Hosted by Julie F Bacchini, this week’s PPCChat focused on the impact of Google’s recent bidding changes on PPC campaigns. Advertisers shared their experiences, including rising CPCs, higher costs, and changes in campaign performance, as well as how they are adapting to the update.
Q1: Are any of your campaigns the type that this change was announced to directly impact (budget limited status and bidding strategies of tCPA or tROAS)?
Yes. For a few of my clients there was no or very little impact. For one in particular, it’s been awful. @JuliaVyse
At least half our campaigns. @ynotweb
I am doing reviews at the moment more than ongoing management. But generally, I look at/work with a lot of these types of campaigns. I would LOVE to know what percentage of Google campaigns fell into this category too! @NeptuneMoon
I had a some, but none where were were getting a better actual CPA than target CPA @Pete_Bowen
@NeptuneMoon I can tell you that it’s a P1 in Mountainview, which tells me it’s a very widespread issue. @JuliaVyse
I just tweeted at Ginny to see if she knows the percentage. @NeptuneMoon
Not a ton of campaigns, but those that are in this situation are doing much worse now. @beyondthepaid
Interestingly, the Google reps on our most negatively-impacted account are directly blaming the performance decline on this change @beyondthepaid
Q2: Did you make any adjustments to those campaigns prior to the August 17th changes? If so, what did you do and if not, why not?
We made minor adjustments so as not to upset the algo too much. @beyondthepaid
Yes. For the client having the most problems, we followed the advice from Google. First we recalculated the target ROAS, we reviewed our budgets, and developed a plan. Then we sent the plan to our vertical team to validate, they signed off, and we adjusted targets a week out. We also stopped a weekend bid adjustment. @JuliaVyse
I made adjustments to about 30% of the campaigns ahead of time so I could have a test group that was “pre-changed” @ynotweb
Yes certainly for one specific client we had a large swath of state centric campaigns that were mostly overperforming their targets, we were 2-3wks ahead of it. Seemingly worked well in our favor with an exception to 2wks ago performance really fell off a cliff but since has rebounded. A separate client we were in similar situations with but didn’t have the lead time to get ahead of it, thankfully have been unaffected there mostly also. Lots of daily management on bid/budget moves in spots though. @Ryansappington
Did anyone see fluctuations before August 17th? @NeptuneMoon
Of the campaigns that were limited in budget and tROAS/tCPA, the “pre-changes” about a 30% split of a) change the ROAS/tCPA to closers to reality; b) remove tROAS/tCPA and c) change to a different bidding format @ynotweb
I am seeing some talking about volatility before the start date @NeptuneMoon
no real volatility for us pre-17th that wasn’t self-induced @Ryansappington
yes, we saw improvements after these changes in all but the tCPA changes @ynotweb
we were seeing a bit of volatility prior but it totally tanked after @beyondthepaid
We must have changed one campaign about 6 times since the beginning of July @ynotweb
Right before the chat, I shared an article from Search Engine Roundtable highlighting data from Mike Ryan. Do keep in mind, his company is Smarter Ecommerce…@NeptuneMoon
We saw strong volatility after. It was truly like sailing from calm sea into storm @JuliaVyse
Q3: What kind of impact, if any, are you seeing on your campaigns that fit the criteria?
Are you seeing variance in impact by industry? @NeptuneMoon
No, primarily I’m seeing an issue in a very specific organization. @JuliaVyse
same – client-specific. but we’re all B2B @beyondthepaid
What industries? And are they particularly competitive generally? @NeptuneMoon
My specific example is a Telco in Canada. Typically very competitive. On day one we saw a huge increase in Starlink top of page, we think because they didn’t do anything and just kept spending high as usual. @JuliaVyse
@JuliaVyse Interesting @NeptuneMoon
We’ve had vastly different impacts on different clients in different industries and geo areas. And the MOST impact is to clients who were NOT using tROAS/tCPA as their click prices have skyrocketed @ynotweb
@ynotweb That is the kind of data I am interested in @NeptuneMoon
Small geographic area clients are getting FAR LESS visibility @ynotweb
Q4: What kind of impact, if any, are you seeing on your campaigns that were NOT included in the announced update?
I’m seeing increased cost per lead, driving primarily by higher CPCs @Pete_Bowen
Has anyone created a script or prompt to easily parse changes across MCCs? I’ve been looking at individual dashboards and it’s been a lot @JuliaVyse
From Mike Ryan:
Search-only campaigns have dropped in conversion rate and conv value, and increased in costs (average CPC is up 20% for them) @ynotweb
It’s interesting because his data seems to run counter to what a lot of people are saying/seeing in “non impacted” campaigns…@NeptuneMoon
Yeah the behavior of the “non impacted” campaigns shouldn’t have changed right? but their CPCs are the ones going down? Sorry joining a little late @Susie Marino
PMAX CPC is down, but conversion rate and value is down, cost per conversion is up. that’s just across all clients including those we adjusted. @ynotweb
I don’t see how you can have a change like this and have it not impact all advertisers? @NeptuneMoon
I kinda expected it to impact everything @revaminkoff
Same @revaminkoff but it is fascinating to hear Google say it won’t. @NeptuneMoon
Feels like most days at Google are opposite day lol my instinct now if they say something won’t be impacted it means it definitely WILL be impacted hahaha. @Susie Marino
I imagine in my head the low volumes for “non-budget limited” campaigns in small areas is due to Google trying to spend as much of the budget that other advertisers added in an effort to not be “budget limited” @ynotweb
But a lot of budget limited campaigns are truly limited. They are not spending more because of this change – they don’t have it to spend. @NeptuneMoon
true, which is why we didn’t change a single budget @ynotweb
It’s just weird to me that Google is acting like a change to how the auction works for an undisclosed percentage of campaigns will not impact all campaigns eligible for those auctions. @NeptuneMoon
And maybe they stand behind the statement of things only changing mechanically for the impacted accounts? And just ignoring the other parts where the auctions themselves are shifting due to the change happening for some… @NeptuneMoon
Totally that ^ the shifts in auctions are much more nuanced, like a change to every auction is not necessarily guaranteed right, so they don’t bother to address? @Susie Marino
I suspect that they can’t model the changes. This is an incredibly complicated system. A butterfly flaps it’s wings …@Pete_Bowen
Q5: What questions do you have for Google Ads about this update now that it has been out for a month? What would you like them to know?
I will share the questions and feedback from here with Ginny Marvin. @NeptuneMoon
[not for Ginny direclty as she can’t join in vertical team convos] We’ve been asking for ‘what now’ advice. We’ve engaged vertical teams to assist based on specialty, and agency teams to deal with the communication issue. We’ve been told different things to deal with the same issue, and now we have data. We just want to know if we turn things back to baseline, if we reallocate funds away from Google search, if we just wait for a turnaround. @JuliaVyse
What did Google expect would happen? (i.e. did Google expect us to see a change in performance? Do they expect said changes to even out eventually or?) @revaminkoff
I’d like to know how long Google expects volatility to last from this change on average. @NeptuneMoon
I am also curious if other tools are putting together reporting on changes their customer bases are seeing after this change. @NeptuneMoon
I guess the only thing I’d like them to know is that we are migrating budget away from them due to all the changes that have negatively impacted small businesses. @ynotweb
I am asking some of the tool folks this question @NeptuneMoon
@ynotweb Where are you taking that budget? @NeptuneMoon
@navahhopkins Is Bing planning similar changes? @revaminkoff
Meta and MS, but seeking new platforms for certain clients as well. @ynotweb
Which changes? @navahhopkins
The way TCPA and TROAS work (i.e. aiming to hit the goal versus exceed it) @revaminkoff
Are there any recommendations for performance recovery if a campaign was adjusted to the over performing level of CPA or ROAS as the target and now performance is poor? @NeptuneMoon
Clients grow weary from hearing “well, Google changed how this piece works so now your campaigns suck” @NeptuneMoon
No @revaminkoff , there are no plans to make that change. We actually recommend using tCPA and tROAS to steer the bidding algorithm @navahhopkins
PPCChat Participants
- Julie F Bacchini @NeptuneMoon
- Peter Bowen @Pete_Bowen
- Kammy Caruss @ynotweb
- Navah Hopkins @navahhopkins
- Ryan Sappington @Ryansappington
- Reva Minkoff @revaminkoff
- Julia Vyse @JuliaVyse
- Melissa L Mackey @beyondthepaid
- Susie Marino @Susie Marino
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