Make sure you still enter where you want your user to land when they click on your ad
• Display URL
Again, this is where you can manipulate your “URL” to reinforce your offer
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• Headlines
Remember to provide as many headlines and descriptions as possible without redundancy
• Descriptions
• Add URL options
Leave as is
• Save and continue
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Campaign Review
Look through your campaign information; if all looks good, click publish!
Now your campaign is live!
Because we still have some work to do, click “Enabled” on the top left-hand corner of the page
and then click “Pause” in the dropdown menu.
Exclusions
From your Competitor Campaign:
• Audiences > click Edit Exclusions
Add audience exclusion
• Browse
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• How They Have Interacted with Your Business
Remarketing and similar audiences
• Website Visitors
All converters
• Save!
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Chapter Seven
Key Campaign #4:
Remarketing Campaign
Building Your Fourth Campaign!
Your Remarketing Campaign | 10% of Budget
Remarketing campaigns bring visitors back to you. They also ensure the rest of your campaigns
are working! And if they work well, they can slash the cost of each lead—sometimes in half.
Remarketing campaigns:
• Reengage interested prospects
• Build your brand authority
• Increase visibility
• Improve your sales cycle
• Increase conversions
• Are relatively inexpensive
Let’s Build our Remarketing Campaign!
• Go to Ads.Google.Com and log in
• Tools and settings
• Shared library > Audience manager
• Audience sources
Left side of page
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• Google Ads Tag > Click corner button
Set up tag
• Edit the Google Ads tag data source: Remarketing
Only collect general website visit data to show ads to your website visitors
• Restricted data processing
Does your website comply with California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)? If you aren’t
sure, click exclude California residents from remarketing lists
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• Save and Continue
• Reinstall the tag on your website: Tag setup
Use Google Tag Manager
• Copy the Conversion ID
• Open Google Tag Manager in a new tab
TagManager.Google.Com
• In GTM: Select Tags
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Key Campaign #4: Remarketing Campaign
• New
Name “Remarketing Tag” on top left corner
• Tag configuration
Google Ads Remarketing
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• Paste Conversion ID
• Triggering
All pages > Add
• Save
• Submit
• Publish
Now we want to check Google Tag Assistant to make
sure this new tag is firing. Need a refresher? Go back to
our conversion tracking lessons!
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Key Campaign #4: Remarketing Campaign
• Open a new window and go to your website
• Click the GTA extension in your browser
• Enable
• Refresh your page
• Click the GTA extension again
You should see three tags listed under “Result of Tag Analysis,” including your new
remarketing tag
Now, go back to where you left off in Google Ads
• Continue
You should still be on the “Reinstall the tag on your website” page
• Done!
Remarketing Campaign: Campaign Settings
Now, Let’s Build!
• Go to Ads.Google.Com and login
• (+) New Campaign
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• Select the goal that would make this campaign successful to you Create a campaign
without a goal’s guidance
• Campaign type
Display
• Select a campaign subtype
Standard display campaign
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Key Campaign #4: Remarketing Campaign
• Select the results you want to get from this campaign
Paste your business’s website
• Continue
• Campaign name
Remarketing Campaign
• Targeting and audiences: Locations
Select the geographic region based on how likely people are to convert
• Location options: Target
People in or regularly in your targeted locations
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• Exclude
People in your excluded locations
• Languages
Only select applicable language to you
• Bidding: What do you want to focus on?
High Quality Traffic
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• How do you want to get conversions?
Automatically maximize traffic
• Budget
10% of your total budget
Show more settings: Conversions
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• Ad rotation
Optimize: Prefer best performing ads
• Ad schedule
All day
• Devices
Leave as is
• Campaign URL Options
Leave as is
• Dynamic Ads
Leave as is
• Start and end date
Leave as is unless you have specific dates
• Conversions
Use the account-level “Include in Conversions” settings
• Content exclusions
Select site-types where you don’t want your ad to appear
• Add targeting
Leave as is
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Key Campaign #4: Remarketing Campaign
Remarketing Campaign: Ad Groups
...Picking up where we left off in our remarketing campaign (set up ad groups) build:
• Ad group name
For the sake of this lesson, let’s only create a single ad group for your remarketing ads
and name this “General Remarketing”
• Audiences
Browse > How they have interacted with your business > All visitors
• Targeting expansion
Off!
Remarketing Campaign: Creating the Ads
...Picking up where we left off in our remarketing campaign (create ads):
• New responsive display ad
• Final URL
Enter the URL (landing page) where you want your audience to end up for this particular ad—your homepage works!
• + Images and logos
Upload your logo, select “Logo,” and save
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• Upload images
Upload as many images as you can
• Upload any videos you have as well
• Headlines
Fill out five headlines
• Long Headline
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• Descriptions
Fill out five descriptions
• Business name
Make sure you enter the business name users will use to find you
• Additional format options
Leave as is
• More options: Call to action text
Choose a call to action that most closely aligns with your business
• Custom colors
If you have your HEX codes, feel free to add them here! Opt in to show this ad on text
and native ad placements
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• Add to ad group
• Create another ad!
• Create campaign
• Continue to campaign
Because we still have some work to do, click “Enabled” on the top left-hand corner of the page
and then click “Pause” in the dropdown menu.
Remarketing Campaign: Exclusions
(i.e. Don’t show these ads to people who already took us up on our offer!)
From your Google Ads dashboard:
• All campaigns > Remarketing campaign
For this lesson, we are going to make a campaign-wide rule: don’t show any remarketing ads to folks who have already converted; but, you could also choose to only make
this exclusion in certain ad groups within this remarketing campaign!
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• Audiences > Edit Exclusions
• Exclude from (dropdown)
Campaign
• Search > All converters
• Save
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Now, Google will only show your remarketing ads to
people who have not converted.
Remarketing Campaign: Creating Audiences
We built our remarketing audience and added an exclusion list. Now let’s learn how to build more
advanced audiences so that you can massage your remarketing campaigns to better suit what is
working for you further down the road. So, from your Google Ads dashboard:
• Tools and settings > Audience manager
• Audience lists > Remarketing >
• + Website visitors
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• Audience name
This is the more specific audience type you will target, perhaps categorized by the specific page/service/product they visited on your site
• List members
You can play around here! For this training, we’ll make it easy and stick with “Visitors
of a page”
• Visited page
Again, you can play around here; for this training, simply choose “Match any rule
group” and your desired URL
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• Pre-fill options
Leave as is
• Membership duration
540 days
• Description
Explain what this audience means so that anyone who hopped into your Google Ads
account could understand without digging through all the details
• Create audience
*The audience is built but you still need to build a campaign
for that audience! However, you can apply this audience to
any campaign that has already been built.
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Chapter Eight
Key Campaign #5:
DSA Campaign
Let’s Build our DSA Campaign!
Your DSA Campaign | 25% of Budget
Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) fills in the gaps in your keyword-targeted campaigns. With DSA
campaigns, your site will appear in the search results when someone searches for a term that’s
closely related to a frequently used phrase or title found on your website.
DSA Campaign: Buildout
Go to campaigns:
Click the “+” symbol
New campaign
Create a campaign without a goal’s guidance
Search
Skip“ Select the results you want to get from this campaign”
Continue
General Settings
Type: Search
Campaign Name:
Network: Search Network > Only choose “Search Network” and select “Include Google Search
Partners”
Skip start and end date
Skip Campaign URL Options
Click on “Dynamic Search Ads setting” > yourdomain.com
For newer websites, you’ll have to wait until Googlebots scans or “crawls” your site (usually around
1 month after your site is published)
Language
Language: All languages
Select a target source > Use Google’s index of my website
Ad Schedule: All day
Budget and bidding
Budget: 25% of budget
Bidding: Conversions > Set a target cost per action
Conversion: Account-level conversion setting
Ad rotation: “Optimize: Prefer best performing ads”
Sitelink extensions: Choose the ones that are most appropriate for you.
Once finished, click Save and continue.
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Set up an ad group
It will automatically choose “Dynamic.”
Ad group name: All Webpages
Create a rule to target webpage
Select URL > contains > Enter the “root” domain where all your products are found (e.g. “underdoggames.com/collections/” or “underdoggames.com/products/”
This will let Google crawl your product pages.
However, if you want to use the exact URLs:
Select “Use exact URLs” > paste the exact URL of the product > Add
Create ads
• Final URL
• Headline - will be pulled right from your page title
• Display URL
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• You can only add descriptions
• Use the full length
• Should be about your products
• If you have a theme for your store, put it here
Once finished ,click Save and Continue.
To check on what ad group goes to your pages
Go to Dynamic Search Ads > Dynamic Targets
Negative dynamic ad target
Use this if you don’t want Google to crawl a specific page.
Copy the URL of the page
Inside Dynamic Search Ad go to Negative dynamic ad target
Click Add to > Campaign
Use exact URLs
Paste the url here
Add
Adjusting your Target CPA
Inside Dynamic Search Ad:
Go to Ad groups
Select the Target CPA of the ad group
Click the pencil icon
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How to find the pages that are getting traffic
Inside Dynamic Search Ad > Landing pages
How to add a negative keyword of your brand in DSA
campaign
Inside Dynamic Search Ad > Negative Keywords
Click the ”+“ symbol
Add negative keywords or create a list
Add your brand name
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Chapter Nine
Key Campaign #6: Performance Max
Performance Max Campaign | 20% of Budget
Shortest chapter ever?
Jokes aside, Performance Max is where things get both super exciting and complicated. See,
“PMax” is an entirely different beast in the world of Google Ads; there are different functions
and terms that stray from the traditional campaign types we have gone through so far—and it’s
critical that you understand how it works before you can walk through a buildout.
Because of that, we’re going to save the Performance Max tutorial for a later chapter where we
can fully explain the complexities of this campaign type. It’s worth the wait, promise.
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Chapter Ten
Negative Keyword List
Negative Keywords
It is equally important to tell Google where you don’t want your ad to appear as it is to tell it
where you do want your ads to appear. Enter: negative keywords. In this chapter, we’ll show
you how to inform Google of the keywords that don’t represent your brand.
Inside your Google Ads dashboard:
• Tools and settings > Shared library
• Negative keyword lists
• + Add negative keyword list
Name your list; for the sake of this lesson, just create one global negative keyword list
for now: “Master Negative Keyword List”
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• Save
Add any keywords you don’t want to show up for, for example “free”
• Select keyword list > apply to campaigns
Select all campaigns in popup window
• Apply
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Chapter Eleven
Campaign Management
While setting up your Google Ads campaign properly is essential, it’s the management (and monitoring and optimization) that comes after your campaign setup that will determine your success.
That said, there are a whole lot of guides out there that will tell you what buttons to push to
set up your campaign—but not what measures to take after.
But that’s what makes this book different! Let’s get to it:
Campaign Management: Monitor CPC Thresholds
Campaign Management: Keywords
Monitor Cost Per Click (CPC) Thresholds
• Keywords > Columns > Attributes
• Est. first page bid
• Est. top of page bid
• Est. first position
Next, Inside your Google Ads dashboard, check up on our negative keywords to make sure they
are up to date:
• Tools and settings > Shared library
• Negative keyword lists
• Add new negative keywords
• Select keyword list > apply to campaigns
Select all campaigns in popup window
• Apply
Campaign Management: Search Terms Report
Management: Search Terms
The keywords you bid on and the search terms you pay for sometimes end up being two different terms entirely. So, we want to check our Search Terms report:
• Add negative keywords
• Add new keywords/ad groups
• Increase/decrease bids
• Change match types
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Campaign Management: Auction Insights
Management: Auction Insights
You can actually see who’s competing against you inside Google Ads! From your dashboard:
• All Campaigns
• Overview
• Keywords
• Auction Insights
Note: It is helpful to view auction insights inside your individual ad groups for the
most valuable insights!
Optimizing and Monitoring Conversions
Once you start seeing conversions, it’s important to monitor (and then optimize accordingly)!
Here’s how to review your conversions from the Google Ads dashboard:
• All Campaigns
• Overview
• Keywords
• Search keywords
Here, Google shows you: how much you’ve spent, how many conversions you’ve received, and
your cost per conversion
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• Segment > Conversions > Conversion action
Campaign Management: Ads
Refreshing Your Ads
Over time, you’ll need to update and optimize your ads. Here’s how from the Google Ads
dashboard:
• All Campaigns > General campaign
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• Overview > Ads and extensions
• Review your ad performance
See what’s working with your ads and adjust poorly performing ads accordingly
Campaign Management: Bidding Strategies
Manual CPC
• How most campaigns should start
• Enable “Enhanced CPC” once you have five conversions or more
Target CPA
• Need 20 leads a week first
• Good if you have consistent results that you’d like to replicate
Maximize Conversions
• When budget isn’t a concern and you’re looking to produce as many leads as possible
• Examples: business brokers, real estate investors, etc.
Maximize Conversion Value
• Similar to maximize conversions but will take into consideration applied conversion values
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Target Impression Share
• For campaigns with perfectly sculpted keyword profiles that need to be shown at every
opportunity
Maximize Clicks
• Quantity over quality
• For campaigns looking for as many clicks as possible, usually on lower budgets
• Good strategy when all leads are equal
When you want to change your bidding strategy…
• From Google Ads dashboard: All Campaigns > Campaign you want to adjust
• Settings
• Bidding
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• Click dropdown > Select bidding strategy you’d like
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Chapter Twelve
Go Live!
Let’s Take Your Campaigns Live!
All Campaigns > Campaigns
This will open up to show all campaign tags you created: Brand Campaign, DSA
Campaign, Competitor Campaign, General Campaign, and Remarketing Campaign
Click the round dropdown > Enable
These campaigns should have been “paused” before
Congratulations! Your campaigns are now LIVE!
PART THREE
Google Ads for eCommerce
Welcome, eCommerce business owner!
We’re about to tell you everything you need to know about running Google Ads for your
store. This won’t just be a tutorial on what buttons to press (although we’ll tell you that, too); our
goal is to make sure you walk away with a strong understanding of the “why” behind every step.
As we said in our lead generation section: we are not following the rules.
If you’ve taken courses elsewhere, gotten certified, or noticed those little [recommended]
notes in the Google Ads dashboard, those are all the things we’ll break rank on.
What’s In It For You?
By the end of this section, you’ll walk away with:
• The ability to navigate the Google Ads dashboard like a pro
• Five campaigns ready to run
• An understanding of the core concepts and philosophy of Google Ads, so you can
adapt to Google’s (many) changes for years to come
*While we will touch on Performance Max campaigns, we’ll dive into “PMax” later in this book (it
deserves its own section, trust us!)
Useful resources for this guide:
• Purchasing UPC codes: Instantupccodes.com or https://www.gs1.org
• Google Ads: Ads.Google.com
• Google Tag Manager: Tagmanager.googgle.com
• Google Merchant Center: Merchants.google.com
• Google Analytics: Analytics.google.com
• Shopify: Shopify.com
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Chapter One
Prerequisites for eCommerce
Businesses
If you made it this far, Google Ads must be in the cards for your eCommerce store.
But hold on! Before we can get started, we need to make sure your eCommerce business is set
up for Google Ads success and ready to scale.
eCommerce Business Planning:
Must -Haves Before Building a Google Ads Campaign
You are hereby (lovingly) forbidden from building a Google Ads campaign until you have the
following nine items:
Reasonable monthly spend
Appropriate time expectations
Quality website
Enough margins to support a traffic campaign
Unique selling proposition
No one-off products
Completed customer avatars and assets
Robust data feed
Average order values that support paid traffic
Let’s explain:
Reasonable monthly spend
Think of your monthly budget early on as an investment. You are buying data you need to
understand what works in your campaign, what doesn’t, and where to make changes—in
a reasonable amount of time. With that investment, Google will start to build an audience
specifically for you that you will capitalize on later. And it will be worth it! You must have
enough monthly ad spend to accumulate enough accurate data for testing and optimizing
down the road. For context, here at Solutions 8, we typically won’t take a client whose budget
is under $2,000/month. Budget under $2,000 per month? Maybe you want to hold off until
it’s more feasible.
Google is a learning algorithm. The first three months are going to be the most “painful” part
of your campaigns. Which brings us to our next requirement:
Appropriate time expectations
It bears repeating that Google is a learning machine. And learning takes time.
In fact, we’re asking Google to do some pretty spectacular behavioral analysis. In the past, our
rule of thumb was that it took 90 days for a campaign to be fully optimized and ready to see
some results. This meant after 90 days, we would have enough data to determine whether or
not the campaign would work long term. But with the introduction of Performance Max, the
90-day guideline no longer applies. Instead, it takes roughly 45 days just to see what you’ve
built and how it’s going to work.
Essentially, Day 46 is now Day 0.
Once Google has gathered and analyzed all the available data, then you can start to see how
the foundation you put into place will perform over time. Put simply, it takes time to successfully optimize a campaign and position it to scale. But more often than not, being patient
during that initial learning period pays off in the long run.
Quality website
This one may sound obvious, but here goes:
Your ads will send prospective customers to your site. Therefore, you need an appealing,
easy-to-navigate website. See, we live in the age of the educated consumer. Long gone are
the days of the ol’ click-to-convert model.
Site visitors want value.
They want to learn.
They want to feel connected and understood.
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Your website should be full of quality content that showcases your products, along with learning materials and readily available answers to common questions—all in a site that is fast and
easy to navigate. And with Performance Max in the mix, a campaign type with more reach
and a greater ability to learn from your site, SEO and quality content has never been more
important. This is why you need more than a single-page website. You need to help people
get to know your product and who you are.
Oh, when it comes to eCommerce platforms, particularly ones that integrate beautifully with
Google Ads, Shopify is our favorite and will be the platform we use in this guide.
Enough margins to support a traffic campaign
Running ads takes money. Can your profit margins support these campaigns?
See, you can have a 100% profit margin—but if you’re selling $2 items, your campaigns still
might not be profitable.
Unless you have a higher cart value than the original price.
In other words, your products need to be priced highly enough (with the profit margin to
support it); otherwise, you’ll be relying on customers adding more to their cart than the single
advertised product (i.e., more bang for your advertising buck) and that’s a bit of a gamble.
Quick Tip!
Do you have slim margins but think customers will buy more than one product to make up
for it? There is a way to keep track of your average cart value once you set up your Google
Ads campaign. Here’s how:
Sign into your Google Ads account >
Campaigns>
Inside columns>
Modify columns>
Custom columns>
Click on the ’+‘ symbol>
Name: (you can call it “Avg. Cart Value”) >
Formula: Conv. Value (by conv. time) / Conversions (by conv. time)
If you don’t use the “by time,” the last possible 30 days may not be all there.
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Unique selling proposition
What’s your unique selling proposition? What
makes your company/product different from
everyone else?
The more heavily saturated your market, the harder it’s going to be to turn a profit from
Google Ads. So, what makes you different? And ahem being the cheapest option isn’t the
answer. Think about your favorite products: what makes them your favorite? Is it the company’s dependable return policy? The quality of the product? The materials used?
Your unique selling proposition is key for the success of your campaigns—specifically longevity and return traffic. After all, it’s six times less expensive to sell to an existing customer
than a new one.
No one-off products
If you have customizable products (think products that are personalized with engravings,
birthstone colors, or photos), this isn’t directed at you. But when it comes to one-offs, Google
Ads will not work.
To reiterate, one-offs are products that you can only sell once (like a unique, one-of-a-kind
painting). And therein lies the problem: When you make a sale through Google Ads, it is
Google’s job to try to recreate that cycle. It’s a learning machine!
But because single products can only sell once, Google has no way to recreate that process.
So, Google uses what’s called a global trade item number (GTIN) to identify and categorize
products. But when you sell a one-off product (a single GTIN), that code disappears forever
(bye, bye, valuable data).
Do you produce handmade products? Consider creating multiples of the same product type
(ceramic bowls, for example) and simply acknowledge that they might vary slightly in design
due to the nature of handmade products. Your first sale is always your most expensive in
Google Ads. You don’t want every sale to be your first.
Completed customer avatars and assets
You need to know the people you sell to on a very deep level: Who are they? Where do they
live? What do they read? What are their goals? What are their pain points? We do this by
creating customer profiles (avatars).
Now, a lot of business owners think in terms of demographics—not avatars.
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Here’s the difference:
A demographic is a generalized description of your population of customers (physicians, for
example). An avatar is the sub-type of customer that comes from your larger demographic. So, using our physician example, this demographic could easily be split into two very
different avatars:
Dr. Mike: An older physician in his late fifties to sixties, looking at retirement,
with a successful practice and anti-technology.
Dr. Sally: A young physician fresh out of medical school, in debt but looking to
get started with her own practice and a solid understanding of technology.
Here, we can see how vastly different these two avatars are within the same demographic.
All this is to say, get specific with your customer profiles.
Once you have your avatars clearly defined, you’ll need custom assets (photos, videos, and
copy) specifically catered to these audiences so that you can start building your Performance
Max campaigns.
Best to start churning out those assets now!
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Robust, up-to-date data feed
For eCommerce businesses, your product feed will make or break your campaign.
Items sell out.
Prices change.
New styles are introduced.
And keeping your products up-to-date directly impacts how well your campaign performs.
This includes:
• Product names
• IDs
• Prices
• Images
• Descriptions
• Attributes
Here at Solutions 8, we use DataFeedWatch (datafeedwatch.com) to optimize client product feeds. It allows us to customize product feed attributes before they are sent to Google
Merchant Center (the tool that uploads product listings into Google Shopping, Google
Product Ads, and Google Commerce Search).
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Whenever there are stock issues, page issues, or 404 issues, DFW stops the ads automatically.
Meanwhile, if you use a static spreadsheet version of your product feed, and a product encounters an issue, Google will still send traffic to those pages (that you can’t commoditize).
This means paying for clicks even though people can’t purchase the product.
In this case, you would see conversion values drop and need to stop the campaigns to investigate manually what was causing the campaign to spend without getting any conversion
value. But it gets worse: If there is a product issue that GMC catches before you do, it gets
“disapproved.”
And if this continues to happen, it can ultimately lead to a GMC suspension which stops all
ads. In other words, a robust, up-to-date data feed saves a lot of time and money down the road.
Average order values that support paid traffic
CPCs (cost per click) are always on the rise.
If you’re selling a $20 product, and your average CPC is a dollar, you’ll need a crazy-high
conversion rate (over 10%) to break even.
(If you get 15 clicks, you’ve already spent the price of the product!)
A higher average order value (closer to $50-60) gives your campaign some wiggle room for
more clicks or conversions, while allowing you to make some money—without necessitating
insanely high conversion rates of 10-20%.
eCommerce Business Planning: Nice-to-Haves
Now, assuming you have all nine must-haves in order, here are five important—but not imperative—items to consider:
Multiple SKUs
Product financing
Strong lifetime value
Lifestyle imagery
Existing purchase traffic
Let’s explain:
Multiple SKUs
Multiple SKUs for “like” products are ideal.
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Here’s an example:
A customer says, I need Product A. Good news! You not only have Product A—you have
10,000 versions of it (e.g., different colors or designs). Now your customer is much more likely
to purchase more than one; thus, your average cart value will increase.
Product financing
New “buy now, pay later” product financing payment options, like Affirm, Afterpay, and Klarna,
have made it so customers can make smaller payments over several weeks as opposed to one large
payment up front. These options have led to a big jump in purchases and cart value, particularly
among higher-priced product sellers. The best part? You get paid the full amount up front!
Add product financing options to your site if you can.
Strong lifetime value
Knowing what your real-time value is per customer and how many purchases they make within a year on average allows you to set lower targets for your ROAS goal and higher targets
for your CPAs. This means you can scale quickly and grow your business faster.
For example, if you have an average cart value of $100 but customers generally purchase three
times over 12 months, your average cart value becomes $300.
Lifestyle imagery
We’ll touch on this more soon, but lifestyle imagery (i.e., images of your product “in action”
and being used by real-life people) allows your customers to really visualize themselves using
your product. This is especially important with Performance Max campaigns..
Existing purchase traffic
If you have existing traffic (from social media or email lists, for example), Google uses this
information to identify what those people look like and find matches in their own ecosystem/
user base.
In other words, instead of starting from scratch, existing traffic gives Google some notes to
get going.
eCommerce Business Planning: Offer Design
Who’s your customer?
Can you describe your product to a stranger?
...Did I lose you for a minute there?
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Look, this is the part where we make you backtrack a little bit (in order to launch full speed
ahead). And it’s easy for most businesses to skip this “offer design” section because they assume
this box has been done and dusted for a long time. But before spending precious dollars on advertising online, let’s make sure you can define:
Your target audience
How your product makes customers feel
And what makes your unique brand stand out amongst the competition
Next, Optimize Your Existing Products
Now, let’s make sure your products and offers are as value-driven as possible. There are three
ways to achieve this:
Increase actual value
We’re not talking about raising the price of your products here. Instead, we’re talking about
how you can get customers to buy more from you. There are several ways to achieve this:
Bundles! If you have two products that usually go together, offer a bundle for a discounted
price. You increase the value the customer receives but you also increase your profitability.
Sure, the price is “discounted,” but you’re saving money on shipping and fulfillment while
increasing your cart value.
Subscriptions! For consumable products (or any other products that can be purchased consistently) consider offering a subscription-based model, which ensures recurring purchases.
We have seen first-hand that some subscription models have the same cost-per-acquisition as
a one-off purchase.
One-click upsell! When a customer is checking out, offer products that can be easily added
to their cart with one click.
Increase perceived value
Don’t underestimate the power of descriptions and images. Online shoppers are at a disadvantage because they can’t tangibly see and feel products like they would in a physical store.
However, this can be a big opportunity for you to stand out.
Give your viewer a full virtual experience of your product: Describe the benefits of your
products, not just the features. Show your product in action with lifestyle imagery, so users
can visualize themselves using it. Explain how and why your product is valuable to them in
a clear, easy-to-understand way.
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Perceived value is more valuable than the actual value.
The perceived value is the reason they buy.
Fringe benefits
Similarly, consider any additional creative ways you can add value (and perceived value) to
your products. This can be in the form of additional content (think product demos, how-to
videos, and tutorials), building a community around your product via social media and online
forums, or providing early access to that product.
Ascension Models and Value Optimization
Once you start pulling in more customers and sales, here are a few ways to optimize your growth:
Never stop selling
It has been proven (with science!) that humans are in a different state of mind when they make
a purchase than when they evaluate whether they want to purchase.
Customers are likely to buy another product immediately after purchasing something else
because they are in a “buying” state.
Take advantage of that buying window!
Give customers multiple opportunities to ascend and add products based off of their initial
purchase.
Order bumps
This is along the same vein, but it bears repeating:
Order bumps are options to add additional products to your cart and they work.
A great way to do this is through the Frequently Bought Together app on Shopify
Build your email list/email marketing
When it comes to eCommerce, email has the potential to bring in more money than any other
marketing channel.
Truthfully, you don’t want to spend a lot on paid traffic forever (a la Google Ads)!
And email marketing is one of the most affordable marketing channels available.
Need to pull in more email addresses from your audience?
Capture contact details using value-driven content that is applicable to your offer (e.g., howtos, guides, checklists).
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Repeat and/or recurring customers
It is more expensive to acquire new customers than to sell to current customers .Capitalize on this.
Build social proof
Customers buy from brands they trust. Social proof has the power to bring in new customers—so be sure to continue building social proof and showcase it on your site.
Don’t be afraid to ask your customers for product testimonials and reviews.
Finally: Choosing a Product/Niche
As a precursor, we want to make this clear: Be true to your brand. Protect your brand. Don’t
change lanes simply because of a flimsy trend.
That said, you can make some pretty savvy and informed decisions by doing some research
on the recent market trends—and when possible, use this information to optimize the products
you offer to meet these trending needs.
Here’s how:
Google Trends
Make use of Google Trends (trends.google.com); this is a great way to identify trends from a
volume/search perspective.
Insights Tab
The Insights Tab inside of Google Ads Performance Max campaigns gives you an overview of
the audiences and themes relevant to your products or services, pulled from Google’s entire ecosystem (search trends, demand forecasts, and consumers’ interests).
This means you’ll be able to identify who your audiences are based on what the market says,
even if they don’t seem related to what you’re selling.
The Top Search Themes section of the insights tab is particularly helpful, showing you branded and non-brand search themes of users who are searching to buy.
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Chapter Two
Setting Up The Foundation
Whew!
We just did a lot of work on your brand identity. At this point, you not only know the intimate details of your brand, product, and audience—you know how to best communicate those
details.
We discussed absolute must-haves (and nice-to-haves) before launching a campaign; now, it’s
time to tie it all together on your website.
First Up: Website CRO (Conversion Rate
Optimization) Best Practices
Building an eCommerce store isn’t that hard.
Building an eCommerce store that converts? Now, that’s a different story.
Here are some CRO best practices to ensure your site is ready to make sales:
The Big Three:
Eliminate Website Issues and Errors
You can’t drive traffic to a broken website. So, it’s crucial to ensure you catch any website
issues or errors.
• Frequently (at least once a month) check your site and make sure everything is working properly and there are no high-risk issues and errors.
Schedule a website audit at least once a month.
Optimize Website Speed
Website speed has a massive impact on your quality score; in fact, it is considered slightly
more important than content(!) according to Google. A few things to consider:
• Mobile users are going to be less tolerant of slower websites due to the smaller size of the
device and often slower connection.
• The biggest contributing factor for slow sites are large image sizes.
Increase Mobile Engagement
• 60-65% of website visits happen on mobile devices. For this reason, it’s imperative
that your site is mobile-friendly!
• Look at your conversion path: Although many purchases happen on desktop computers, research is often done on mobile devices. In other words, consider each step
of your buyer’s journey so you can make it as effortless as possible.
Conversion Rate Optimization Checklist
• Everything works properly
• Website is fast (under 2-3 seconds load time)
• (use PageSpeed Insights to measure this)
• Your email/phone number is in the header or footer
• Customers need to know they can trust you (i.e., get in touch with you)
• Website design is appealing to your audience
• Make sure the design is centered around your product and isn’t a distraction
• High-quality images
• Products are described clearly with all features displayed
• CTAs are in a contrast color (bold!) and easy to find
• Check out BOOM! by Cindy Joseph for inspiration
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• There are reviews on product pages
• Verification badges (secure payment, BBB, SSL, guarantees, free returns, etc.)
• This helps improve the trustworthiness of your site and brand
• Turn anything you offer to a badge (Free shipping? Make it a badge! Free returns?
Badge! Much more exciting than text)
Website Speed Optimization Checklist
• Choose a “light” theme
• A good developer can improve your site speed a lot—but make sure you don’t rely
too heavily on customization
• Scale your images properly
• Try Picresize.com
• Decrease the weight of your images without losing quality
• Try Tinypng.com
• Limit the amount of plugins/apps
• Limit the amount of displayed products on category pages
• Check in on your page speed
• Try PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev)
• Don’t aim for a 100/100 score—just aim for good user experience
Quality Assurance (QA) Checklist:
Include quality assurance checkups in your monthly standard operating procedures to make sure
your site is in tip-top shape. You can do this through internal QA and external QA:
Internal QA :Pretend to be your own customer
• Try to break the site
• Navigate through your site the way a customer would
• Gauge how easy it is for a distracted customer to use your site.
• Ask yourself, “If I weren’t paying full attention, could I still do this?”
• Make an actual purchase
*You can hire someone to go through your site on fiverr (fiverr.com).
External QA: Have someone else pretend to be a customer
• Just tell them where you want them to go—but not how to get there
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Analyze Top Competitors:
• What is different between their website(s) and yours?
Pro Tip!
Diagnosing Issues: Screen Recording Software
You can install screen recording software on your site that tracks users’ navigation via heat
mapping (note: it will likely slow the speed of your site). This works on desktop and mobile—so
for eCommerce sites that aren’t converting, you can use this software to figure out what’s going
wrong along the way.
Here are a few notable options:
• HotJar (hotjar.com)
• TruConversion (truconversion.com)
• Lucky Orange (luckyorange.com)
Keep in mind: You don’t need to use these apps forever. Diagnostic tools are a great way to assess
the state of your website and determine any site optimizations or product additions.
We’ll walk you through the installation process later.
Product Page Preparation
Your product pages are the most important pages on your website. In most cases, it’s the landing
page for your traffic: your very first impression.
Many businesses put tons of energy into optimizing their homepage, yet neglect the product
pages customers land on. So let’s make sure your product pages are ready to shine:
Product Page Checklist
• Product title and subtitle
• Make sure the product title is clear, descriptive, and honest enough for Google
to identify the product and send relevant traffic your way (Look at Amazon for
inspiration)
• But avoid keyword “stuffing”! Honesty and simplicity are key
• Product description
• Product descriptions are supplementary to your title
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• Use this opportunity to elaborate on the specifics of your product: any particular
materials, special features, ingredients that are worth highlighting but would be
too long for your title
• Product media (images and videos)
• We purchase with our eyes first
• Custom imagery is always going to be better than stock photos, particularly lifestyle
images that help customers picture themselves using your product
• Nested navigation
• Make sure navigation is clear, easy, and accessible—we don’t want people to get lost
• Use breadcrumbs so users can always find their way back
• Social proof (i.e., reviews)
• Customers buy from businesses they trust—Enter: reviews
• Aggregating enough reviews takes time, so ask your customers for a review after 30
days of purchasing and give them an incentive or reward for completion
• The 30-day rule gives you at least a few days/weeks to resolve any issues—and get
a good review for it
• Once you have enough five-star reviews, you can add them to your site
• Clear call-to-action (CTA)
• If you don’t tell people what you want them to do, they won’t do it
• A clear, bold CTA nudges your customer to the next step
• Isolate the action you want them to take: make the CTA a BIG button (not just a
hyperlink)
• Clear customization options
• To avoid cart abandonment, if you offer customized products, make sure the options
are clear and don’t overwhelm your customers
Product Media
When it comes to adding images on your website, here’s the thing:
You don’t need to be a professional photographer. In fact, all you need to create high-quality
images is:
• A smartphone (new iPhones or Samsung do a really good job)
• A plain white background
• Natural lighting
Don’t zoom in.
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Don’t use a flash.
And edit your photos if you can (check Fiverr or Pixc for outsourcing options).
That’s all it takes!
Remember, your photos should give context and further showcase details of the product. If your product has a unique feature, it’s best to explain what that feature is in the descriptions and show it in your images.
Overwhelmed by how many products you need to capture? Start with your bestsellers.
Make sure each of them has a decent product photo and (if possible) a short video. 5-7 images
per product should be enough.
We are visual creatures. High-quality product media will close the sale.
Product Media Part Two: Lifestyle Images
Speaking of product media, lifestyle images are critical for customers to visualize your product in
action. (Remember: Lifestyle imagery is a photo or video of your products being used by real people.)
Here are some tips:
Give context
• Hey, your product doesn’t have to be the “main subject” in the photo. In fact, it could be
in the background—like this poor Nespresso machine, competing with George Clooney’s
eternal handsomeness:
We’d buy it.
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You can use photos from your Instagram or Pinterest
• Speaking of Instagram, you can send your product to influencers (for free) in exchange
for promotional content on their page
• Check out imagency.com to find influencers
Shoot a YouTube overview of the product and paste it on your
product page
Robust Titles and Descriptions
Use the product description to sell the transformation
• The description sells the TRANSFORMATION, not the product
• Use the language that your avatar uses but make sure you also include the right keywords
that Google understands
Include specifications
• Size, material, weight, features
Use the product titles and descriptions to communicate with Google
• Google relies on product titles and descriptions to identify products and send relevant
traffic—so, make sure they are “machine friendly” (clear and easy to understand)
Good descriptions can be repurposed
• Save some time and energy! Quality descriptions can be loosely reused for other product
pages as well as for ad copy
Live Chat
We strongly recommend live chat on your website. Here’s why:
Diagnose errors
• Live chat allows you to compile visitor questions and create content that answers those
questions for future customers
• Add helpful information to your product pages and place them near the top of your page
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Identify objections
• Live chat can give you insight into what holds customers back from making a purchase—
what questions do they ask before abandoning their cart? What concerns do they bring up
in the chat?
Improve conversion rates
• Sometimes, all it takes is a little supportive nudge for customers to make a purchase
• By “being there” through their virtual journey, you have a higher likelihood of making a
conversion
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Chapter Three
Technical and Legal Requirements
By this point, we should know your brand, audience, and products on a deeper level. Your website’s aesthetics and navigation are on lock. Now, let’s get technical.
GTIN (Global Trade Item Number)
Ahh, GTINs. Those 16-digit codes you see below product barcodes.
GTINs help Google classify and display your product across all of their eCommerce and
marketing campaigns. Think of it as your product’s social security number. It identifies what
your product is, but also stores information about your virtual audience, such as:
• Websites they visit
• Products they view
• Content they consume
• Keywords they use to search
By using a GTIN, you’re taking advantage of crowdsourced data for similar products that are
already on the market.
There are a lot of reasons why you should have a GTIN for every
product in your eCommerce catalog:
• It allows you to leverage data from similar products in the market that will optimize
your Performance Max campaign to scale.
• It allows you to optimize your product without losing data.
• It keeps your audience the same while you figure out the best converting titles and descriptions for your products.
Put simply, GTINs directly impact your Google Ads campaigns in many ways—which is why
running into GTIN-related problems inside of Google Ads can be such a colossal headache.
Here are some common GTIN-related issues in Google Ads (and
what to do about them):
Invalid Value [GTIN]
If you’ve run Google Ads before, you might be familiar with the dreaded Google Merchant
Center (GMC) suspension.
One of the main reasons why GMC disapproves products is because of an invalid GTIN.
This error means you don’t have a globally valid UPC.
When this happens, chances are you got your GTIN from your manufacturer. If so, contact
them to fix this issue.
Unsupported value (restricted) [gtin] (yellow warning sign)
Unlike invalid GTINs, products with an “unsupported value” error may still be able to run.
Essentially, Google is letting you know that while this particular GTIN isn’t valid, you can
still give it a shot. It’ll be up to Google’s discretion whether or not it is allowed to run.
Compliance Issues
Google Merchant Center: Business Information
Let’s talk about the biggest reason for compliance issues.
• You must have at least two of the three pieces of information available:
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Physical business address
Phone number
Email address
Here’s the thing: Google is a bot. It scans sites as efficiently as possible to ensure compliance. If your
business’s contact information is included inside, say, your privacy policy—Google may miss it. So
make sure to include this information on a dedicated contact page. Otherwise, Google could flag
your site as non-compliant—even if your business information is available elsewhere.
• Similarly, phone numbers must be highlightable—not stuck in an image.
• If you are uncomfortable sharing contact information, temporarily place them on your
contact us page until you are verified by Google. You can remove them later once you’re up
and running.
For brick-and-mortar businesses
You can link your Google My Business to Google Ads!
Website Settings (Part One)
Tracking phone calls
How does Google know when paid traffic calls you after seeing an ad?
What if a customer makes a purchase over the phone?
How do these conversions get tracked?
Ahh, this is where a quality call tracking platform like CallTrackingMetrics comes in.
This service, which you can sync with Google Ads, gives you a unique tracking phone number
(which appears on your website in place of your current phone number) that dynamically changes, depending on the campaign or channel your customer visited, so you always know the exact
source of the call. But it can only do this if your phone number is highlightable (i.e., not
embedded in an image).
After your lead sees your ad and makes a call, that recording is pulled into an activity log,
where you can manually score the quality of that call.
And here’s why this is so important:
Simply counting each phone call to your unique tracking number as a conversion can be wildly inaccurate. It’s important to rank the quality of the call so Google knows whether or not the ad
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(which led to a phone call) can be attributed to a sale, an inquiry, or a concern or complaint—or,
perhaps it was a completely irrelevant call altogether.
Suspension Risks
To avoid suspension risks, here are some must-haves:
Include the four legal policies in your sitemap
• You should have clickable and working links to your Refund Policy, Privacy Policy,
Shipping Policy, Terms and Conditions (or Terms of Service). Make sure they are
visible in your sitemap (in your footer).
• To make sure your legal policies will be picked up by Google’s site scan, go to: (yourdomain).com/sitemap.xml to ensure those pages appear.
Payment options
• Your available payment options must be visible on your checkout pages—do not
include any payment options you don’t accept! To be safe, also put them in the footer.
Beware of restricted keywords in titles, descriptions, reviews,
or anywhere in your website
• Avoid using words/keywords that are restricted by Google. You can find restricted content
and features here.
• Understand that Google is a machine and can take any word out of context. If you think it
might be a dangerous word choice—it probably is!
Multiple disapprovals
• Be careful how many times you test Google. Multiple disapprovals lead to suspension.
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Shipping issues
• If the shipping fee on your feed is $0.01 lower than the website, you’ll get disapproved.
Starting off with massive sales on all products
(misrepresentation)
• If you have a product with a GTIN and you mark the price up higher than the usual
MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price) then discount it back down to MSRP,
that will be considered misrepresentation.
Taxes
• If your website and your feed have different tax rates, you’ll get disapproved. You can
have a higher tax (and shipping) on your feed than on your website, but not the other way
around.
Helpful resources:
Google Ads Policies
• Google Ads shows you what was clicked. Analytics shows you what was sold.
• Google attributes the sale of anything on your website back to the original ad (not
product) that brought the user to the site.
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Chapter Four
Connecting Your Tech Stack
We’re about to get into the nitty gritty. As we go through the steps to set up your Google Ads account,
please keep in mind that we will be using Shopify as our eCommerce platform.
Let’s go!
Website Settings (Continued)
Make sure all products have UPC codes
• Google uses UPC codes to optimize products and catalog performance. These codes
help ensure that if you run out of a product, and that product gets restocked a month later,
Google’s algorithm will pick up where it left off—instead of relearning the performance
and optimizations of that product.
• We recommended Instant UPC Codes if you manufacture your own products or don’t have
UPC codes.
Set up your legal pages in Shopify
Refund Policy
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service
Shipping Policy
• Your Refund Policy, Privacy Policy, and Terms of Service can all use a generic template
• Your Shipping Policy needs to be customized after you download a template from
Google (how to return, return exceptions, and restocking fee and exchanges)
• These legal pages must be set up before you link your Shopify store to Google Ads and
Google Merchant Center
Here’s how to ensure your legal pages appear in your sitemap:
Go to your Shopify Dashboard
Settings
Legal
Go over your policies and make sure you have Refund, Privacy, Terms of Service,
Shipping
Add them to your pages or footer
Google Suite
Creating your Google Ads Account
Your Google Ads account will be “ homebase” for your business’s online ads, settings,
and personal information.
Go to ads.google.com/home
Sign in using your Gmail Account
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...or create a New Google Ads Account
Choose Switch to Expert Mode
New Campaign page > Choose Create an account without a campaign
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Confirm your business information
Explore your account
Your Google Ads Account is all set up!
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Creating Your Google Tag Manager Account
Google tag manager allows you to install tracking on your website to evaluate the success
of your campaigns.
Go to marketingplatform.google.com/about/tag-manage
Start For Free
Create Account
Complete your account details
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Click Create
Leave this tab open and open a new tab to create your Google Analytics account.
Creating Your Google Analytics Account
Google Analytics allows you to track, report, and analyze your website traffic.
Go to analytics.google.com
Sign in using your Gmail Account
Start measuring
Complete your account details
Note: Shopify doesn’t integrate directly with GA4 yet.
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Account Setup:
Account name: https://yourdomain.com
Tick all the boxes
Property Setup:
Property Name: yourdomain.com
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Show advanced options > Turn on “Create a Universal Analytics property”
Website URL: https:// > yourdomain.com
Choose Create a Universal Analytics property only > Next
About your business
Choose an industry category
Choose your business size
Tick “Other” > Create
Read and Agree to GA Terms of Service Agreement
My email communications > uncheck all boxes > save
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Copy your Global Site Tag.
If you aren’t in the website tracking page yet:
Go to Admin > Account > Property > Click <> Tracking Info > Tracking Code > Copy the Global
Site Tag Code
Paste your Global Site Tag in Shopify
Go to your Shopify Dashboard:
Shopify
Preferences
Google Analytics
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Paste your Global Site Tag Code here:
Google Analytics eCommerce Setup
Go to your Google Analytics Dashboard:
Admin
Property Settings
Ecommerce Settings
Turn on Enable Ecommerce
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Turn on Enable Enhanced Ecommerce Reporting
Save
Connecting Your Google Tag Manager to Shopify
Go to your Google Tag Manager account and open a container:
In the top right corner, you’ll see a text that starts with GTM- and then contains some letters/
numbers. That’s your Google Tag Manager ID.
Click your GTM ID > Copy the Google Tag Manager Code
Go to your Shopify Dashboard > Themes > Actions > Edit Code > look for “”, paste
it under.
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Google Merchant Center Setup
Go to google.com/retail/solutions/merchant-center/
Sign In
Enter your business information
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“Where do you want your customers to check out?” > Choose which answer applies to you
“What other tools do you use?” > For this guide, we’ll choose Shopify
“Would you like to sign up for emails about Google Merchant Center?” > Select which
answer applies
Agree to Google Merchant Center Terms of Service
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Create account
Set Up Google Ads Tag
From your Google Ads Dashboard:
Tools
Audience Manager
Audience Sources
Google Ads tag
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Set Up Tag
Create the Google Ads Tag Data Source
Remarketing: Choose “Collect data on specific actions people performed on your website to show
personalized ads.”
Business type: Retail
Restricted data processing: Exclude California users from remarketing lists
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Save and continue
Install the Tag on Your Website
Tag Setup > Use Google Tag Manager
Install the tag using Google Tag Manager
Copy Conversion ID
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Go back to Google Tag Manager Dashboard
Tags
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New
Name Tag“ Remarketing Tag”
Tag Configuration
Google Ads Remarketing
Paste your Conversion ID
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Name Tag “Conversion Linker”
Tag Configuration > Tag Type
“Conversion Linker” Linker Options
Tick Enable linking on all page URLS
Add Trigger
Publish
Check if your tags are firing properly
Download Google Tag Assistant plugin and install it.
Go to your website
Click the Google Tag Assistant (you may have to reload your website after clicking it)
Make sure you see all tags (Global site, Google Ads Conversion, etc.) and no errors
Installing Google Ads App for Shopify
Setting Up Conversion Tracking (Shopify)
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Go to your Google Ads Dashboard > Tools > Conversions > New (+) Conversions > Website
Create a conversion action for your website
Category: Purchase
Conversion name: Purchase
Value:
• Use the same value for each conversion—this would only be applicable if you have one single
product on your site
• Use different values for each conversion (we’ll use this one) > Enter a default value “1”
(we’ll add dynamic values to your tracking code later)
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Count: Every
Click-through Conversion Window: 90 Days
View-through Conversion Window: 30 Days
Include in “Conversions”: Yes
Attribution Model: Default is last click but we now use “Data Driven” for eCommerce
businesses running Performance Max. Otherwise, we opt for “First Click” > Create and
continue
Set up the tag
Choose “Install the tag yourself”
See code for: HTML (if using standard implementation—if using AMP, select AMP)
Global site tag: The global site tag isn’t installed on all your HTML pages (use this if you
haven’t installed your global site tag yet)
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Copy Global Site Tag code (this is going to go in your header—no matter which type of
website platform you use)
For Shopify users:
Go back to your Shopify account and go to themes:
“theme.liquid” > paste the code under
Now, head back to Google Ads
Event snippet
Select Page Load > copy the snippet
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Go to back to the Shopify Dashboard
Settings
Checkout
Order Processing
Additional Scripts
Paste the snippet here
However, now we need to customize the code a bit. At this point, all values are currently marked
as “1.0,” (i.e., $1).
This is what it looks like before you replace the values:
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So, we need to customize this code to ensure the appropriate value is given to each purchase.
Here’s how:
‘Value’: {{ checkout.total_price | money_without_currency }},
‘Currency’: ‘{{ shop.currency }}’,
‘Transaction id’: {{ order_number }}”
This is what it should look like after changing the values:
Shopify custom codes:
{{ checkout.total_price | money_without_currency }}
{{ shop.currency }}
{{ order_number }}
Tip:
Reach out to Google Tag Implementation Team if you need
support.
How to import data (Goals and events) from GA Analytics
Head to your Google Ads Dashboard:
Conversions
Conversion Actions
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Click the )+( plus symbol
Choose “Import”
Choose Google Analytics (UA)
Continue
Make sure your account is linked
Installing Screen Recording Software (Lucky
Orange)
Next up, let’s install screen recording software. For the sake of this guide, we’ll use Lucky
Orange, but there are several other platforms to choose from.
Let’s go!
Signing Up
Go to luckyorange.com/
Start My Free Trial
Sign Up
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Add a new site
Enter your site’s name
Add Site
The tracking code will pop up; copy it
Next, go back to your Shopify Dashboard:
Themes
Actions
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Edit Code
theme.liquid
Paste the code under the “”
Save
Dashboard Menus
Now what? Here’s what you can do once Lucky Orange (or the screen recording software of
choice) is installed:
Live Visitors - click to see who’s visiting your site right now click “LIVE view”
Ask to Chat - click to initiate a chat with your visitor
Recordings - click to view all the recordings on mobile and desktop
Setting up realtime alerts
If you want to know when a user is, say, on your checkout page (or any other URL of your site)—
you can set up triggers to notify you in real time. Here’s how.
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Go to Lucky Orange Dashboard:
Settings
Behavior Tagging
Add New Rule
Choose “Match URLs that contain this text” (URLs for checkout pages typically vary
from user to user, that’s why we’re using this option)
Select the piece of the URL that remains the same (for example, an alert when someone is
on the checkout page might be: “/checkouts/” or “/cart/” — whatever “chunk” appears in
your URL)
Tag recording with: Add a name (e.g., “People on the checkout page”)
Add Rule
Finally, go to Realtime Alerts:
If the visitor is tagged with “(your tag here)”
Select notification type (sounds and alert box you’d like)
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Click Add Rule
How to Install DataFeedWatch in Shopify
Now, as an eCommerce business, you use a platform (like Shopify) to distribute your products
online. And while these platforms include a basic data feed solution, you simply cannot rely on
these onboard feed solutions to optimize your feed.
Why choose DataFeedWatch?
Data feed optimization is their thing—and it shows:
Clear instructions for every CMS
Allows you to make very specific updates in your feed at scale
Allows you to make changes without doing anything on your website
You can do A/B tests
Adding your Shop to DFW
Go to your DataFeedWatch Dashboard > add shop:
Input feed: Enter Your shop’s name
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Choose your main input feed: Click any that apply (e.g., Shopify)
Source location: https://yourshopifydomain.com
Installation
Choose “I am the Shop Owner” > Click Next Tab
Updates Schedule
Choose update timezone: choose your timezone
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Select update times: choose the time when you want to trigger updates > Click Next Tab
Download DataFeedWatch’s app inside Shopify
Go to your Shopify Dashboard:
Apps >
Search for DataFeedWatch app and connect
DataFeedWatch Caveats:
Don’t remove anything–changing titles from Title A to Title B is a landing page discrepancy.
Google Merchant will disapprove or suspend you.
• Don’t change the price (i.e., price on the website is higher than the feed). It’s a landing
page discrepancy.
• Don’t remove descriptions. You can add but not “remove” because Google will say that
what’s on your feed is not your product. This could lead to a misrepresentation.
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Chapter Five
Setting Up Your Campaigns:
Shopping Campaigns
Standard Shopping
Dynamic Remarketing
Performance Max Previously Smart Shopping
After all that prerequisite work, it’s finally time to hop into Google Ads!
Because this section is the guide to Google Ads for eCommerce, we of course need
to begin with shopping campaigns. However, we will build out nine campaigns total:
Shopping Campaigns
Standard Shopping: 20% of budget
Dynamic remarketing: 10% of budget
Performance Max: 15% of budget
Search Campaigns
Competitor 10% :of budget
DSA 20% :of budget
Brand 10% :of budget
Expansion Campaigns
Discovery: 5% of budget
YouTube: 5% of budget
Display: 5% of budget
An important note on budgets:
These are merely suggestions and are generally a great place to start; however, budgets should
always be adjusted as needed according to performance and goals.
Standard Shopping vs. Performance Max
You might be wondering what the difference is between Standard Shopping campaigns and
Performance Max campaigns inside Google Ads.
Here’s a quick overview of how Standard Shopping campaigns work:
You (the business owner) send your product feed (the listing of all the products on your
website) to Google using a Merchant Center account.
You set your budget.
Google uses your feed to create “placement shopping ads” that appear on relevant search
results pages.
These ads include a photo of the product and its correlating information—a step above
standard text ads.
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These ads ensure the user sees all the important “must-know” details about your product before
clicking—therefore, each click is (in theory) made by a more qualified lead.
However, Performance Max campaigns take standard Shopping campaigns a giant
step further.
With Performance Max, you still:
Send your product feed to Google via a Merchant Center Account.
Create a campaign and set your budget.
...And Google still pulls your product information to create placement ads that appear
when a shopper searches for a relevant product.
But, that’s just where it begins.
Why Performance Max (Previously Smart Shopping) Is The Most Powerful eCommerce
Advertising Tool on the Planet
Unlike Standard Shopping, Performance Max uses algorithmic targeting to show ads to very
specific users. How specific? We’re talking about users who have shown high intent and interest in a product based on their past search activity.
Performance Max uses ALL SEVEN of Google’s channels to advertise: Search, Display,
YouTube, GSP, Shopping, etc. And with such powerful algorithm targeting, you no longer have
to do the heavy lifting of pushing prospects strategically from the top of the funnel to the bottom. Instead, PMax goes through their massive user database and matches your ad with the best
user who’s ready to buy from you right now.
How? Dynamic Prospecting.
Dynamic Prospecting Vs. Remarketing
Dynamic Prospecting uses information about your current users and your products to find
new prospective customers. On the other hand, Dynamic Remarketing shows ads to those who
previously visited your website or engaged with your ads.
Dynamic remarketing, while a bit controversial, does have its place in Google Ads campaigns
for eCommerce businesses. However, it needs to be set up appropriately—which is something
we’ll go over soon.
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Standard Shopping
We are big fans of Performance Max campaigns here at Solutions 8. They generally perform leaps
and bounds better than Standard Shopping campaigns. But, we still run Standard Shopping campaigns. Standard Shopping gives us search terms—this is valuable data that tells us what people
are searching for when they see your shopping ad. The search terms tell you what Google is
matching your products with.
Here’s where things get interesting: If you just run a Performance Max campaign, Google
creates ads for your products that live in all of Google Ads’ “locations:”
Google Shopping
Google Search
Google Display
YouTube
GSP
Google is a learning machine and will begin to learn from your Performance Max campaign over
time. However, Standard Shopping campaigns gather more data faster. And while the success
of these campaigns is generally lower—the data is valuable for Google to apply to your “PMax”
campaigns (i.e., no starting from scratch!).
So, let’s build some shopping campaigns!
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Standard Shopping Campaign | 20% of Budget
Go to your Google Ads Campaigns section:
Campaigns
Click ”+“ Symbol
New Campaign
Choose Sales
Shopping
Select a Merchant Center (you should only have one)
Select the country where your feed is opted in for
Select Standard Shopping campaign
Click continue
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General Settings
Campaign name: Standard Shopping
Inventory filter: You can choose to filter products but we will run all products first. So,
leave it to “Filter: Advertise only products that match all of your requirements”
Local products: Disabled
Campaign URL options: No options set (Campaign URL options lets you track the performance at all levels (i.e., keywords, ad groups, campaigns, account). This is a good way
to track whether Standard Shopping or Performance Max is bringing in new conversions.
You can set it up at the account level or campaign level.
Link to campaign URL Builder
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Bidding and Budget
Bidding: Manual CPC
*Here’s why: We like to set our starting point knowing that Performance Max will perform
better
Uncheck “Help increase-conversions with Enhanced CPC”
*Here’s why: We like to start our bid low in Standard Shopping, determine which products
are most successful, and begin to increase our budget where there will be the most impact
Budget: 20% of your budget
If you’re just starting out, your daily budget for Performance Max must be $100 per day at a
minimum—and even that might not be enough if you’re in a competitive industry.
For that reason, you shouldn’t run PMax if you can’t meet that budget requirement.
Meanwhile, Search Campaigns should be at least $20 per day, and Standard Shopping should be
at least $10
Limit the amount of spend that your Standard Shopping campaign can run
Campaign priority: Low (default)
You can set it to “high” if you’re running Standard Shopping and Performance Max; the
PMax campaign will eventually take over on its own
Targeting
Network: Check both “Search Network” and “Youtube, Gmail, and Discover”
Location: United States
Target: Only use “Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations”
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Start and end date: Not set
Create your ad group
Ad group name :Standard Shopping Ad Group
Bid: Enter your cost-per-click bid here
Go to Standard Shopping Category/Campaign:
Product Groups
Hover over the ”+“ symbol to Add Subdivision
Click “All Products” drop down
Choose“ Item ID”
Select everything
Continue to edit bids
This is where you can change your bids.
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You can also set your CPCs by the specific product here.
To exclude a product, go to your product group > choose a product > exclude.
To increase CPC, in Max CPC Column > choose the column of the product you want to adjust:
• For each individual product group, you can set individual bids
Dynamic Remarketing Campaign | 10%
of Budget
Performance Max on its own won’t have the remarketing reach Smart Shopping had—or even
traditional display remarketing.
So, we recommend running YouTube remarketing campaigns at 10% of your budget.
But, we have also seen some success with dynamic remarketing campaigns. If you’d like to try
dynamic remarketing as well, keep in mind that your overall remarketing budget should be 10%.
Here’s how:
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Start a new campaign
Go to Campaigns:
Click the ”+“ symbol
New campaign
Sales
Display
Standard display campaign
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Create your campaign
Campaign name: Dynamic Remarketing
Locations: United States
Target: “Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations”
Exclude: “Presence: People in your excluded locations (recommended)”
Languages: Make sure you choose English (or the native language).
Best practice is to run one campaign with one native language setting
Bidding
What do you want to focus on? Conversions
How do you want to get conversions? Automatically maximize conversions
Uncheck “Set a target cost per action”
Budget
Enter the average you want to spend each day
Ad rotation: Leave the default
Ad schedule: All day
Start and end date: not set
Devices: Show on all devices
Dynamic Ads: Click “Use dynamic ads feed for personalized ads”
(This turns your standard display ad into a dynamic ad.)
Data Feed: add your feed
Product filter: Choose “No filter: Advertise all products in the country of sale”
Conversions: Use the account-level “include in Conversions” settings
Content Exclusions: Optional, we normally leave this in its default settings
Create your ad group
Ad group name: Dynamic Remarketing Ad Group
Audiences: Click Browse
“How they have interacted with your business“
Website visitors
Select All visitors (Google Ads)
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Click Done
Demographics: Include everyone (check all boxes)
Content
Target Expansion > Turn Off
Dynamic ads with data feed
Final URL: https://yourdomain.com
Image and logos: Put your lifestyle images here
If you have only 1 product, just use a standard remarketing (instead of dynamic)
Videos: Put your videos here
They’re always played on mute and on repeat
Headlines
• Make sure your headlines are relevant
• Use your brand name since not all headlines are shown
• Long headline: You can get more descriptive here
Descriptions
• Make sure each description can stand alone
• Find different ways to say the same thing in each description, if possible
Business name: Add your business name here
Additional formatting options:
• Check “Use asset enhancements” and “Use auto-generated video” (this allows Google
to turn the ad to videos)
• Check “Use native formats”
• If you want to have more customizations, “add more options”
• Once finished, click “Add to ad group” > Create Campaign > Continue to campaign
How to stop showing ads to everyone and bots
Inside your dynamic marketing campaign:
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Go to Audiences
Exclusion
Add an exclusion by clicking the ”+“ symbol
Exclude audiences
Browse
Click “How they have interacted with your business”
Under Website Visitors > Check “All converters”
Save
Excluding all converters means we’re not dynamically remarketing to people who:
• Went to your website
• Bought something
Performance Max Campaign | 15% of Budget
Due to the complexity and importance of this newer campaign type, we are dedicating an entire
section of this book to Performance Max, which will cover how to set up a campaign. For now,
continue on to Chapter Six where we’ll build your Search campaigns.
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Chapter Six
Search Campaigns
Next up: Search campaigns.
Competitor Campaign | 10% of Budget
Let’s build a competitor campaign, next.
Inside Google Ads, go to Campaigns:
Click the ”+“ symbol
New Campaign
Create a campaign without a goal’s guidance
Select campaign type
Search
Leave the “Select the results you want to get from this campaign” for now
Continue
General Settings
Campaign Name: Competitor Campaign
Network: Search Network
Only choose “Search Network” and select “Include Google Search Partners”
Start date: When you want it to start
End date: Not set
Campaign URL Options: No options set
Dynamic Search Ads Setting: Don’t enter a domain
Ad Schedule: All day
Locations
Location: United States
Target: “Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations”
Exclude: “Presence: People in your excluded locations (recommended)”
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Languages
Choose All languages
As long as your audience is searching in English, this is okay.
Audiences
Don’t touch it for now, we’ll do it later.
Budget and bidding
Budget: 10% of your total budget
This is one of your least amount of ad spends. Start low.
Bidding
Select your bid strategy:
Choose “Select a bid strategy directly (not recommended)”
Manual CPC
Uncheck “Help increase conversions with Enhanced CPC”
We use Manual CPC in the beginning because for this campaign:
• You’ll have a bad quality score
• Your landing page experience will be low
• You have to increase bids aggressively to steal traffic away from your competitor
Conversions: Account-level conversion setting
Ad rotation: Optimize: Prefer best performing ads
Ad extensions
• Sitelink extensions: Choose the ones that are most appropriate for your business
• Check out our Sitelink Extension Tutorial
• Callout extensions: Not recommended
This is to avoid “wrong company” calls from customers who thought they dialed your competitor’s
phone number.
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Set up ad groups
Ad group name: Enter competitor’s name here
Default bid: $3 (and check if your bid is too low)
Keywords:
• [competitor name]
• [competitor name + industry]
• [competitor name + service]
• [competitor name + specific product]
A Word on Keywords
• Don’t start broad
• Use a lot of “exact match”
• Variations are good, but don’t overdo it
Ad group name: Another competitor
Default bid: $3
Keywords: Enter your competitor’s site
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Search Campaigns
Click Get Keywords
• If the results are relevant keywords to you, use them. If not, use the same tactic in the
first ad group build out.
• Look for intent-driven keywords
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Responsive Search Ads
Final URL:
If you have a 1-to-1 competitor (e.g., you sell ten different products and your competitor sells one)
send your visitor to the product page you and your competitor have in common.
• Otherwise, send them to the most relevant page for that they searched for.
Display Path: Come up with a URL relevant to your offer.
The display URL is only what your visitors see .It doesn’t affect the actual URL of your landing
page.
Example:
Display URL( what they see) Actual URL (where they land)
Headlines
• Avoid putting your competitor’s name in your headline. Instead, use the “item/product”
your users are searching for.
Once finished, click Done > Save and Continue.
If you see an error saying “Your campaign isn’t ready yet. No traffic expected. Check your campaign targeting to fix this,” ignore it.
Just click “Publish.”
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Search Campaigns
Audience Setup
Next, go to your competitor campaign and click Audiences.
Click “Type” > Remove it by clicking the “x” symbol until you have no filters displayed.
Remarketing List for Search Ads (RSLA)
This is when someone clicks on your ad, visits your website, doesn’t convert, leaves—and in the
future searches again using the same search terms they used before.
To start, click on the pencil icon to edit the audience:
Select “observation (recommended)”
Add to campaign
Difference between Observation and Targeted:
Observation: They have to search the keywords and be repeat visitors to your website (but not
yet on your list), and do what you want them to do.
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Targeted: They are in the existing audience and searched the specific keywords.
Go to Browse:
Choose “How they have interacted with your business”
Website visitors
Choose “All Visitors” (Google Ads)
Save
In the “All visitors” row, go to the Bid Adj column and click the pencil icon to edit > Increase by
40%.
Go to Exclusions > Exclude all converters (this is optional–only for competitive campaigns).
If you see an error that says “Not eligible, low search volume,” it means there’s not enough traffic
searching for it to justify running Google Ads.
You can either change the keyword to something else or remove it.
Dynamic Search Ad (DSA) Campaign | 20% of
Budget
Go to campaigns:
Click the ”+“ symbol
New campaign
Create a campaign without a goal’s guidance
Search
Skip “Select the results you want to get from this campaign”
Continue
General Settings
Type: Search
Campaign Name:
Network: Search Network > Only choose “Search Network” and select “Include Google Search
Partners”
Skip start and end date
Skip Campaign URL Options
Click on “Dynamic Search Ads setting” > yourdomain.com
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For newer websites, you’ll have to wait until Googlebots scan or “crawls” your site (usually around
1 month after your site is published
Language
Language: All languages
Select a target source > Use Google’s index of my website
Ad Schedule: All day
Budget and bidding
Budget: 20% of total budget
Bidding: Conversions > Set a target cost per action
Conversion: Account-level conversion setting
Ad rotation: “Optimize: Prefer best performing ads”
Sitelink extensions: Choose the ones that are most appropriate for you.
Once finished, click Save and continue.
Set up an ad group
It will automatically choose “Dynamic.”
Ad group name: All Webpages
Create a rule to target webpage
Select URL > contains > Enter the “root” domain where all your products are found (e.g., “underdoggames.com/collections/” or “underdoggames.com/products/)”
This will let Google crawl your product pages.
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However, if you want to use the exact URLs:
Select “Use exact URLs” > paste the exact URL of the product > Add
Create ads
• Final URL
• Headline - will be pulled right from your page title
• Display URL
• You can only add descriptions
• Use the full length
• Should be about your products
• If you have a theme for your store, put it here.
Once finished, click Save and Continue.
To check on what ad group goes to your pages
Go to Dynamic Search Ads > Dynamic Targets
Negative dynamic ad target
Use this if you don’t want Google to crawl a specific page.
Copy the URL of the page
Inside Dynamic Search Ad go to Negative dynamic ad target
Click Add to > Campaign
Use exact URLs
Paste the url here
Add
Adjusting your Target CPA
Inside Dynamic Search Ad:
Go to Ad groups
Select the Target CPA of the ad group
Click the pencil icon
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How to find the pages that are getting traffic
Inside Dynamic Search Ad > Landing pages
How to add a negative keyword of your brand in DSA campaign
Inside Dynamic Search Ad > Negative Keywords
Click the ”+“ symbol
Add negative keywords or create a list
Add your brand name
Brand Campaign | 10% of Budget
Inside Google Ads:
Campaigns
Click the ”+“ symbol
New campaign
Create a campaign without a goal’s audience
Search
Skip “Select the results you want to get from this campaign”
Continue
General Settings
Campaign name: Brand Campaign
Network: Search Network > Only choose “Search Network” and select “Include Google Search
Partners”
• Skip Start and end dates
• Skip Campaign URL options
• Dynamic Search Ad setting: leave it blank
• Ad schedule: all day
Location: United States
Target: “Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations”
Exclude: “Presence: People in your excluded locations (recommended)”
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Languages
Choose All languages
Audiences: default/skip
Budget: 10% of total budget
• Should be on the lower end
• It’s the easiest to convert
• It’ll have the cheapest CPCs
• It’s going to perform the best
Bidding
Select your bid strategy: Manual CPC > uncheck “Help increase conversions with enhanced
CPC.”
Conversions: Account-level conversion setting
Ad rotation: “Optimize: Prefer best performing ads”
Sitelink extensions: Choose the ones that are most appropriate for you.
Once finished, click Save and continue.
Set up an ad group
Ad group type: Standard
Ad group name: Brand
Default bid: $.20
Keywords: Enter your different variations of your brand name here
[brand name]
brand name
brand name Google
Once finished, click Save and Continue.
Create ads
Final URL: https://yourdomain.com
Display Path: Come up with a URL that’s relevant to your offer.
Headline:
For Headline #1: Use your brand name and pin it
• Look at what your competitors don’t have (or have) put it in your headline.
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• Put your USP or anything that’s good about your company
Once finished, click “save and continue.”
If you see an error saying “ Your campaign isn’t ready yet. No traffic expected. Check your campaign
targeting to fix this,” ignore it.
Just click “Fix it” and “Publish.”
Adjust your CPCs accordingly
Go to Brand Campaign > Search Keywords > Look at columns:
• First page bid
• Top of page bid
• First position bid
Go to Audiences:
Add audiences
Add to campaign
Browse
Observation (recommended)
How they have interacted with your brand
Website visitors
All visitors (Google Ads)
Save
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Chapter Seven
Expansion Campaigns
Next up: Expansion campaigns.
Discovery Campaign | 5% of Budget
This campaign is for those folks at the very top of the funnel. Don’t run them yet because they
don’t have product images.
In the meantime, let’s get to building:
New Campaign
Inside Google Ads:
Campaigns
Click the ”+“ symbol
New Campaign
Sales
Discovery
Continue
• You can run YouTube ads on your own
• But, it is not recommended to run YouTube ads with Discovery Campaigns
At Solutions 8, we don’t like Discovery...yet. Here’s why:
• Discovery runs through Gmail and gets 40%–60% open rate, which is counted
as a click. In other words, you pay when a user opens the Gmail Ad, and this will
eat up your budget quickly.
• Running a YouTube ad is probably better than running a Discovery.
However, low barrier, free offers work well on Discovery, such as a free ebook or a 10%
discount coupon or promotion.
Create your campaign
Campaign name: Discovery Campaign
Location: United States
Languages: English
Bidding: Conversions > uncheck “set a target cost per action”
Ad schedule: all day
Skip start and end date
Skip Campaign URL
Conversions: Use account-level “include” in “Conversions” settings
If you’re running a 10% coupon or some sort of “lead magnet,” include that in your campaign
conversion settings.
Additionally, don’t “choose conversion actions for this campaign,” offer a lead magnet, and then
only track that conversion—you’re going to miss people who subsequently buy.
Content exclusions: Can’t control this so keep the default settings.
Create your ad group
Ad group name :Discovery
Click add or create audiences
New Custom Audiences
Audience name: Purchase Intention - [your product] (e.g. Black Leather Wallet)
Choose “Include people with any of these interests or purchase intentions”
Create
• Include people with any of these interests or purchase intentions. These are
people who’ve been looking at competitors or your own site and checking out
very specific products.
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• Include people who searched for any of these terms on Google. If your audience is visiting websites that aren’t Google-hosted but include the same terms/
keywords, they’ll use this type of targeting.
• Important: For eCommerce, you need to build an audience per product.
Remarketing: skip this for now
Interest and detailed demographics: Skip this for now
Audience expansion: Uncheck “show your ads to more people are likely to convert”
Demographics: keep the default settings
• If you have a more expensive product, you can test by removing “Lower 50%”
under Household income.
• Household income is relative to the area/zip code of your audience.
Create your ads
Choose Discovery Carousel Ad > Create Campaign:
You can have multiple carousels. This is good if you want to build out each one of your
products (once Performance Max is up and running and you know your most scalable products).
Click Image And Logos
Enter your domain >
Get your images scanned
Complete the information needed:
• Final URL
• Headline
• Description
• Business name
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Build your card(s)
You can edit your photos and add them here.
• Enter your headline
• Enter your final URL—make sure this is the URL of your image or the product page
as the final URL
• Add a call to action: Shop Now
• You can build up to 10 cards
Once finished, click done > Create Campaign > Continue Campaign.
YouTube Campaign | 5% of Budget
Before building your campaign, make sure to build your audiences first.
Here’s how:
In Google Ads Dashboard > Tools > Shared Library > Audience Manager > Custom Audiences>
Click the ”+“ symbol.
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Display Search Keywords (DSK)
• Functions like your Search campaign.
• Good Practice: Take your search campaign keywords and pasting them in DSK.
Inside Google Ads > Campaigns > New campaigns > Create a campaign.
The best YouTube campaign to run alongside Performance Max is a YouTube Shopping
Campaign. This is what it looks like.
New campaign
Choose “Create a campaign without a goal guidance”
Video > Shopping
Connect your feed
Campaign name: Video Shopping
Product filter: Choose specific products
Choose the products that are relevant to the video
Bid strategy: Maximum CPV
• You can’t use automated bidding strategies. You’re relying heavily on relevancy
and high traffic because your safety net is Performance Max.
• Start with high amount and work your way down (e.g. $1.00 - $2.00)
Budget and dates: Set to “Daily” and “$30”
End date: none
If you choose “campaign total” you’ll have to set an end date.
Networks: Uncheck YouTube search results
Check “YouTube videos”
Uncheck video partners on the Display Network
Locations: United States
Your location is going to run where your feed allows it to run in.
Languages: English
Content exclusions: Standard Inventory
Excluded types and labels: Depends on your business preferences.
Conversions: Keep the default setting
Devices: Exclude TV screen
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You need visits and searches. They usually happen on computers, mobiles, and tablets only.
Operating systems: Your preference. We keep the default settings.
Frequency capping: uncheck “cap view frequency”
It usually takes 33 impressions before a person takes action.
Create your ad group
This could be an ad group per video per product.
Ad group name: Use your product name (e.g., 2-pack Trial size bottles)
Demographics: keep the default settings
Audiences: DSK works best
Keywords: add your search campaign keywords here
Topics: Choose the topic that’s relevant to your products
Placements: Click Browse > search for the YouTube channel you want your ads to appear in
• You can place your ad on a specific channel or video.
• Use one targeting method PER ad group.
Bidding: $2.00
Create your video ad
• Add a YouTube video URL
• Add your Final URL
• Add a display URL (this is your “vanity” URL)
• Enter an ad name
Display Campaign | 5% of Budget
Pre-setup your display campaigns by:
• Building your custom audience
• Stick that to one ad group
• Use DSK in one ad group
• Use topics in a different ad group
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A note on “Non-skippable in-stream”
Use it if you need to have your audience see your ads. However, you
won’t get watch rates. You can’t gauge engagement and relevance because everyone’s “ forced” to “engage” in your ad.
Inside Google Ads:
Campaigns
Click the “+” symbol
Create a campaign without a goal guidance
Display
Standard display campaign
Create your campaign
Campaign name: DSK
Location :United States
Target “Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations”
Exclude “Presence: People in your excluded locations (recommended)
Languages: English
Bidding: Maximize conversions
Budget: 5% of total budget
Additional settings
Optimize: Prefer best performing ads
Ad schedule: All day
Skip Start and end dates
Devices: Show on all devices
Campaign URL options: Your preference / if you want to set it
Dynamic ads: Uncheck “Use dynamic ads for personalized ads” (if you’re on a lower budget)
Product filter: No filter
Conversions: Account-level conversions setting
Content exclusions: keep the default setting
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Create your ad group
Ad group name: DSK Ad Group
Skip Audiences
However, if you built your custom audiences, go to Browse > Your custom audiences >
select your audience.
Skip Demographics
Content targeting: put your DSK keywords here
Keyword Setting: Choose “Content: Only show ads on webpages, apps, and videos related
to these keywords.”
Target expansion: Use it with an “off” in the beginning
Create your ads
• Final URL: This depends on what your ad says. (e.g., For multiple products, send them
to your “collections” page)
• Images and Logos: scan your page by pasting your URL > Select the photos you want
to use
• Videos: add your videos (use them sparingly)
• Headline: Add your headlines here > Choose “Google Properties” to view your headlines.
• Make your images and headlines relevant and expansive enough to offer choices.
• Long headline: you can be more descriptive here.
Business name: Use title case URL:
https://yellowbirdfoods.com YellowBirdFoods.com
This gives you a little bit of brand recognition.
Additional format options: Check all.
Once finished, Click Create Campaign > Continue to campaign
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Chapter Eight
Optimization
After your campaigns are built, the deep work begins. We’re talking optimization. We won’t lie,
optimization is time-consuming and super important to the success of your campaigns. That
said, keep in mind that improper optimization (i.e., changing things too frequently) is equally
as detrimental.
With that out of the way, let’s jump in:
Daily Optimization
On a daily basis, there won’t be a lot of optimizations to make; however, it is important to check
your account daily for:
• Ad Disapprovals
• Budgets
Review spend per day and per campaign: Are you spending the daily budget?
• Credit Card Declines
• Active Conversion Tags
Catching these issues early can save you during your optimizations later.
Weekly Optimization
• Review Your Budget and KPI Goals
Are you on track with your budget?
ROAS goal?
• CPA and ROAS Bid: Review
Does your current CPA bid match your target?
If not ,optimize!
• Search Terms: Review and Qualify
• Add Negative Keywords at the appropriate level (account, campaign, or ad
group)
• Add Positive Search Terms that you aren’t bidding on as keywords (appropriate
match type)
• Add a Coded Negative Keyword at the account level using the following naming convention: “gads+[YYYYMMDD]+checkin” So, for example:
[gads20210927checkin]
• Budget: Check to Ensure Spend is on Target
• Products, Ads, and Extensions: Check Eligibility
• Are there more than 1,000 products?
• Check for Shopping Campaign disapprovals
• Check Ad eligibility (showing or not showing and why)
• Check Ad extensions eligibility (showing or not showing and why)
• Tracking Codes and Actions
• Check Google Tag to ensure remarketing is firing more than 0% with eComm
ProdID
• Confirm all codes are intact (GTM, Analytics, etc.)
• Test conversion actions (forms, downloads, phone numbers)
• CallTrackingMetrics (If Using)
• If you are using CTM, review and manually score your recorded calls
Monthly Optimization
• Product Performance (Analyze and Include/Exclude as Needed)
• Go to “Product Groups” and check if the products are distributed at item ID
level
If not, split them into IDs
• Sort by Conversions: Check if ROAS (last 30/60/90 days) is above par (3x or more)
• Sort by Clicks: Check if clicks are above 50 and ROAS is below par them
EXCLUDE
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Optimization
• Identify Keyword Opportunities from Google Ads Interface
• Go to each ad group (under each campaign)
• Hit the “+” button and check the keyword suggestions
• Take relevant keywords and populate them in a Google Sheet for each campaign/
adgroup
• Check with your Specialist for approval and add to the respective ad groups
when approved
• Check Bidding Strategy Performance
• See if the bidding strategy in use is performing as expected
• Check CTR on High-Performing Assets
• Check CTR on high-performing assets: videos, products, keywords, ads, etc.
• Make a note of the CTR for the last month
• Look into optimization to improve CTR
• Check Auction Insights and Impression Share
• Check for new competitors bidding on your keywords, especially Brand Keywords
• Add these competitor brand keywords in your competitors campaign (if
applicable)
• Check increase/decrease in impression share
• Accordingly optimize bids to mitigate the change (if applicable)
• Check Analytics Goals Vs. Conversion Actions
• Check if identical Goals are being tracked properly in Google Analytics
• Check if the Analytics Goals are in line with Conversion Actions (and vice-versa)
• Create Analytics Goals if missing
• Check and Optimize Bid Adjustments
• Check:
• Device bid adjustments
• Demographics ID adjustment
• Day/Time/Hour bid adjustment
• Location bid adjustment
• Audience bid adjustment
• Quality Score Review
How many keywords fall under the following buckets?
• QS < 3
• QS 3-7
• QS 8-10
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• For keywords with a low quality score (QS < 3) create ad headlines with the low QS
keyword (in other words, make sure your ads are relevant)
• Audience Segments: Analyze and Create New Segments (if Needed)
• Test New Ads
If there are improvement opportunities (and ONLY if there are improvement opportunities):
• Test new headlines (use different ad angles)
• Switch headline position
• See if it would make sense to test these ads evenly vs. Google’s optimization
Annual Optimizations
Each year, it’s a good time to review your products and campaign data from the year prior. Consider:
• The Seasonality of Your Products
How does this impact your campaign year-round?
• Cyclical Products
• Time Lag for Busy Season
• Long-term Value of New vs. Returning clients
• Updating Your ROAS Goal
Set your ROAS goal using annual customer value
Other Optimizations: Display Network
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Optimization
Display Campaigns: Look at where your ads are showing and make exclusions as needed (if they
aren’t relevant).
From the Google Ads dashboard:
Placements
Where ads showed
Select irrelevant sites and exclude
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PART FOUR
Google Ads for YouTube
Really? An entire section of this book is dedicated to YouTube?
Absolutely. After all, YouTube is one of the most popular websites on the planet, with a massive volume of users.
Sure, from an advertiser’s perspective (behind the scenes of Google Ads), you may think of
YouTube as one of Google Ad’s many campaign types. But from a user’s point of view, YouTube
is a separate entity entirely. Not to mention that YouTube ads are an insanely effective way to
get in front of audiences who are already engaged (i.e., paying attention).
And unlike archaic television ads, users are typically on devices that allow them to click on
an advertiser’s call to action (or open a new search to learn more about the brand) as soon as they
see an ad.
Finally, videos are the easiest way to absorb information (like remembering a new or familiar
brand)—and make it stick. So, whether you want to reach more prospective customers or reconnect with past visitors to your site, YouTube ads offer a direct line of contact.
Which is why Part Four of this guide is all about YouTube Ads.
YouTube ads: What you’ll get from this guide
We’re going to cover virtually everything. Starting with the basics (how does YouTube even work?)
and eventually ending with tutorials about how to build your own YouTube ad campaigns.
Like the entirety of this book, you can start from the very beginning or
skip ahead to the tutorials.
Wherever you’re starting from today, we’ll meet you there. By the end of this guide, you’ll walk
away with your own:
• Google Ads Account
• YouTube channel for your business
• Video script and templates
• Video ads (or an understanding of how to create them later)
• YouTube ad campaign, set up and ready to go!
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Chapter One
All About YouTube
What Is YouTube? (So Much More Than Cat Videos)
YouTube is a video sharing site created in 2005 by three former PayPal employees. Think of
it as a video library where audiences go to learn how to change their oil—or watch the latest
Hollywood movie trailer.
Dominated by user-created videos (i.e., average people with iPhones, not production companies), YouTube is considered both a social media platform and a search engine.
In fact, YouTube is widely considered the second most popular search engine behind Google
itself, who purchased the platform in 2006.
What Are YouTube Ads?
YouTube ads pop up across the YouTube platform: on the homepage, search results page, but
most noticeably on the watch page before, during, or after a selected video plays. These ads
look like:
• Video ads
• Banners
• An [Ad] box
Video ads are what we’ll focus on in this guide:
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Skippable video ad
Some of these video ads can be skipped (skippable ads), some can’t (non-skippable). Some
are super short, some can be longer. But we’ll elaborate on the types of YouTube ads (and how
to make them) later.
But before we do:
How Does YouTube Work?
Let’s breeze through the basic functionality of YouTube before we build our ads.
YouTube (the Platform)
YouTube’s platform is open for all internet users (like Google search), meaning anyone with
access to the internet can hop onto YouTube.com and watch videos.
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All About YouTube
Account
Now, if you want to actively participate in YouTube, you have to create a free account first.
If you already have a Google Account, great news! You can simply log in using your current
Gmail information:
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Once signed into an account, you can:
• Explore
• Subscribe to channels
• Look through your library of recently viewed videos
• Save videos to watch later
• Create or save playlists
• Review videos you “liked”
YouTube Channels
When you create a YouTube account, your channel is your homebase for:
• Videos you create
• A history of videos you “like” and watched
• Playlists you create
• Information about your brand
Other account holders can subscribe to your channel, and they’ll receive a notification when
you upload a new video.
Speaking of uploading videos…
YouTube Video Formats
One of the things that makes YouTube such a successful video platform is its ability to upload a
wide range of file formats.
Meaning, a low-quality phone video and Hollywood-level production can both be easily
uploaded to a channel.
YouTube Video Metadata
Metadata is a way to describe your video to YouTube so it can properly categorize its massive
library of videos.
These descriptors include:
• Tags
• Titles
• Thumbnails
These little details accompany your video to help YouTube determine which videos should appear
as a search result…
…or an ad.
When we upload blogs to websites, we always include metadata (URL, title, ALT text, description)—and YouTube videos (including video ads) are no different.
From Creation to Metadata to Search Result
So, that metadata comes into play when a user enters a search query in YouTube:
YouTube is a lot like Google search here.
Once a search is entered, YouTube uses an algorithm to decide which videos to display in the
search results—and which ads will show up at the top of the page (we’ll talk more about this in
a moment):
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As a user, you can search for specific videos using the search bar—but YouTube’s homepage will
also offer a selection of videos (also including ads) relevant to your past searches or what’s trending:
You can watch, like, share, save, and subscribe to channels with a Google Account.
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How YouTube Advertising Works
YouTube ads are run through the Google Ads platform—but the videos used for these ads are
uploaded and hosted on the brand’s YouTube channel.
So, to become an advertiser on YouTube, brands go through the same initial process to create
a channel and upload videos.
At the same time, the advertiser also has to create a Google Ads account (or log in to an
existing account) and link it with YouTube. This allows Google Ads to access the videos the
advertiser wants to serve viewers.
Once those ads are created and running, advertisers only pay when the user either:
• Watches 30 seconds of a video ad
• Watches the entirety of the video ad (if it’s under 30 seconds)
• Clicks on the ad
The setup and ongoing management is all done through a Google Ads account.
The Google-YouTube Connection
Google owns YouTube. So, YouTube Ads = Google Ads.
Here’s Why That’s a Big Deal
Google’s network is massive, including:
• Google Search
• YouTube
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• Gmail
• Apps (think Google Calendar)
• Google Maps
• Android
• The Google Display Network
We turn to Google (the search engine) with every question we have.
And as a result, your Google search history is one of the most intimate insights into who you
are. This gives Google a chance to know you on a deeper level than you might even know yourself.
…and YouTube, as an entity of Google, has access to all that information.
In fact, not long ago Google began allowing advertisers to target viewers based on Google
search history, as well as watch history that YouTube was already targeting.
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Chapter Two
Google Ads for YouTube: 101
As we know, Google Ads is Google’s advertising platform—and it’s also the platform where
YouTube Ads are built, managed, and optimized. Now, there are several kinds of YouTube ads
to choose from.
YouTube Ad Types
We touched on this earlier, but you’ve probably noticed different types of ads while watching
videos on YouTube. To be specific, there are five different types of YouTube ads:
Skippable in-stream ads
Skippable in-stream ads:
• Are displayed before a video plays, in the middle, or after
• Are full-screen video ads
• Can be skipped by the user after five seconds
• Are at least five seconds long; however, these ads should ideally be at least 12 seconds
long in total and under three minutes
• Are accompanied by a banner ad at the top of the screen, which remains even if the
user chooses to skip the ad
Advertisers are only charged if the viewer watches 30 seconds of the entire ad (if it is under 30
seconds), or if they click on the ad.
Non-skippable in-stream ads
These ads:
• Are full-screen video ads
• Cannot be skipped by the viewer
• Can play before, during, or after the selected video
• Can be up to 30 seconds long
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Advertisers pay by impression (per 1,000 impressions) i.e., every time their ad appears.
Bumper ads
These ads:
• Are full-screen video ads
• Are short (up to six seconds)
• Cannot be skipped by the user
• Play before a video can be viewed
Bumper ads, as a form of non-skippable ads, also charge advertisers by impression.
Video discovery ads
(Formerly known as in-display ads)
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These ads:
• Appear in search results (like Google search), in the suggested videos section of a
video watch page, or the homepage
• Are labeled with an [Ad] box, but otherwise blend in with other search results
• Include a thumbnail image and three lines of text
Further, when a user clicks on a video discovery ad, it takes them to the video watch page—just
like an organic search result.
Advertisers pay only when a user clicks on this ad.
Non-video ads
Non-video ads, also called overlay ads, are banner ads that:
• Pop up in the middle of a video
• Appear on the lower 20% portion of a video
• Can be closed at any time by clicking an “X” in the top right corner
• When clicked, direct users to the advertiser’s chosen landing page
Advertisers only pay when a user clicks the ad.
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Quick Side Note:
There is one other type of ad you’ll see inside of YouTube, called display ads. These ads appear
on the YouTube homepage and the watch next feed and they feature an image, text to the right
of the image, and a button that takes the user to a separate landing page.
However, display ads are not YouTube ads.
Rather, they run through Google Ads display campaigns and charge the advertiser whenever
the ad is clicked.
Quick Note: Performance Max and YouTube
Performance Max campaigns lean heavily on YouTube. While this section exclusively covers
YouTube campaigns, it’s worth noting that businesses with a strong YouTube campaign may find
additional and increased success with Performance Max. We’ll cover PMax in Part Five.
How YouTube Ads Appear: The
Google Ads Auction
Now, YouTube ads undergo the same auctioning process as other Google Ads.
So, an advertiser creates their video ads or overlay ads and makes a bid on where they would
like those ads to be seen—and how much they are willing to pay for it. Then, YouTube rakes
through all the other prospective ads vying for the same ad space and determines which ad “wins.”
YouTube determines the winner by ad rank.
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YouTube Ads: Ad Rank
As we discussed in Part One, ad rank is Google’s way of assigning value to your ad to determine
when and where it is displayed—and the same rules apply for YouTube:
The highest ranking ad wins the auction. In other words, how much you bid on your ad is
only one of several factors Google takes into account when determining ad rank (who earns the
advertising spot). The relevance of your ad is another key factor.
Bid = The maximum amount of money you’re willing to pay
Relevance = The usefulness of your ad and the site it links to, according to the user.
More specifically, Google Ads explains that ad rank is calculated using:
• Your bid amount
• Auction-time ad quality (this includes expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance, and
landing page experience)
• Ad rank thresholds
• Competitiveness of an auction
• Context of the user’s search (this includes location, device, time of search, nature of the
search terms)
• The expected impact of extensions and other ad formats
Additionally, YouTube calculates other factors such as the competitiveness of the auction, the ad
rank thresholds (your ability to compete in an ad auction), and who the user is (based on things
like geographic location, device, and past searches).
Is the ad rank calculation for, say, Google search ads different
from YouTube ads?
Maybe, considering YouTube likely takes things like view time into consideration. That said,
Google doesn’t come right out and tell us this—but our experience shows the same paradigm
across platforms and ad types:
The more likely Google thinks a particular user will engage
with your ad (relevance), the higher your ad rank will be.
But, again, there is no way to know your ad rank because this measurement is recalculated every
time your ad competes in an auction.
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What Are You Bidding On, Anyway?
Bids are an advertiser’s way of telling Google what kind of person they want to see their ad—and
how much they are willing to pay to make that happen.
So, advertisers can specify their ideal audience by bidding on:
• Keywords
• Topics
• In-market audiences
• Affinity audiences
• Lookalike audiences of your visitor or conversion data
• Customer lists
Generally speaking, the more specific you are with Demographic Targeting, the higher the bid
needs to be to win the auction; however, Google Ads for Youtube allows advertisers to bid low
for very narrow demographics. So, we recommend starting with a wide net and narrowing your
targeting (and, thus, bidding) over time.
Or, you can even leave the targeting off and let Google find the users for you. This means
Google will use AI to identify the target and expand on their own based on whether or not it is
getting conversions.
How Much Does It Cost to Run YouTube Ads?
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Like most “how much does it cost” questions, the answer
depends.
YouTube ad costs are based on views. Typically, one
view costs less than $0.50, but this of course depends
on the competitiveness of your industry and keywords.
By setting a daily budget, Google will put a limit on
your maximum spend per day. That said, for successful
YouTube ads, a daily budget should be your current cost
per acquisition multiplied by sixteen (CPA X 16).
Not sure what your cost per acquisition is?
Cost per acquisition (CPA) is the total cost of a prospect taking an action that led to a conversion. (Keep in mind: a conversion might be a sale, but it can also be defined as “opting in” to an
offer like a click or download.)
So, to determine your CPA, calculate:
Total cost of a campaign/Number of conversions
Now, going back to the daily budget formula, multiply that number by 16.
Further, at Solutions 8, we recommend spending $5,000/month for effective campaigns. If
you’re thinking this sounds more pricey than other Google Ads—you’re right.
And here’s why:
An Extra Step Means Extra Cost
With YouTube, advertisers pay for views, but optimize based on conversions.
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This means there is an extra step involved for YouTube Ads:
That one extra barrier in YouTube ads increases the length of the cycle.
That’s why we recommend a larger budget with YouTube—because you need to gather much
more data before you can start to see results.
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Chapter Three
YouTube Ads: Core Concepts
Targeting and Audience
Targeting on Google is generally very intent-based.
Targeting on YouTube is avatar-based.
Let’s break that down a bit:
Google search (intent-based) = The user has a problem or interest and is actively looking for a
solution or answer now.
YouTube (avatar-based) = The user has an established problem or an interest but they aren’t necessarily ready for the solutions or answer now. They need a little more time to learn.
So, when targeting based on avatar, that means you’re targeting based on interests—even if those
interests exist outside of your product or service.
Here’s an example:
Let’s say you’re a recruiter. Specifically, you help software companies recruit talent.
When advertising on YouTube, you might target users who are watching videos on how to increase efficiency or market a software company.
See, even though you’re not an efficiency manager or a marketer, the avatar is still dead on (software business owners)—even if the specific video topic isn’t your particular service.
After targeting your avatar based on interests, it’s a matter of driving them further down the
funnel (educating them).
Unlike Google search ads (intent-based), users aren’t going to click your ad and buy right out of
the gate.
Instead, YouTube is the long-form sales letter: Position yourself in front of your target audience
and slowly “drip” content on them over time, all while learning what your customers’ purchase
path is.
This is, honestly, pretty tedious. But with the right audience (and advertiser), it can be extremely
effective.
Message and Offers
With YouTube Ads especially, everything you present to your visitor should be an offer.
Your offer is the thing you’re giving your prospective customer. And above all else, we want
to focus on giving value.
Too often, we see advertisers essentially introduce themselves, rather than inform the user what
they will do for them. And with YouTube ads particularly, you don’t have much time to catch
your audience’s interest. Take those precious seconds to hook ‘em with an offer!
Credentials mean nothing without a clear understanding of how it will directly change the
customer’s life.
The Magic Formula for Crafting Your Offer
Specificity
+
Continuity
Success
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Optimization (The Flywheel)
We talked about the Google Ads Flywheel in Part Two, but it also applies here.
Before we dig into building our YouTube Ads campaigns, it’s important to understand the cycle
to success (and it probably isn’t what you expect):
Assume
Yep. While “assuming” typically has a negative connotation, it’s the very first step toward creating successful campaigns. In the beginning, you are going to guess: what your
message should be, as well as your hook, your script, and your audience. And you’re
probably going to guess wrong as often or more often than you guess right—and that’s
okay. Because next:
Test
This is the scary part. Once you’ve made assumptions (about search terms, topics, target
audience, offers, ad copy, your landing page), you have to put them to the test.
It’s scary because there’s a chance your assumptions might be dead-wrong and you’ll fail.
But if you don’t go for it, you’ll never find out what works. And remember, finding out
what doesn’t work is also valuable.
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Observe
Google tests all video ads in an ad group against each other to find the winner.
Once it finds a select few videos it sees good results from, it pushes about 80% of the ad
spend to those videos in order to optimize the ad group quickly.
Google needs quantity more than quality when it comes to YouTube ads. So, the more
videos you give the ad group, the better the results are going to be as it will find more
videos it “prefers.”
Optimize
The KPIs to monitor if Google “likes” a video are CTRs over 0.50% and a watch rate
over 22%.
Once Google achieves this, those are the videos that will get the majority of the spend
and conversions.
One way to leverage this is to continually upload additional videos to the ad group to
see if google “likes” any new videos as it tests them.
...And then? We look to expand and scale with new ads, starting with step one again.
This flywheel never ends.
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Chapter Four
Prerequisites
Before we get into the how-to of building your YouTube ads campaign, let’s make sure your brand
is right and ready for YouTube advertising.
Are YouTube Ads Right for Your Business?
This checklist will repeat some qualifiers mentioned in previous sections, but with YouTubespecific numbers:
Reasonable monthly spend
Adequate time to prove concept and a long sales cycle
Unique selling proposition
Confidence with media creation
Ability to handle an influx of traffic
Completed customer avatars
Reasonable monthly spend
(And enough margins to support a traffic campaign)
As mentioned earlier, we recommend spending $,/month. Yeah, it’s not cheap. But with any
form of Google Ads, your monthly budget early on is an investment. You are buying the data you
need to understand what works in your campaign, what doesn’t, and where to make changes—in
a reasonable amount of time. With that investment, Google will start to build an audience specifically for you that you will capitalize on later.
And it will be worth it! You must have enough monthly ad spend to accumulate enough
accurate data for testing and optimizing down the road.
$5,000 per month too steep? Maybe you want to hold off until it’s more feasible. Google is
a learning algorithm. The first three months are going to be the most “painful” part of your
campaigns. Which brings us to our next requirement:
Adequate time to prove concept and a long sales cycle
It bears repeating that Google (and thus, YouTube) is a learning machine. And learning takes time.
After you set up your YouTube campaign, Google learns:
• When customers interact with your ads
• How many times users click on your ads
• What channel those ads are clicked on
• How long it takes for the prospect to come back
• What channels they come back to
• Which other products they view
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Once Google has all that data, it determines how many other customers follow through the same
pattern or similar cycle.
So, for a 15-day sales cycle (meaning it took 15 days from when a customer first clicked
your ad to when they made a purchase), you might have to wait a full month for sales to start
coming in. Meaning it will take a full month for Google to begin to gather data for testing and
optimizing.
Further, businesses with a long sales cycle generally do better with YouTube ads because it
allows you to stay in front of your audience. YouTube ads are great for remarketing, so long as
the advertiser is providing value—not just generalized remarketing.
A unique selling proposition
(...which your audience needs to be educated about)
The more heavily saturated your market, the harder it’s going to be to turn a profit from Google
Ads for YouTube. That said, if there is a reason to go with you as opposed to your competitors,
YouTube is a great option.
So, what makes you different?
The more unique selling propositions ,the better.
Once you have a list, create a video for each individual selling proposition (don’t put all your
“whys” into one video!), then create a sequence (drip). YouTube takes time, and it gives you the
opportunity to engage with people over time with ad sequences (showing a series of ads to your
audience). Your unique selling proposition is key for the success of these campaigns—specifically
longevity and return traffic.
After all, it’s six times less expensive to sell to an existing customer than a new one.
Confidence with media creation
YouTube likes to split-test five videos at a time to choose one “winner.” That means you’ll need
to create five videos, only for 80% of them to go out the window—then do it all again the next
time you have a message or want to optimize your campaign.
And here’s the kicker: Your business needs to be comfortable with creating these video ads
yourself. This means without hiring someone to over-produce videos for you. More successful
ads come from DIY content straight from the brand.
Ability to handle an influx of traffic
Are you going to answer your phone when customers call?
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Are you fully stocked and ready to ship?
Can you accurately forecast how much product you need?
Will people call you directly, or will you have a sales team that’s trained and ready to take calls?
While YouTube ads might send leads and customers your way, you need to be sure you have the
ability to scale first.
Completed customer avatars
Not only do you need to know who your target audience is, they also have to be:
• On YouTube
• Easily identifiable
• Educated about your product or service (i.e., anything B2B)
Remember, a demographic is a generalized description of your population of customers.
An avatar is the sub-type of customer that comes from your larger demographic.
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Chapter Five
Creating Your Video Ads
Now that you know exactly who your audience is and what your unique selling propositions are,
it’s time to create your video ads.
Get Your Audience Hooked and Engaged
Video Script Guide
Video Ad Sequences
What NOT to Do When Creating Video for YouTube Ads
First things first:
If you want to build effective video ads, you need to grab your audience’s attention with a great
hook. While brainstorming, here are some tips to get your audience hooked and engaged:
Start from the climax. Drop your viewers in the middle of the action––the most exciting or
interesting scene in the plot. When you start at the peak of the climax, you successfully catch
their attention.
Make sure the story is relevant to your audience–and specifically made for your avatar.
Address your viewers’ wants and needs and make them feel like the story is about them.
Use imagery and language (e.g., script) that your viewers aren’t expecting. This helps in
disrupting behavioral patterns, beliefs, and any preconceived notions about your story or offer.
Keep your viewers guessing. Add some element of surprise to keep the anticipation going.
Only reveal enough information that will make your audience curious to find out more.
With those tips in mind, let’s get started on our video ads!
Video Script Guide
Most people don’t have a lot of patience when it comes to watching ads, even if they only last for
a minute (or less!). By the end of this section, you should be able to write and structure your own
video scripts without breaking a sweat.
Connect With Their Identity
By this point, you will have done your research and created your customer avatar. Using that
information, you need to address your viewers so they know you’re talking about them. Here are
two of the most common ways to do that:
Address your specific audience by mentioning demographics––age, gender, job, location,
marital status, etc.
Do they speak a certain way that only people of the same demographic group can relate to?
Here’s an example from a Chatbooks ad:
“I have three kids and I work from home, so people call and ask me how I stay organized…”
Address your specific audience by mentioning psychographics. Maybe your prospects have
certain beliefs, values, and behaviors that separate them from others.
Here’s the continuation of the Chatbooks ad script:
“I’m kidding. Do you think I have time for a bath?”
Any mother who has kids can easily relate to the previous example. But “no time for a bath”
is a different story that targets a more specific audience. It’s a story that only those people who
have experienced it understand. Even though mentioning the demographics of your prospect is
effective, it doesn’t go as deep as their psychographics.
That’s because demographics points to groups of people who share similar statistical data.
Psychographics point to an individual’s experience. And one of those is their “problem.”
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Source: Chatbooks YouTube video
Describe Their Problem
If your prospects aren’t aware of their problem, it’s going to be impossible to make them buy––
because your offer won’t matter. That’s why it’s important to describe your prospect’s problem
in a way that they perceive it.
One of the most common mistakes that people make is talking about a problem that isn’t
tangible and visible. Here’s an example of a vague problem description:
Do you feel stressed and overwhelmed?
Leading your video this way only guarantees more confusion. Aside from that, it only talks
about their feelings––not the actions that caused them to feel a certain way. Don’t keep them
guessing. You want to instantly capture their attention by talking about their problem the way
they describe them. What do they see/hear/do when they’re having this problem?
It’s hard to manage my workload. My team keeps missing deadlines.
When you describe the problem this way, you automatically build rapport, connection, and
show that you understand exactly what they’re going through. Then, lead them toward the intangible stuff––what they feel.
Struggling to meet deadlines? Feeling stressed and overwhelmed by a mountain of work?
Another thing you might want to do is point out the consequences of not solving the problem.
What happens if they keep missing deadlines?
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Constantly missing deadlines can lead to losing projects––or worse, getting fired.
Agitating the problem by showing what the possible consequences will get them to do one
thing: Find a solution.
Offer Solutions
Pointing out the solution is more important than mainly stating the problem.
Unfortunately, a lot of people focus too much on selling their product instead of selling the
solution. They talk about what the product is (features) but not what the product does (benefits.)
But people buy the transformation, not the product.
They want to know how your product can help them gain something they don’t currently have.
They want the results. So, how will your product transform people’s lives? That’s what you need
to communicate. Do that by talking about the benefits of your product.
Want to showcase the features of your products? No problem! Just make sure they’re tied to
the benefits of the product. For example:
Our software has a project dashboard [feature] that helps you easily view, access, and monitor
all projects, making task management more convenient and efficient [benefit].
Eliminate Objections
It’s not uncommon for people to have certain objections about your product. If they didn’t have
any, they’re either not interested or they’ve already bought your or your competitor’s product.
Having objections isn’t a bad thing. In fact, anyone who has an objection about your product is
probably a hot lead! You just need to know how to flip it.
Objections usually fall into two categories––general and offer-specific.
General objections are those that involve time, money, and beliefs (e.g., “I don’t have time to
do this,” “I don’t have the funds right now,” “I don’t think this will work.”)
The way to handle these objections is by understanding the meta frame––what they’re really saying.
“I don’t have time to go to the gym.” What they’re really saying is going to the gym is not
important enough to make a priority.
“I don’t have money.” What they’re really saying is they don’t see the value of the product relative to its cost.
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“I don’t think this will work.” What they’re really saying is they don’t trust the product/service
because they haven’t seen it work yet.
Offer-specific objections are those that revolve around your product and the way it’s offered.
For example, the company Stairslide sells a product that turns your stairs into a slide. In their ad,
one of the questions the mother asked is, “But is it safe?”
And her son addressed it by saying:
“I’m no lawyer. So, legally I can’t say it’s ‘more safe’ than any other way to slide down stairs. But it’s
definitely safer than other ways I’ve ‘slided’ down stairs.”
So, list down the possible objections your prospects might have about your product. Then, find
out how you can dismantle those objections. That said, if you really want to turn a skeptical
audience into hot leads, then look no further because we’re about to tell you the most effective
way to address objections.
And that is to show proof!
Source: Culprit Underwear YouTube video
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Show Proof
Anyone can make bold claims about their products––and most business owners do. However,
making big promises, more often than not, tends to backfire. Instead of attracting customers, it
repels them. Why? Because they’ve “heard it all before.”
That’s why it’s important to show proof. Here’s how:
Read testimonials and reviews from your past customers.
Talk about your best case study.
Highlight any social proof you have.
Have you worked with a famous person or company? Do you have a significant amount of followers
or subscribers? Have you received any noteworthy awards? Mention them.
Including social proof in your video can make your promises legit and get you more sales.
Now that you know what it takes to create a great YouTube video script, it’s time to create a
structure. And it all boils down to these three things:
What do you have?
What can it do for me?
How can I get it?
In other words, you need to create the hook, the content, and the call-to-action (CTA).
The Hook
The hook is probably the most important among all three. You can remove the CTA or the
content, and still get people to watch. But removing the hook will have a big negative impact on
your views. It determines whether or not your viewers will watch your video.
Nobody likes being interrupted with video ads. Which means the ad better be darn good or
else they’ll skip it. Of course, every click (and skip) matters. And you want to pay for clicks from
interested people only. Which brings us to another advantage of using a hook…
It can act as a qualifier. This is especially true for skippable in-stream ads. By using a hook,
you’ll effectively attract your target audience and repel those who aren’t interested.
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Mention their identity together with their problem. For example, “If you’re a small business
owner [identity] struggling to grow your Shopify store [problem], I can help.”
I know, It’s not the best hook in the world but it does what it needs to do.
The Content
Since you already captured your viewers’ interest, you need to make sure they really grasp the
advantage of your offer. It’s hard to convince someone to buy if they barely know your product
and what it can do for them. That’s why you want to use the things we talked about earlier––the
problem, solution, objection, and proof––in your message.
Now, depending on how long your video is, you may not need to include everything. And
that’s okay. But at the very least, you must provide the outcome/benefit of your product and
show proof it works.
The CTA
Speaking of “taking action,” don’t forget to add a call-to-action (CTA) at the end of your videos. Convince your viewers that now is the best time to take action. Make that thing easy to do.
If you want them to check out your website, mention the web address and add a link. And
if it’s possible, give clear and detailed instructions. Tell them what’s going to happen next. For
example, instead of just saying “Download my ebook now!” say something like:
“Click the link below to download your ebook. Enter your email address, hit submit, then you’ll get
the ebook delivered straight to your inbox in just a few minutes.”
And lastly, add a reason why they must act now. There’s no better way to motivate someone
to do something than to tell them what’s in it for them.
For example, instead of saying “Shop now!” say something like:
“Shop now to get your 20% off.”
Adding an advantage to your CTA increases the desire to take action. Don’t know what CTA
to use? We got you covered. Here’s a list of the most commonly used CTAs:
• You/Your (non-CTA)
• Free (non-CTA)
• Now
• Get
• Online
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• Apply
• Save
• Best
• Act
• Compare
• Discover/Learn
• Download
• Call/Contact
• View/See
• Watch/Read
• Try
• Visit
• Sign up
• Submit
• Check
• Look
• Join
• Purchase/Buy
• Save
• Request
• Register
• Order
• Pay
• Shop
All You Need to Create Your Video
We’ve shared some ads in the previous videos and you’re probably wondering “These ads look
expensive to make! How much does it cost to create a video for my YouTube ads?”
The good news is you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars for a project like this. And
we’d rather you use that money for your ad spend. You don’t need expensive gears, backgrounds,
and you don’t even need to travel. You can even shoot the video at home!
If you’re on a budget, here are a few things you’ll need to get started:
Any decent camera that can take videos. This can be your phone, laptop, or DSLR. Just
make sure that the videos you produce are of good quality. There’s nothing worse than a video
that’s blurred or pixelated.
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A teleprompter. Okay, this isn’t a necessity—but if you’re anything like us, you probably
don’t like memorizing scripts. Which is why a teleprompter is so useful. If you’re using a phone,
the most affordable teleprompter app we’ve used is called Selvie App. If you’re reading it on your
computer screen, try White Hat Crew’s free online teleprompter.
Video-editing software. First off, you can definitely use a video that’s not edited. However,
there are cases where you might want to cut or trim parts of your video. That’s where video-editing software helps. There’s a lot of good video-editing software out there. If you’re on a budget,
YouCut is a popular choice for PC and Android users while iMovie is good enough for Mac and
iPhone users.
Video Ads Sequencing
When creating your video ads, it’s important to keep sequencing in mind.
As explained by Google:
A video ad sequence is made up of a series of video ads that you’d like to show to a person. Each
sequence campaign is made up of a series of ‘steps.’ Within each step of a sequence is an ad group
and a video ad.
We consolidated our five favorite video sequences below.
Tease, Amplify, Echo (Three Videos). This sequence is composed of three videos. Start with
a 6-second video to tease the audience. Then, amplify your message with a longer video that
explains your offer. After that, end with a six-second ad to reinforce your message and nudge
viewers to take action.
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The Direct Shot (Three or More 6-Second Videos). This type of sequence uses the same
video format but from different angles to avoid repetition and viewer fatigue. We recommend
you limit your videos to 6 seconds and make sure you break down products or services into
clear value propositions.
The Mini Series. These are like the direct shot, but with longer-form videos. What makes the
mini series so effective is that you can sequence the video ads based on how users engage with
your content. If someone viewed your video, you can serve more ads they might be interested in.
If someone skipped your video, you can show a more straightforward video with a CTA.
With the mini series, you can break videos into different parts of the story––the conflict, the
climax, and the resolution.
The Follow-Up (Two Videos). In this video ad sequence, you start with a long-form video that
explains your brand and your offer. Then, follow up with a shorter video to keep the message
alive and drive viewers to your CTA.
The Lead-In (Two Videos). This video sequence involves two videos. First, a 6-second video that
introduces the narrative and teases the story. Next, a longer video that presents your product’s
features, benefits, and USP. Don’t forget to end with a strong CTA.
Additional Tips:
• Since videos are often skippable, it’s critical that you mention your brand or company
name and your offer within the first 6 seconds.
• For a bigger impact (but not mandatory) show your company logo within those first 6
seconds, and place it anywhere except the bottom right.
• Start with a question or shocking statement in the first 10 seconds.
• Tell the viewer “what’s in it for them” (make them the hero of the story).
• Video length and aspect ratio aren’t important.
• Don’t mention time-specific details. Keep the content evergreen, because Google has to
re-optimize every time the video is replaced.
• Make a handful of videos and let Google rotate between them to find the winner. Don’t
limit yourself to one video.
• Google will create sequences from your videos automatically (i.e., it will show video A
to a user and then video B to the same user if it finds that to be the order that gets the
highest engagement)
Once your videos are complete, it’s time to upload them to your YouTube channel!
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Bonus Pro Tip:
When uploading your ads, set them as “unlisted.” Google recommends that you split-test five videos
or more, so you’re going to have a handful of video ads that all say (pretty much) the same thing with
different hooks, value propositions, or calls to action. If all these videos are visible to the public, it
will make your channel look super messy!
Overwhelmed? Here’s the easiest
way to get started:
Go to Videohive.net and search for “Explainer” to find explainer video templates.
Find the one you like and write the script.
Then send the script to someone who makes videos on Fiverr.
Then find someone else on Fiverr to do the voiceover.
Once your videos are created, we can set up your accounts (if you haven’t already) and build your
campaigns.
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Chapter Six
Setting Up Your Accounts
If you haven’t created your Google Ads account or YouTube account, we’ll walk through this
with you.
If you already created these accounts, we still recommend skimming through this section to make sure
your conversion tracking is set up accurately!
Creating Your Google Ads Account
If you haven’t created a Google Ads account, you’ll need to set one up before running YouTube
ads; so, let’s run through it together real quick:
• First step: Head to Ads.Google.Com
• Click the bold, blue CTA that says “Start now”
If you already have some sort of Google account (Gmail,
for example), Google will automatically connect that
existing account to your new Google Ads account.
In this next step of the setup, Google will try to get you to build a campaign right away.
We don’t want to do this just yet.
See, during your account setup, Google asks what your main advertising goals are so you can
build your campaign around that goal.
Makes sense, right?
But here’s the thing: If you select any of the goals offered by Google for an easy setup (get
more calls, more website sales or sign-ups, or more visits to your physical location), you’ll end
up with a scaled-down version of Google Ads:
Think templatized campaign as opposed to a customized campaign.
So, instead, scroll down a bit to the tiny font below that reads, “Are you a professional
marketer? Switch to Expert Mode.”
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• Click “Switch to Expert Mode”
When you click on this, Google will once again try to push you toward a templated campaign,
instead of one that is customized to your specific needs:
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So, looking back to our campaign setup, instead of selecting a specific goal:
• Click “Create an account without a campaign”
• Next, fill out the business information requested, then click “SUBMIT”
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• Next, click “Explore your account”
Congrats! Your Google Ads account is set up—but not quite ready to go.
Remember that during this account setup, Google Ads tried to get you to create a campaign
before setting up conversion tracking, which is a problem.
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So, next:
• Click “Tools & settings”
• “MEASUREMENT”
• “Conversions”
Now, leave this page open:
This will prepare us for our next important account setup:
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Setting Up Google Tag Manager
We’re going to walk through how to set up conversion tracking in a moment.
But, before we can connect conversion tracking to your account, we need to set up Google
Tag Manager.
What is Google Tag Manager?
Google Tag Manager is Google’s free software that allows you to install tracking on your website
using a snippet of code to track actions taken on your site, and thus, evaluate the success of your
YouTube ad campaigns.
In other words, instead of hiring a web developer to install custom code on your site, Google Tag
Manager acts as your personal developer, so you can install codes more easily using the GTM
interface.
Here’s how to get set up:
• Go to marketingplatform.google.com/about/tag-manage
• Click “Start for free”
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• Create Account
• Fill in your account details, including your company name, country, website URL, and
target platform (make sure to select “Web”)
• Click “Create”
• Agree to Google Tag Manager’s Terms of Service Agreement
• Now, leave this tab open (and maybe even save these codes somewhere)
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Conversion Tracking Setup
Through Google Tag Manager, Google Ads is able to track every conversion—which is critically
important to the success of your campaigns.
This includes conversion actions, such as filling out a form or scheduling an appointment.
Most conversion actions (except for, say, phone calls or chats) allow for their own separate
thank you page, which makes tracking these actions easy.
How to Install Google Tag Manager
Every website is a little different. You might be on WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace—so depending on which platform you use, the way you install Google Tag Manager is going to be a
little different.
However, it’s basically the same across all web applications. So, as we move forward, just
note that some of the step-by-step instructions might be a little different for you, but you should
still get a solid understanding of how to install GTM:
• First, if you closed that tab from the step before, head to TagManager.Google.Com
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Your codes might be clearly accessible to you on your dashboard, but if not:
• Head to the “Admin” tab of your dashboard
• Click “Install Google Tag Manager”
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Next, it will show us the code to paste in the tag and tag.
Interestingly, we only need the code provided for the tag for our intended purposes.
But we still recommend installing them both, in the event you’d like to dive deeper into Tag
Manager in the future.
If you have a web developer, this may be the part where you simply send the two codes over
to them to install.
But, if you are doing this yourself, we’ll show you how to get these codes installed.
• Head to the backend of your website
• For our CMS example, we click on “Settings,” which brings us to a page that includes
a box “Head tracking code” and “Body tracking code” (again, your CMS platform may
be a bit different here)
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• Once you find the right spot to paste your tag and tag, go back to
Google Tag Manager
• Copy the codes
• Go back to your CMS platform and paste the codes—ours looks like this:
• Click “Save” or “Submit” to ensure the and tags are installed
Next, we want to test these tracking codes to make sure they work. We can do this using Google
Tag Assistant.
What Is Google Tag Assistant?
Google Tag Assistant is a free Chrome extension that
ensures tags on your website are installed properly.
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You can download Google Tag Assistant here.
• Next, go to the homepage of your website
• Click the Google Tag Assistant icon at the top of your browser and a dropdown will
appear that should show that Google Tag Manager is installed on the page
Once you confirm that Google Tag Manager has been successfully installed, you can move on
to tracking conversions with Tag Manager.
Tracking Website Conversions with Tag Manager
Now that we know it’s installed on your site, we’re going to build conversion tracking inside
Google Ads using Google Tag Manager.
First up:
• Log in to Ads.Google.Com
• Go to “Tools & settings” and click “Conversions”
• Click “Add Conversions” or blue (+) button
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• Select “Website” conversions
• Category
Choose a category that applies most accurately to your conversion action—this can
be tricky!
• Conversion Name
When naming your conversion, use the following formula:
Page + Action
For example: “Page-Contact>Action-Form”
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• Value
Select “Don’t use a value for this conversion action (not recommended).”
Ignore Google’s commentary—we DO recommend this option!
• Count
Select “One”
• Click-Through Conversion Window
“90-days,” i.e., as broad as possible!
• Engaged-view conversion window
Select “3 days”
• View-Through Conversion Window
“1 day”
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• Include in “Conversions”
Check the box to include
• Attribution Model
Recommended: Time decay
• Click “Create and Continue”
• Tag Setup
Using Google Tag Manager
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In a new tab, go to TagManager.Google.Com and log in
• Click “Triggers”
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• Select “New Trigger” and name it so it matches your conversion action (Page + Action)
• Trigger Type
Select “Page View”
• This Trigger Fires on
Select “Some Page Views”
(Page URL > Contains > use the URL from your thank you page, not the form page!)
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• Save!
• Next, click “Tags” on left-hand side of page
• Select “New”
• Give this tag the same name as your trigger and conversion action (Page + Action)
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• Click “Tag Configuration”
• Select “Google Ads Conversion Tracking”
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• Fill out the Conversion ID and Conversion Label boxes using the information on your
Google Ads account page we left open
Copy
Paste
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• Skip the remaining information boxes
• Trigger
Select the trigger you built for this conversion (not “All Pages”)
• “Save”
• “Submit”
• “Publish”
• Workspace > Preview
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• Paste URL of your conversion action page
...Not the “thank you” page!
• Click “Start”
• Click “Continue”
• Make sure no tag has fired (but there should be a tag!)
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• Go back to your conversion action page and fill out your form (if that is your conversion action)
• Go back to Google Tag Assistant to make sure the tag fired after you submitted your
form
Woohoo! Success!
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Now, you can go in and add your remaining conversion actions.
Creating Your YouTube Channel
If you didn’t have a Google account before, you now have one after creating your Google Ads
account, which you’ll use to create your YouTube channel:
• Go to https://www.youtube.com/
• If you’re not logged in, click the “Sign In” button on the upper right corner of your
screen.
• Sign in to your Google account using your email address (Gmail) and password.
• Once you’re signed in, click the “profile” button on the upper right corner of your
browser.
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• Select “Create a channel.”
• You’ll be asked to upload a profile picture (optional) and enter your channel’s name.
Once you’re finished, click “Create Channel.”
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Done! You now have your own YouTube channel.
How to Add Videos to Your Channel
YouTube.com > Upload Video
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Select File
Add Title and Description
And fill out the remaining fields
Add any video elements
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Setting Up Your Accounts
YouTube will check your video for any issues
Publish
Connect Your Google Ads and YouTube Account
Okay, now that we have our Google Ads account and YouTube account set up, it’s time to connect the two.
As a reminder, video ads run through the Google Ads dashboard—but, Google Ads relies on
YouTube to house the videos.
So, we set up and run YouTube ads from the Google Ads dashboard, but draw upon YouTube’s
library of videos for the content itself.
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Let’s get connected:
• Inside your Google Ads account, go to “Tools & Settings”
• Scroll down to “Linked Accounts”
• Select the YouTube “Details” button
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• Select “Add channel”
• Add your YouTube channel’s URL
• Select the channel owner
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• Select “Go to YouTube,” which will open YouTube’s third-party verification
• Select the channel you want to use for your ads and hit “OK”
• Name the YouTube’s account name for inside of Google Ads
• Click “Link”
• Go back to your Google Ads dashboard, which should still be left on “Linked accounts”
and refresh the page
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You should now see your linked YouTube channel!
If you have multiple YouTube channels, you can link them all.
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Chapter Seven
General Campaign Setup
Now that you have videos uploaded to your YouTube channel, it’s time to build your YouTube
ad campaign inside Google Ads!
How to Create a Lead Generation Campaign
For this guide, we’ll build a lead generation campaign—but eCommerce business owners, you’ll
still be able to follow along.
To start, go to your Google Ads Dashboard, click Campaigns, then click the “+” symbol to
add a new campaign.
You’ll be prompted here to “Select a goal that would make this campaign successful to you”
Selecting Your Goal and Campaign Type
Depending on which goal you choose (sales, leads, website traffic, etc.) for your video campaign, Google will make either an executive decision or offer up more options and features for
your campaign.
For example, if you choose “Sales” as your goal (followed by “Video” as your campaign type),
Google automatically assumes you’ll want to focus on driving conversions.
But, if you choose the goal “Brand Awareness” and the campaign type “Video,” you’ll get a
whole slew of options like:
• Skippable in-stream
• Bumper
• Non-skippable in-stream
• Outstream
• Ad sequence
This is Google’s way of putting training wheels on
your campaign.
In the past, Google limited your options if you selected a goal.
But now, Google limits your options if you don’t select a goal (they won’t tell you what other
options you have).
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Since this is a lead generation campaign for YouTube, here are our recommended settings:
• Choose “Leads” as your goal
• Choose “Video” as your campaign type
We have had better performance with this goal guidance than anything else.
Create Your Campaign
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Start by entering your campaign’s name. Choose a name that’s relevant and easy to remember.
Next, if your campaign is at $50,000 in lifetime spend, you probably need to use Lead Forms.
If you don’t have them, it’s not a deal-breaker. Just leave it blank for now.
Want to use Lead Forms? Check out our blog on How to use lead forms inside YouTube ads here.
Bidding Strategy
Select Maximize conversions first.
The only time you need to use Target CPA is when you have achieved around 10 conversions.
Why?
Because your conversions will tell you how much your Target CPA should be.
Pro tip: Add a 10% buffer to your target CPA.
If your conversion is $50, then your Target CPA should be $55.
From there, you should decrease your CPA by 10% every week (or two) as long as:
Google is meeting those CPAs
• Impression rates aren’t dropping
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This strategy helps you find the Target CPA that works for you, so you can scale as efficiently
as possible.
Budget and Dates
We recommend you spend $20.00 daily—a pretty aggressive budget for video.
While you’re not necessarily paying for “view,” the scope of what you’ll get from this budget
is worth it. However, if you need to go lower than that, it’s totally fine.
But watch out.
Some marketers will tell you to go for as low as $1.00.
Don’t do it.
It’s not going to get you the conversions you need—especially if you’re in a competitive industry.
Networks
Uncheck “Video partners on the Display Network.”
We’re going to choose the exact sites you want your ads to show inside of Placements. (And
you’ll learn that once we’re in the Creating Your Ad Group section.) For now, only check
“YouTube videos.”
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Locations and Language
For locations, we always leave it to “United States.”
However, if your target is outside the U.S., you can set a different location by selecting “Enter
another location,” and choosing the country you’re targeting.
To make sure that you’re effectively on channels that use the English language, set Languages
to “English.”
Content Exclusions: Inventory type
In this section, Google asks you to choose an “inventory” that your ads belong to.
Each category dictates how explicit your content is. Our recommendation is to choose
“Standard Inventory,” unless you have a product or brand that specifically distinguishes you
into either the Expanded or Limited Inventory category.
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Not sure which category you belong to? Here’s a quick guide to help you decide:
Expanded inventory. Only use this if your content actually lives in this targeted niche. (e.g., an
“aggressive” clothing brand)
Standard Inventory. Same exclusions as expanded but less explicit. This is what we recommend.
Limited Inventory. This excludes most types of sensitive and explicit content. (e.g., churches,
kids, family, etc.)
To learn more about inventory types ,click on“ Compare Inventory Types”.
Content exclusions: Excluded types and labels
This is important. We recommend opting out of Embedded YouTube videos and here’s why:
You might not want to show up on someone else’s website—it conveys a different intent and
there’s a lower probability to convert those users.
We also recommend you opt out from live streaming videos, and here’s why:
If someone’s watching a live video, they are probably highly engaged in it which means they’ll
be less likely to convert.
Does this mean that you should always opt out of showing your ads on specific websites or
live streams? It depends on your goals. But the goal of this is to show up inside of the YouTube
machine while the user’s intent has not changed yet.
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Now, with the excluding digital content labels, it’s up to you to decide if you want to exclude
yourself from the specific “ratings.” You can always just leave everything out and simply check
“Content not yet labeled.”
Ad Extensions
One of the most important ad extensions is the Sitelink extension. Sitelinks are hyperlinks that,
when clicked, take the users directly to your website or landing page (e.g., your product page)
and can significantly increase your conversions.
If you are not sure how to set them up, watch our full step-by-step tutorial on How to use
sitelink extensions.
Additional Settings
There are four additional settings inside of a lead generation campaign: Conversions, Devices,
Frequency capping, and Ad schedule. These settings help Google identify exactly where people
should see your ads and how often.
Conversions
If you have multi-variant conversion settings, multi-touchpoints, or different conversions you
want to track for this campaign, click “Choose conversion actions.” Otherwise (and in most
cases) just use the account-level conversions.
Important: No matter what you do, make sure you’re tracking conversions.
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Devices
Exclude TV screen and only keep Computers, Mobile, and Tablets on.
But …shouldn’t I be showing ads on TV screens?
Good question.
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It might be counterintuitive to deselect that option, but here’s the thing: People don’t interact
with TVs in the same way they do with the other three devices. Meaning, users are less likely
to take action because TVs have limited capabilities. For example, you can’t take them to your
landing page.
So if you need visits and searches, TVs are out of the question.
Frequency capping
Whether it’s Cap impression frequency or Cap view frequency, setting up a frequency cap gives
you a broader reach—which works well for a brand awareness campaign. But since this is a conversion-based campaign, we recommend that you leave them both unchecked.
Ad Schedule
You might be tempted to add a specific schedule—don’t. Just set it to “All day.”
Create your ad group
You can split your ad group by offer, by approach, or by target audience.
Remember, Google wants five videos inside an ad group to split-test against each other.
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Demographics
Here, you’ll see a lot of options to select your demographic targeting: gender, age, parental status,
and household income. We won’t touch this because we haven’t seen how front-end demographics
segmentation helps a campaign.
So, it’s best to leave it to its default setting.
Audiences
You could set audiences here if you want, but we’ll show you a better way—so it’s best to leave
this for now.
Same goes for Keywords, Topics, and Placements.
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Creating Your Video Ad
At this point, you should have already created your video. So now, it’s time to turn that video
into a video ad.
Just grab the YouTube video link and paste that link into the “Your YouTube Video” space.
Skippable in-stream vs. Non-skippable in-stream:
Our Recommendation
Skippable in-stream and non-skippable in-stream are the most commonly used campaign
subtypes.
Skippable in-stream allows you to see how people engage with your ads.
This is what we recommend.
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With this option, you only pay if they continue watching the ad for 30 seconds (or the full
duration, if it’s less than 30 seconds). What’s even more awesome is if your audience decided to
“Skip Ad,” your brand will still have had a good few seconds of exposure—and that stays with
viewers! And the best part? It’s free.
What about Non-skippable in-stream? Just like the term suggests, these are ads that people
cannot skip at all. It’s best used if you need to have your audience watch your entire ad. But be
careful. It’s impossible to gauge your audience’s engagement and ad relevance because in this
setting, everyone is “forced” to “engage” in your ad.
Only use it if your goal is to maximize your reach. It’s a good strategy to check the options
available in each goal and campaign type first, before you decide to continue. We highly recommend using in-stream ads because they’re the type of ads that stick.
Display URL and Final URL
Next, don’t forget to add the page you want users to land on (once they click your ad) under
“Final URL” and not under “Display URL.”
Here’s the difference:
Display URL (what they see) Final URL (where they land)
The Display URL doesn’t have to be real. But it has to be relevant to what your offer is on your
landing page. This helps to increase trust and click-through rates.
You’ll also be prompted to add a call-to-action (CTA).
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Use a CTA that tells users how you want them to engage and what’s the next step for them. Here
are some of the most commonly used CTAs:
Join
Purchase/Buy
Register
Order
Pay
Shop
Apply
Sign up
Download
Call/Contact
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Headline
Another biggie when it comes to creating your ad. Keep in mind that your headline should
describe what your offer is or what your users are going to get. However, unlike headlines on a
regular responsive ad, this headline can only use up to 15 characters.
Being creative and intentional will help you come up with the best headline for your ad.
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Ad URL Options (Advanced)
These are advanced options for tracking. If you know how to use them, feel free to set them up.
If not, it’s okay to ignore them for now.
Companion banner (computers only)
The last option we advise you to select is “Autogenerate using your channel banner (recommended).” This setting lets Google create the ad for you instead of uploading an image. Most of
the time, uploading an image hurts Google’s responsive display capabilities.
And now you’re ready! Just enter your ad name and click “Create Campaign.”
One last thing before we dive into creating your custom audiences: Make sure you have at least
five videos.
You’ll simply need to create a campaign (again) for each video.
The good news is you already have created one. Just repeat the steps by following the previous
walkthrough and you should be able to finish them all in no time!
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Creating Custom Audiences
As promised, we’re going to show you how to create custom audiences that will give you more
control over the type of audience you want to reach. Let’s dive in!
To start, in your Google Dashboard, Go to Tools > Audience Manager > Audience lists > Custom
Audiences > click the “+” symbol and add an audience name.
This is where the magic happens. You’ll be given a couple of options to choose from, but before
we pick one, it’s important to understand what each option can do for you and how you’ll benefit
from it.
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People with any of these interests or purchase intentions
Using this option, you can add interests or purchase intentions about your service, products,
or niche. Google will recommend some search terms related to the words you type in based on
intent. Plus, you’ll be able to see the market size available to you.
People who searched for any of these terms on
Google and People who browse websites similar to
If you want to get even more specific, you can target people who have searched for any specific
terms. This stuff is crazy!
Think about it: You can target your competitors and tell Google exactly who you want to get in
front of!
All you have to do is type in the URL (or search terms) of your competitor and you’ll be able
to target anyone who’s gone to that specific website.
Just make sure that you target one competitor per ad group. Having multiple competitors
(multi-variant targeting) inside of the same ad group won’t give you the best results—it’s hard to
identify what’s working and what’s not.
So, competitor-a.com should be in one ad group and competitor-b.com should be in another
ad group.
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Pro tip: Find the login page of a website, and use that URL. For example, if you’re targeting a
website built in Shopify, you use their specific Shopify URL instead of just “Shopify.com.”
People who use apps similar to and People who
visited these places
Aside from search terms and websites, you can also target people based on the apps that they’re
using and the places they visited. Just search for the app by typing its name and it will populate
results that match the app.
Similarly, to find places people visited, just type a product or service and Google will give
you results that match the type of places relevant to the product or service. For example, if you’re
targeting “chiropractors,” you’ll see a drop down list of options like Beauty & Wellness Locations,
Spas, Massage Therapists, etc.
Once you’re finished, don’t forget to click “Create” to save the audience.
How to Add Audiences at an Ad Group Level
There’s nothing wrong with adding audiences at a campaign level. But since we’re targeting
audiences based on ad groups, then we have to create the audience inside that ad group.
Let’s walk through how to do that.
First, inside your Google Ads dashboard, select the video campaign you created—it should
be on the far left side under “All campaigns.” Next, click “Ad groups” and select the ad group
you’ll be using.
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The ad group we created in this tutorial is called “Video campaign #1.” Once you found your ad
group, select it. Then, go to “Audiences” and click “Add audiences.”
What you’re looking for is the “Your custom audiences” option in the “Browse” tab. There you’ll
see the custom audience that you previously created, hit save.
Now, you have successfully added your custom audience under the Ad group level. The next
thing to do is to add negative keywords.
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Wait... Negative keywords?
We don’t use keywords inside video targeting campaigns, but we use negative keywords. These
keywords help push away people that you don’t want. For example, you can add negative keywords
like “cheap,” “free,” “learn,” or “jobs” so that you won’t attract people searching for these terms.
Do you want to choose the specific YouTube channels and videos you want your ads to show?
Use Placements. It’s one of the best tactics you can use to attract large audiences easily. Here’s
how to do it:
If you’re still inside your video campaign, click on Placements and click the pencil icon.
Under Edit placement, choose YouTube channels and paste the YouTube channel’s link. The
YouTube channel’s name should appear—just select it and hit save.
If you want to show your ads in a specific video, just choose “YouTube videos” instead of
“YouTube channels.”
Things to keep in mind:
Your ad will only appear if their YouTube’s monetization setting is on.
Separate your segmentation by ad group. Combining audiences will result in an “and” modifier, which means your audience should have watched both videos first before they get to see
your ad.
And that’s it! You now have an effective YouTube campaign that gets you qualified leads that you
can turn into new clients.
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PART FIVE
Performance Max
Performance Max, the newest campaign type in Google Ads,
changes everything.
Up until this section, we gave Google Ads guidance based on a world where Performance Max
hasn’t completely taken over. And while, at the time of publishing, those campaign types, rules,
and strategies still apply, we’re confident that it’s only a matter of time before Performance Max
will indeed take over the Google Ads ecosystem.
Let’s backtrack: Between 2020 and 2022, we had nothing nice to say about Google Ads. Features
and functionality were ripped away from us left and right.
We were sure they were trying to muscle out the agencies, completely automate the strategy, and
commoditize the traffic.
But we were wrong.
See, Google had a new advertising paradigm up their sleeve. And while they were phasing out
familiar features and functions, it was all so they could phase in their newest campaign type:
Performance Max.
Chapter One
Google Ads Then and Now
Audience Targeting Enthusiasts, Rejoice!
If you like Facebook advertising, you’ll feel more at home with Google Ads now. Instead of keyword-centric targeting—à la literally all other Google Ads campaigns in the history of Google Ads
(remember: it was once called Google AdWords)—Google is now leaning into an audience-centric strategy with Performance Max.
But don’t get it twisted. While Google Ads is shifting toward more Facebook-adjacent advertising, the Google ecosystem and advertising mechanism is so much more robust.
Facebook = A website
Google = The internet
Google Ads: BPM
(Before Performance Max)
Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) made its grand entrance as Google’s advertising platform on October 23, 2000.
And up until Performance Max campaigns were introduced at Google Marketing Live in
2021, the different types of Google Ads (i.e., campaign types) included:
• Search
• Shopping
• Display
• YouTube
• Apps
• Smart Shopping
• Discovery
• Local
Each of these campaigns has a purpose; and before Performance Max, advertisers selected the
campaign types they thought best matched their strategy and created ads specifically for that
network (kind of like the campaigns we’ve walked through together, right?).
Time to shake things up!
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Google Ads: APM
(After Performance Max)
Performance Max is the newest campaign type in Google Ads. And this is where things get
funky: Performance Max ads can take the shape of any of the campaign types listed above
(video ads, search ads, display ads—you name it).
In other words, when you build a Performance Max campaign, you feed it all the digital materials
(assets) necessary to create the different ad types:
• Video
• Search
• Display
• Discovery
• Gmail
…and the ads are automatically put together for you.
It’s a goal-based, audience-oriented campaign, instead of keyword- or network-targeted.
And it changed everything.
Why Performance Max
Is a Huge Deal
Imagine:
You hop into Google Ads with a clearly defined goal (or goals) in mind.
So, you create one single campaign, designed for one specific audience, using one “bundle”
of creative (videos, photos, copy).
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Then, your ads are automatically built and
displayed across the Google ecosystem—not
necessarily chasing after the audience, but
chasing after that goal. Yeah. buckle up for
this part:
With Performance Max, Google uses your
audience as a suggestion or starting point.
Then, using that information, it seeks out
other audiences most likely to accomplish
your goal.
Let’s say you launch a new campaign targeting two specific audiences. After it runs for
some time, Google reports back:
“Hey, those audiences both completed the conversion actions you wanted. But these ten other
audiences I found are also working. In fact, here’s the exact degree of efficacy to which these work
compared to your other campaigns.”
And with this insane information, you then create new audiences inside your campaign—with
their own sets of custom assets—and wait for Google to report back again.
Welcome to Google’s New
Performance Max
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Chapter Two
Performance Max: New Priorities,
New Structure
Anyone who was confident in Google Ads prior to “PMax” will see this new campaign type and
may feel… out of their element.
But we’re here to guide you through the new strategy so you can get ahead of the competition.
What Makes Performance Max So Different
Performance Max campaigns are built on the foundation of three “pillars” or priorities that are
massive departures from how old campaigns were set up.
The three pillars of Performance Max campaigns include:
Goals
Assets
Audiences
Let’s talk about each “pillar,” how it plays into the overall strategy of a Performance Max campaign, and the features created to execute those strategies:
Goals
This is the first time a Google campaign has really gone goal-oriented.
Cue verbal pummeling from Google enthusiasts
“But wait!” You might say, “Google always had conversion actions!”
Relax. We hear you. But…here’s the thing:
While, yes, we were able to optimize against conversion actions—we could never make the goal
the primary focus.
In older campaigns, the priority was targeting.
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It looked like this:
Target your audience
See if they accomplish the goal
Performance Max flips that:
Provide a goal
Provide Google with audiences you think will complete that goal (called audience signals)—and let Google expand that search in pursuit of goal completion
This means defining your conversion actions accurately is extra important:
“Primary goals” are what Google will chase after. “Secondary goals” are for reporting but aren’t
counted as conversions.
Conversion actions obviously aren’t unique to Performance Max.
But it’s what Google does with these goals in conjunction with two new features that makes
this campaign type so revolutionary:
Next up: Asset groups and Audience signals.
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Assets
Here’s where things get really weird for seasoned
Google Advertisers:
With Performance Max, you don’t create the
ads yourself.
Instead, you submit a collection of creative,
called:
Asset Groups
Here’s what (completed) asset groups look like on your dashboard:
This new feature is essentially how Performance Max campaigns are organized.
Asset groups are all the creative materials needed to create any type of ad across Google’s network (Search, Display, Video, Discovery, Gmail), including:
• Photos
• Logos
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• Videos
• Headlines
• Descriptions
The assets should be customized by the intended audience. In other words, every audience gets
its own asset group. Google then mixes and matches those assets to create ads that are shown
across Google’s channels. You can create up to 100 asset groups per campaign.
Now, these assets don’t need to be super high quality—in fact, an iPhone video and a photo
of your product in action will likely earn you more trust than big production media would. The
most important thing is to churn out a lot of media regularly—media that are customized to the
audiences intended to see them (we talk about Audience signals soon).
And, if you are an eCommerce business, you can attach specific products to your asset groups
for targeting through Listing groups.
Listing Groups (eCommerce Businesses)
Listing groups are basically the lists of
products from your old Smart Shopping
campaigns. In other words, Performance
Max inherits these preexisting product
lists, which means you can attach specific
products to your Asset groups for targeting through Listing groups.
URL Expansion
Okay, things get even weirder here. With Performance Max, you don’t choose the destination
(i.e., where the ads show up in the Google network) or where on your website the user lands
when they click. Google now does this using a feature called URL expansion.
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This feature inside Asset groups allows Google to decide which page of your site to send a user
who clicks on your ad, depending on their unique persona and “journey.”
(Spoiler: it might not be the product page.)
Sure, this feature can be turned off.
But unless you have a really, really good reason—don’t do it.
Instead, you can simply exclude certain URLs you don’t want users to land on from your ads:
The URL Expansion feature is arguably the most incredible thing we’ve seen inside of the Google
ecosystem because it’s based on Google’s 500 touchpoint paradigm.
Refresher:
A touchpoint is, in this context, any form of interaction between prospects and your brand.
Examples include:
• Seeing your ad
• Reading brand reviews
• Adding products to cart
• Downloading a lead magnet
The concept is that it takes about 500 touchpoints before a user converts.
(So much for the ol’ click>convert model, eh?)
The point?
Google understands the journey your audience needs to take in order to make a conversion. And
often, this journey is a long and winding one—checking out your “About Us” page first, maybe,
or looking through case studies right before committing to a conversion. So, to recap:
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• Asset groups allow Google to customize ads to the audiences most likely to convert
(achieve your goal).
• URL expansion allows Google to take the customer along the touchpoints needed to
get to that final goal.
With Asset groups, you provide the materials, and Google builds the path to conversion.
Now Performance Max uses your goals and assets to find:
Audiences
You might recall that Google’s audience segmentation used to be… broad.
(Think: “People who buy stuff,” and “Men.”)
Yeah, yikes.
But Google stepped it up and gave us way more tools for categorizing and segmenting our audiences within Performance Max using something called Audience signals.
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Audience Signals
Audience signals are your way of labeling your asset groups by the intended audience (i.e., who
you think should see the ads, according to the assets).
However, Google merely uses your Audience signals (your “label” or “categorization”) as a
starting point to find the best audiences for you. It’s like a nudge in the right direction.
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So, Audience signals do two things:
Organize asset groups by the audience type
Historically, ad groups were organized by keywords.
But with Performance Max, Asset groups are organized by Audience signals.
Give Google an idea of where to start in its learning process
Manual research is still critically important.
(Quality in, quality out, right?)
There are multiple ways to create and categorize audience signals, including:
• Custom Segments
• Customer Data
• Interests and Detailed Demographics
• Demographics
Custom Segments
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Custom segments allow you to target users based on their search activity (this is the closest
we get to using keywords for targeting again!), downloaded apps, or websites they visited that you
don’t own. These keywords, websites, or apps don’t need to be related to your business—just
related to your audience.
Here’s an example:
We have a client in the landscaping business who knows that about 80% of new customers are
new homeowners. So, we targeted people in the area who performed a Google search for cable
installation. Why? Typically, folks who get cable installed are: new homeowners. And new homeowners are the audiences most likely to become new landscaping customers. (Additionally, we
could also target new, local users who download the Nextdoor app!)
Pro tip:
Target your competitor’s brand names under custom segments.
Customer Data
We strongly recommend uploading your customer data. If custom segments are audiences who
interacted with someone else’s website, your data is the list of people who interacted with your site.
It’s basically your remarketing and customer match list.
The best performing campaigns we see continue to be from big customer lists uploaded to
Google, because Google will then create its own lookalike audience using that information.
Your data could be from:
• Customer lists
• Analytics data
• Remarketing data
• Essentially any group of people you can define can be uploaded as “preliminary research,” i.e., customer data for Google.
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Even a list of users who visited a particular page on your site could become a segment! So many
possibilities.
Interests and Detailed Demographics
You can also split your audiences into Google interests and demographics ,which look like this:
In-market Audiences: Users looking to buy this thing now
Affinity Audiences: Users interested in this thing
Demographics
This is a deeper dive into the details of your demographics. It allows you to choose the gender,
age, parental status, and household income of your target audience.
Here’s What’s So Cool About Audience Signals:
You’re basically teaming up with Google inside of Performance Max.
It requires work up front by you—providing customer lists, keywords, demographics…
But Performance Max allows advertisers to go in the middle of the lane with Audience signals
to discover new audiences.
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The more work you put in up front, the more mind-blowing the results from Google.
Here’s a great, real-life example:
We have a client who sells shelf-stable food products (think apocalypse-proof food). Now, this
assured us that there was a very specific avatar we were going after.
(See: doomsday preppers)
We advertised their products using Performance Max with these audiences defined. We checked
out the campaign’s Insights tab after running that campaign for some time (we’ll talk more
about Insights soon!) and Google informed us that:
People who were interested in boating and sailing were outperforming
our traditional audiences… by a lot.
And of course! It made so much sense once Google pointed it out: Folks going on long trips across
water without access to grocery stores need shelf-stable food. But because that wasn’t the intended
audience, it just wasn’t something we considered.
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The lesson?
We gave Google a well-researched audience (that brought in results), and Google used that as a
starting point to find audiences that were even better. We, of course, promptly created advertising assets specifically for that demographic and started a new campaign for the sailing audience.
In many ways, Performance Max is a research and discovery tool, in addition to an ad
campaign type. Previously, Google fed us what we already got—by selling our traffic back to
us. Now, Google can tell us who the audience is, their interests, their affinities, and what they’re
in the market for. With this information, you can do a lot of really good stuff like:
• Build a perfect avatar
• Find influencers
• Build a brand
• Create content
• Develop thought leadership
Pro tip:
Get granular with your audience signals and don’t
bundle them.
Have a separate asset group targeting your keywords,
then a separate one with your customer list, and
another one under interests and demographics.
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Chapter Three
Performance Max Prerequisites
A solid business structure and high-quality website (read: quality content) has always been important for Google Ads success—which is why we talked about it so much in Part Two and Part
Three. But with Performance Max? Consider it critical.
Performance Max is the ultimate learning machine. It scans your site (content!) to match you
with the best audience possible across the entire Google ecosystem.
Crappy content? Crappy results.
Even if you do have a fleshed out site that functions well—your business model better be
ready to handle the influx of traffic. Remember:
Google can bring in traffic.
Google can’t help you manage that traffic.
To make sure your business and website are Performance Max ready, it is especially imperative to
review Chapter One in our “Google Ads for Lead Generation” or “Google Ads for eCommerce”
section. But to reiterate, you’ll need:
Reasonable monthly spend
Appropriate time expectations
Quality website( excellent content and solid SEO)
Unique selling proposition
Completed customer avatars and assets
For lead generation businesses, you’ll also need:
15-question minimum form fills
Whereas for eCommerce businesses, you’ll also need:
Robust data feed
Average order values that support paid traffic
Again, make sure to review your business type’s
prerequisites in their corresponding sections (Part
Two or Part Three of this book), including the website
optimization checklists before building your PMax
campaign!
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Chapter Four
Performance Max for Lead
Generation
How to Set Up a Performance Max Campaign
for Lead Generation
Let’s build your lead generation campaign!
• Inside your Google Ads Campaigns dashboard, click “+ New campaign”
• Choose your objective: Leads
Conversions Actions: Lead Generation
• Choose the conversion actions for your campaign
Remember, this is a goal-based campaign.
Adding specific primary conversion goals is super important for the success of your campaign!
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• Select a campaign type. Choose Performance Max
• Name your campaign, then click Continue
Budget and Bidding: Lead Generation
• Add a budget
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Important: Budget for Lead Generation
We recommend running Performance Max at the same budget you would spend on a
traditional search campaign. Limit the ad spend you start with and be aware that this is
going to eat into other campaign types.
• Bidding: Select conversions
Important: Bidding for Lead Generation
For lead generation campaigns, we recommend using “Maximize conversions” as your
bidding strategy. Bear in mind that Maximize conversions and Maximize conversion value
are two different bid strategies. They sound the same but it’s easier to get a conversion with
Maximize conversions—because it’s not asking for a large conversion (unlike Maximize conversion value). And it’s not asking for a large conversion over three times your spend, unlike
target return on ad spend (tROAS).
On that note, don’t set a target cost per action (tCPA) or a tROAS, at least not in the beginning. Give it at least 30–60 days to gather enough data and find out how Google operates before
putting constraints on it.
It’s worth repeating here that your PMax campaign will eat into other campaign types. And it
doesn’t need a budget equal to those other campaigns to steal from them! So, while there is no
“golden rule,” we recommend running your campaign as “open” as possible.
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Campaign Settings: Lead Generation
• Choose the locations you want to target
• Select the language (English, unless another language is applicable to your business)
Important: Languages
Typically, we use “All languages” when we run Search campaigns because we bid on keywords.
However, for Performance Max, it’s important to use English because you’re running it
everywhere—YouTube, Display, Search, etc. Be sure to use whatever language settings are
applicable to you (English, most likely).
How to Build Your Asset Group: Lead Generation
It’s time to build your Asset groups. This is all the creative material needed to create any type of
ad across Google’s network, including:
• Photos
• Logos
• Videos
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• Headlines
• Descriptions
First:
• Name your Asset group
Important: Asset Groups
Your assets should be customized by the intended audience. And remember, like ad groups, every
audience gets its own Asset group.
• Add a final URL
• Add images
You can either upload images or get Google to scan your website. If you choose to scan your
website, Google will pull up images from your site and social media.
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• Add logos
You can either upload logos or scan your site for logos. If you choose to scan your site, Google
will get your favicon and use it as your logo.
• Add videos
You can either upload videos from your computer or from YouTube. Just add the URL and
Google will pull up those videos.
• Add headlines
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The way “suggestions’’ work is Google will create headlines based on your site.
Whether you’re using suggestions or not, make sure your headlines are high quality and can
capture your users’ interest.
• Add long headlines
• Add descriptions
• Add a call to action
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We highly recommend choosing Automated as your call to action. Because we’re in a machine-learning world, it would be best to stick with Google’s choices at least for this section.
Add your business name
• Under “More options,” add a display path
Pro Tip:
Always use a display path.
This helps you to manipulate the Final URL to reinforce your offer.
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Before you continue, take a look at what your ads might look like in the preview mode and see
if there’s anything you need to change.
Once you’re done, it’s time to create an Audience signal for this Asset group.
How to Build Your Audience Signal: Lead
Generation
Now that you’ve finished selecting your goals, adjusting your settings, and creating your assets,
you’re probably wondering how to determine the right audience to target with this campaign.
In your Audience signal, you’ll have the ability to tell Google who you think you should target
with your ads.
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• Select CREATE AN AUDIENCE SIGNAL
By creating an Audience signal, you’re giving Google the type of audience profile you want to
target. Google will use this profile to find similar profiles to serve your ads to.
As we discussed in our Audience signal section in Part Two, there are multiple ways to create
and categorize Audience signals, including:
• Custom Segments
• Customer Data
• Interests and Detailed Demographics
• Demographics
In this tutorial, we’ll run through “Interests & Detailed Demographics.”
• Name your audience
• Skip to Interests & Detailed demographics
• Type your product (or relevant keywords for your product) to search for segments that
might be applicable to your audience’s interests, life events, or demographics.
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You should now see the list of in-market segments, life events, or detailed demographics you added.
• Once you’re done, click Save, which will take you to the previous dashboard
• Click Next
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How to Add Extensions: Lead Generation
Just like adding extensions when creating a Search campaign, you can add extensions in
Performance Max to show pieces of information about your business that you can tack onto
your ad, including your address, direct page links, coupons, or even additional websites.
For lead generation, this is especially helpful because you can
add a call extension or a lead form extension:
For sitelink extensions:
• Fill out your Sitelink 1 text (i.e., the header for this sitelink extension)
For example, “About Us,” “Read About the Team,” “Who We Are,” or “Read Our Epic
Story”
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• Fill out “Description line 1”
Elaborate: Where will this click lead the reader?
• Fill out “Description line 2”
Elaborate: Why should the reader click?
• Fill out “Final URL.” Paste the URL of the page extension
• Repeat these steps for however many additional sitelinks, callout extensions, and other
extensions you’d like to include without repeating yourself.
Remember, each additional sitelink should be an offer of some sort—even if the offer is just for
the reader to learn more!
And now, you’re ready to duplicate this Asset group!
How to Duplicate an Asset Group: Lead Generation
• You’ll find all your Asset groups in the Asset groups section
• Look for the Asset group you want to duplicate, then click the three dots found in the
upper right corner as shown in the image below
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• Click “Duplicate this asset group”
• Name your asset group
Important
When we created our first Asset group, we called it “Interest & Demo” because the audience
signal category is for “Interests & detailed demographics.” This time, we’ll create an Asset group
we can use for the Audience signal category “Custom segments” based on their search activity.
• Just follow the same steps we took to create an Asset group. Don’t forget to reselect your
products in the listing groups.
• In the Audience signal section, click the pencil icon to edit this audience.
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• Remove the current audience name.
• Add a new audience name.
• In Custom segments, click “+ New custom segment”
• Name this segment
• Select “People who searched for any of these terms on Google” and add your product
keywords.
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Important: “People who searched for any of these terms on Google” is heavily targeted toward
people who searched for those terms/keywords in the last 14 days.
Pro tip:
If you know your high-performing keywords, add them here. Then, select Google’s
suggested keywords that are relevant to your product.
• Click Save to exit.
• In the “edit audience” page, click Save. Then a pop-up message will appear:
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• Select “Save this audience as a copy.” Make sure you remove the “-copy” in the Audience
copy name.
• Once you’re back in the Asset group page, click Save again.
You now have two asset groups with their respective audience signals.
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Chapter Five
Performance Max for eCommerce
If you followed Solutions 8 at all between 2020 and 2022, you know how much we droned on
about Smart Shopping being the best campaign to use in Google Ads for eCommerce.
Well, Performance Max stole the throne and is now the most powerful eCommerce tool in the
history of advertising.
Performance Max for eCommerce:
Goodbye, Smart Shopping
As of July 2022, Performance Max will have taken over Smart Shopping, meaning that between
July 1st and July 31st, every Smart Shopping campaign will stop running.
With Performance Max, having the combined power of the entire Google inventory gives
us more control than Smart Shopping did. We noticed early on that Smart Shopping ceased to
work within two days of launching Performance Max, but everything else remained untouched
or reduced by some percentage (from 10-60%).
We also disagreed with Google’s documentation that advised you not to run Performance Max
concurrently with Smart Shopping. We figured you might as well maximize the value that exists
for as long as it lives.
So let’s get to it:
How to Set Up a Performance Max Campaign
for eCommerce
Let’s build your eCommerce campaign!
• Inside your Google Ads Campaigns dashboard, click “+ New campaign”
• Choose your objective: Sales
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Conversion Actions: eCommerce
• Choose “Purchases (account default)” as your conversion goal, then click Continue
Important: Primary and Secondary
Conversion Goals
Inside the Purchases conversion goal, there are two Conversion actions.
The primary conversion action is Google Shopping App Purchase (which is from the
Shopify app).
The secondary goal is Transactions (All Website Data).
Secondary goals aren’t counted as conversions.
But when you look at your Listing groups later, it will report all conversion value data.
So, you need to pause your secondary conversion actions if you want to only
track true conversions.
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However, secondary conversions can be useful to track the path to purchase (and make note of
when prospects “drop off” in the pipeline), without asking Google to chase after those conversion
goals. Which leads us to our:
Pro Tip
Instead of pausing those secondary conversion actions entirely, you can remove the conversion value. For example, your “viewed product page” might still be a conversion action worth
tracking, but if you remove its conversion value, it won’t be counted as a true conversion.
Doing this will help you monitor important activity in your campaign (like the add-to-carts,
for example) but only count the value of those true conversions inside your listing groups for
quick cash in, cash out reporting.
• Select a campaign type. Choose Performance Max
• Connect your Google Merchant Center account
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(Learn how to set up and link your Google Merchant Center account here.)
• Select the country where your products are sold
• Name your campaign, then click Continue
Budget and Bidding: eCommerce
• Add a budget
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Important: Budget for eCommerce
We recommend running Performance Max at 80% of your Smart Shopping budget.
Then, run the other 20% with a Dynamic Remarketing Display campaign.
• Bidding: Select Conversions
Important: Bidding for eCommerce
We tested conversion value, conversions, tCPA, tROAS, and had good experience with all of
them. But using Maximize conversion value or Maximize conversions has given us better
results during the initial launch.
Select Maximize Conversion Value if:
• You have an order value that fluctuates
• You are asking Google to make a big sale
Select Maximize Conversions if:
• You have a very consistent order value
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Campaign Settings: eCommerce
• Select the locations you want to target
• Select English
Important: Languages
Typically, we use “All languages” when we run Search campaigns because we bid on keywords.
However, for Performance Max, it’s important to use English because you’re running it
everywhere—YouTube, Display, Search, etc.
Be sure to use whatever language settings are applicable to you (English, most likely).
• Select “Send traffic to the most relevant URLs on your site”
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Important: Final URL Expansion
If Google believes that a certain page on your site is more relevant than the site you want your
audience to go to, it will display that page. Here’s a quick example.
Let’s say you’re selling shampoo and in your ads (except your product feeds), your Final URL
expansion goes to the page you designated them to go.
If Google thinks that people who click your ads usually buy certain products on a different
page, then it will use that page instead. This decision is all based on historical conversions and
the user conversion patterns that Google sees.
If you want to be more specific, you can add exclusions to have better control over where to
send your traffic.
• Add the URLs you want to exclude (if applicable)
Important: Google has been incredibly good at figuring out customer pathways. You can exclude
specific pages (e.g., your blogs) but if that content is converting well, then it might not be a great
idea to exclude it. Be careful with your exclusions.
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• Leave everything in “more settings” as is.
How to Build Your Asset Groups: eCommerce
It’s time to build your Asset groups. This is all the creative material needed to create any type of
ad across Google’s network, including:
• Photos
• Logos
• Videos
• Headlines
• Descriptions
In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to create and duplicate Asset groups.
First:
• Name your asset group
Important: Asset Groups
The assets should be customized by the intended audience. And remember, like ad groups, every
audience gets its own Asset group.
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• Select “all products” or;
• Choose only specific products you want to show in your ads. Here’s how to do that:
• Click the pencil icon
• Select “Use a selection of products”
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• Find your products and select them. When you’re done, click Save.
• Add a final URL
• Add images
You can either upload images or get Google to scan your website. If you choose to scan your
website, Google will pull up images from your site and social media.
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• Add logos
You can either upload logos or scan your site for logos. If you choose to scan your site, Google
will get your favicon and use it as your logo.
• Add videos
You can either upload videos from your computer or from YouTube. Just add the URL and
Google will pull up those videos.
Important: Videos
Google will create videos for you if you don’t upload your own videos. (But you can remove
them). Our recommendation is to always create your videos.
Pro Tip
You can use your or someone else’s YouTube videos. You don’t need permission
(Google will approve those videos.) However, just be cautious and make sure that
you aren’t violating any of your clients’ agreements and policies.
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• Add headlines
The way “suggestions’’ work is Google will create headlines based on your site.
Whether you’re using suggestions or not, make sure that your headlines are really good and can
capture your users’ interest.
• Add long headlines
• Add descriptions
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• Add a call to action
We highly recommend choosing automated as your call to action. Because we’re in a machine-learning world, it would be best to stick with Google’s choices at least for this section.
How to Build Your Audience Signal: eCommerce
Generally, we always create one asset group per audience signal category, like “Interests & detailed demographics,” “Your data,” and “Custom segments.”
In this tutorial, we’ll run through “Interests & Detailed Demographics.”
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Important: Duplicate Asset Groups
To create Asset groups faster, you can easily duplicate an existing Asset group and
simply change the audience signal. Just remember to reselect all the products to
avoid messing up the entire campaign. We’ll cover this in the “How to Duplicate an
Asset Group” section.
• Name your audience
• Skip to Interests & Detailed demographics
• Type your product (or relevant keywords for your product) to search for segments that
might be applicable to your audience’s interests, life events, or demographics. For example, if you’re selling wallets, type “wallets.”
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You should now see the list of in-market segments, life events, or detailed demographics you
added.
• Once you’re done, click Save to go back to the previous dashboard.
How to Add Sitelink Extensions: eCommerce
Just like adding extensions when creating a Search campaign, you can add extensions in Performance
Max to show pieces of information about your business that you can tack onto your ad, including
your address, phone number, direct page links, coupons, or even additional websites.
• Fill out your Sitelink 1 text (i.e., the header for this sitelink extension)
For example, “About Us,” “Read About the Team,” “Who We Are,” or “Read Our
Epic Story”
• Fill out “Description line 1”
Elaborate: Where will this click lead the reader?
• Fill out “Description line 2”
Elaborate: Why should the reader click?
• Fill out “Final URL.” Paste the URL of the page extension
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• Repeat these steps for however many additional sitelinks, callout extensions, and other
extensions you’d like to include without repeating yourself.
Remember, each additional sitelink should be an offer of some sort—even if the offer is just for
the reader to learn more!
And now, you’re ready to duplicate this Asset group.
How to Duplicate an Asset Group: eCommerce
• You’ll find all your Asset groups in the Asset groups section
• Look for the Asset group you want to duplicate, then click the three dots found in the
upper right corner as shown in the image below
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• Click “Duplicate this asset group”
• Name your asset group
Important
When we created our first Asset group, we called it “Interest & Demo” because the Audience
signal category is for “Interests & detailed demographics.” This time, we’ll create an Asset group
we can use for the Audience signal category “Custom segments” based on their search activity.
• Just follow the same steps we took to create an Asset group. Don’t forget to reselect your
products in the Listing groups.
• In the Audience signal section, click the pencil icon to edit this audience.
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• Remove the current audience name.
• Add a new audience name.
• In Custom segments, click “+ New custom segment”
• Name this segment
• Select “People who searched for any of these terms on Google” and add your product
keywords.
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Important
“People who searched for any of these terms on Google” is heavily targeted toward people who searched for those terms/keywords in the last 14 days.
Pro tip
If you know your high-performing keywords, add them here. Then, select Google’s
suggested keywords that are relevant to your product.
• Click Save to exit.
• In the “edit audience” page, click Save. Then a pop-up message will appear:
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• Select “Save this audience as a copy.” Make sure you remove the “-copy” in the Audience
copy name.
• Once you’re back in the Asset group page, click Save again.
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You now have two asset groups with their respective audience signals.
Listing Groups
The top two rows display your parent Asset groups. Then, the others are subdivided into their
own Listing groups––the same way Standard campaigns work.
Important: You don’t get Listing groups for lead generation. This is the only way to
identify how the Asset groups are individually working.
Important: In the beginning of this tutorial, we suggested that you take your conversion actions and turn off any inactive conversion actions or remove the conversion values so you can get your real conversions.
To view those conversions, make sure you modify your columns.
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• Click the “Columns” icon found on the upper right corner of the Listing group page
(below the date)
• Click “Conversions.” Then select the following:
• All conv.
• Cost / all conv.
• All conv. rate
• All conv. value
• All conv. value / cost
• Click Apply!
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PART SIX
How to Pick a Google
Ads Agency
We just threw a lot at you.
And at this point you either feel like you can take this thing on by yourself… or maybe you feel a
little less confident. If the latter feels more like you, first of all, don’t feel badly. Running Google
Ads is a full-time job! Second of all, you have options when it comes to hiring high-quality help.
Let’s go over how to find the right professional Google Ads help for your business.
Chapter One
In-House PPC Advertisers
Vs Agencies
In-house PPC managers are hired directly through your company and work solely for you.
Typically, these PPC managers are also in charge of all digital marketing efforts (SEO, email
marketing, content development).
For many business owners, this is an excellent option because in-house employees will really
learn everything there is to know about the business. After all, they are hired as a member of the
team; that means they will be involved in any important meetings and stay up to date with the
latest happenings (no extra communication needed).
Risks to Consider
If you are indeed looking to hire an employee to manage all of your digital marketing efforts (not
just Google Ads), please keep this in mind: No single person could handle each branch of digital
marketing (PPC, SEO, email marketing, content marketing) and yield successful results.
Each area of digital marketing requires its own expertise. Effective PPC advertising alone requires
regular education and training to stay up to date with the constant changes and strategies. And,
truth be told, the average business executive typically doesn’t prioritize training when it comes
to the budget—particularly the continual education needed for PPC managers to be successful.
PPC Agencies
While some businesses may be concerned that a PPC agency won’t understand the complexities
of their brand as well as an in-house employee, any reputable PPC agency will make it a top priority to learn the ins and outs of your business and industry. This includes researching who your competitors are and what makes your brand unique at the beginning of your working relationship.
The right PPC agency will become a part of your team just like an in-house PPC manager, but
with a few notable differences:
• PPC agencies are experts in their field, which means they get regular training on their
own time and dollar in order to keep up with competitors.
• Similarly, PPC agencies compete against one another—which means they are aware of
what other agencies are doing and utilize the best and latest tools to keep up.
• Hiring an agency means no salaries to pay or benefits. Not only that, but a reputable
PPC agency will never lock you into a long-term contract.
Risks: If a PPC Agency Is What You’re Looking
For, Make Sure They’re a Google Ads Agency
Specifically
If a PPC agency is what you’re looking for, remember that Google Ads is the strongest marketing
mechanism at your disposal. So, above all else, your PPC agency should be Google Ads specialists. In other words, Google Ads should be their bread and butter. No exceptions.
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Chapter Two
Qualifications of the Right Agency
(and What Questions to Ask)
How Do You Find the Right Google Ads Agency?
We consolidated a short list of essential qualities to research when looking to hire a Google Ads
agency:
• Qualifications
• Experience
• Tracking and Reporting
• Communication, Pricing, and Transparency
• Strategy and Setup
• Tools
• Campaign Building and Account Activity
• Brand Culture
We’ll discuss each point in detail below:
Qualifications
When looking for a Google Ads agency, the easiest place to start is by reviewing their qualifications and experience—something that should be listed right on their website.
What to ask:
Are They Google Ads Certified?
Have we mentioned Google is the number one search engine on planet Earth? So, clearly we can’t
emphasize enough that your potential PPC agency must be Google Ads certified.
What Is a Google Ads Certification, Anyway?
A Google Ads certification is awarded by Google to individuals who prove their proficiency and
expertise in online advertising and, specifically, Google Ads.
The only way to earn a Google Ads certification is to enroll in Google’s online training program, Skillshop.
This training program tests advertisers’ competence in basic and advanced aspects of Google
Ads. Further, in order to earn a badge as a Google Partner or Google Premier Partner, a PPC
agency must be Google Ads certified.
Why They Need It
A Google Ads certification is the only way for an agency to prove their expertise and specialization in Google Ads.
A Google Ads certification represents credibility in a field full of mediocre online advertisers. Earning this certification isn’t easy and should be the bare minimum requirement moving
forward in your PPC agency search.
What Other Certifications Do They Have?
A reputable Ads agency will always seek out further certifications and education. Always. While
a Google Ads certification is absolutely necessary, it’s vital that the agencies you consider demonstrate a continual effort toward growth and improvement.
Certifications Worth Noting:
Google Premier Partners
As we mentioned before, not only should an Ads agency be Google Ads certified—they should
also take the next step to become a certified Google Partner, which means they have completed
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and passed the Ads Certification, as well as demonstrated performance by delivering strong client
and company growth.
And if they are indeed a Google Partner, it doesn’t hurt to be a Premier Partner—which is
reserved for agencies in the top 3% of all companies in the U.S. that consistently deliver client
growth, client retention, product diversification, and higher ad spend.
DigitalMarketer Certified Partners
With over half a million subscribers in 68 countries across the globe, DigitalMarketer is the
premier online community for digital marketing professionals and the leading provider of digital
marketing training and certifications.
DigitalMarketer Certified Partners have access to their massive library of world-class marketing materials and educational labs, as well as their support network.
Though your agency’s primary focus should be PPC, your strategists should also understand
the full scope of the digital marketing practice to understand how each aspect works synergistically with the others—which is where DigitalMarketer proves invaluable.
Experience
Not only will the right Google Ads agency have the right qualifications, they will also have an impressive list of experience, including a proven track record and process (we’ll talk more about this later).
Can They Show You Powerful Case Studies?
No matter how meticulously planned, a process is only as impressive as its results in digital
marketing. In other words, while an agency may wow you with a step-by-step course of action
to bring in leads and boost your revenue—don’t get your hopes up until you review examples of
past success from their clients.
Case studies are a great way for agencies to showcase their proven process. These reports spotlight
a specific client or project, identify the client’s goal or problem, and outline the agency’s suggested
solution, implementation, and results. A high-quality agency with a high-quality process will
show a pattern of successful implementation in each case study.
Have They Worked In Your Industry Before?
Spoiler: The answer doesn’t have to be “yes.” While past experience in your particular field is
helpful, an excellent PPC agency should be able to prove their expertise by showing you an industry or client that’s somehow analogous to your campaign.
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Are They a Marketing Agency Specializing in PPC? Or Do They
“Do It All”?
Agencies who claim to “do it all” (think SEO, PPC, content marketing, email marketing, social
media marketing, CRO, print media, website design) probably aren’t lying. It’s a one-stop-shop
for all your digital marketing needs! Which sounds great, right?
Wrong.
It’s been said that if you try to excel at everything, you will excel at nothing—and our experience
has shown this to be true time and time again.
PPC is just like any other tradecraft; the only way you can be the best paid traffic agency
(or SEO expert, or content writer) is to make it your focus. It requires daily practice, continuing
education, and spending any extra time you have learning and growing.
After all, you wouldn’t trust an optometrist who claimed to diagnose and treat foot pain or dental
concerns, would you? Avoid the “do-it-all” agencies.
Tracking and Reporting
Now, let’s discuss tracking for a moment. To turn website visitors into customers, expand your
business’s reach and visibility, and optimize your entire digital marketing strategy, your PPC
agency must gather immense amounts of data.
And, as a client, you should expect regular reports from your PPC agency that showcase these
pieces of data in an easy-to-understand yet detailed way. The reports should detail what your
agency is doing behind the scenes: what’s working, what isn’t, and why.
Remember:
Agencies can’t report what they don’t track.
In other words, it is imperative to ensure your future PPC agency has rock-solid tracking practices
in place. Meaning they collect, monitor, and sort through all of the data from your website and
campaigns in order to find out more about your visitors and customers to make you more sales.
Now, Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager are known as the gold standard for tracking
tools (we’ll talk about these platforms in a minute), and many PPC agencies will claim to “use”
these tools. But, here’s our official warning to you:
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Bad agencies track improperly.
Terrible agencies don’t track at all (seriously).
Yup. Somehow there are PPC agencies out there that truly don’t track anything. This, of course,
means they have nothing meaningful to report because they can’t prove if their work yielded
any results. How these agencies continue to take money from clients is a mystery and borders
on criminal. Conversely, there are bad agencies that track improperly; meaning they may install
some tracking tools but they’re not utilizing those tools properly.
All that data piling up with no action taken. It’s like going on a road trip with a perfectly
good map but leaving it untouched in the glove compartment. Here’s a more specific example of
why “pretend” tracking is so problematic:
Let’s say this agency has a client whose website encounters a PHP update. This update compromises a snippet of code on the client’s site that tracks data—but, because they aren’t actively
checking in on the metrics, this small error causes days, weeks, or months of information to be
lost forever.
Whoops.
So, when looking for the right Google Ads agency, it’s important to really grill ‘em about their
tracking methods. Here are some specific questions to ask:
Do They Use Google Analytics?
As we mentioned before, Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager are known as the gold
standard for tracking metrics.
Google Analytics collects information about interactions with your website—things like
which pages are most visited, how many visitors you had on any given day, where those visitors
were from, what pages they read, and how long they stayed on each page. How does Google
Analytics track this information?
Marketing tags.
Often called GA Javascript code snippet or pixels, marketing tags are pieces of code that gather
data about website visitors and their behavior. For example, when a visitor checks out your “About
Us” page, a snippet of code sends a message to Google Analytics’ servers.
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This information is compiled into reports you can review at any time, and which look like this:
While these snippets of code in your website allow you to track basic information, like bounce
rate, those “vanity metrics” aren’t quite enough to paint a full picture of what’s going on when
someone visits your website. Which leads us to our next question…
Do They ALSO Use Google Tag Manager?
To track all those more intimate actions, like a form submission, you would need to write hundreds of custom snippets of code—something that would take a developer a lot of time. This
is where Google Tag Manager comes into play (and why your future agency shouldn’t be using
Google Analytics solely).
Google Tag Manager acts as your own virtual developer by coding more specific, customizable tags, which reduces the possibility of human error and allows digital marketers to really zero
in on the valuable data they want to collect. While both are effective forms of tracking your digital marketing efforts, no reputable PPC agency will simply use Google Tag Manager or Google
Analytics. Because Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics use different attribution models.
Attribution models help us understand how touchpoints impact visitor conversion rates.
That’s a whole lot of jargon, huh? Let’s break that down quickly.
A touchpoint is, essentially, any form of engagement from visitors with your site. Examples
of touchpoints include:
• Clicking on a Google display ad
• Reading through a page of your website
• Filling out a form
When tracking touchpoints, it’s less about if visitors engage with them and more about whether
or not it increases your conversion rate.
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So, when we say Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager use different attribution models,
that means the two platforms rank touchpoints differently. According to Google Analytics, an
attribution model is:
“...the rule, or set of rules, that determines how credit for sales and conversions is assigned to
touchpoints in conversion paths.”
Long story short, your PPC agency should use Google Analytics
and Google Tag Manager.
Do They Set Up a Full Tracking System to Measure Goals?
We just covered the importance of tracking actions on your site with Google Analytics and
Google Tag Manager, but, spoiler: That’s not enough.
The right Google Ads agency will have a full tracking system in place to ensure your goals
are met.
This means your PPC agency should be keeping track of:
• Form fills
• Chats
• Purchases
• Device types used
• Specific pages
• Predictive indicators (downloading a white paper, for example)
• Calls
• Even manual conversions—meaning a customer saw your ad, physically came into your
store (if you have a physical location), and made a purchase.
Think about it this way:
Few sales are made from a customer who sees your ad, clicks on your product or service, and
makes a purchase—just like that (snaps). Instead, customers tend to take their time before
giving you money.
Sometimes this involves reading through pages on your site or taking a few days away before
clicking a retargeted ad. Luckily, these are actions Google Analytics tracks easily. But what about
those other conversion points? Like when a potential customer calls to learn more, or utilizes
the chat on your website to ask a question? These are the little, tough-to-track pieces essential to
understanding the big picture of your campaign.
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What Do They Consider a Conversion?
Not every phone call, form fill, or online chat is a conversion.
Yet, the few agencies that do track these actions tend to consider these touchpoints an automatic conversion. Don’t know about you, but we’ve certainly spent time on the phone with
businesses for over thirty seconds without buying a thing.
Sometimes, these calls are even the opposite of a sale—customers calling about a problem, for
example. The issue here? Not every form of contact is truly a conversion. That means there’s a
whole lot of diluted data out there. The only way to accurately track these conversions is about
as tedious as it gets:
• Record each incoming call
• Review each conversation
• Manually enter the conversion information into Google Ads
Tedious? Yes.
As accurate as possible? Also yes.
Will They Track the True Profitability of the Campaign?
In other words, will they allow (and enthusiastically encourage) you to provide your business’s
total revenue numbers in order to track the campaign’s profitability? If they don’t, well, that just
means they aren’t interested in how much money their campaign is bringing in.
Will They Track Actions That Are Important to You?
A flawless tracking system means nothing if they don’t track the actions that matter to you. Your
future PPC agency should always customize their reports to showcase the metrics important to
your brand.
Not sure what actions should be important to you? While tracking metrics like conversion
rate, cost-per-click, and position are all important—ultimately, your #1 concern should be sales
and leads. How many sales has the campaign brought in? How many leads? That’s the point of
all this digital marketing, after all.
What Does Their Reporting Method Look Like?
Now that we know how Google Ads agencies should track, it’s time to make sure their reporting
doesn’t fall flat. In theory, reporting should be the easy part! All your PPC agency has to do is
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showcase your website’s metrics (clicks, conversions, impressions) in a way that is easy to understand, yet easily reconcilable with your Google account.
By using Google Data Studio (more on this in a minute), your agency can create a clean,
readable monthly report. Bad agencies will veil conversions with vanity metrics that don’t mean
much, which is why it’s imperative to ensure your agency tracks actions that are important to you.
Your agency should give you this physical or digital report and go over the details with you to make
sure you understand what all those numbers mean.
We’ll talk more about communication and transparency in just a moment—but first:
Do They Use Proprietary Reporting or Dashboards?
Google Data Studio is a completely free tool connected to your Google Analytics account that
allows PPC agencies to make customized, honest, and easy-to-understand reports.
Some agencies may also choose to use a platform like Swydo, which monitors and reports your
Google marketing metrics, but can be better at pulling in data from external sources, like
Facebook. However, if an agency claims to use their own proprietary reporting tool, run.
This means they can omit important data.
Remember, your monthly reports should be easily reconcilable with your Google account, but
easier to read. There’s no need to create a proprietary reporting tool, unless your agency wants
to control the narrative in a way that makes them look good—rather than making you money.
Communication, Pricing, and Transparency
When you hire a PPC agency, you’re investing in (and committing to) a relationship. And like
any relationship, communication and honesty are the keys to success. If you found a Google Ads
agency that has the right experience, qualifications, tracking and reporting methods—but shows
signs of poor communication, that means they still aren’t “the one.”
Avoid the heartbreak. Here are some questions to ask to make sure you can depend on your
PPC agency:
How Frequently (and Clearly) Will They Communicate?
If you’re just starting to learn more about a Google Ads agency, chances are their communication
will be flawless: They’ll get right back to you, follow up often, and make you feel comfortable.
But what can you expect after you sign that contract agreement? During these early stages, it’s
important to ask what you can expect going forward regarding communication.
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• How often will you touch base?
• Will they email or call you?
• What if you have questions?
• Will they over-communicate, to a point where it is time consuming for you?
• What are their expectations and needs from you regarding communication?
How Much Work Will You Need to Contribute?
Your PPC campaign won’t be as successful without effort on your end; so, it’s important to determine early on what (and how much) work you are expected to contribute. Similarly, it’s important
to have a clear understanding of how much work your PPC agency will put in as well. The earlier
you set expectations, the smoother your working relationship will be long term.
Will You Have a Primary Contact in Charge of Your Campaign
(i.e., a Dedicated Client Manager)?
No matter how small your PPC agency is, it’s important to know there is one designated person
you can speak to about your questions or concerns.
Make sure you’ll have a dedicated client manager who not only knows everything about your
business, goals, and marketing strategy but is also your go-to representative.
Do They Charge Enough to Do the Job Right ?
It makes sense to feel excited about finding a super-affordable agency. But a low cost almost
always means low value and high commitment.
Think of it this way: How much work will you expect from your agency? At the very least,
they should be monitoring your campaign daily, optimizing monthly, utilizing the best software
and highly skilled labor available—not to mention investing in regular education to ensure they
are up to date with the latest industry trends.
Now, really think about all that time, experience, and commitment. Would you take the fee
they’re offering to do the same job? Knowing how much work should be going into it? If the
answer is, no, maybe you should ask yourself why their services are so cheap.
Do They Want You To Sign a Long-Term Contract?
Once upon a time, Yahoo! was the epicenter of the internet.
Our point? Things change.
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Your campaign may change. Google may change their rules. A big competitor could enter the
digital space you once dominated and throw you for a loop. Your Google Ads agency could
change CEOs and you may not jive with their new culture. You could just simply change your
mind about what’s right for your business.
Whatever the reason, if things do change, you don’t want to be locked into a long-term contract. If a potential agency wants to lock you into a long-term contract, can they guarantee it will
be successful? If not, why would you agree to such a long commitment?
If they do make a promise or guarantee...well ,that leads us to our next point.
Do They Offer Promises or Guarantees ?
It’s tempting to believe a good old fashioned guarantee. But if your potential PPC agency promises results or an increase in revenue right off the bat—it’s time to find someone else. The reality
is no reputable Google Ads agency will promise or guarantee results. How could they without
knowing more about your brand, current campaign, and how your campaign will perform down
the line? Are they psychics? Who’s giving them these powers?
The right Google Ads agency will under-promise and over-deliver. Don’t believe the hype.
Is Their Pricing Transparent? What Does It Include?
You might be wondering what, exactly, should be included in your agency’s pricing.
So, first, here’s a rough list of services that should be included without add-on fees:
• Search, display, GSP, video campaign creation and management
• Ad copy creation from professional copywriters
• Remarketing campaigns
• Social network remarketing
• Reviewing and scoring all campaign-generated calls
• Importation of those calls into Google ads
• Google Analytics creation
• Google Tag Manager creation
• Conversion action creation
• Keyword research and development
• Competitive research and targeting
• Ongoing AB testing and optimizations
Now, it’s imperative that your agency is completely transparent in their pricing.
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Here’s what we mean: You should have a complete breakdown of costs; for example, what percentage of pricing goes toward copy creation? What is (and isn’t) included in their pricing?
Remember, the services listed above should always be included. Are they trying to charge you
for little add-ons that add up?
Similarly, they must be transparent about what they can (and cannot) do; for example, it’s
okay if they don’t do landing page development or video production, but they need to tell you
up front. Finally, if you’re looking to pay by the hour, you’re going to need to hire an in-house
PPC manager.
Think of PPC agencies as attorneys; if there is a sudden emergency, you can pick up the phone
and call anytime. Your Google Ads agency is “on retainer” in this sense. The monthly payments
pay for so much more than building campaigns.
Will You Maintain Complete Administrative Ownership of Your
Account ?
Speaking of transparency, it is vital to ensure you maintain complete
administrative ownership of your account, no matter what.
If your PPC agency claims ownership, that means if you decide to terminate your business relationship, you can lose all the work you paid for. So, instead of bringing your data and current
campaigns to a new agency, they would have to start from scratch (meaning more work, time,
and money).
Your Google account should belong to you and only you. Your agency is a guest in that space,
with access to build campaigns and monitor progress.
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Strategy and Setup
How Do They Get to Know You? What Is Their Process?
If you decide to sign on with an agency, how do they intend to learn everything there is to know
about your business?
• Will they have you fill out a lengthy questionnaire?
• How many questions will they ask?
• Are those questions relevant to driving your revenue?
• Will they conduct outside research, or rely on you?
Any agency that does not dedicate a considerable amount of time and energy learning the ins and
outs of your business will be unable to build the strongest campaign possible.
Do They “Diagnose Before They Prescribe”?
Similarly, your agency should never suggest a strategy or course of action for your paid traffic
campaigns before knowing the nitty gritty about your business.
Only after asking you a million and one questions, conducting independent research, and
in-depth strategizing will they be qualified to suggest a solution for your PPC needs.
Beyond that, your agency should also offer explicit expectations for their proposed campaign
strategy: why it should work, why it may not, what the potential outcomes could be, and why
it’s the best option for you.
Think of it this way—a doctor never writes a prescription without understanding the patient’s
specific health concerns. Why would a PPC agency offer up an advertising solution without
understanding the complexities of your business?
Will They Review Your Existing Campaign?
And, if you don’t have one, will they perform a traffic study?
Any agency that looks past this valuable background information and starts from scratch is,
well, lazy.
There can be so many answers hidden in your existing campaign—problem areas to be avoided in the future as well as points of success that should be optimized.
Check the foundation before demolishing the whole home.
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Do They Take Advantage of Everything Google Ads Offers?
For a while, basic paid advertising with Google Ads was the best avenue for online sales. But
today, Google Ads is so much more than standard paid search.
With options like Performance Max, it is essential that your future Google Ads agency takes
advantage of everything Google Ads has to offer.
Especially for you eCommerce business owners, Performance Max is a must.
Are They Account Managers or Strategists?
Sure, your agency will manage your account on a daily basis, therefore making them “account
managers.”
But at the core, they should be strategists—meaning there is always intention, research, optimization, and proactivity behind your campaign.
Ask your potential agency what makes them strategists, as opposed to account managers.
Tools
So, here’s the deal with software and tools: some are essential, some are helpful, and some are
unnecessary (and could be used as an excuse to charge you more money).
So, it’s important to ask:
What Tools and Software Do They Use—and Why?
How do you determine if your agency uses the right tools and doesn’t waste your money on
frivolous ones? Here’s a quick overview:
Click Fraud Software
Don’t need it! Google has you covered.
If your agency claims they use click fraud software, ask why they need it. They could be
using it to charge you more.
Google should already catch fraudulent clicks and refund you in the time it would take
an outside software to notify you of the fraudulent click.
Advanced Software for Competitive Analysis
Need it! Sort of…
Here’s what we mean: Competitive analysis software (like SpyFu, iSpionage, and
SEMrush) is used to compare data to your competitors.
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It’s a great tool to learn what’s working and not working for competitors, how much
money they’re wasting on their campaigns, what landing pages they’re using, the keywords they’re targeting, etc.
This software should be used as initial research to make informed decisions, but not to
copycat your competitors’ campaigns.
So, basically, while it’s necessary to get a baseline understanding of what the competition
is doing—it’s just a starting point. No need for your agency to shell out a lot of time or
money on these platforms.
Campaign Building and Account Activity
Look, you don’t need to know everything about Google Ads (that’s your agency’s job!), but you
should know what a good campaign structure looks like and how active your agency should be
in your account. Here are some helpful questions to consider:
What Do Their Campaign Structures Look Like?
Capable agencies will build organized campaigns that are easy to understand at a glance.
By this, we mean keywords are grouped into themes—there is a clear campaign hierarchy, in
which each campaign has a very particular focus and intention. It should be easy to understand
what each campaign’s intent is just by looking at them on the dashboard—like library shelves,
neatly organized by mystery, non-fiction, and children’s literature.
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Here’s an example:
Let’s say a dishwasher manufacturer launches a new Google Ads campaign. Their goal? Get
readers to download a whitepaper that discusses how to properly maintain a dishwasher.
That means this unique campaign’s copy should include keywords about dishwasher maintenance and whitepapers. If the user clicks on the ad, it should take them to a landing page dedicated
to that white paper.
And, like a well-organized library shelf, this campaign will sit in the dashboard next to campaigns with different desired outcomes. It sounds kind of complicated, but it all comes down to
organization and structure. A big, red flag would be an agency running an entire account
theme on one campaign.
Will The Campaign Be Customized?
The Google Ads campaign your agency builds should be fit to you, rather than trying to fit you
to the campaign. Just say no to any agency that uses templates and cookie-cutter strategies—you
are not a cookie, my friend.
Are They Active in Your Account?
If you already hired your agency, you can answer this question for yourself by accessing the history report from your Google account.
Here’s how it should look:
Early on, you should notice routine changes. Your agency will be pretty active in your account
within the first 90 days or so. Over time, if your campaign is performing well, there could be
fewer changes, especially when campaigns become more optimized; however, your PPC agency
should never go a month without at least 100 changes in your account.
Do They Review Search Terms on a Monthly Basis (At Least)?
And while they’re at it, do they update your negative keyword list and match types?
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Culture
Are you still with us? We’ve officially made it through the technical jargon!
Now, we need to talk relationships. And while this stuff seems small, you need to actually like
who you’re working with when it comes to your PPC campaign. That means not only how they
work but also their business culture as a whole.
When interviewing potential PPC agencies, consider these
questions:
• What do you want out of your business relationship?
• Who is the type of person (and people) you can collaborate with?
• What do you value in an employee?
Don’t forget about these personal questions and determine if you really “jive” with the Google
Ads agency you choose to hire.
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Chapter Three
A Final Word
You made it! You should be proud of yourself for getting through a mega-dense guide full of
some dizzying concepts.
(Trust us, if this stuff were easy, we wouldn’t have jobs.)
But by now, you should be able to build and manage Google Ads campaigns on your own—a
pretty impressive flex, in our opinion.
Something to keep in mind:
Google Ads is shifting and changing on a daily basis. That means some of the specific suggestions
and strategies we outlined in this book may be different by the time you read it.
However, the strategic mindset stays the same through it all.
APPENDIX
Performance Max Best Practices,
FAQs, and How-Tos
There was so much information we wanted to include in Part Five that didn’t fit—but we still
wanted to share some super useful how-tos, keeping in mind that with Performance Max (and
Google Ads entirely), there are no golden rules.
But there are some best practices that are important to know.
By the time you go through this section, reader, things may have changed. But by now you should
have the tools to absorb these recommendations and determine which are most applicable to you.
Now, at the time of this publication, Performance Max is getting a horrible rap. Thought leaders
everywhere complain that either:
They tried Performance Max and it didn’t work
Performance Max is great—if you’re lazy
This criticism stems from the fact that it looks simplified (it’s not, by the way; it’s actually way
more complex)
To get to the meat of the issue: People are dismissing it like crazy.
But by April 2022, Solutions 8 already had 54 Performance Max campaigns running. These
were all clients that had successful Google Ads campaigns before Performance Max.
And not one single client campaign didn’t at least keep pace with, or improve, their previous
account performance.
Bottom line: Performance Max is separating the strong agencies
from the weak.
And we’re here for it.
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Performance Best Practices (For Now)
With a big, big emphasis on “ for now”!
eCommerce: Run Remarketing Campaigns
Performance Max on its own won’t have the remarketing reach Smart Shopping had—or even
traditional display remarketing.
So, we recommend running YouTube remarketing campaigns at 20% remarketing
budget.
We have also seen some success with dynamic remarketing campaigns. If you’d like to try
dynamic remarketing as well, keep in mind that your overall remarketing budget should be 20%.
If you’re running multiple remarketing campaigns, we would give YouTube half of it to start.
If you’re only running YouTube, give it the full 20%.
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Let Google Use Data from Other Campaigns to
Feed Your Performance Max Campaign(s)
One of the things advertisers dislike about Performance Max is that it steals from your other
campaigns (we’ve even heard it described as cannibalization).
This is not a bad thing.
However, knowing that some advertisers don’t like Performance Max stealing traffic from an
existing well-functioning campaign, Google is also rolling out something called New Customer
Acquisition, which allows you to tell Performance Max to only go after new customers.
Performance Max is Best Run Alongside Other
Campaigns
Imagine you’re trying to fill a jar with small pebbles and big rocks at the same time.
If you put the smaller pebbles first, there won’t be any room for the big rocks to fit.
But if you fill it with big rocks first ,the smaller rocks can fill in the spaces in between and maximize the use of the space in the jar.
Your Search campaigns are the big rocks—the most important
and foundational pieces of your ads.
Your Performance Max campaigns are the pebbles that help
maximize the value of your campaigns.
In other words, Performance Max fills in all the values missing from other campaigns to get
customers. That’s why it’s recommended to run Performance Max alongside search and other
campaigns.
You Still Need to Bid on Your Brand with
Performance Max
Brand campaigns are one of the key campaigns we run for all of our clients. It’s also a great campaign to generate quality leads in high-competition markets.
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Of course, we’ve heard all the standard arguments. Usually something along the lines of:
“I’m going to get those people anyway—they’re my existing customers—why should I pay for them?”
Well, bidding on your brand while running Performance Max campaigns can help build brand
awareness and increase new customer revenue.
Here’s an example:
If you’re running a Performance Max campaign and a brand campaign that is maxed out, there
is proof that the click on Performance Max came through your brand.
In other words, Performance Max is essentially “warming up” the traffic by showing them ads
everywhere within the Google ecosystem.
Question: Can my SEO be affected by allowing my brand campaign to be bid on?
Answer: If it is a keyword click and they click on your listing, whether it’s an ad or not, it’s a
relevant click, and it will track it back directly to page relevancy. So, it actually helps your SEO.
Focus On Your Creatives
Performance Max favors creatives (i.e., images and copy) more than Google ever has. Unlike
Facebook, Google has always been more sterile and direct when it comes to ad copy. Hence,
effective Google Ads copy is usually composed of “benefits, keywords, and USP” rather than
creative media and storytelling.
While that’s still generally true, Performance Max is going to favor massive media creation.
Which means people who frequently produce more media and assets are going to be more successful with Performance Max.
Now, if you’re someone who isn’t comfortable creating content, don’t worry. You don’t need
to produce insane Hollywood-level content. Just put out tons of creatives (images and videos)
and let Performance Max pick the best.
If Google Says “Optional,” It Probably Isn’t
Running a local campaign to drive people to your brick-and-mortar business?
You MUST have Google My Business.
Selling products for your eCommerce store?
You MUST connect them to Google Merchant Center.
(Unless you’re selling high tickets and you want to drive leads instead of sales.)
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Bottom line: Google will tell you that some requirements are optional. They aren’t. Make
sure you provide all the requirements you need to launch, despite what Google says.
Upload Your Lists to Performance Max
Whether it’s first-party data, remarketing lists, or customer audience lists, make sure you upload
them into Performance Max.
Don’t Use Google Analytics Conversions
Google Ads and Google Analytics handle the same data very differently.
One of the reasons we don’t recommend using Google Analytics’ conversions is because its
method of storing data can often cause about a 15-25% decrease in conversion value compared
to Google Ads.
In other words, Google Analytics drops data.
Follow the Minimum Asset Requirements
To get the most out of Performance Max, you need to give Google as many assets as possible.
Google says video assets are optional .If you don’t have any videos ,Google will automatically
create videos based on the text/images you have.
Don’t let them.
Nine times out of ten, any content you create is going to be better than Google’s.
Here’s a quick overview of size requirements for images:
(The maximum file size for any image is 5120 KB)
Landscape image (1.91:1)
Recommended size: 1200 x 628
Min. size: 600 x 314
Square image (1:1)
Recommended size: 1200 x 1200
Min. size: 300 x 300
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Portrait image (4:5)
Recommended size: 960 x1200
Min. size: 480 x 600
Be Careful of Google’s Recommended Campaign
Timeframe (and Let it Sit!)
In their documentation, Google’s recommended campaign timeframe is at least four weeks. This
may or may not be accurate since there are a lot of factors to consider—one being your budget.
If you’re spending a dollar a day, four weeks won’t be enough. So, try to consider a realistic timeframe for your campaigns.
Performance Max FAQs
Are there “best practices” when segmenting out Asset Groups?
(Keywords, In-market, Affinity)
Nope! It all depends on your business and specific campaign. Performance Max has effectively
wiped away those “golden rule” strategies.
When you add a new Asset group, does your campaign reenter in the learning phase?
Nope! The entire campaign doesn’t reenter the learning phase; rather, your new Asset group will
enter the learning phase.
If an audience was already targeted by an Asset group ,why
would you create another Asset group for that audience
specifically?
Each Asset group is always going to have a different Audience signal.
This is to explore multiple audiences at the same time with the ability to see which ones work
and which ones don’t.
As the campaign learns, we can turn off Asset groups that aren’t performing and use that knowledge to help build only high-performing Asset groups.
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Would you split product groups into different Performance
Max campaigns?
Yes, depending on things like budget, goals, and content.
Is there a way to see which Asset group is performing better if
you aren’t running Shopping with it?
No, but you can separate campaigns for lead generation if needed.
Performance Max How-Tos
How To Remarket Effectively
Let’s say you had two different Performance Max campaigns.
Campaign A has a listing group going after ten products.
Campaign B has a listing group going after ten completely different products.
If someone clicks, adds a product from Campaign A to their cart, views a product from Campaign
B, then leaves the site, who remarkets?
Well, we asked two different teams and each had their own unique answer.
The first team said that the product from Campaign B will be remarketed to the customer. The
second team said that product A remarkets from the original click.
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So, if the customer clicked on an ad but added a different item in the cart, the original campaign
would remarket the same product. (Even if the customer is probably no longer interested.)
Both answers make sense. However, we tend to lean toward the second team (Campaign A
remarkets).
That’s because their team is working on one of our accounts that’s over $1 million a month in ad
spend. Plus, it’s a team we know and trust.
So, what does this have to do with Listing groups?
If you’re running one big Performance Max campaign, you need to run all the products in your
Listing group.
Don’t exclude anything unless there’s a valid reason why (i.e., the item is out of stock, you
don’t want people to buy that item, etc.).
Whether you’re using an Asset group or not, you’ll need to leave all those products enabled.
Chances are, people might buy those products.
Doing so will keep your revenue flowing. Otherwise, you’ll have ineffective remarketing since
you’re paying for the interest but failing on remarketing your campaign.
How To Fix Inaccurate Data Inside Your Listing
Groups
Inside of your Listing groups you’ll see All conversion, All conversion value, and Conversion value
by cost. What’s missing? Conversions.
This is one of the issues we found inside the Listing groups. Because of that, it’s impossible to
see what your real conversions are.
Since there’s no way to segment by conversion action, let’s assume that everything is being
counted as a conversion. In that case, you’re getting inaccurate data.
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Fortunately, this is easy to fix.
If you’re running Performance Max, go into your conversions and shut off all conversions you’re
not counting as a primary.
For eCommerce, make sure you’re counting only purchases as primary conversions.
Meaning, everything else—newsletter signups, contact form fills, etc.—should only count as
secondary conversions (which won’t show up as a normal “Conversion”) or, you can count them
as a conversion without conversion value (so, you will have a “conversion” but, it will be for $0,
so you don’t affect the ROAS).
This is because if the only conversion value you’re measuring is the actual sale, the data you
see will be much more accurate.
Another factor that affects the data you see is
the attribution model you’re using.
Do you see branded conversions coming in and you’re using first-click attribution? That means
their first interaction with your campaign is from the brand.
But what if you’re using last-click attribution? Now it looks like you’re stealing your search
category data away and giving it to your brand.
So what attribution model should you choose?
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The most practical would be data driven attribution; it helps split up your conversions and
gives attribution to the brand alongside a search category split.
With the new Insights tab, because data is more broken out, you start to see how attribution
models affect your search categories.
By using a data-driven, position-based, or linear attribution model, you’ll at least be able to
identify what earned a click and what earned the remarket.
How To Use the Insights Tab for Your Campaign
Strategy
The new Insights Tab is like a “cheat sheet” that can help you identify who your audiences are
based on what the market says.
This is important because while some audiences make a whole lot of sense, others might look
irrelevant to your product or services.
For example, one of our clients is a company that sells hot sauces.
Relevant audience segments include BBQs & Grills, Restaurant Delivery & Takeout, and
Condiments & Sauces.
However, the Insights Tab showed Women’s Apparel in their top five segments.
Well, that doesn’t make sense, right?
The truth is, it doesn’t matter.
We don’t need to find a connection between “Women’s Apparel” and our client’s products—because clearly one exists!
What’s important is that Google is now giving us additional audiences outside of the audiences
we’ve chosen to target.
Bottom line: Knowing more about who your audiences are gives you more information on how
to optimize your campaigns.
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Affinity Segments
Using this same client example, we looked at our Top performing audience segments, and saw
an Affinity segment called Frequently Dines Out.
According to Google Ads Help, the Affinity segment works by reaching users based on
what they’re passionate about and their habits and interests.
What’s interesting is Frequently Dines Out has the highest share of conversions among all
other segments—a whopping 35.9%!
Knowing this, we used the information available to us and optimized our campaign.
How To Optimize Your Campaigns Using Data from
the Insights Tab
The Insights tab is there to give you an overview of the audiences and themes around your products or services.
Using what we now know about the hot sauce client, we created a new Asset group only for
the Frequently Dines Out audience.
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Now, although it was a new Asset group (with a new Audience signal), we used the same assets,
and we were able to improve our campaign’s results in just three days.
You might ask, “Shouldn’t we be tailoring the assets according to that audience?”
Yes, that’s the best practice.
But there are times when you might want to just utilize the same assets, especially if you don’t
have enough assets to work with.
Just remember—always test your assets for the audience. Whatever the result is will dictate your
next best strategy.
For example, if the campaign doesn’t pick up right away, you can try swapping out assets. We
started running this campaign on February 20th, 2022.
Here’s a quick campaign comparison between February 16th and February 23rd:
Return On Ad Spend (ROAS)
Our ROAS bumped from 89.71% to 221.05%.
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Conversions
Our conversions increased from 2,300% to.2,597%
Conversion Value
Our conversion value jumped from 750.30 to.2,012.58
As you can see, by creating a separate Asset group for the Frequently Dines Out audience, we
increased our campaign’s performance in a short period of time.
All of this would not have happened had we not paid attention to the Insights Tab.
How To Use Asset Groups to Increase ROAS and
Conversions
If you use Asset groups the right way and get granular with your Audience signals, it can give you
more control and transparency into your campaign performance.
This can result in more engagement, and can even double your ROAS and conversion rate
(like it has for our Performance Max campaigns).
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You can do this by allowing your campaigns to run and then checking how each Asset group
is performing so you can optimize them accordingly.
To view the statistics on how your assets are performing, click on View Details:
Then you’ll see the how each asset is performing, labeled as Best, Good, or Low Performance:
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Not only that, but when you click on Combinations, you’ll also be presented with your:
• Top image combinations
• Top text-only combinations
• Top video combinations
Furthermore, you can check the Listing groups and see which Asset groups are the best
performing.
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This will show you the metrics (impressions, clicks, conversions) so you can make an informed
decision on which Asset group to continue or edit.
The Asset group details and listing group metrics serve as guides, pointing out which low-performing assets you might want to pause and which best-performing ones you can invest in and
focus more on.
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