How to Manage Google Ads Campaigns WITHOUT Average Position (Episode 172)

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Show notes:

Average position is gone! Google Ads got rid of the average position column. In this episode we teach you how to use absolute top impression share and top impression share as replacements for average position, and we run down a checklist on how to deal with average position no longer being available.

Average position sunset begins the week of September 30th – Google Ads Help

About top and absolute top metrics – Google Ads Help

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Transcript

Jason Rothman:
Jimmy, would you like your eggs scramble this morning? Yes. Jimmy, would you like your orange peeled? Yes. Jimmy, would you like butter on your toast? Yes. Hi everyone. Welcome to the paid search podcast. My name is Jason Rothman as always, I’m joined by the great Chris Schaeffer Chris 172nd episode 172 going to talk about average position today. How are you doing, it’s great to be with you on this recording day.

Chris Schaeffer:
You can say we could double that number essentially and we can track how many hours we’ve spoken in our lives and stared at each other’s eyes. It’s pretty amazing. That’s a lot of hours talking to a guy that I assume is actually in Oklahoma, that I assume is actually doing Google Ads work. I’ve never seen it other than the super professional tee shirt he’s wearing.

Jason Rothman:
A tee shirt and a-

Chris Schaeffer:
You’re right. It’s a collared shirt.

Jason Rothman:
Chris, I’ve been thinking about you with this whole like a Weather Banter thing. Like when people ask you how you are and then you immediately go to the weather and there’s all these people that are out there that are like, “Oh, do we really have to talk about the weather at this point?” “Like, is that what we’re down to when people talk about the weather with them?” I was thinking about the other day and I was like, those are dumb people because the weather, is monumentally important to all of our lives. Going back in the day with farming and providing food and nurture and all that kind of stuff, to shelter and even to the modern day, we have to worry about the weather and natural disasters and it impacts our day and all that kind of stuff. So the weather is actually monumentally important and I want to hear about it every time I asked you how you are. So?

Chris Schaeffer:
It’s a little warm. Summer has just gotten a little quick little stronghold on fall and just like, “No, don’t leave yet, you can’t leave and fall.” It’s pulling us up into the 90s which is everybody’s upset about that. But tomorrow fall punches summer right in the face and it falls back down into the pit and we enjoy cool weather again. So that’s my update and back to you. So let’s talk quickly before we get into the juicy stuff. We’ve got some great stuff to talk about because guys, Google Ads changes.

Chris Schaeffer:
You remember yesterday? Okay. That was yesterday because today things are different and you know today, Oh, that’ll be different tomorrow. So that’s why you’re listening here because we keep you up to date and we’ve got some juicy stuff to talk about today, what’s changing in the world of Google Ads. That’s right, you thought it was Google AdWords, that changed too. Did you not know that, literally the name changed to. Let’s talk about a tool to help you when you can’t grasp all the changes that are happening in the world. Opteo, opteo.com/psp to get a six week extended trial. This is a special service directly for the Paid Search Podcast listeners. You can try out this great tool that sends you emails that alerts you, that says, hey, did you realize dot, dot, there’s something going on, with your position, with your search impression share, with your keywords, with your campaign, impression is just stopped. Did you know that? No you didn’t. That’s what this tool is for. Go check out opteo.com/psp a great tool. We recommend it. We thank them for their sponsorship.

Jason Rothman:
Thank you Chris and I want to tell everyone about our new sponsor to the Paid Search Podcast. Kyle Sulerud AdLeg software suite. Kyle is a friend of the show, and Kyle came up with a group of software tools that are made specifically for AdWords managers and AdWords users. Google Ads managers, Google Ads users. Kyle’s came up with a group of tools that are literally the things we’ve been saying on the Paid Search Podcast for years. Like when I’m telling you guys, back in the way old days, how I grouped keywords together to come up with Ad Groups. When I’m talking about searching Google to find new keyword ideas. When we’re talking about coming up with negative keyword ideas, all this stuff where we’re like, Hey, someone please make a software for this. It would be great if we could speed this up.

Jason Rothman:
That’s what Kyle did, and in the AdLeg software suite of tools, you’ve got the Keyword Burst, you’ve got the Ad Copy Generator. Keyword Burst helps you combine a bunch of keywords together. We’ll talk about that in a second. Ad Copy Generator helps you speed up your Ad Copy process, Negative Keyword Pro helps you find negative keywords and the Amazing Keyword Generator, make sure you don’t miss out on keyword ideas. It helps you find keyword ideas. So just to talk about the Keyword Burst. The Keyword Burst does an amazing thing. You list your locations, so say I’m doing a moving company in Oklahoma city. I list out OKC, Oklahoma city, local near me, Moore is a suburb, Edmond is a suburb, Yukon is a suburb. All the kind of local ways that people search for things, which are the best keywords. Then in your Ad Group columns, you type in your keywords, your core keywords.

Jason Rothman:
In one Ad Group I could put in movers, moving companies and another one I could put in long distance, long distance moving companies, state to state movers. Another one I can put in office movers, commercial movers, office moving companies, commercial moving companies and what this tool will do, you hit generate spreadsheet and it will combine the location words you put in local near me, OKC, Oklahoma city, etc. With all the keywords you put in, movers moving companies in that Ad Group, in the office moving company Ad Group, office moving companies, office movers, commercial movers and so on. It’ll combine all those combinations exact match, frazier mats, broad match, modified, whatever you want to do.

Jason Rothman:
Then all of a sudden you have Ad Groups and you have keywords and you have all the ways you want people to search for it with all the local ones, spit out in a new spreadsheet, you put them in your account and it goes super fast. So that’s one of the tools. There’s other tools and you guys can get a free seven day trial. Go to software.adleg.com/psp we’ll link to it in the show notes, software.adleg.com/psp and you will get a free seven day trial that’s exclusive to listeners of the Paid Search Podcast. We recommend you guys check it out. It’s literally the tools which we had. Speeds up a bunch of time, saves you a bunch of time and we recommend you get your free trial today.

Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah, thanks Jason. Okay, so before I just pour my heart out on giving free information to people, I always like to be encouraged, do we have any encouraging things that people have said to us lately?

Jason Rothman:
Yeah, we have actually two Apple podcast reviews of this week. We’re not going to read them, but you know what, Chris, I am going to sync one of them in there. It’s the same one from last week. I just love reading it. The guy from the UAE.

Chris Schaeffer:
No you can’t read that one.

Jason Rothman:
Wow, someone got their feelings hurt. Okay. Yes, Chris, I want to thank, Natalie, the experientialist from YouTube, she said, left us a comment. The comment review. “Thank you for all of your hard work, I found your podcast on Spotify a few weeks ago and I have binged it to the point that I am not even sure what Netflix is anymore.” “You have inspired me to pursue my career further in PPC.” “As of yesterday, I am excited to announce that I have just gotten my first personal client, without your podcast I would never have won the business.” Well Natalie, thank you for the encouraging review. That’s what we’re here to do. Help people learn about Google Ads and then we ended up talking a lot of business at PPC as well.

Jason Rothman:
Coming down the pipeline and yes, it has been made official that, PPC professional freelancers starter kit from Jason and Chris and we are going to help people like Natalie who’ve maybe gotten their first client and want to become one of the biggest freelancers out there, so that’s going to be coming soon. We’ve got the Paid Search Podcast forum formed on paidsearchpodcast.com, ask people questions in there, talk about your industry in there, whatever industries you’re working on, business of PPC, general Google Ads, questions. We love the forum and then the archive very soon, within the next couple of weeks, we will have the first 100 episodes out there for you to purchase and enjoy.We appreciate your guys’ support, keep sharing show, keep leaving us a rating, some review on Apple podcast and we’re also on YouTube for all the audio listeners.

Jason Rothman:
So Chris, something changed with Google Ads in the past week, couple weeks and they have gotten rid of average position. Average position, obviously very important, if you listen to a lot of our older content, we harp on it and talk about it a lot. It’s just we’ll get into a very important, but now it’s gone and I’ve come up with a list of what to do and how to overcome that. So let me ask you first, is it totally gone for you?

Chris Schaeffer:
Yes. Yeah. At this point. Yeah. I just noticed it last week.

Jason Rothman:
Yeah, I noticed it about a couple of days ago was gone in all my accounts. Someone on the forum said it was still in the app, but then I tried for them and then I tried the app. It wasn’t there anymore, so that’s probably gone. Then the MCC level manager account level, I was still seeing it, for a couple of days extra and I was like, it’s still there and I’m a happy guy. Gone. It’s gone now. Gone everywhere. So Chris, we’re just going to get into… I guess first just kick it off. Tell us what are you feeling? How monumental is this for you? Because it’s pretty monumental for me.

Chris Schaeffer:
So monumental-

Jason Rothman:
Are you cocky now? Because-

Chris Schaeffer:
No.

Jason Rothman:
Okay.

Chris Schaeffer:
Jason, this is so monumental that I feel that on a show for people that listen in audio format, we should have a three second moment of silence for our friend average position. Let’s have that now.

Jason Rothman:
If you guys want some great Google Ads management, I recommend you go to rothmanppc.com and contact me. I’m on Twitter @RothmanPPC and I also have an investing podcast called After Dinner Investor.

Chris Schaeffer:
Oh man.

Jason Rothman:
Oh man. Chris you should’ve taken out your headphones. You gave me a second to plug.

Chris Schaeffer:
Yup. Almost made it well. Okay.Yeah. It’s-

Jason Rothman:
Okay. Let’s try it again you deserve it.

Chris Schaeffer:
No, we’re not going to. No, that’s it. Time has passed the honorable time you have shame-

Jason Rothman:
You don’t trust me anymore, Chris?

Chris Schaeffer:
Shamed it. Okay. But I think there’s good and bad news. I think for me, I don’t want to jump the gun because I want to share my bad news at a much more poignant point in the discussion. But the good news for me is that I actually like the absolute top percentage and the top percentage columns more because it gives you a better idea of position more so than 1.1. I do like that. I’ll share my gripe about it later. But where are you at Jason? How are you feeling?

Jason Rothman:
Well, as you’ll see in the checklist here, I’m past the point of complaining or feeling sorry for myself. So like you, I’m just ready to move on and use the new tools we have. So honestly, I’m good with it too because I have to be good with it and that’s part of the checklist.

Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah. I don’t really know other any other more optimum time to share, but I mean, I’ll share. The thing that hurts the most is taking away a metric and not the fact that it’s been taken away completely, but-

Jason Rothman:
Not giving us options.

Chris Schaeffer:
They haven’t given us the option to see historical metrics. If I go back a year or two years, I cannot see absolute top percentage. Those aren’t tracked. They weren’t tracked. Those metrics didn’t exist. So if I go back to 2017 this, exactly two years ago and I want to think we were spending this much, but where were we ranking? Where were we ranking for that? I have no data, which is crazy to think that I’ve now lost my competitive scaling point. I can no longer determine, was $3 enough to get us to 2.3 position. Because we’re paying six now and we’re only 2.3, we were paying $3 back then. Where did that get us? Where are we at position five. So I can’t scale and measure that CPC cost. I have no idea what that $3 meant three years ago, four years ago, compared to what it means now. That’s honestly what hurts the most. I mean that’s the bad news for me.

Jason Rothman:
Well what hurts the most for me is, like I told you part, we’ll get into the checklist or the list here in terms of how to handle this. But I made a lot of money with average position. Like it’s my north star. It was, it guided my management work. I wanted to name my first kid average position and I’m not kidding like that. That little column helped guide my work and my work made a lot of people, a lot of money and they gave me a portion of that money. We had a YouTube comment saying, “Like one guy was like, why are you in prison?” Then the guy was like, “No, go deeper, he’s in a cell.” I was like, the reason it looks like this in here, because literally when we purchased this property, we cornered off one section of one room and made it plain Jane plain, because every other square inch of this property is so opulent and so luxurious, all 15,000 square feet plus the acreage that if people saw what I was in every day, they want to take me seriously.

Jason Rothman:
Like it would lead to a lot of envy. A lot of envy or they would think this guy doesn’t really just do Google Ads. He’s an arms trader or something like that. He’s supplying around the world, starting wars. So I got to keep it plain Jane. So do your little YouTube comments, get it out of your system. Have fun with yourself. I’ll be where I’m at. So, but one reason I’m here is because of average position. What do you have to say, Chris?

Chris Schaeffer:
I was just saying there’s nothing more fun than trolling our a YouTube audience. Those guys have such a bigger platform than our audio listeners because they can punch back and it’s kind of fun.

Jason Rothman:
They can’t punch anything.

Chris Schaeffer:
Well they can swing back.

Jason Rothman:
Because I’m God on the channel now. That explains that, but Chris, I get the impression people listen to the show and they’re like, Oh, that’s an interesting thing. Chris said I’m going to take it at face value. Then they hear me and they’re like, what an exaggerator. Oh my gosh, I can’t even believe this guy. So if you want to think that, think that. But if I’m trying to tell you loud and clear, average position made me a ton of money. Like I relied on it. I made people money, they gave me money that I made them, a portion of it. How did I make that versus any other AdWords manager? I learned average position. So it was a big loss for me, but as you can see, I’m not handling it like someone whose livelihood is at stake because average position is gone. I’m handling it like a pro because I have a plan.

Chris Schaeffer:
Well tell me about as a former expert in average position-

Jason Rothman:
I’m still an expert in average position and if they ever brought it back, I’d pick right back up where we left off, me and my baby average position. But so don’t say I’m a former expert now. My skills going to go a little rusty while it’s gone for a while, yeah, I’ll get a little rusty, but it’s like riding a bike, as soon if they ever do bring it back in. Yeah.

Chris Schaeffer:
Tell me how you feel about… let’s talk specifically about each column that replaces this one column. Let’s talk about first absolute top impression share, is technically with the term is, they don’t even say position anymore. They don’t even want you to realize that there’s one, two, three, four. Now it’s percentage share an impression. So-

Jason Rothman:
Well first, Chris. Well we didn’t. Does anyone know of a podcast school, we can send my buddy Chris to?

Chris Schaeffer:
Come on. We did table that one.

Jason Rothman:
I think we didn’t Chris. We did not do it. No we didn’t.

Chris Schaeffer:
We didn’t?

Jason Rothman:
I teased it and we didn’t do it.

Chris Schaeffer:
Thought we just finished.

Jason Rothman:
No, we didn’t. Chris, you’re not going to listen to this back and you’re going to say, I’m sorry I was wrong and I would just like you to tweet that out, I’m sorry I was wrong. If you truly feel that way, because you’re going to see how wrong you were. So we talked about my personal, where I’m at, but the reason that I’m there.

Chris Schaeffer:
Jason, please tell me about number one. Go.

Jason Rothman:
I’m not going to hold it against you because I think what happens is, you get so passionate for this show, so passionate for the audience that when you look the sheet we use to host the show notes, it’s so jumbled because you’ve got so much passion, goof filling your eyeballs that you can’t even read the sheet where it says number one, number two, number three, number four, number five, number six and then you go down the list. So we’re going to start with number one.

Chris Schaeffer:
Let me help. I’m going to go ahead and edit this one and cross it out so that I say we’re done with it.

Jason Rothman:
No, because it needs to be conveyed to people because Chris, step number one-

Chris Schaeffer:
Strike through done. It’s done. So now number two.

Jason Rothman:
You know what? You want to hold it against the people. You want to take number one from them. You want to take it from them-

Chris Schaeffer:
Please.

Jason Rothman:
… and then they can maybe write into the show if they really want it.

Chris Schaeffer:
I know you want it. This is absolutely Jason-

Jason Rothman:
I don’t want to say I don’t. Why would I want to help everyone in the world except myself. I’m the only person on the planet that can deal with this, this way because I’m have a certain personality which we talked about on Patriots.

Chris Schaeffer:
Here we go with exaggerations, only person on the planet? See that’s why Jason, that’s why people think maybe it’s not 15,000 square feet.

Jason Rothman:
Taking my words out of context and you’re confusing listeners whose English is their second language, because obviously only person on the planet, I was using it in a different context-

Chris Schaeffer:
Oh, sure.

Jason Rothman:
… but here, let’s put it this way. I take your point. Should I give you that much? Like I take your point like I see your point. No, Chris. Honestly, I really do think this is the most important step in the process.

Chris Schaeffer:
Do it.

Jason Rothman:
Number one, stop being a baby, except it you have one hour to vent and get it out of your system and then you have to let it go. That’s a rule. So for one hour you can cry. You can, Benji, you can vent, you can scream, you can yell, you can do whatever you need to do to get it out of your system. Because honestly, Chris, when it went down, when the news first happened, I was in denial stage and then I got angry.

Jason Rothman:
You know, I got angry and upset because it was a big deal. But I’m so past that now. So you can’t just keep holding this inside because it’s not your decision. You can’t bring it back and it’s gone. So if you relied heavily on average position like I did, you just have to give yourself one hour to vent, get it out of your system, but then forever for all the rest of the time, you cannot be sad about it. You cannot make excuses about it. You cannot be angry about it. You cannot talk about it in a negative context. It’s over. It’s done and you have to let it go. So you give yourself one hour now, number two, Chris, absolute top impression share.

Chris Schaeffer:
I don’t even get what you say it that’s so immediate. That’s fine.

Jason Rothman:
It’s not so. No, Chris, do you have thoughts on the giving yourself one hour? I think it’s a genius thing. I don’t know if anyone man, that does sound exaggerated. I don’t know if other, if everyone, I’ll use the word instead of anyone. I don’t know if anyone there I got just naturally came anyway. I don’t know if yeah, anyone sounds good. No, everyone. It’s everyone. Okay. Humble. I’m a humble guy. Chris

Chris Schaeffer:
Most humble.

Jason Rothman:
I don’t know if everybody can do it. I doubt everyone can do it just based on people’s personalities and stuff. Some people are going to lose their clients. Some people’s are going to start losing money. They’re going to blame it on average position. But do you personally? Were you upset when it happened? Did you give yourself an hour and have you fully let it go?

Chris Schaeffer:
All I gave myself several hours. It took part of two days. You know, like being angry, going through one account and it being really important. One account of being upset and then, I’m okay for these other ones in another account. I’m really upset about it. So I had much more than an hour and like I said, the only thing I’m upset about is a lack of historical data. That’s what bothers me.

Jason Rothman:
But you are saying in the present term you are upset about that. Don’t you see how that’s going to negatively impact your mood, your performance, your ability to get great results?

Chris Schaeffer:
No, because I’m so happy about number two and number three. Number two being absolute top impression share and top impression share. These two metrics, I really like and I want to get your thoughts Jason, because I’m just the question asker. I want you to please talk about number two.

Jason Rothman:
Seriously, I make fun of like we used to, I would text her blah blah blah and make jokes. But I didn’t need to talk with her seriously and need to get in a text conversation with her legitimately for just coping purposes like her and I both need to give each other advice and tips on how to cope with you because you’re being extremely-

Chris Schaeffer:
Why[inaudible 00:22:38]

Jason Rothman:
Yes, because you’re being extremely passive aggressive right now and I want you to just stop. I just want you to stop. You don’t have to keep dragging this out. You don’t have to be passive aggressive. I want the old Chris back. I want that. Chris, I fell in love with back. I don’t want to hear. I’m fine. I want to hear, you’re right. I’m playing games. We’re going to get back to the natural times, but I feel like there’s a stagnant must in the air between us right now and it’s a stink and you’re holding a grudge against me.

Chris Schaeffer:
I don’t know what you’re talking about and I would like to know, Jason, what do you think about absolute top impression share?

Jason Rothman:
All right, absolutely top impression share tells you the location of your Ad on the search engine results page. I can’t even read these things. What I take it to mean Chris and we’ll link to this article about absolute top and top metrics and all that.

Chris Schaeffer:
That’s the mistake you made as he tried to read the Google press series.

Jason Rothman:
Well, it’s a hell Barco but okay. The way I’m going to take absolute top impression share is something we used to call position 1.0. It’s impression share, but it’s absolute top. That’s the very top that’s positioned 1.0, so if your absolute top impression share is 50%, that means for a keyword that means 50% of the time on that keyword search you’re showing up in the very first position, 1.0. If it’s absolute top impression share 80% on a campaign, that means for all the stuff inside your campaign, 80% of the time you’re showing up in the first absolute top 1.0 position above every other Ad above organic results is that above? I’m not even going to go there because who needs it?

Chris Schaeffer:
That’s actually-

Jason Rothman:
I don’t know the answer to. Well, no, let’s wait.

Chris Schaeffer:
We’ll talk about your number three. There’ll be three, three and a half. We’ll talk about it after we talk about the next one because that’s a legitimate question. I want your thought.

Jason Rothman:
I want to hear a little jingle in my pocket right now. You want us to talk about that one? You want the monkey to dance patriot. You want the monkey to shimmy? Show me those $2 bills each month. Put them in my Rothman PPC polo. I’ll give you a little preview show, preview show, give me a shimmy, a shimmy about the absolutely top impression share.

Chris Schaeffer:
For a $4 dollar level. He’ll dance for you on video, which is, I have to say it’s absolutely worth it. Highlight of my day. So tell me about top impression share and how do you… what kind of numbers are you looking for here? If we can talk real numbers and practical stuff. Do you ever… I mean or do you do commonly-

Jason Rothman:
What do you mean, do I ever this? This stuff just started.

Chris Schaeffer:
Well, okay. With the amount of time that we have, do you see absolute top impression share at a hundred very often at all? I mean it seems like it’s much more rare than what I saw as a 1.0. I saw 1.0 a lot but I very rarely see absolute top impression share at 100%.

Jason Rothman:
I’ve seen it on some low volume, a very high bid campaigns for sure. But now like I’m saying, Chris, this is all brand new for me. Like average position, I was using it up until the last minute, just a few days ago. Why are we talking about absolute top impression share and top impression share? Because the whole point of this checklist is how do you deal with the fact that average position has gone? Number one you let it go, blah blah blah. Number two, you learn absolute top impression share as that column in, number three you learn top impression share as that column in. I add these two columns in first absolute top impression share. Then top impression share, right where I had average position like I’m putting them in the same spot because I’m treating it like basically what I’m doing with these two metrics is I’m using both of them to tell me what my average position is. That’s what I’m doing.

Jason Rothman:
So when you ask about top impression share first, let’s define it for people. We’re taking that to mean and I’m pretty sure we’re correct. That’s what percent of the time does your Ad show above the organic listings at the top of the page and it’s not absolute. So top impression share could mean position 1.0 that’s part of the top. It could mean position two. It could be in position three and it can mean position four. That’s how I take it. What percent of the time am I showing up above the organic results in what we used to call positions one to four. Now people would say, well sometimes four was below, or sometimes three was below. Well that’s why I guess they put in these new metrics, but I’m taking it to mean one through four above the organic results. So top impression share can never be lower. Let me make sure I’m saying this right. Absolute top impression chair can never be higher than top impression share, but they both can be 100%. So if your absolute top impression shares is 100% guaranteed, your top impression shares 100% too.

Chris Schaeffer:
See? Well that’s what I’m wondering, because that’s why I asked the question.

Jason Rothman:
No, everybody, forget what I just said. So yes, if your absolute top impression shares 100%, your top impression share is 100% too. That is correct. But, you can have a lower absolute top impression share, than your top impression share and you probably will. Because absolute top impression share, say it’s 50%, Chris, say that’s 50% you’re showing up in 1.0 absolute top, but then your top impression share can be 90 or a 100%, because what that would tell me is, 50% of the time I’m in position 1.0 absolute top 50%, top impression share says 90 or 100% that would tell me, of that 90 to a hundred percent 50% of the time I’m in the absolute top and then the other 40 to 50% of the time I’m in position four to two above the organic results.

Chris Schaeffer:
Let me throw this situation at you and see what you think. There’s some search out there that there’s no paid Ads at the top happens all the time, right? Organic results, scroll all the way down. There are two Ads. Two ads at the bottom. Let’s say you’re in first position of those two Ads at the bottom.

Jason Rothman:
Your absolute top impression share is zero. Your top impression share zero. They’re both zero.

Chris Schaeffer:
Really? You don’t think-

Jason Rothman:
I would think they are both at zero.

Chris Schaeffer:
Place, so if you show with-

Jason Rothman:
No absolute, but it’s the word absolute means the first thing that’s under the search bar.

Chris Schaeffer:
Okay.

Jason Rothman:
Except for who knows if it’s the other thing which we’ll talk about on,

Chris Schaeffer:
Right. So, so both of them would be zero then?

Jason Rothman:
Yeah. They both be zero. If you always showed below the organic results.

Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah. Okay.

Jason Rothman:
Because absolute top means absolute, the first thing under the search bar basically, and then top means a top of the page above organic results, somewhere in that position, one to four where they have that chunk of Ads above the organic results. So the way I’m going to use this is I’m going to use them both to basically tell me what my average position is. So for our people out there that use automated bidding and then go to the forum and then complain about it and ask us why it’s not working, what they should do. Sorry.

Jason Rothman:
Very rarely Chris on the forum do we get people going, “Oh man, I was doing manual bids and then everything changed and I don’t know what to do now and I have no control over the situation.” Haven’t had that one yet because you know what manual bids are nice. I haven’t had that one yet, but we have had people go, “Oh, I’m doing max clicks, but now I’m not getting anything.” “I’m doing target CPA, but it totally changed on me.” How do you change your back? Those people, Chris that do automated bidding? I don’t think they even have to worry about these columns that much at all. So what I’m speaking to is because what do they do? They don’t control their bids.

Chris Schaeffer:
They don’t manage by position and that’s why, going back to your original point, I mean for some accounts you have to manage by position. That’s why manual bidding is absolutely the standard because you can’t manage by position at automated bidding. It has to be manual bidding.

Jason Rothman:
Well manual bidding is and average position is Chris and Jason like this show doesn’t work without either of us. You know gang and yang. When you’re doing manual bids, what guided your manual work? It was cost per click, was cost per conversion, which we’ll talk about, but it was also the sister to manual bids is average position, because that kind of lets you know where you’re at.

Chris Schaeffer:
Why would you bid higher if you’re 1.0 with a hundred percent search impression share, you’re not going to adjust your manual bids from there.

Jason Rothman:
You’re not going to get more. So that’s why we used average position. So that’s why I’m recreating average position. That’s the whole magic to this episode. So for people out there that are trying to pick up on what the magic is here, the magic is replacing average position with absolute top impression share plus top impression share and use it. Understanding how those two columns work and using that to replicate average position. So let me just give you an example, Chris say, my cost per conversion is too high and I’m spending my full budget. What does that mean?

Jason Rothman:
That means lower the bids because if my cost per conversion is too high, my cost per click is too high. I need to lower the bids, lower my cost per conversion, and I feel confident to be able to make that move because we’re spending our full budget, we’re limited by budget, so I’m going to make that decision by how are these two columns going to guide that, how far I go. I’m going to look at my absolute top impression share. If that’s 100% I’m going to feel pretty good about dropping bids 33% a third maybe by half, 25% I’m just going to feel pretty confident. I’m always at the top 1.0 I’ve gotten a lot of room to go down, still land in position to position three and lower my cost per click, but still get clicked on and spend our budget. But then I’m also going to look at the top impression share.

Jason Rothman:
Say my absolute top impression share was say it was 20% and then say my top impression share was 100%, that would tell me, 20% of the time I’m 1.0, 80% of the time I’m between 1.0 and four at the top of the page, but I know from absolute top I’m only at the very top 20% of the time, so since I’m only at the top 20% of the time, but I’m always two to four or I’m always at the top, top impression share 100% I’m going to lower my bids, but I’m not going to feel super confident about lowering them at all because my absolute top is already at 20%. So I’m going to probably aim to get my absolute top down to zero, drop the bids by 10, 15% see how that does.

Jason Rothman:
Still try to get my top impression share at 90 to 100%, because I want to show up in position two or three at the top of the page to get clicked on and still spend my budget. But lower my cost per conversion. Alternatively, if my cost per conversion is too low or if it’s lower than my goal and I’m not spending my budget and I have room to raise bids and get more aggressive, I’m going to look at those two metrics again and I’m going to feel if my top impression share is below like 80% or below 50% I’m going to feel really good about jacking those bids up because basically I would say now national campaign, tons of volume, small budget, that’s always different, but a local state or city campaign, 1000 to $5,000 a month budget, you and I probably always were going for that position to position three on average show up at the top.

Jason Rothman:
Don’t overspend, let the other guy pay more for is cost per click of the top sit at the top, top four where you can get clicked on and spend your budget but don’t pay for that super top position. So if my top impression share is way low, like below 70% below 50% and going to feel real confident, maybe doubling those bids, trying to get that top impression share to almost a 100%. Then I monitor my absolute top and make sure that doesn’t get too high, so that’s how I’m going to be using them, Chris, it’s going to be replicating how I use average position. The problem people are pointing this out, those two columns, as I understand it, are not available on demographics. They’re not available on device. They’re not available on those subcategories, so if you’d like to change your bids at the device level, if you like to play around with demographics and ages and all that, you’re not going to have that average position or absolute top or top impression share, fact check me on that Mr fact-checker with you’re skeptical. I just smelled a fart face.

Chris Schaeffer:
I’m going to pull that up because I have an idea about that. I hadn’t checked, but that’s

Jason Rothman:
All right Chris, you pull that up, check. Let me know when you’ve got that. I’m going to tell people about step number four, how to overcome with average position the preview tool. You got to use your preview tool now. You don’t have that average position column anymore to guide your work. So we talked about steps two and three, you use absolute top impression share, you use top impression share to kind of recreate an average position guide for yourself. But then how do you know if your judgment about absolute top impression share and top impression share is correct? How do I know if I see my absolute top impression share is 50% but my top impression shares 100% that, I’m kind of sitting in an average position of two.

Jason Rothman:
How do I know that, that that way I interpret that data is correct. Well, I’m going to use my preview tool and I’m going to verify it and I’m going to get really freaking comfortable with that preview tool check at different of the day, checking on different keywords. I don’t take preview tools 100%, Chris. It’s just another factor in my decision, but it is a way to kind of check yourself and check your interpretation of the impression share columns and see if you’re interpreting them the way you’re interpreting them is actually showing up the same in the preview tool. So you’re going to use your preview tool more.

Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah. Well one thing just to check in and update you on that.

Jason Rothman:
So are you going to check in on your condition and see what condition your condition is in?

Chris Schaeffer:
I have good news for you. While the rumors are correct that you cannot see impression, absolute top percentage as they so eloquently put on the columns now, which is super confusing. The absolute top percentage,

Jason Rothman:
That’s a guy who hasn’t let it go. That’s a guy who did not take his hour. Right and get it out of the system.

Chris Schaeffer:
I need more, I need more than an hour. And the fact is you cannot see that at the device level. You cannot see that at the device bidding screen, which is where you can adjust the bids for each computer, desktop and mobile device. Excuse me, computer, tablet device. You can’t see that. But the good news is you can segment the data and see it. so you can on the campaigns.

Jason Rothman:
Good call dude. Good freaking call right there.

Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah, that’s the best way to do so. So go to segment, go, go to all campaigns, look at your campaign view and then go to segment, which is towards the top, middle, top of the screen, and click on device and you can see those percentages there. So that’s what I figured would probably work. But I’m still though, it’s kind of annoying not to be able to see.

Jason Rothman:
Well that’s nice. So Chris, that’s so great to look at. When you’re on the keywords tab and you see three different devices for a ton of keywords, that’s great. But I appreciate that honestly, because

Chris Schaeffer:
It’s the screen and makes it.

Jason Rothman:
It does give you another, yeah. So, I don’t know if that’s so clunky that what I’ll probably end up doing is just judging my absolute top impression, share top impression share, confirming my judgment with the preview tool. But not putting too much stock because the preview tool, I just don’t go off of it 100%. So I’m just going to, it’s just another factor for me. But I’m going to let that be a factor for me. I’m going to make my judgment and then if I am doing device level bids, Chris, I’m probably just going to make my judgment, looking at the data and then maybe write down my decision is and then head over to the device area and be like, drop bids a little bit, drop bids, raise bids a little bit, whatever the decision is.

Jason Rothman:
So, Chris, you look at your preview tool and then we’ll knock out both of these. My only point here at Chris, cost per click, cost per conversion. It’s just same old name of the game. Like still make your judgments on them. Yeah, same thing like, okay, is your cost per click too high, lower it and get it lower. Is your cost per conversion too low? You’ve got room to get more aggressive and you’re out spending your budget raise bids. Now like you’re saying Chris, earlier, the problem is what if you’re already absolute top impression share 1.0 what’s raising bids going to do for you? Maybe not that good. So you still use absolute top and top impression share, but they still help guide your work with cost per click, customer conversion. But my point including those two things on the checklist is, don’t forget about those. Still focus on those as a big guide of your work.

Chris Schaeffer:
I’ll say as Jason’s talked about, the thing that I really like here is that we have just a bit more precision simply by taking average position, which is one column in splitting it into two. We now have more precision in our ability to make a decisions about what’s happening. So not only can you see first position, but you can also see how much are you showing up above organic. So for me, I can make better decisions about cost per click and cost per conversion simply because I now have two columns instead of one. It’s given me just a little bit more information about what’s happening. I would say, you know, maybe there’s even a time when a third column might even be useful where we could see percentage of, absolute below organic, like how much of the time does because-

Jason Rothman:
Absolutely bottom.

Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah. Absolute bottom, right? So that might be interest to know.

Jason Rothman:
Yeah, that would be freaking really interesting. If you get, say that’s 100% and you still are able to spend your full budget.

Chris Schaeffer:
I mean, how cool would that be to be able to see absolute bottom percentage and know that your cost per conversion is actually way better and you could get clicks, your click through rate is probably going to be crap, but you can get leads and sales at absolute bottom percentage of 80% and you’re only top absolute top percentages, maybe 10% something like that.

Jason Rothman:
Well, you and I have both been there on big national, not big but national campaigns, tons of search volume, really small budgets and you get away with a 0.5% click through rate in position five or six a 0.3% click through rate in position six and five because there’s just so much ton volume and you get a super low cost per click and great cost per conversion.

Chris Schaeffer:
I mean because it feels like those kinds of situations. What I like about an idea of three columns is because there are times when, what you talked about is what we usually do, right? Which is where we manage a local campaign. We’re trying to dominate top position, but also make it worth the cost per conversion. Trying to manage the absolute top position, but not override our cost per conversion goal. So we’re juggling that, but there’s a whole another set of campaigns, where you’re running just high funnel stuff. You know, just stuff that has thousands and thousands of impressions a day. You’re getting clicks at 20 cents a click. This is a completely different thing. Essentially, what you would lose on is you’d get 0% absolute top percentage gross.

Jason Rothman:
Bro, dude, Chris, no. Let’s just think things through. I’m going to give you, you’re welcome. I’m going to give you absolute bottom impression share below organic results. You know what that is?

Chris Schaeffer:
What?

Jason Rothman:
It’s whatever’s not in your top impression share column.

Chris Schaeffer:
No.

Jason Rothman:
Don’t be skeptical. No. Say I’m correct. Say you’re correct, daddy. I’m sorry.

Chris Schaeffer:
I don’t think so.

Jason Rothman:
Say daddy you’re correct. People are listening and they’re like, no, daddy’s correct. Chris, forget absolute top. Forget it. If your top impression share column is it 50%, 50% of the time you’re showing up at the top above organic results? What are you doing the other 50% of the time you’re showing a below organic results.

Chris Schaeffer:
But what if you had, what if you have a 50% search impression share? So I guess you don’t really take that into account then you’re just saying these are the ones that we take in account.

Jason Rothman:
Do we want to get real? You want me to get real right now? We can get real or if I hear one more thing out of your mouth, out of anybody’s mouth about search impression share, other than just telling you what it’s supposed to tell you, what percent of the market are you showing up on? I’m not going to do anything. I’m just going to take it, but I will judge you and anybody else that talks about it like it’s some something that Moses walked down and had on the tablets, like thou shall not kill, thou shall not steal, thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife, thou shall not steal his oxen or whatever. Thou shall worship at the alter of no false gods except impressio share. That’s what I think you guys think he put on the tablet.

Jason Rothman:
I don’t know what the, excuse me, this only impression share. Just impression share fetishes, why it gets so much more insight than other than what percent of the market am I showing up on. So, no, I don’t use that to judge this position. Nonsense or not nonsense stuff. So if top impression shares 90% that means 10% of the time you’re showing below organic results. So if you have a super high funnel, super high volume national campaign and a small budget and you want to show up as low as you can go, position five, position six first page, but at the bottom still get clicks, aim for a low top impression share. If your top impression share ends up being 20% that means 80% of the time you’re getting what you want. You’re getting clicks below the organic results.

Chris Schaeffer:
You know what? Perfect opportunity to use that one thing I don’t think I’ve ever used and I’ve never found a purpose it, custom columns, you could create a custom column. Have you ever used this before? I’ve tried and I’m like what in hell.

Jason Rothman:
It’s one of those things that, I try it out. I’m an expert in, it’s just, I don’t find a need for it week to week. I have no clue what custom columns are.

Chris Schaeffer:
You can create these custom columns where you could still have them.

Jason Rothman:
I think I’ve heard the term before. I have no idea what that is. No idea.

Chris Schaeffer:
What you could do is you could say create a custom column, call it bottom percentage and just subtract 100 from your top impression share and there you go.

Jason Rothman:
Do they really give you that option to do that with? Do you really have that option? Wow, that’s cool.

Chris Schaeffer:
I don’t know. Now, I haven’t checked. I haven’t checked to see if it will allow you to use top impression share in your custom column. But please Jason, tell us about sponsor. I’m going to look that up and then I’ll talk a bit about my sponsor and then we’ll continue from there.

Jason Rothman:
Thanks Chris.I want to tell everyone again about our new Paid Search Podcast sponsor, Kyle Sulerud AdLeg software suite. Kyle’s offering a free seven day trial to listeners to the Paid Search Podcast. There’s a number of tools in the software suite. They’re specifically for Google Ads users and Google Ads managers and they’re the things we always wish we had. One of the tools in there is the Ad Copy Generator. It’s a list of questions, your location, keywords, what you offer, what you sell what separates you from the competition? Describe the things you offer. You put in all those kinds of terms in a form, what you want in your customers to do calls to action. You put them in a form. I love saying this about software. You hit a button and then it generates a bunch of Ad ideas for you.

Jason Rothman:
It generates a bunch of headline number one ideas, headline number two ideas, description ideas, a lot of description ideas, sitelink and call out ideas. Then all you have to do is copy those and paste them in your Google Ads account. Making Ads is the biggest time suck. It takes the most time for me when I’m building out a new campaigns and the Ad Copy Generator will save me a bunch of times. So I love this tool. I love this software suite, software.adleg.com/psp, software.adleg.com/psp, get your free seven day trial for being a listener of the Paid Search Podcast.

Chris Schaeffer:
All right, I want to tell you guys about opteo.com/psp, Opteo. I didn’t know how to say it right until I learned how cool the tool was. You too will learn how cool the tool is and learn to say it the right way. I used to call it up, Op Teo just, it doesn’t matter, because once I realized how cool the tool was, I tried it, I liked it and I gave it the respect it needed. Go check it out. Get your email results. Get your alerts, sleep better at night because the great tool has got your back. That’s what it’s all about. Alright, Jason. Last thing here. Bad news for you. The only thing they got from me,

Jason Rothman:
No, not for me. I have a brain so I can look at top impression share. Oh, it’s 50%. That means the other 50% below.

Chris Schaeffer:
The only thing they give us is average position. You can’t subtract impression, a top impression share so that’s out. You can’t create a custom column with that.

Jason Rothman:
All right, well you can also, you just eyeball it and instead of going for 80% or not or 100% of top, just go for 20, go for 30. You know what I mean?

Chris Schaeffer:
Like precision in our Google Ads campaigns, others like the eyeball, just let’s draw the line between Chris and Jason, eyeballer and precision.

Jason Rothman:
No bro. It’s just, it is precision is just going for a different number instead of going for a high precision number, just go for a precision number at the low end.

Chris Schaeffer:
chrisschaeffer.com for precision Google Ads management. Thanks for watching. We’re going to jump in to Opteo and talk a little more.

Jason Rothman:
He wanted it. He he asked for it.

Chris Schaeffer:
Have a nice day.

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