I have been managing Google AdWords accounts for around thirteen years. This depth of experience has given me a unique point of view.
Here are a few nuggets to share with you on the topic of mobile.
1. Advertising in the mobile space has to be a part of your Google AdWords strategy. For some clients all leads will come in via mobile, for others just a part, and for some none.
2. If you are a lawyer, dentist, or a doctor where you have a mix of patient age groups, you will see strong activity in the mobile ad space and strong conversion activity there.
3. If your product or service deals with immediate decisions such as an animal emergency room your activity will be in the mobile ad space and nearly all of your lead conversions will be by phone.
4. Even if your business is tech software, know that although you may not get leads from mobile, early decision making and research is being done initially on mobile. It is better to control your ad spend on mobile in that case instead of totally moving out of mobile.
5. There is no single combination of what works best for businesses in mobile at this time and there does not seem to be one pattern of behavior that is repeated across diverse industries. What I have definitely seen is that mobile should be a very important part of every AdWords program.
If you need help with your Google AdWords campaigns I invite you to review our services and qualifications. We may just be the perfect match for your pay per click management needs.
When you start advertising on Google Ads, how do you determine your starting budget?
There is no mystery to deciding your budget for Google Ads. I use the Keyword Planner to determine the best budget for starting out. Here are my tips.
Create a list of 10 two to three word phrases that you feel will help drive qualified traffic.
Go to your Google Ads account or ask your Google Ads consultant to run the numbers for you, but putting each keyword in the Google Keyword Planner to check for traffic, competition, and typical bids.
Plan on these potential bids being about 20% lower than the real auction for clicks when your account is set up.
Take the average of these ten keyword’s click costs and then decide how many clicks you would like to have a day before your ads stop showing.
Look at the number generated in step 4 and determine if you can realistically live with this number. Never get over your head in regards to a budget that is way beyond your means. It is not typical to get leads in Google Ads the day ads serve. For some account it can take as long as three weeks for optimization to start to see the first lead conversion.
Remember a lead conversion or beneficial action you are recording as a conversion is not always a sale. Sometimes it is just the first step in the sales process.
Understand that it takes time for a Google Ads account to become profitable. Google Ads is a dynamic auction with bids changing for each query and many factors determining if your ads show or not.
Work with a professional Google Ads account manager or consultant like McCord Web Services to get the most out of Google Ads.
In early 2019 Google did away with the ability for a Google Ads account manager to not serve ads on AdSense for Mobile Apps. In May and June this year, across diverse business sectors we have seen a striking trend of strong ad serving to mobile apps in the Display and Remarketing space that is killing account performance.
Here’s what we see in a nutshell.
Clicks to mobile apps are up strongly.
2. Cost per click is $.01 to $.08 to mobile apps.
3. Impressions are up very strongly.
4. Conversions are non-existent.
5. Ad serving budgets are mostly served in mobile apps.
6. The quality of the automatic app placement are game and kid-related.
See the Proof
To put this in perspective, we have attached a few screen shots that illustrate this huge change in ad serving that is killing the value of Display and Remarketing for client use.
Client One – Display 1/1/19 to 7/19/19 – shows a Display program note in May the strong increase in clicks (blue line) and strong drop in conversions (red line).
Display Graph
Client One – Remarketing 1/1/19 to 7/19/19 – shows a Remarketing program. Note in May the strong increase in clicks (blue line) and strong drop in conversions (red line).
Remarketing Graph
A Trend Across Diverse Business Sectors
Both performance graphs above are for one client. But, that is just an illustration of this important trend. For further illustration are results from other clients. Multiple this by all clients we manage and we know that this is not an isolated incidence or one of a setting update.
Client Two – Remarketing 1/1/19 to 7/19/19 – shows a Remarketing program. Note as early as February the performance drop and strong clicks (blue line) in April, May, and June with no conversions (red line).
Remarketing Graph
Client Three – Remarketing 1/1/19 to 7/19/19 – shows a Remarketing program. Note the click spike in April and May. The earlier drop is due to our moving out of the space due to quality due to no conversions and inability to stop the proliferation of poor quality Mobile App placements.
Remarketing Graph
The key takeaway on all this, is that Google has clearly made a first quarter change in automatic placements, of which you have no control, in all bidding algorithms for Remarketing and Display programs.
How to You Fix This Problem to Return Display and Remarketing to Performance?
Right now, we am testing some options. One includes weekly rules that run on Sunday to pause Mobile App placements that have high clicks and no conversions. We are not sure that this will work to stem the drop in activity as Google may simply replace the pause placements with other poor placements. Google may not even pause the placement as it is an automatic placement not a account selected placement.
For other clients, we have either dropped budget significantly in Display and Remarketing, moved totally out of mobile using a -100% device bid, culled out high dollar mobile sites as exclusions, or even stopped programs entirely.
We are hopeful over time that Google will see the drop in client investment in these spaces as a red flag and adjust their ad serving algorithm to allow account managers greater control over where their ads appear in the Display network.
McCord Web Services is a Google Partner and a Certified Google Ads Professional
Updated on 5-29-19.
Google Ads is cracking down again on dermatologists, plastic surgeons and other doctors that mention name brand drugs that they supply in office for treatments. Ads are market limited with a policy violation when brand names are listed or ads are flagged with one or multiple violations.
The Google required pharmacy registration, to show terms like BOTOX, is relatively costly and does not really apply to this market. These physicians are not selling these medications online, nor are they filling prescriptions. They just want to advertise that they are doing BOTOX injections or using other facial injectables on their website for in-office services.
Google is not not only searching terms on the landing pages, but now the entire website. So, removing the offending drug names from the landing page simply does not solve the ad issue.
From Google sponsored help forums I am seeing posts like this:
In the past we were able to contact someone at Google, show them it’s a hospital and that we weren’t advertising for any drug and the problem was gone. Now as of around Jan 20, this no longer seems possible so if something has changed (and let’s face it, Google is not 100% transparent about anything), then I would like to know what it is.
Well, these days this is the sole aim/goal the Policy enforcement team is focused on. You should also recognize that the policy is dynamic and changes continuously. We have no influence on the Policy team. I can only say – based on my wide experience with Policy issues – that Google is very strict with health-care issues (regulator scrutinize, Google was heavily fined in the past by regulators…). No waivers are granted.
So for medical professionals this new update from Google means absolutely no mention of name brand drugs on the entire website. They may not even be eligible for the medical/pharmacy registration that Google links to in their help notice pages for site and policy violations.
I called Google Partner support and got this clarification from staff on this issue this past week. For now, Google is showing ads but only in countries where there is not a policy issue and when they do show ads they are only showing to users 18 years and older.
Google staff recommended the full removal of all drug names from the entire website in order for the ads to no longer be flagged. They agreed that the $1,400 yearly fee and $495 application fee to get a pharmacy approval from one of Google’s two recommended vendor simply did not apply to these doctors, but that there was no work around.
Remember when you show ads on Google.com you have to play the way Google says and this new change means – know your ads will be flagged, your ad serving will be limited to adults only, and that the policy may change in the future.
