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Show notes:
Jason and Chris are back this week with a big questions and answers episode! Send in your Google Ads questions via our contact page.
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Transcript
Jason Rothman:
Jimmy, do you want a turkey omelet salad today? Yes, I do. Thank you so much. Jimmy? Yes, I’m right here. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to The Paid Search Podcast, 173rd episode. My name is Jason Rothman. As always, I’m joined by the great Chris Schaeffer. Chris, you’re doing good today. You’re just doing good. How is it going?
Chris Schaeffer:
It’s a way better day than it started off, it’s a great day. I’m not talking about the weather, this is actually a personal reflection on me, it’s a great day. Jason, I’m not avoiding any emotional connection here, I’m actually speaking from my heart, it’s a good day.
Jason Rothman:
Can I speak from my heart?
Chris Schaeffer:
Please.
Jason Rothman:
I put a lot into that forum, forum.paidsearchpodcast.com.
Chris Schaeffer:
Oh, no. Oh, no.
Jason Rothman:
I’ve got 102 friends on there as members, but one of them sucks. You suck, Chris. Where are you? We’re all wondering where you are. We got a lot of great conversation and knowledge on there, and I don’t see you on there.
Chris Schaeffer:
I’m sorry. I know.
Jason Rothman:
Where are you?
Chris Schaeffer:
Well, I don’t really have an answer. I just don’t go. I did it one week. Remember, I wrote the note. Look. Okay, look, here we go again. Look, I’m going to write a note. Check the forum. Just like before, I wrote the note before, and I’ll do it again. Here we go, check the forum.
Jason Rothman:
Hey, do me a favor so it connects at a deeper level.
Chris Schaeffer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jason Rothman:
Instead of check the forum, can you write this note?
Chris Schaeffer:
Okay.
Jason Rothman:
Be a good podcast partner.
Chris Schaeffer:
Okay.
Jason Rothman:
Chris, I’m going to ask you something. Do I not bring home the bacon for you?
Chris Schaeffer:
Oh, Jason, you bring home the entire pig. Absolutely.
Jason Rothman:
All right. Thank you. But then, what do you do for me?
Chris Schaeffer:
Well, I provide the eye candy, I thought is what we had established. I’m here to provide for the ladies, that’s what I’m here for, that listen on audio, so they can imagine.
Jason Rothman:
You really might be all looks. Like is there anything between those two ears? Or your whole life, have people just made it easy for you because they like to look at you?
Chris Schaeffer:
My beauty has made life incredibly easy.
Jason Rothman:
Let me ask you a question. When you were a freshman in high school, why did a junior date you? How did you do that?
Chris Schaeffer:
I didn’t question it, I just, “Oh, this is what happens,” and I-
Jason Rothman:
This is the way it is for everybody, huh?
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah.
Jason Rothman:
That’s what you thought?
Chris Schaeffer:
She was wonderful. Yes. She was very grown-up. It was so different from my young classmates. She was very cool.
Jason Rothman:
I had a guy in my high school, who was a year younger, who dated a girl in grade, I didn’t like him very much.
Chris Schaeffer:
No?
Jason Rothman:
I resented him.
Chris Schaeffer:
Oh, yeah.
Jason Rothman:
I still do to this day.
Chris Schaeffer:
To this day?
Jason Rothman:
I still do to this day. I know where he works and I know what he does with his life. If he ever needed help or anything, and I was in a position to help him… If I worked at a company and we were deciding to hire him or not, and he was totally qualified, and everything was perfect about him, and he would help the company make money, and help me make more money, I would make sure he did not get hired. I would penalize him for what he did to me in 12th grade.
Chris Schaeffer:
Well, I don’t-
Jason Rothman:
Because I haven’t let that go. Chris, okay, buddy, we are doing a Q&A today, I think. Are we doing a Q&A?
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah, we’re still doing.
Jason Rothman:
We’re doing a Q&A.
Chris Schaeffer:
At some point.
Jason Rothman:
Why don’t you kick us off with Opteo, and then I’ll finish up with Directive, and then we’ll read a review, and we’ll get into the Q&A.
Chris Schaeffer:
All right, guys, you heard the man. Let’s talk about a great software designed to alert you, to tell you things. Because you need a nap, you need to take a break every now and then, and you can always check your account. Opteo, opteo.com/psp will give you alerts in your email. It will tell you ideas. You’re coming back fresh, it’s 7:00 in the morning, you’re sitting down at your desk, you don’t know what to do, you don’t know how to handle today’s crash on your conversion metrics. What do you do?
Chris Schaeffer:
Opteo has your back. They have a great interface, lots of colors, charts, graphs, ups and downs, arrows are pointing everywhere. It’s really cool. It’s completely different from Google Ads interface. You’ll like it. Give it a six-week extended trial exclusively available for the PSP listeners. You go at opteo.com/PSP, tell them in the chatbox, and say, “Hey, I’m a PSP listener, can I get a six-week trial for free?” They’ll say, “Absolutely. Try it out, you’ll like it.”
Jason Rothman:
Thank you, Chris. I want to Directive Consulting. Directive Consulting is the go-to B2B search engine marketing agency. You deserve more. One of the things I know about Google Ads is that every single campaign is different, every industry is different, everything is different. What a guy who sits in his 15,000-square-foot prison cell house does for a moving company that spends $1,000 a month on Google is totally different than what an agency does for an enterprise business-to-business client, with a large budget, with a need to get a ton of leads, quality leads, and options to go on all the different platforms, including SEO, pay-per-click, social media, landing pages, analytics, digital PR.
Jason Rothman:
You have a need for all those services, you got to figure out which one is going to get your enterprise campaign the leads you need, the quality, and then be able to scale it. That’s what Directive does. You can go to their website, you can see the proof, look at their case studies, look at the brands they’ve worked with, look at their service list, it’s just all-inclusive. The most important thing on their website, get a free custom proposal at directiveconsulting.com. Directiveconsulting.com, get a free custom proposal. Chris, we have a review of the week, and it comes from a Land Down Under.
Chris Schaeffer:
Oh, yes. Read it with the accent, please. Will you? It’s my favorite.
Jason Rothman:
You know what? I can’t. I wish I could. I can’t. I can’t do it justice. I’m going to make them sound sillier than they sound. I’m just not going to do it justice. I have not heard an Australian accent in a long time, so I’m going to keep it American. But you know what, I give them a little grief about their accent. But, man, do they love to make fun of our accents?
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah.
Jason Rothman:
I love when New Zealand people, I saw one of them this week online, Australian people, when they make fun of like, “Dude, man, dude, man,” American accent, this is the way they think we sound. Can you imagine every time you see the most important country in the world, every time you see the most successful country in the world, and they’re in the media, they’re in the movies and all that, and they sound like this and they’re talking like this, and you’re wondering, “How are these people so successful? They sound like any of them,” if this is the way we really sound. But I don’t think we really sound like that. I think they’re messing with us. But this review comes from [inaudible 00:07:34]. If you saw his name, that’s what you would say too. It’s like S-H-S-J-J-S-B.
Chris Schaeffer:
Okay.
Jason Rothman:
It’s not a real name. But they left a review on Apple Podcast. “Australia, five stars.” But it’s very toned down review, and I appreciate the straight to the point information. Solid information is the title of the review. It’s really difficult to find quality information in this area. Blogs are fine. But you know what you really need is an indication.
Chris Schaeffer:
I knew you were going to do it.
Jason Rothman:
Come out just a little bit. “What you really need is an indication of reasoning and debate, which comes from a two-person podcast. Great job, guys.” Well, thank you. Thank you very much for that review. We love our five-star reviews. We want more reviews. When we get to 250, I will stop asking for when we’re at about 210, I think, on Apple Podcasts in America, and we need them all around the world. Thank you for leaving us those reviews. Do it because it helps grow the show. Chris, man, we’re talking about… what are we talking about? We’re talking about-
Chris Schaeffer:
We’re talking about everything.
Jason Rothman:
… Q&As, whatever people want to talk about. Chris, do me a favor, before we jump into this pool of hot steamy Q&A Love together, and tell people how they can submit their questions to the Paid Search Podcast.
Chris Schaeffer:
Thank you, Jason. Absolutely. You are about to embark in a sacred journey to hear people who are out there, outside of our podcast, ask questions to the two people that are here inside the podcast. If you want to be part of that conversation, please go to paidsearchpodcast.com, click on the ask us a question button. Jason, is it a Contact button, ask us a question? I don’t know. It’s at the top and it’s very obvious.
Jason Rothman:
Contact. Contact.
Chris Schaeffer:
Contact. I knew it was Contact or ask for something. Go to the Contact, fill that out. Quick note here. We do have a lot of questions and we want to get to as many people as we can. We are not going to try and do everybody today, so please be patient. We appreciate all the questions.
Jason Rothman:
Because we’re launching a second show each week that’s only for Q&A. Are we doing that, Chris?
Chris Schaeffer:
Wow.
Jason Rothman:
Should we out it? Should we let them know?
Chris Schaeffer:
I didn’t… Did we even talk? Okay. Please be patient if you don’t hear your question. We definitely read all of them and we will answer them as they come in. All right, so I’ve got the first one to read. Jason, you’re up in the hot seat first. Let’s go. First question is from Jordan-
Jason Rothman:
Man, my shoulders hurt because I really do have to carry the weight of this podcast.
Chris Schaeffer:
You got to be kidding.
Jason Rothman:
That’s one way to contact us. I got to be kidding you? You got to be kidding me. That’s one way to contact us. We also want voicemails because we love the voicemails. I love the voicemails.
Chris Schaeffer:
The percentage of voicemails to filled out contact forms is negligible.
Jason Rothman:
Oh, is it lower? Is it? Oh, really?
Chris Schaeffer:
Fairly.
Jason Rothman:
Oh, really? Is that maybe because you don’t mention it on the show?
Chris Schaeffer:
It’s on our Twitter.
Jason Rothman:
Geez.
Chris Schaeffer:
Everyone goes to our Twitter. It’s everyone knows. First question is from-
Jason Rothman:
2148101355. Is this live radio? I’m going to repeat this because you can’t hit the back 15-second button.
Chris Schaeffer:
Do not call in.
Jason Rothman:
214-
Chris Schaeffer:
Episode is recorded, do not call in.
Jason Rothman:
… 8101355.
Chris Schaeffer:
See-
Jason Rothman:
Leave us voicemails on the show.
Chris Schaeffer:
… we have a lot of international visitors, or listeners, so not everyone can just call that number. I feel like it’s much more inclusive to just tell them to go to the website. I’m just trying to be inclusive, Jason. All right. Jordan, from Patreon, which is not a country or a city. That is an exclusive club that Jordan is a part of. You can see more of that at paidsearchpodcast.com, look for the link. All right. Jordan says, “I was listening to one of your podcasts from November and you were discussing these new audience groups, homeowner status, education-level parenthood.”
Chris Schaeffer:
Definitely, I know what you’re talking about. This is rather old, but it’s certainly new, in the scheme of things, when you compare what’s been going on Google Ads. He continues to say, “How accurate are these groupings? We all know a lot of these in markets and similar audiences can be hazy at best. Is the information determining these groups really all that accurate? Would love to hear your experience on this and whether you have successfully implemented audiences into your more specifically targeted campaigns.” Jason, what do you got to say for Jordan?
Jason Rothman:
We’re going to make Jordan’s day. Jordan says, “We all know a lot of these in markets and similar audiences are hazy at best.” But then he goes on to say, “But how accurate are they really?” My only bone to pick is, how do we know they’re hazy? We don’t know anything. That’s what I’m going to say. Is that fair to say, Chris?
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah.
Jason Rothman:
We don’t know if they’re hazy, we don’t know if they’re accurate, we don’t know if they’re not accurate. What I can tell you is the way to get the job done, targeting versus observation. As I said at the top of the show, I carry more weight on the show, I bring home more bacon, I do more work, so I’m going to hand off my answer to Chris at this point and he’s going to tell everybody about targeting verse observation at the audience level.
Chris Schaeffer:
Okay.
Jason Rothman:
I’m going to go refill my diet coke. You tell him, Chris.
Chris Schaeffer:
Okay. Okay. Well, thank you, Jason.
Jason Rothman:
Go be great, buddy.
Chris Schaeffer:
Thanks.
Jason Rothman:
Try hard.
Chris Schaeffer:
Thanks, dad. All right, so a good question. Jason’s right, it is very hazy. When it comes down to it, I would absolutely assign “hazy” to these audiences. When it says homeowner status, it’s going to be determined on a wide variety of factors, and it’s not just specifically that they’re a homeowner. There’s no way that Google can know that for sure. Because homeowner can change, if someone goes from apartment to homeowner, and back and forth, I mean, who knows?
Chris Schaeffer:
The fact is, when it comes down to it, us optimization, the technique of observation, and targeting. Observation is when you get the data information and you can then see what happens in the account. You can see if that specific audience is performing better, are you getting more conversions? Are you getting less conversions? Is it a higher cost per conversion? At the observation level, it just gives you the data. If you’re doing a targeted audience, now, this is much more exclusive.
Chris Schaeffer:
I would never recommend you start off a campaign with no data at the targeted level because you immediately limit your campaign to a fraction of what you would potentially get. If you had moving services near me as a keyword, and then you targeted only homeowners, you’re going to wonder why your CPC and your impression volume just… well, your impression volume goes down, your CPC goes way up. Because the number of people that you can serve that add to has been cut in 10th. I mean, I don’t know, I mean a tremendous volume less than what you would get before. On the safe side, start with observation, and optimize based on increasing or lowering the bids. That’s what I’m going to say.
Jason Rothman:
Chris, great answer. Do you agree with that, that we really, as users, really have no clue where this data comes from, how accurate it is or not, but it’s cool that we have it at our fingertips, so we should try at observation level? Isn’t that like the only answer?
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah. Yeah. I think if these names were more correct, they would say homeowner at the end. Like every single one, it’s like-
Jason Rothman:
Homeowner, question mark.
Chris Schaeffer:
…parenthood-
Jason Rothman:
Well, no, so now you’re making a judgment call. You are saying you don’t think they’re 100% accurate?
Chris Schaeffer:
No. No, because here’s what we consider accurate.
Jason Rothman:
Okay.
Chris Schaeffer:
Think about the things that we consider accurate. When we talk about Google Ads, we talk about the position of a person, we talked about the time of day, we talked about search terms. These, we know, are very close to factual. Especially search terms, we know they’re 100% factual, because that’s what they typed, and that’s how the system works. Location is very precise.
Jason Rothman:
I’ll give you a great example. What if a realtor is going to a ton of different websites with analytics code on them, or whatever, about homeownership, and Zillow, and all that, and then they’re doing a bunch of Google searches about homes for sale in this zip code, homes for sale in that city, and they’re doing it all day long, they look like a person that’s selling their house. Your ad’s going to show up to them, you’re going to bid more when they search if you have an adjustment on there. But they’re not in the market for homes, they’re just a realtor.
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah, they could even be in an apartment, they could live in an apartment, and be a realtor, and trigger where that audience.
Jason Rothman:
Exactly, yeah.
Chris Schaeffer:
That’s a good point.
Jason Rothman:
Yeah. I think we’re both agreeing it’s not 100%, we don’t think that would be realistic. But in terms of how good it is, how much you should adjust your bids on them, observe it first and then go from there.
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah, start with small increments, I would say. 10%, 15%, start and see how it moves and changes.
Jason Rothman:
Well, someone’s going to ask, should I observe and do a bid adjustment of 15%? Is that possible? If you do a bid adjustment, is that targeting? I’m not really sure.
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah. Yeah, you can-
Jason Rothman:
I’m pretty sure you can still do observation.
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah, you can do observation and do a bid adjustment with observation.
Jason Rothman:
Oh. Well then, here’s a question. I would say, if you can do that, you don’t need to start that small, because you can monitor things, you’re observing. If the data doesn’t look good after a few days-
Chris Schaeffer:
I agree.
Jason Rothman:
I’m more for making big adjustments that you can control, getting a yes or no on your question, and then adjusting quickly because it’s under your control. But you’re right, if you got a lot of things on your plate, and you know you’re not going to check that for another month because you’re running your business, you shouldn’t deal with something crazy.
Chris Schaeffer:
That’s what I get scared about because-
Jason Rothman:
It’s different because I’m in accounts every day. You know what I mean?
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah. That’s the difference because I don’t know what Jordan is doing. Maybe he checks it once every month, once every two weeks. It’s very easy to forget that you made a 50% bid adjustment at devices, at location, and audiences, and now you come back two weeks later, you’re like, “Oh, my gosh, I’m spending $35 per click, how did this happen? I only have $2 at the keyword level.” That’s the thing that can get you in trouble.
Jason Rothman:
Exactly. Next question comes from Nancy from Atlanta. “Would you share your manager checklist?” No.
Chris Schaeffer:
Okay, next question.
Jason Rothman:
But I will if you go to YouTube, and you look up Ultimate Google Ads or Ultimate AdWords Management System, or checklist, you’ll see our video. If I could just get three cents from you for that video ad view, then yeah, you’ll get it all there. Okay, so here’s the deal, Chris. People ask us about this checklist all the time. I’m sorry to disappoint the world, but there’s no mystery. I mean, we’ve talked about it that episode, Ultimate Google Ads Management Guide, or checklist, something like that, Ultimate AdWords at the time, and it’s pretty simple, check your search terms, check your bids, check for problem keywords, adjust your bids, oh, you guys do automated, so I’ll throw out the whole checklist, so have fun, everybody.
Jason Rothman:
But if you’re doing manual, that’s the stuff I do. I mean, we put it out there. I think everyone knows we put it out there. I think the interesting thing, Chris, is people still think we’re holding something back. What’s in your wallet? What’s in your pants? Well, I forget what the phrase is.
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah, it’s pants.
Jason Rothman:
But are you holding something back on… Is it pants?
Chris Schaeffer:
Yes.
Jason Rothman:
Do you think that a multibillion-dollar company is advertising what’s in your pants at their motto?
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah, that’s the one.
Jason Rothman:
Yeah. Yeah, I think you’re right. Yeah. Okay. That’s how you get to be a billion-dollar company. It depends on the industry. Chris, do you think my hypothesis… Rachel, clean that up by adding hypothesis. I know how to say that word. Do you think my… Rachel, put in yourself going hypothesis, that’d be great, that’d be pretty. She just said hypothesis, and she said it correctly because I can’t say it correctly. Feel free, Rachel, if you want to do that, you do it.
Chris Schaeffer:
Do it.
Jason Rothman:
Chris, do you think my-
Rachel:
Hypothesis.
Jason Rothman:
… is correct, that people know what we’ve put out there about our checklist and they still keep asking because they think you can’t be that simple? Do you think that is correct?
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah, I think so. I think they’re so conditioned to think that if you want the real information, you have to pay for it. I think that people assume because we talk about it, that there’s something else that’s going on. But in reality, the real hard part, the real secret is how much time it does take. You can’t just pop in, look at things, and make a decision. You really have to comprehend what you’re looking at. That’s the secret that we don’t talk about, is basically the time that it takes.
Jason Rothman:
Well, how do you check search terms? How do you check ad copy? How do you check problem keywords? I mean, we talked about it, and we try to help people, but I think a better way to phrase it is, what’s difficult is getting the experience to actually do those things at the level that we do.
Chris Schaeffer:
Exactly.
Jason Rothman:
But you just keep trying. Chris, interesting, on YouTube, I typed in Ultimate ADW. The predictive search prediction thing popped up Ultimate AdWords Management Checklist.
Chris Schaeffer:
Boom.
Jason Rothman:
It is actually a very popular episode. Nancy, if you go to YouTube, and you search Ultimate AdWords Management Checklist, it’s the Paid Search Podcast from two years ago, the Ultimate AdWords Management System. I’m going to take a cue from the crowd, I think I’m going to change that name of the episode today to the Ultimate AdWords Management Checklist, and I’m going to clickbait on these rules and get some more views for us.
Chris Schaeffer:
Okay. Nancy, I do have a quick… I recently was doing some consulting with someone, which I do on the side, I have a quick list of like eight items that I came up with just this week that was good for a person that had a specific issue with this. It’s very quick. He was overwhelmed with data. He was looking at a brand new account as just a mess. There’s just stuff all over the place. There’s broad keywords everywhere. He didn’t know where to start, which I find this as the big issue. People are like, “I don’t even know where to look. Every time I look at it, I get frustrated.”
Chris Schaeffer:
If that’s your problem, this is how I would approach it. I told him, number one, look at one day of data. If you check in every day, look at one day of data. Look at yesterday. Okay. Pick one network. In this case, we’ll say search. Okay. Now, look at the search terms for all of your search campaigns. Pure search term list. Okay. Now, look for red flags, look for a keyword that doesn’t belong, or something that’s overspending, or something that’s getting a lot but no conversions, or something that’s just absolutely outside the topic of what you want to bring in. Okay.
Chris Schaeffer:
Make a decision about what you want to change. Should you block it? Should You look at the keyword itself to figure out where it’s coming from? If you’re unsure about the keyword, look back at the previous 30 days. Previous 30 days. Now you have some qualitative i~nformation to make a decision about what that keyword has been doing. Maybe it’s just a bad week, maybe it’s a bad day, don’t make a bad decision just on one day of bad data. Okay.
Chris Schaeffer:
When you’re trying to decide what to do with the keyword, I have four questions to ask. Is the keyword converting? Number two, what search terms from that keyword are converting? Number three, if the keyword is not converting, is the traffic at least good or is it targeted? Conversions don’t mean that you should always make a decision of turning it off if it’s not getting. Sometimes it’s just about the traffic quality. Then, number four, finally, after you ask those questions, make a decision about turning the keyword on, or off, or bidding it up, bidding it down, or replacing it. There you go. A very easy step by step process, on a daily basis, that won’t overwhelm you.
Jason Rothman:
You can’t go wrong with search terms. Because even if you’re overbidding by 50%, 60%, that’s still better advertising than anything else because search terms are just beautiful.
Chris Schaeffer:
It’s just, yeah, it’s straightforward data. All right. Now, I just realized this next question is from Nancy, from Atlanta, Georgia, I assume it’s the same Nancy. I didn’t realize that-
Jason Rothman:
I don’t. I don’t. I don’t. I don’t assume that.
Chris Schaeffer:
New Nancy.
Jason Rothman:
Yeah, give them, give the two of them, give her, it’s probably one person, give her, give them, both questions.
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah.
Jason Rothman:
Let’s do it.
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah.
Jason Rothman:
Let’s double up.
Chris Schaeffer:
Okay then, we will. “I have a restaurant, a wood-fired pizza restaurant, that wants to promote their catering service. The problem is that all of the party event, lunch, dinner, pizza, catering keywords have zero to 10 searches per month.” Jason, this one’s yours. If you didn’t read the question ahead of time, I can’t help you. What’s your [crosstalk 00:24:57]? Help her. Nancy needs help.
Jason Rothman:
Man, all right.
Chris Schaeffer:
Don’t google it. You can’t google it right now, it’s too late.
Jason Rothman:
You need help. I’m going to have to clean that. All right.
Chris Schaeffer:
Do you not have an answer? Don’t throw anything.
Jason Rothman:
We’ll talk after the show. No, it’s not about that. Okay. “I have a restaurant, wood-fired pizza, that wants to promote catering. The problem is party, lunch, pizza, catering, zero to 10 searches a month.” No, they don’t. I’m so sick. That’s an honest throw, Chris, that’s… What is that?
Chris Schaeffer:
Don’t throw that.
Jason Rothman:
What is that? All right, Chris, I so sick of… I got to be honest, I’m so sick of people giving up before they started because of the… can I just say, because of the Keyword Planner, right?
Chris Schaeffer:
Right.
Jason Rothman:
Is that what the problem is? Is that the problem?
Chris Schaeffer:
I don’t know. We don’t know. I assume she put the keyword-
Jason Rothman:
No, you do know that’s the problem. No, you do know that’s a problem. When people report back that searches we know are happening, to some extent, and people are going zero 10, 10, 20, 10 a month, whatever, that’s Keyword Planner stuff. Guess how many times I go into the Keyword Planner a year to make decisions about what keywords I target?
Chris Schaeffer:
I want to know. How much has it changed?
Jason Rothman:
Probably, for many, many accounts, many accounts, to pay for a moat, which we are building, because I love that idea, that inspiration. To pay for the moat, and again, this is a person that’s on many Google Ads accounts every single day, I probably… I’m not going to say zero, because yes, I go into the tool, probably one or two times a month.
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah.
Jason Rothman:
One or two at the most.
Chris Schaeffer:
Rarely.
Jason Rothman:
Here’s the thing… two things. Number one, I don’t buy it. I don’t buy the keyword tool totally. If they’re saying you put in a beautiful keyword like pizza catering or catering companies near me-
Chris Schaeffer:
Lunch catering.
Jason Rothman:
… and that’s zero searches a month, even if it’s a small… Well, the thing is, okay, so maybe that’s the problem. Don’t think about lunch, dinner, or think about pizza because you guys sell pizza, but lunch and dinner, what other catering are you going to do? You have to get into the search user’s head. If I’m a search user, and my boss told me, “Hey, we have an event coming up next month, company meeting, we need a catering company. We need a catering company,” that’s what he said to her, or him, the person he’s telling go do the search, the odds are they’re not going to go to Google and go, “I need a catering company for lunch.” No, they’re going to go, “Catering companies, Dallas.”
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah.
Jason Rothman:
Yeah, catering companies. You have to think like a search user. We’re all turning into robots because suggestive searches, you type in catering co-, and then it pops up catering companies, and you’re like, “Oh, thank you, Google, that’s what I wanted.” Then you click on it, and then people who targeted not lunch catering companies, exact match, but people who targeted catering companies phrase, catering companies broad match modified with low bids and they’re going to try it out and see if they can get some volume that way, that you’re going to show up first.
Jason Rothman:
The first thing is, before you even start, don’t lock down your keywords too much. Someone searching catering companies near me, catering companies, they very much most likely need a catering company for lunch or dinner. Don’t worry about lunch or dinner keywords too much. Don’t lock yourself down too much when you’re using the Keyword Planner. But the other thing is, don’t rule stuff out until you actually start running. Yes, if something looks low volume in the Keyword Planner, it could be low volume when you start running, but what you can’t do in the Keyword Planner is replicate all the searches you’re going to be able to show up on with your phrase match keywords, with your broad match modified keywords.
Jason Rothman:
If you try pure broad match like a pro, if you have to go there, you’re not going to be able to know all the searches you can show up on. You’re not going to see the search terms that come in from your broad match modified, from your peer broad match like a pro that you only run for a couple weeks to get search term data, you’re not going to know what those search terms are before you actually see them. Don’t rule things out. I think the biggest thing is to just get started. We need to do some episodes about that, Chris, about how to just get started quickly, so then you’re not worried about the Keyword Planner, and you’re not putting the wrong keywords in the Keyword Planner and overly limiting yourself. Chris, this hits a sore spot for me with the Keyword Planner shutting down campaigns. But do you think I’m onto something here?
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think so. I think, I mean, for super-obvious services that people need, when it comes down to it, it’s your geographic targeting, it’s your keywords, it’s your bid, it’s something else in the campaign. Because catering is a common thing and there should be plenty of traffic for it. I would say, it’s more of an issue of your targeting more so than the problems with the keyword.
Jason Rothman:
Run the word catering phrase match, and then look at your search terms for the first week, they’re going to be horrible. Catering jobs near me, caterers that are hiring. Okay, you catch those high volume bad searches that come in, you had negatives for them for how to start a company. Jobs, hiring, all that kind of stuff, block it out, and then you’ll probably show up on a bunch of great catering searches. There’s potential to catering, for sure.
Chris Schaeffer:
All right, Jason, I’ve got another question for you. This one is from Brandon, from Royal Oak, Michigan. Sounds like a very nice place. Sounds very Woody. All right. Brandon says, “Hey, guys, just started listening to your podcast and I’ve really enjoyed it. Thanks for the knowledge. My question is regarding keywords and how to effectively use them. How does having the same-”
Jason Rothman:
Use them effectively.
Chris Schaeffer:
That’s true, effectively, that’s the keyword.
Jason Rothman:
I just answered his question. How do you use them effectively? You effectively use them.
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah. “How does having the same broad match keyword and exact match keyword effect a campaign? For instance…” This is such a specific… I think I probably picked this one because of his example. The example is video game tournaments. That’s a broad match. The other option is video game tournaments, exact match. Of course, I think he knows how those keywords work and the difference between them. He wants to know how does having the same keyword affect a campaign?
Jason Rothman:
Same keyword, different match types.
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah.
Jason Rothman:
Then he says he goes to YouTube and does not see any videos about keywords. What I did is I went to paidsearchpodcast.com, went to the archive page, ended up at store.paidsearchpodcast.com. I’m going to search for match. Oh, okay, episode number three, for $2.99, explaining the keyword match type.
Chris Schaeffer:
There you go.
Jason Rothman:
That’d be a good episode to purchase and listen to. You can do it all at store.paidsearchpodcast.com. Chris, exact match and broad match. Well, the way they’re going to affect things is quite a bit. If you do video game tournaments exact match, you’re going to show up on thousands of different searches that have nothing to do with video game tournaments exact match. Because a similar match, [inaudible 00:32:15], I’m so sick of that similar meaning.
Chris Schaeffer:
Right. Oh, well, I think you said it backwards.
Jason Rothman:
I’m just kidding.
Chris Schaeffer:
Okay. if-
Jason Rothman:
No, I didn’t. No, I didn’t. Listen to the joke, Chris, listen to the joke. It’s a joke for AdWord people. Similar meaning is getting so loose that we can’t even charge-
Chris Schaeffer:
Got you, exact doesn’t mean exact.
Jason Rothman:
… exact match at this point.
Chris Schaeffer:
I’m sorry, I’ve ruined the joke.
Jason Rothman:
Do you do this with all jokes or jokes that are made for industries that you focus on all week long and you should get the joke better than anybody on the planet?
Chris Schaeffer:
Only your jokes. I only ruin your jokes.
Jason Rothman:
Okay. Good to know. Okay, good to know. Video game tournaments exact match, Brandon, you’re going to show up on the search video game tournaments, and that’s all you’re going to show up on if this is 2004. But it’s 2019. Google has been getting looser and looser with the meaning of exact match because of a term similar meaning. What they’re going to tell you is, okay, your keyword is video game tournaments, plural, exact match. If someone does a search, video game tournament, singular, you would want to show up on that as well. I would agree, that’s reasonable. But it could also mean you show up on a search like video game… Am I stretching here, Chris, video game competition?
Chris Schaeffer:
No, that sounds-
Jason Rothman:
We don’t really know. You’re going to have to see what you show up on. Brandon, the point is that video game tournaments exact match means you’re supposed to only show up on the search video game tournaments, that exact search. But over time, Google has made the meaning of exact match a little looser. There’s pros and cons to that argument. However, there’s really no argument because that’s what they’re doing. You Just have to understand that you will show up on video game tournaments, that exact search, but also some very similar searches that seem pretty much like someone searching video game tournaments. However, look at your search terms for that one keyword and see what you do end up showing upon.
Jason Rothman:
Now, going the totally opposite direction, video game tournaments, pure broad match, so you’re asking me what you could show up on, and I’m going to say the word anything. There are so many searches that a three word, video game tournaments, pure broad match keyword can show up on. That’s the difference. The difference is going to be what you show up on. If you’re getting at, “Oh, should I run them both?” Yes, you can run them both. There’s no doubt. Can I say this, Chris?
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah.
Jason Rothman:
There’s no downside to that. If they’re in the same ad group, the same campaign, they’re not going to compete with each other.
Chris Schaeffer:
Right, I think so.
Jason Rothman:
To our knowledge, you’re not really going to… like, I don’t worry about that. Even if it’s in different groups, if it’s in the same campaign, I’m not worried.
Chris Schaeffer:
I think people who are asking the question, am I competing with myself if I put a pure broad match next to an exact match, I think they’re asking the wrong question. The question that they should be asking is, “How does it affect the campaign metrics itself?”
Jason Rothman:
Yeah.
Chris Schaeffer:
The fact is, assuming you do automated bidding, it’s going to affect the fact that the video game tournaments probably isn’t going to get anything, and you’re going to get a whole lot of all over the place with the video game tournaments broad match.
Jason Rothman:
That’s why this is a great podcast because we both come at things in a different direction. What I was getting at, just to wrap up what I was saying, search terms. Video game tournaments, pure broad match, you can show up on a ton of stuff and you got to be very careful. You’re going to show up on things like arcades near me, what was the first video game, how big is Mario’s… no, did Luigi ever… No, you’re going to show up on a ton of different stuff. But you’ll also show up on some relevant stuff like video game tournaments, you could show up on that.
Jason Rothman:
Now that’s where my head went, to search term. But Chris, your head went to which keyword’s going to get the clicks, and if it’s on automated bidding? Can you explain that? Because that’s so genius. That’s a totally different direction, but it’s a totally different concern. Chris, I’m not being facetious at all, I’m being legit. I was focused on search terms, but which keyword gets clicked is a totally another issue that comes up from running two different keywords with totally different match types like that with automated bidding. Please expand on that. I’m being serious. That was a great point.
Chris Schaeffer:
Well, I think exactly what Brandon said in his question, is, how does it affect a campaign? I think the answer that I would say is, it affects the fact that your search impression share will never be what you would hope it to be. You would never effectively have a complete coverage of a certain geographic area because you would constantly be showing up for a lot of things. But you’re like, “Look, I have these super high bids on these exact match terms,” but every-
Jason Rothman:
Never-ending. Never-ending.
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah. But every time you sort by clicks, it’s going to be the broad match terms are going to be taking over. Exact match term is never going to beat a broad match keyword in total volume. It just doesn’t happen. If you have the same [crosstalk 00:37:10].
Jason Rothman:
Or automated bidding.
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah, exactly. Thank you. Automated bidding is never going to beat it. It’s going to affect your search impression share, it’s going to affect the quality of traffic, it’s going to affect your click-through rate, your cost-per-click, all of this stuff is going to be affected. What does it affect? Basically, it affects everything. It affects everything, from quality of traffic to impression share.
Jason Rothman:
Then Brandon is going to go, “Okay, so you guys are telling me how different things are going to be, but you’re not telling me what I should do. If he wants to show up on a search like video game tournaments, should he do exact match video game tournaments and pure broad match video game tournaments, starting out a campaign? I’m going to say no.
Chris Schaeffer:
I would say no because I would instead suggest-
Jason Rothman:
I would say if you’re starting out-
Chris Schaeffer:
… start with at least-
Jason Rothman:
… broad match modified.
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah, video… What I would do, if this was my client, the first thing I would do is I would do probably video, and then put a modified broad on game, and tournaments, and start there, and then narrow down. But I would put a lower bid on video game tournaments modified broad, and a higher bid on video game tournaments exact match. That’s where I would start.
Jason Rothman:
Exactly. Yeah. If you’re not getting the volume you want, there is a reason to do pure broad match, but I would recommend our episode, how to use pure broad match keywords like a pro because it’s a big deal to use those. But, Chris, let’s just wrap it up. I would even go as far as video game tournaments broad match modified, the only thing you modify is the word tournaments because if they want a ton of volume and see what searches are out there.
Jason Rothman:
Let me just put to you this way. I would not be happy with my search terms on video game tournaments, the only word modified is tournaments, I know I would get some bad stuff that I’d have to clean up. But that broad match modified keyword-only modifying the word tournament versus a pure broad match keyword with no modifiers. That is night and day, that is a world apart. Would you agree with that?
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah, absolutely.
Jason Rothman:
Yeah. That one little modifier can make a huge difference in the end. That’s where we’d recommend starting broad match modified, exact, bid a little more on exact.
Chris Schaeffer:
Even the opposite of that. If you put the modified broad on video game and not tournament, a world of difference. I would prefer to go with tournament.
Jason Rothman:
Dude, that’s such a good point. Because if you want to lock things down, protect yourself, yes, modify the word tournament. Because if you only modify video game, there’s so many video game searches where broad match tournament could like mean tons of different things to the search engine. But tournament, you lock that down, there’s a lot less searches. That includes the word tournament.
Jason Rothman:
Jason reads the question. Don, from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Are you playing some kind of game with geography, Chris, like you group people when they come in from the same state or something like that? What’s up with all these back-to-backs?
Chris Schaeffer:
I absolutely do that.
Jason Rothman:
You freak. You freak.
Chris Schaeffer:
You caught me.
Jason Rothman:
You geography fetish freak.
Chris Schaeffer:
Louisville.
Jason Rothman:
How many of these questions are we doing, Chris?
Chris Schaeffer:
There’s this one and then two more. Let’s wrap it up.
Jason Rothman:
Okay, first off, before I go into anything-
Chris Schaeffer:
No.
Jason Rothman:
I’m just kidding.
Chris Schaeffer:
No, don’t do that.
Jason Rothman:
Do you want me go to through the yellow part?
Chris Schaeffer:
No.
Jason Rothman:
I’m just kidding.
Chris Schaeffer:
We’ll be yellow.
Jason Rothman:
Relax. Relax.
Chris Schaeffer:
Where a pen?
Jason Rothman:
Chris, no, no, no, careful. No, no, you can’t do that. Chris, you can’t get an angry. Chris, you’re old, we got to be careful with you.
Chris Schaeffer:
Read. That’s it. I qui-… Read the question.
Jason Rothman:
Oh, he’s getting mad. “Do you have any good advice for medical marketing? I haven’t done much with it.” That is okay, I guess. I’m sorry now. But do you have any good advice for medical marketing? Number two, “What should be done with competitive search terms and keywords in general? Is it smart to just add them all as negatives or should I be running campaigns or ad groups based on competitor terms, trying to get in front of that traffic when people are searching for competitors? P.S., if Jason doesn’t scream yes either while doing this or after, I will be disappointed.” Dude, life is not fair. Life is tough. If Don can get over this one, then Don’s got a lot of trouble code. Don, you just got to get over it. You’ll be fine. Chin up. You got to handle this one.
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah.
Jason Rothman:
No, no, just on the off chance at Don is a millennial and can’t handle something not going his way, I’m going to give him a yes. Don, this one’s for you, “Yeah. Oh, yes. Oh.” It feels good.
Chris Schaeffer:
You’re going to choke.
Jason Rothman:
Yes.
Chris Schaeffer:
Okay. All right, so I’ll take it from here. Don, thanks for your question. Number one, do you have any good advice for medical marketing? I think the best answer I could get is what I tell a lot of people if you are advertising… I’m going to assume that we’re talking about medical, as in you’re trying to reach other medical businesses. I’m not entirely sure. But the thing is, don’t assume that you have a ton of traffic out there that’s going to be valid traffic. When it comes to medical marketing, whether it’s business-to-business medical marketing or if it’s just medical period, when it comes down to it, tons of traffic exists, whether you’re doing B2B, B2Consumer.
Chris Schaeffer:
Be very careful about volume because you can spend a ton of money on unqualified traffic, whether it’s one or the other industries that you’re going after. That’s the biggest thing I have to say is, consider being as precise as you can be. Because there’s a lot of searches for I need a doctor for the growth on my toe, there’s just so much out there that you got to be really careful.
Chris Schaeffer:
Okay. Then Number two, I think we’ve said this before, this is just my general thing. Unless I have specific reasoning to show me otherwise, so you can always test it, but for me, I hate competitor searches. I keep them out of my campaigns, I don’t like them, they spend money. When they get conversions, do you know what I hear from the client?
Chris Schaeffer:
“Hey, Chris, we keep getting phone calls about is this Joe’s Auto, and we’re not Joe’s Auto, I don’t know where these are coming from.” You know why that’s happening? It’s because, in search terms, people are searching for Joe Auto phone number, Joe Auto on mainstream.
Jason Rothman:
Because their freaking car is already a Joe’s Auto shop in the garage getting worked on, and he’s calling to see when it’s going to be ready.
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah. They don’t want to do business with your client. In the end, I block them just because there’s very rarely a good marketing tactic. Jason, anything to add?
Jason Rothman:
For Don, I think I’ve given Don all that I can give.
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah, I think, yeah, he’s done. Okay. Let’s go to Luke, from Dublin, Ireland. There you go, geography theory out the window, Jason. Absolutely no distinct method to geography questions from here. Luke, by the way, Luke, I listened to your song. Jason, Dublin, Ireland, is a wonderful place because it has Luke who makes music. He’s the lead singer of a band, and he sent us a Vimeo link to his music, and it’s great. I wish we could have put it on the podcast for people to listen to. I have to get permission for him to do that.
Chris Schaeffer:
But he says, “My main question to you guys is, do you think a band/artist can use PPC effectively to reach certain goal campaigns, for example, YouTube hits on music videos, or Spotify hits, or even a PPC campaign for concert tickets?” Jason, I personally have only done a couple of music clients in the past, so it’s not very common. What do you think?
Jason Rothman:
You’re going to love this saying. If this is 1996, and Backstreet Boys is out there a little bit, and I am running and managing NSYNC… Okay, just bear with me, Rachel will clean up that ink. We have 10 seconds. Bear with me. How do you think I paid for this house, Chris? You don’t think I’ve written songs for NSYNC back in the day?
Chris Schaeffer:
You actually have a poster of NSYNC in your house.
Jason Rothman:
That was a gold record, buddy. You didn’t see the bottom of it.
Chris Schaeffer:
No, I didn’t.
Jason Rothman:
Anyway, if I’m managing NSYNC, and it’s 1996, and Backstreet Boys is out there, and we have a marketing budget, you’re going to love this, Chris, we’re so similar to Backstreet Boys in terms of who our fans would be, and they’re established a little bit more than us, and we’re brand new, and we want people to know about us, I’m not trying to get a conversion or someone to fill out a lead form on a website, and I just need to spray the internet and let people know that if you know about Backstreet Boys, you need to at least know about NSYNC right now, I think there is some method to that madness there.
Jason Rothman:
You can get in front of people, YouTube videos display, all that kind of stuff, for certain demographics and all that. But for like a local band, I don’t really know, to be honest. I don’t see a lot of like someone searching for like rock shows in Dublin this month, or rock shows coming up in Dublin, and then you putting an ad there and paying $3 for that click, and then on that visit, someone buying a $20 ticket.
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah.
Jason Rothman:
I don’t see it. I would say, but if you had to do something, I guess YouTube is what comes to mind in terms of like getting your videos in front of people, and then people are at least going to see them, and then you can control a low cost-per-view, and then just see what happens. But that would be where my inclination would go, is YouTube, figuring out who your demo is, figure out if they’re male or female, figure out what age range they are, figure out what music they like, run some YouTube in-stream ads on similar music, and get in front of people in a very localized geography.
Jason Rothman:
That would be my advice, Chris. I don’t know how effectively that would work, because this isn’t lead generation branding or advertising, this is branding advertising. You and I, I would say, it’s safe to say, we don’t really do that. We’re more into getting someone to call, someone to fill out a lead form on that click.
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah. The idea is, basically, go for it. I would suggest that I don’t think concert tickets is a good idea. Because then we’re talking about cost-per-acquisition, and it’s really tough to do event marketing and get a return that’s worth the spin that you’ve done. In the end, people just don’t search like tell me a random band that I don’t know and I’m going to go to their concert. That’s just really not going to work, it’s not-
Jason Rothman:
The thing I worry about is tracking it. Even if they do buy ticket in two weeks after learning about your music and figuring out what music you do, for the AdWords person, it’s untrackable. I mean, it seems really hard to track.
Chris Schaeffer:
I think for this last one, I’ll read this, because, Jason, I think you probably have more to say. I’m going to read. Last question from Sarah, from London. Before I do, I want to mention Opteo, who is a great online software to help you take your Google Ads to the next level. Alerts over email, alerts in their interface, colors, and charts, and graphs, and all kinds of things to help you get inspired to move beyond the basic. You’re only achieving basic. You want to get further? Go to the Opteo level. Opteo.com/psp.
Jason Rothman:
Thanks, Chris. I want to thank Directive Consulting, directiveconsulting.com. As you have heard in this episode, there’s tons of different strategies for tons of different types of businesses and campaigns. What directive does great is B2B, and enterprise campaigns, SEO, pay-per-click, search advertising, social media, digital PR, landing pages, content, they do it all. If you have an enterprise or B2B campaign, contact Directive Consulting. Get a free custom proposal, directiveconsulting.com.
Chris Schaeffer:
All right, Sarah, from London. “Hi, Jason and Chris, thanks so much for the great podcast, it’s really helped me out a lot in the past. My question is, would you recommend using Google Ads to promote a podcast? My company, an online publisher, is launching a new crime podcast, and I’ve been asked to set up PPC ads for this.” Jason, I’m going to spare you the first question, does it seem like a good idea to do it?
Chris Schaeffer:
Obviously, if you say no, she’s still going to be tasked with doing it. I feel like your question should be, she needs some suggestions on making it work well for her, because she can’t just tell her boss no.
Jason Rothman:
One of the themes of today’s episode has been, Jason is great, Chris is Chris, and in terms of carrying the show weight on the shoulders, bringing home the bacon, doing extra work for the show, hitting up the forum, and some other things. He’s actually mad today, so we’re going to have to fix this after the show. It’s all for the show, buddy, take it easy.
Chris Schaeffer:
No, I’m fine.
Jason Rothman:
Supercharge Your Podcast Growth by Using Google AdWords, it’s an article on Buzzsprout, that I wrote, and we both have a byline on there, and I don’t resent it to this day. I explained some different strategies for advertising your podcast on Google Ads, and we’re going to all the different things. I mean, there’s strategies for search, there’s strategies for display, there’s strategies for YouTube. I think the biggest thing for me is, you said it with your own word, Sarah, you guys are doing a new crime podcast.
Jason Rothman:
The deal with podcast are, they’re so segmented that in terms of giving you advice, that article goes over different channels, the way you can use them. But the biggest thing I would focus on is the word crime, and making sure you’re getting in front of people that are actually interested in crime podcast. Because for me, I love podcast, I’m a podcast super-user. But you know what I never listen to? Crime podcast. You could do the wrong targeting and hit me all day with your ads, I’ll never do anything for you.
Jason Rothman:
You got to get people that are into crime podcasts. How do you do that? Demographics? How do you do that? Different kinds of keywords? Maybe. Definitely, do not target the keyword new podcast.
Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah.
Jason Rothman:
Maybe target the keyword new crime podcast. Probably a lot of searches for that. Or best crime podcast, or crime podcast. You target America, there’s tons and tons of searches for that. Start off with a really low bid, 11 cents, maybe, something really small. Don’t you think, Chris?
Chris Schaeffer:
Oh, yeah.
Jason Rothman:
Really small. Maybe you try some display advertising with those keyword contextual, see if you can find some great placements. But my thinking would be, get in front of people that are definitely into crime podcast. Then my other thinking would be, there’s so much volume out there, trying to figure out how to get that low cost-per-click, and effectively get in front of tons and tons of people for a small budget or whatever budget you have.
Jason Rothman:
I’d be laser-focused on people who are into crime podcasts, and then laser-focused on getting the most quality impression, bang for my buck, through low bids, and using the super-high volume out there to my advantage.
Chris Schaeffer:
Okay, that’s it. I think that’s an excellent answer. All right, Jason, we’re going to jump over to our special Patreon show, where we’re going to answer two questions from listeners who asked about the management of PPC, and reporting, and some other in-depth stuff. Join us there. Two bucks a month, if you’re interested, paidsearchpodcast.com, look for the link. Otherwise, we’ll catch you guys.
Jason Rothman:
Hey, Chris? Chris. Chris, I love you.
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