Google Ads representative suggestions you should ignore

Google's ad recommendations often overlook the needs of smaller businesses.

Especially for small businesses

Google recommendations and those of their account managers are often not focused on hitting targets and goals, especially for accounts with limited budgets. The default and in-account options are often better for bigger businesses; after all, the recommendation that often comes up the most is to increase budgets. Hence, Google recommendations are not the best for small and medium enterprises. 

Additionally, the more you spend, the better your Google Ads account management tends to be, with managers providing more tailored recommendations as they have a better wealth of marketing knowledge.

If you have one of Google's reps help you set up your account they'll do so in a way that's likely to be good for a bigger account. In this way it is better to ask for assistance from a PPC or digital agency who can help you set up your account with your goals and targets in mind.

So let's look at what they tell you and the considerations you need to make.

“You need to switch to Broad Match keywords”

Google Ads representatives often push broad match keywords, but if Google does not understand your business well, it can lead to poor-quality traffic or leads. Also, Google reps will push you to change all of your keywords to broad match, and while some may work, many won’t.

Remind yourself of your strategy and what keyword match type you should use. This breakdown should help:

• Broad match allows your ad to show for search terms relating to your keywords such as synonyms, misspellings, related searches, and other variations.
• Phrase Match shows for searches that share the meaning of your keywords. The keyword must be present in the search in the same order or with close variations.
• Exact match shows for searches exactly matching your keywords also showing for close variants such as misspellings, singular or plural forms, and abbreviations

“You need to changing your bidding strategy"

Reps will ignore what the actual business goals are and will recommend upgrading your bidding strategy, for example maximise clicks to maximise conversions, but if your aim is simply to get people to your website the maximise clicks would be right. 

Below is a breakdown of different aims and what your bidding strategy should be:

However, there might be value in lowering your campaign goal from maximise conversions to maximise clicks as this can help the campaign get more information and better learnings, so it can receive more targeted conversions.

In fact, we have had clients for whom we changed to maximise clicks for a branded campaign as they wanted to show more often for searches for themselves, and we actually got more conversions.

However, time and time again, Google Ads representatives would tell me it didn’t align with my goals and that I needed to change back to maximise conversions.

“You need to increase your budget”

You will need to stick to your budget or your client’s budget, additionally, CPAs need to be considered. Google reps can be quite bullish in pushing you to increase budget but hold your ground or if not increase the budget and then switch it back once off the call!

I would always advise increasing your budget gradually as Google Ads recommendations can suggest increasing your budget after just a few good days, but this might not be consistent performance or need for such a dramatic increase as they are suggesting.

“You need to turn on Display Expansion”

The Display Network allows your ad to appear on millions of websites across the web. Although this wide reach can be beneficial for creating brand recognition and capturing a broad audience, it often fails to produce high-quality leads due to its less targeted nature. This can lead to lower conversion rates and higher costs.

Google Ads representatives, and also the recommendations tab, will suggest you use display expansion. Additionally, when setting up new campaigns Google often defaults to enabling ad placements on the display network. This does not yield the best results if you’re optimising for leads.

“You need to turn on Automated Recommendations”

You need to watch out because if you ever want a campaign with a different goal, some of Google's auto-applied recommendations will swap the goal back. Additionally, sometimes clients prefer more control over how they are paying their brand to be shown, so they do not want things like automatically created assets. It is worth making sure you understand them all and that they won’t disrupt your goals or plans for the account.

“You need to add Lead Forms”

We’ve found that lead form sign ups bring in more spammy leads. The ideal way to ensure you get the people who do actually want your product or to be contacted again is to include forms at the bottom of the page or on a second page after the landing page.

However, you can limit the number of people who will sign up as even those interested in your product or service can be put off by a tricky form. There is also a lack of customisation for Google lead forms so you will struggle to make your sales team's life any easier. They’re best used for quick lead capture such as newsletter sign-ups.

“You need to start using the latest Google Product”

This includes those going through Beta testing! Not all new Google products may be suitable for your business goals. As they’re so new they are more than often still in a trial run so may not have a full width of information or learnings on how best to work.

Take for example the two newest products:

Performance Max

• You need to have a good landing page with performance max as often a higher percentage of the leads are spam than a search campaign.
• Performance max campaigns, despite what Google account managers might say, don’t need budgets of over £100 per day.
• You can advertise singular products if you want to push them or if the product has a different audience compared to other products, you just need to make sure you have a good amount of assets.

Demand Generation

• This campaign does need a rather large budget and therefore is not suitable for restricted spend.
• Demand Gen campaigns are highly visual, leveraging platforms like YouTube, Discover, and Gmail, so make sure you have high quality assets before even launching.

Final thoughts on Google Ads representatives

All Google Ads recommendations should be thought through before being implemented. Consider what’s in it for Google (normally more money) in comparison to what these recommendations would provide for your company or client.

Thoroughly prepare your strategy for your account - it is easier to say no to Google representatives if you have a strategy in place that you are following!