I just took over a $20,000/month Google Ads account for a client that had hired me in the past, moved to a big agency that had gotten in his ear, and now he’s back with me.
He reached out because after about six months of time with the big agency, his performance faltered and he lost his footing with the Google Ads account. He didn’t know what strategies were working, what to try next, and why things had gotten so bad.
It’s nice to work with this client again, and I’m looking forward to getting him profitable results.
I looked over the account at the end of this week, and the big agency was running an exact match only keyword strategy. For this account, that strategy makes sense, and I’m going to continue doing that for now. I have a strong understanding of the many ways people search for this service, so I know most of the keywords to target, and I’m confident that we can spend the full budget on just exact match keywords, so why not go for perfect traffic early on? If we struggle to hit the CPA goals or if we struggle to spend the full budget, then I’ll open it up to phrase match.
The agency was doing two things wrong.
a) They set up a landing page and on that landing page they were tracking form submissions, but they were not tracking website phone calls. The phone number that the website call tracking was instructed to replace was the phone number on the main website, not the phone number on the landing page. So the website call tracking on the landing page was not working.
b) They were double counting form submissions. They had two primary conversions that were both counting when someone submitted the form.
The bidding strategy was max conversions, so the lack of website phone calls, which the client does want, and the double counting of form submissions had them all screwed up.
Optically the results looked good. The cost per conversion was on goal, and the search terms bringing in those conversions were good. But the business results, which is what really matters, were not good. And that led to the conflict and miscommunication between the business owner and the advertising agency.
Business owner – “Results are not good.”
Agency – “But we’re hitting your goals and the traffic is awesome.”
Business owner – “Results are not good.”
Agency – “We looked again, we’re hitting your goals and the traffic is awesome.”
And on and on.
How to fix this situation?
Focus on great traffic that intuitively makes sense.
Make sure that the conversion tracking is accurate and makes sense.
Put conversions on the board.
Test max clicks vs max conversion bidding and see which one gets you closer to your dual mandate (use the full budget, and get the most conversions possible).
Why did the big agency fail at such an easy task of making sure conversion tracking was accurate?
I have my theories, but who knows and who cares. The account is now my responsibility and opportunity, and I will focus on great traffic and achieving great business results for my client. And we’ll always be on the same page because I’ll have common sense and accurate conversion tracking in place to guide us.
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- Setting Your Conversion Count: What It Is & Why It Matters
- Easy Way To Know If There’s Room For Improvement In Your Google Ads Account
