How The Google Ads RSA Changes Affect B2B PPC

Google announced some changes to responsive search ads (RSAs) recently. Here’s how they’ll impact B2B advertisers:

▶ Ads might show just one headline, with the second headline at the beginning of the description. I have mixed feelings on this one for B2B. We often use the first headline either for the brand name, or to match the keyword; and then the second line is pinned with the CTA. This can still work with the single headline and the CTA at the beginning of the description, but I want to see the data. It might look odd in some cases.

▶ Campaign-level headlines and descriptions. This may or may not work for B2B, but I’m glad to have the option. Often we do use the same headlines and descriptions across ad groups in a campaign, and I can definitely see the use for CTAs, special offers, and other marketing tactics. Overall a good thing.

❌ Automated assets can now show in place of your manually created assets. This is an absolutely terrible move for B2B advertisers. For a long time now I’ve recommended shutting off all automated extensions for B2B, because Google tends to pick extensions that don’t make sense or match what you’re advertising. The thing is, Google keeps adding new automated extensions, and they’re turned on by default! And the setting is buried! This is one to put at the top of your audit list – check your settings and definitely opt out of all automated extensions.

What are your thoughts on these RSA changes?

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Competitor Bidding: Yay or Nay?

Competitor bidding in paid search: yea or nay?

It depends!

🛑 My initial answer is usually nay, because most advertisers aren’t ready to bid on competitor names.

Competitor bidding can be expensive:
✳ Keywords automatically get low quality scores, pushing CPCs up.
✳ Conversion rates tend to be low – after all, the user was searching for someone who isn’t you.
✳ Competitor keywords can eat up your entire paid search budget!
✳ Close variants mean you might match to other competitors or even your own brand terms 😲

Here’s how to do it successfully:
✳ Set aside a dedicated budget for competitor bidding, separate from your main budget. Look at it as a test. Set reasonable ROAS metrics that are likely worse than your regular search campaigns.
✳ Create a landing page that shows why you’re better than the competition. Name names. It’s critical to be bold here – if you don’t want to name your competitor on your landing page, you’re not ready to bid on their keywords.
✳ Use keywords like “cancel [competitor]”, “alternatives to [competitor]”, and other variants that indicate the user is looking to make a switch. These can be high-converting keywords.
✳ Monitor search queries daily. Relentlessly add negatives to keep things tight. This is going to be even more of a game of whack-a-mole than your regular SQR work, so dedicate yourself to it.

I’d love to hear how you handle competitor bidding!

Originally posted on LinkedIn on January 16, 2024

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Welcome to Beyond the Paid!

Welcome to Beyond the Paid, the official website for Melissa Mackey.

I’ve been in the search engine marketing space since the dawn of Google Ads (formerly AdWords) in 2002.

While I haven’t blogged on this site much recently, here are links to my recent articles in industry publications:

You can find my latest writings on Search Engine Land and Search Engine Journal, and up-to-date commentary on #ppcchat on Twitter.

Find me on LinkedIn too.

I’ve spoken at search conferences since 2010. Sign up to watch my session on PPC account health from SMX Next 2023, or read a summary of the session.

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The Case for Smart Display

Editor’s Note: Today’s guest post is by Kelsey Hadaller of Hanapin Marketing. Learn how to be successful with Smart Display campaigns!

The rollout of Smart Display campaigns was announced by AdWords in April 2017. Nearly a year later, the campaign type is still available but not many advertisers are talking about it. With the increase in automation opportunities within AdWords, Smart Display might be a good test for your accounts as an intro to automation.

Who Should Test Smart Display?

Test Smart Display If You…

• Are looking to grow new customer acquisition but don’t know where to start
• Don’t have time to develop an in-depth top of funnel Display strategy
• Have a testing budget and can afford to run a test over a few months with possibly slow results

Avoid Smart Display If You…

• Have little to no testing budget
• Do not use conversion tracking through AdWords
• Receive less than 100 conversions within 30 days

What to Watch

• Lead quality
• GDN Placements
• Low impressions due to low Target CPA

Campaign Set Up

In the new AdWords UI, you can find Smart Display campaigns under the Display campaign type when using a sales, leads or website traffic goal.

You’ll then be prompted to select location and language targeting, a daily budget and a Target CPA. Google reps often recommend using a daily budget greater than 20 times your Target CPA. While this might be a best practice for accounts with low CPA goals, a high daily budget isn’t always realistic or necessary.

Even though AdWords automates the final ad, you still have control over components of the creative. Have headlines, description lines, logos and images ready before you create a Smart Display campaign. Refer to the AdWords guide for specifics.

Keep in mind that you cannot control many aspects of Smart Display targeting and bidding. For example, to exclude an automated placement, you must set up the exclusion at the account level since campaign placement exclusions are not available in Smart Display. Device modifiers are also unavailable in this campaign type. As you can see below, however, AdWords does allow content exclusions to be applied in Smart Display campaigns.

Smart Display Case Study

Example One:

These Smart Display campaigns were launched in April 2017 and have performed at a steady ROAS throughout the year. Keep in mind, these campaigns are using last-click attribution. When using other attribution models, ROAS is even stronger for these campaigns.

Target CPA for these campaigns range from $50 to $75. This is a lead generation account with high revenue per conversion action.

Example Two:

The below Smart Display campaign ran for only one month and was paused due to poor performance after not converting with $251 in spend.

If you decide to test Smart Display, let the campaign(s) run for at least three months. You can’t expect to see over 300% ROAS immediately since the campaign uses visitor behavior to optimize the target audience and placements. Again, this is why testing budgets are a must for this test.

Top of funnel Display layered with extreme automation doesn’t sound like an equation for low cost conversions, but it’s possible! Share your experiences with Smart Display in the comments below.

Kelsey Hadaller is Senior Account Manager for Hanapin Marketing. Follow her on Twitter at @khaddy_ppc.

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Trust Us. We’re Google.

Back in December, Search Engine Land ran an article called What You Learn From Talking With Google’s Largest Advertisers All Day, Every Day. Written by Matt Lawson, it’s an interview Lawson did with Google’s chief search evangelist, Nick Darveau-Garneau.

Nick answers questions about trends, automated features such as smart bidding and dynamic ads, and the lifetime value of a customer. He gets into profitability, saying that rather than obsessing over CPA or ROAS, advertisers should look at their profit. I agree with that advice.

He also says, “Buy all the relevant keywords.” Lawson asks, “All of them?” Nick says, “There’s no need to carefully select our keywords anymore. The machine will automatically figure out which of those work for us.”

That got my attention. And I totally disagree with him.

At first glance, the article reads as helpful and forward-looking. We are all going to need automation if we are going to scale our campaigns and keep up with the competition. But when you read deeper into the recommendations in the article, most of them are basically saying “Trust us. We’re Google.”

Here are all the tools Nick suggests advertisers use:

• Dynamic search campaigns
• Smart bidding (target CPA and target ROAS, in particular)
• Data-Driven Attribution
• Dynamic Search Ads
• Optimized ad rotation
• AMP for Adwords
Parallel Tracking

Oh, and don’t forget to bid on all the keywords.

Do you notice a pattern here? Every single recommendation in the article is to just use all of Google’s tools to optimize your campaigns.

Trust us. We’re Google.

I’m not saying that no one should use any of the tools Nick mentioned. In the right circumstances, each of these options makes sense. But I would not use all of them, all the time. I never use optimized ad rotation. I prefer to use third party bid automation tools rather than Google’s bid rules. And dynamic ads and campaigns are a nightmare for B2B advertisers.

I’ve never been a fan of handing Google the keys to your marketing campaign success. I’ve seen time and again where using Target CPA bidding can throttle the volume of your campaign, killing revenue and profit. I would never simply bid on every keyword possible. That is a worst practice, bordering on irresponsible in my opinion.

But hey, trust us. We’re Google.

Nowhere is Google’s arrogance more apparent than with the new Adwords UI. This week’s PPC Chat on Twitter was all about digging in to the new UI. I had a client meeting and had to miss most of the chat, but you can find it on the #ppcchat hashtag. While participants praised a few elements in the new UI, the overwhelming sentiment was that it’s much harder to use, missing key features, and slows down workflows.

Take the Extensions section, for example. Users find the labels confusing and meaningless.

That’s just one example of the many, many issues people have with the new UI. When host Kirk Williams asked for a list of suggestions for Adwords, he got a ton of them:

(I know you can’t read that – just making a point.)

Julie Bacchini sums it up well:

Exactly. GA has moved things around in the past. When the most recent version rolled out, the transition was seamless. It was easy to find what you were looking for. Adwords supposedly crafted the new Adwords UI to act more like GA – but it misses the mark. Nothing is where you expect it to be. Key features are missing or hidden. Custom columns are gone. And there’s horizontal scrolling.

It does not appear that Adwords designed the new UI with input from actual users. But why would they? They think it’s better, so it must be. Trust us, we’re Google.

Do you agree? Or should I put away my cane and stop telling people to get off my lawn? Share in the comments!

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Keys to B2B PPC

This week’s #PPCChat on February 6 was all about B2B PPC, a topic near and dear to my heart. It was a great chat, with lots of helpful information shared.

Here are a few keys to B2B PPC that came out of the chat.

B2B isn’t the same as B2C.

It may seem obvious, but it’s a distinction that I’m not sure the search engines understand. B2B PPC is usually focused on lead generation rather than a final sale. Leads are handed off to a sales team, or put into a nurture funnel. The buying cycle is long, making it challenging to close the loop from lead to sale.

Personas are important.

In B2C, personas are often irrelevant. Your customers are whoever buys your stuff. But for B2B, personas are important to understand, as they’ll drive a lot of your strategy – especially if you’re running paid social. Defining your personas early in the planning process will help you decide how to segment your audiences and content.

Audiences are a great way to hone in on the B2B user.

A lot of PPC Chatters mentioned audiences as a way to reach their target. While keywords are important, audiences are crucial to ensuring a successful B2B campaign. Spend some time researching your audience, and thinking about the best way to reach them.

For upper funnel campaigns, content is king.

You’ve probably heard the saying about digital advertising: Don’t ask the prospect to marry you the first time you meet. In other words, don’t hammer a first-time visitor with offers to buy, buy, buy!

Nowhere is that saying truer than in B2B PPC. Users are not going to buy a six-figure piece of industrial equipment, or an enterprise software package, or whatever B2B businesses are selling, on the first go-round. Search is often taking place higher up the funnel, when people are just beginning to research solutions to their problems.

Content is king for upper-funnel B2B PPC campaigns. You must have good content to sell your audience.

B2B measurement is tough, but can be done.

Front-end measurement for B2B PPC is easy: just slap Google Analytics or another package on your site, and you can track visits, user behavior, and even website conversions. The problem is, website conversions are usually not a purchase – they’re a lead. What happens to those leads once they convert online?

That’s the loop that’s surprisingly difficult to close. B2B advertisers tend to be behind the times when it comes to tracking systems and processes. A shocking number of businesses are using old-school CRM systems, or even pencil and paper, to track leads. They have no idea what happens to them once they go to the sales team.

I encourage you to read Heather Cooan’s tweets from this week’s chat on measurement. She worked in-house at a B2B organization for several years, and has great insights into how to make this work.

In fact, I encourage you to read the entire tweet stream from Tuesday, February 6. There are a lot of great nuggets about B2B PPC there.

What’s your number-one key to B2B PPC success? Share in the comments!

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Top 5 Facebook Ads Experts To Follow On Twitter

Here it is February, and I hope you all are full into the swing of 2018. I’m resolved to get back to regular blogging, health permitting. I’ve missed all of you.

One of my goals in 2018 is to become more proficient in Facebook Ads. We’ve acquired a couple of large Facebook advertisers over the past year, and while I’m comfortable managing the accounts, I know there are nuances that I still need to learn. And I’m guessing many of you are in the same boat.

A few months ago, the hashtag #FBAdsChat emerged on Twitter. I immediately created a column for it in Tweetdeck. While the tweet volume isn’t as high as on #PPCChat, it’s still worth following.

In addition to following #FBAdsChat, here are the top 5 Facebook Ads experts to follow on Twitter.

Susan Wenograd@SusanEDub. Susan started the #FBAdsChat hashtag and hosts the chats that happen periodically on Thursdays at noon Eastern time. Susan has emerged as the premiere expert on Facebook Ads. She’s spoken at just about every search conference out there, sharing epic Facebook Ads knowledge. If you follow just one Facebook Ads expert, Susan is the one. She recently started her own company, too – find her online at susanwenograd.com.

Matt Mason@MattMasonPPC. Matt is Senior Client Manager at PointIt. He’s active on the #FBAdsChat hashtag, asking great questions and sharing knowledge. He often hosts the chat when Susan isn’t available – he’s even done some spontaneous chats just because people want to. He’ll be speaking about Facebook Ads at the upcoming Hero Conf, too!

Timothy Jensen@timothyjjensen. A longtime participant in PPC Chat, Timothy has been actively contributing to #FBAdsChat as well. He’s Campaign Manager at Clix Marketing. If you want nuggets on both PPC and Facebook Ads, give him a follow.

Akvile DeFazio@AkvileDeFazio. Akvile has done everything, from working at Third Door Media to agency work to owning her own social advertising firm, Akvertise. Since she focuses on paid social, she shares lots of great tips on Facebook Ads on Twitter. She’s super nice too – someone great to know.

Michelle Morgan@michellemsem. Michelle is Director of Client Services at Clix, and a frequent poster in #FBAdsChat. She’s always finding new features in the Facebook Ads UI, and isn’t shy about sharing. Michelle has been around the PPC Chat scene for a while and still posts there too.

Bonus: JD Prater@jdprater. JD works for AdStage, a social ads management platform. He’s got his finger on the pulse of new Facebook Ads releases, and shares the info freely. AdStage has a great e-newsletter, too – go sign up at www.adstage.io.

What about you? Who are your must-follow Facebook Ads experts on Twitter? Share the love in the comments!

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2017 Reader Poll

For the past 4 years, I’ve polled my loyal blog readers about what you want me to write about. I’ve loved hearing from you and seeing what topics are of interest. You all are the reason I keep writing, even when health issues make it challenging for me to write every week.

With that, here is the Beyond the Paid 2017 Reader Poll. Make your voice heard!


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PPC Ad Test Settings: The Great Debate

PPC ad testing is a topic that’s near and dear to my heart. It’s one of the most fun aspects of managing PPC campaigns: learning what ad copy performs best. It’s always fun to try something wild and crazy and have it perform well, or to prove an insistent client right or wrong with test data.

Lately, there have been several opinions thrown around regarding which PPC ad test settings should be used for best results. It’s been interesting to watch the debate play out in blog posts and on Twitter. And to add confusion to the mix, Google recently announced that they were reducing the options available for ad rotation to two: optimize and rotate indefinitely. Google claims the change was rolling out in September, but I’m still seeing 4 options in my campaigns.

Anyway, there are a few PPC experts who have suggested that it’s better in the long run to use the Optimize settings, rather than Rotate Evenly. PPC Hero recommends running 3 or more ads per ad group, and letting Google choose the winner. This is also Google’s recommendation, incidentally. Their argument is based on a case study showing that clicks increased when they chose the Optimize setting and ran 3 or more ads.

If you’re optimizing for clicks, you probably have bigger problems than choosing ad rotation settings.

At HeroConf London, Marty Röttgerding gave a presentation on ad rotation. I wasn’t at the conference, but his deck is up on Slideshare. I strongly recommend you check it out – while paging through Slideshare isn’t the same as hearing the presentation in person, you can get the drift. He talks about statistical significance and essentially says it’s a red herring. He also points out that the search partner network, and its low CTRs, throws things off. So does ad position and the fact that quality score and other factors are determined at the time of the auction. Marty also advocates letting Google handle ad rotation.

I disagree.

Now before you dismiss me as a Luddite who wants to manually control all aspects of Adwords, let me remind you that I wrote a post not long ago advocating for using bid management tools. I’m a big fan of automation. Just not when it comes to ad copy testing.

I’ve tried using optimize for conversions, more than once. We’ve inherited accounts full of campaigns with that setting. And when we’ve evaluated results, we’ve always come to the same conclusion: Optimize for conversions is flawed.

It’s flawed for the same reason that Facebook ad “rotation” is flawed. Both systems pick winners too soon. (To be clear, I’m not talking about the brand new split testing feature that FB just announced here.)

I’ve seen Adwords choose a winning ad that’s had 10-20 clicks. That’s just not enough clicks to be significant at any level. I’m not looking for 99% confidence, but when an ad could get 5-10 additional clicks and show a totally different result, that’s not a winning ad in my mind. There isn’t enough data to confidently say that the ad Google deems a “loser” won’t actually perform better with more clicks.

I’m not a fan of the “run at least 3 ads” logic either. We inherited a client nearly 2 years ago that was running 5-10 ads in every ad group. Each ad had a handful of clicks. There was no way to see which ad was winning – and no tests would ever come close to statistical significance. Here’s what happened when we took over and started running systematic tests, 2 ads at a time:

Of course, we were doing other optimization here, but ad copy testing was a huge part of it.

Here’s the bottom line. I get that automation is great and helps us focus on strategic PPC management. But why hand all your automation over to Google? We all know Google has Google’s best interest at heart, not ours.

I prefer using third party tools. For bid management, I like Acquisio. For ad copy testing, I’m a huge fan of AdAlysis. AdAlysis tells you when you have statistically significant test results, and can even automate your ad testing. It’ll pause losing ads, based on the KPIs you choose:

You can also set up draft ads that will automatically start running when loser ads are paused:

You can test a whole new ad, or have AdAlysis pick up elements of the previous ad. In the example above, I’m testing descriptions, so I want to keep the headlines the same as before. Just check the box, and the tool will do that.

It takes some time and thought to set up the automation, but the same is true of setting up tests via Google. And Google won’t automatically pause losing ads, unless you run a script telling it do to so. AdAlysis has so many other features besides ad copy testing, but is worth it for the testing tools alone.

When it comes to PPC ad test settings, I like to choose Rotate Indefinitely and make my own decisions on winners and losers.

What do you think? Are you in the automation camp for PPC ad test settings? If so, do you let Google automate, or are you using a tool? Share in the comments!

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What Type Of Info Really Sells Your PPC Audience?

In previous articles on PPC audiences, I’ve talked about the importance of audiences, who is the audience, and audience segmentation. All are necessary when conceptualizing a PPC campaign that’s using audience targeting. But once you set up the campaign, what type of info really sells your PPC audience?

If you’re a B2C ecommerce advertiser, the answer is easy: give them a deal! Countless articles have been written about using special offers in remarketing to lure customers back to your site to make a purchase. Here are just a few offers you could try:

• Exclusive deals or offers for returning shoppers
• Free shipping
• Customer rewards
• BOGO – buy one, get one offers
• Free products with purchase

There are many more. It’s fairly easy to brainstorm ideas, figure out which ones make business sense, and test them with your audience.

But what about B2B lead generation advertisers?

As usual, B2B is tricky. Many advertisers are not selling a physical product, or if they are, it’s high-consideration and not going to be purchased online in an ecommerce fashion. Offers like free shipping and customer rewards don’t make sense. What sells the B2B audience, then?

Valuable information.

Offering a valuable piece of content is a common tactic for B2B – because it works. An in-depth white paper, ebook, or guide that talks about common customer problems and potential solutions is an effective way to generate leads. Gate the content behind a form, or use data connectors like LinkedIn, Facebook, or Google forms to collect contact info. High-value content is a tried and true way to get leads that ultimately turn into sales.

Free trials.

If you’re selling software or SAAS products, free trials are highly effective in converting prospects to leads. Trials let potential customers try your product risk-free for a period of time, usually 14 to 30 days. The premise is that once they get used to using your software, they won’t want to stop, so they’ll buy it. I’ve personally become a customer of more than one product this way.

Personal attention.

Nowadays, with so many things being automated, a little personal attention from a real human goes a long way. Offering a free consultation, a conversation with a specialist, or even just an appointment with sales can be an effective way to get your foot in the door. We’ve had more than one client see success with using a “contact sales” or “free consult” offer, especially for high-consideration products or complicated services that require an individualized approach.

Price quotes.

Another simple, yet effective offer is to provide a price quote. B2B products and services often do not conform to a simple one-size-fits-all price. There are nuances, service levels, and add-ons that make it impossible to even put a pricing sheet on the company website. Using a form to give a price quote is a great way to not only get a lead, but to guide the prospect into the sales funnel.

Comparison to competitors.

If you’re the market leader, or if you have a feature that your competitors lack, using a landing page with a comparison grid is very persuasive.

Whether you choose to bid on competitor keywords or not, using a comparison grid helps show how you stack up, and convince a prospect to choose you over someone else. While a grid like this isn’t an offer per se, it’s a gateway to pique a user’s interest and convince them to provide their contact info to learn more. Try it on a landing page with an offer, as an added boost.

What about you? What type of info or offers have you tried that really sell your PPC audience? Share in the comments!

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