This week\u2019s PPCChat session brought industry professionals together to examine common areas of confusion in PPC. What do industry experts find most confusing about PPC? Which aspects do PPC professionals and clients commonly misunderstood? And how do these misconceptions affect the way PPC accounts are managed and optimised?
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What qualifies as \u201csufficient data\u201d for decision-making @williamhboggs<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n I think the role of competitive positioning is a big one. You can\u2019t make your ads in a vacuum and please don\u2019t do it based only on brand input\u2026 I think ROAS and CPA are up there too @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1: ppc\u2019ers overthink a LOT of things and in turn, over-act. understandable as we\u2019re under the gun of clients or bosses, but often times the right thing to do is\u2026 nothing. 2: ppc\u2019ers surprised when alpha\u2019s or beta\u2019s don\u2019t work as expected and write off the product forever. they\u2019re the rough drafts and often are, well, rough. temper expectations y\u2019all! first mover advantage isn\u2019t always an advantage 3: you can\u2019t optimize your way out of a bad product or bad service. @Aaronlevy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n IMO, the extent to which conversion rate undergirds the underlying math @leosussan<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n @Aaronlevy<\/a> preachhhhhh Also misunderstood: I\u2019ve inherited hundreds of accounts with misconfigured conversion tracking. Not sure whether they were set up by the clients or by another agency @williamhboggs<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n How about you get more of what you go after, so you data is a complete picture of what you have done, not what you might yet do\u2026 @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n I think the question is the level of the PPC professional\u2026 the amount of accounts we\u2019ve seen that have been completely mismanaged by \u201cprofessionals\u201d is scary. Lack of accurate conversion tracking\/good data is usually a huge issue there. @revaminkoff<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n @revaminkoff<\/a> if anyone calls themselves a \u201cppc expert\u201d i\u2019m\u2026. wary. @Aaronlevy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n If ChatGPT or Claude are running your paid, that\u2019s bad. They\u2019re not there yet. No AI is there yet. @revaminkoff<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n This is less of a technical thing but I often speak to fellow PPC people who think they\u2019re the only one in the world who feels imposter syndrome \/ frustration that they\u2019re doing everything right and the platform isn\u2019t playing ball @Pete_Bowen<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The lack of control. Client and platform control so much of making a successful campaign work. @Pete_Bowen<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n I sometimes find it hard to decide where to spend my professional development energy. What to learn, which sources to consider, whether those skills will actually benefit me down the road. Same with networking\/industry orgs @rebeccawarne<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n How many business owners have so little idea about what goes on in their numbers and their business operations. @williamhboggs<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Conflicting information (and products) from platform partners. perfect examples are the latest \u201csteering tools\u201d for pmax (one adjusts budget, one adjusts conversion value) or the aug 17th debacle (conflicting advice from different reps across different platforms). I miss the \u201ccontrol\u201d but imo we never REALLY had it a: and B there are so many toggles and options to control now, i don\u2019t know that we ever could. i wish more of the mechanics were out in public or spoken about and not buried in research papers with weird mathy symbols that i have no idea what they mean. @Aaronlevy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Same on control. RIP SKAGs @rebeccawarne<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n @rebeccawarne<\/a> same. tbh I\u2019ve been going old school\/trying to understand human behavior + finance more since technology is soooo up in the air. @Aaronlevy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n One big challenge is having to move clients off of the idea that PPC is super trackable. We sold it for so many years as being incredibly accurate in tracking what ad moved what actions and it just doesn\u2019t work like that now. (And you can argue how well it ever did, but it was universally sold and thought of as doing that thing particularly well). @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Even if you have a perfect tracking setup, a solid half of your \u201cconversions\u201d are made up (sorry, modeled) @Aaronlevy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Why Google pushes recommendations that will hurt your business. Why Ad Platforms don\u2019t better understand their own product and how it\u2019s being used by advertisers in different industries. Why Google and Meta Support suck so bad. I would love to see how much $$$ they lose each year from unresolved support cases. Why so many 3rd party tools are so poorly developed (eg: Chat widget with no conversion tracking compatibility) @williamhboggs<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n What the endgame is with all the AI. Google is nuking its core cash cow at the altar of AI @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d like to better understand what a \u201cgood\u201d frequency is on Meta Ads @williamhboggs<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Surely that cannot continue down its current path, as AI does not have a profitability path in its current state @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Somewhat related, I\u2019m asking myself more often if I\u2019m doing the right thing by staying in ppc and leaning into AI @rebeccawarne<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI GOOGLED MYSELF AND DIDNT SEE MY AD\u201d @Aaronlevy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n A classic @Aaronlevy<\/a> I am still mystified when a client has a complete lack of sense of who they are competing with online. And how often this is the case (IT\u2019S A LOT) @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n @Aaronlevy<\/a> said it in the other thread: You can\u2019t optimize your way out of a bad product or bad service. @rebeccawarne<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n It is also wild how many brands want to use PPC as a way to reach absolutely anyone who might on a random Tuesday with the waxing moon in Sagittarius have a flicker of interest in their product. That\u2019s not what PPC is for\u2026@NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n More seriously I\u2019ll break down to 3 (edit: it started at 3\u2026.): 1: it\u2019s not a spigot\/faucet, takes time to build up momentum, and abrupt stops cause damage (there\u2019s a car metaphor in there somewhere). 2: ROAS is a truly terrible metric and i have no idea why execs incentivize their teams that way. 3: I don\u2019t care how much you spend, you\u2019re not that important to google so we can\u2019t call to yell at them. I mean we can but it\u2019s not productive. 4: Google ads today functions closer to early-stage DSPs (which people also did not understand) 5: everything you do outside of google as a brand affects google. stop hiding stuff from your teams (or Google) because it\u2019s proprietary 6: they stopped calling it adwords 8 years ago. @Aaronlevy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Google best practices\/recommendations are NOT necessarily best for the CLIENTS It doesn\u2019t happen overnight. If\/when the platform changes something, we have no control over that, and there\u2019s nothing we can do about it. @revaminkoff<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s an auction. We\u2019re not the only ones bidding. @DanThies<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Opinions are not data @rebeccawarne<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n 7: google reps WORK FOR GOOGLE. they are incentivized to tell you things that are good for google. yes, they are motivated by retention\/client growth\/clients who perform better stay longer yadda yadda. but my gosh the number of execs who would trust platform reps with their lives\u2026. @Aaronlevy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Heard this from a brand new client a couple of hours ago: \u201cWe sent 8 proposals last week but we haven\u2019t closed any deals. Do we need to fix the ads?\u201d I didn\u2019t say \u201cFFS. You\u2019ve never done 8 proposals in a week in the last 30 years. The ads aren\u2019t the problem.\u201d @Pete_Bowen<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Things that worked well for YEARS will just stop working. No, I didn\u2019t \u201cdo anything\u201d the platform did. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n @NeptuneMoon<\/a> that and it\u2019s almost like the outside world\u2026. exists? @Aaronlevy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n And god forbid you mention macro factors\u2026@NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n @NeptuneMoon<\/a> I had to fly across the country on 12 hours notice MULTIPLE TIMES to tell seasonal brands that it was cold out and thats why they missed spring forecasts\u2026..@Aaronlevy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Also – it\u2019s 70 degrees here in the Philly burbs in almost November. No one is thinking about getting their chimney cleaned Dave\u2026 @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n You wind up spending a lot of time managing clients\u2019 misconceptions and dealing with fire drills that aren\u2019t really fire drills. @revaminkoff<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n With some clients I spend a lot more of my time playing defence against their bad ideas than I\u2019d like. Basically stopping them shooting themselves in the foot. @Pete_Bowen<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGoogle called and said you\u2019re doing it wrong so I told them to go ahead and fix it\u201d @DanThies<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n When clients don\u2019t understand how platforms work these days, it makes everything harder. When platforms position everything they do as good for all advertisers, it makes things harder. When clients decide to put everything into AI and take its output as correct, it makes things harder. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n All the time spent on Claudeits\u2026@revaminkoff<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Had a client in the semiconductor industry who did not understand my request for support & feedback to write new ad copy. I am not an electrical engineer, I do not know how to make LiDAR sound sexy for search ads in 90 characters or less. My area of focus is running ads @rebeccawarne<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n I also think the faucet idea is even worse now because of learning periods, etc. No, I cannot just triple your leads because you are now not busy. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n These emergency plumbing leads are terrible, they don\u2019t even answer when we call them the next day @DanThies<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Google building everything in their platform so it screams SCALE, SCALE, SCALE when endless scaling it not actually possible for the vast majority of advertisers! Even IF you are shown as limited by budget, you will not just get more leads or sales at the same rate or cost per by throwing more budget around! @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Platforms interests are not aligned with advertisers interests. It kind of all starts there.@NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh, definitely making recommendations based on 3 year old data is NOT helping in the least. Am I the only one with a problem with this? @ynotweb<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Please please educate the agencies FIRST when it comes to the changes and what\u2019s going on before you send the clients an email that confuses them and leads them back to us. @revaminkoff<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n They send sales people after advertisers. Sales people who know nothing. Sales people who say \u201cthis campaign you REMOVED last year would get more leads with AI Max!\u201d @DanThies<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n I said in answer to last question too, platforms will present any new features as equally amazing for all advertisers, when it never is. I would LOVE for them to be more honest about which types of accounts will see the best performance from new campaign types, etc. I know it will never happen, but a girl can dream\u2026 @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Take your product org structure and send it to space. product designers\/engineers (seem) to not talk to each other AT ALL. oh we made this new feature for sitelinks but also it conflates what\u2019s supposed to happen with callouts and doesn\u2019t play nice with ai and all have individual best practices. and, stop making changes under the cover of night + work on corporate comms. every shift from a platform is sent out with the same level of urgency, so a minor change causes mayhem and major changes hide. @Aaronlevy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n AND STOP CALLING THINGS MAX WHAT ARE WE MAXING AND WHY ARE WE MAXXXXXING it. ai max = aaron intelligence 2 the max obviously, not \u201cwe smooshed broad and dsa together and hope you can figure it out\u201d @Aaronlevy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Recommendations. @DanThies<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Disclose who, exactly, were the advertisers who\u2019s feedback you listened to\u2026 @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n it\u2019s Brad. @DanThies<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s companies with 1000 times the budget and 100 times the geographic area\u2026 @ynotweb<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n I know Ginny does her damndest to get our feedback to the product folks, but at all the events its like – you asked and here it is! And so many of us are like, ok, but WHO asked for that???? @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n @ynotweb<\/a> you\u2019re not wrong about that @Pete_Bowen<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Honestly, I think it would be incredibly helpful if there was more publicly released about platform roadmaps. Where are their priorities for the coming year?<\/p>\n\n\n\n We get some insight into that at events like GML, but some type of ongoing destination that had a things talked about and a where are they in development type tracker would be amazing! I mean it can\u2019t all be done by Barry Schwartz\u2026.And that man is a national PPC treasure. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n tbh i\u2019ve been in a lot of those \u201cadvertiser feedback\u201d rooms (as have many on the chat here). sometimes i get invited, sometimes don\u2019t. sometimes the feedback is early stage, e.g. they\u2019re just building the product, sometimes it\u2019s \u201chey we\u2019re gonna launch this next week waddayathink?\u201d sometimes it\u2019s \u201cfor this type of advertiser\u201d and sometimes it\u2019s more broad. their specifics are often obfuscated for legal or competitive reasons (they\u2019re never going to show a full roadmap bc openai\/claude\/microsoft\/brave\/ddg\/baidu will just steal it). that and making changes at the scale they operate at is\u2026.. a corporate challenge. i don\u2019t like how platforms solicit feedback now nor do i like how they communicate, but i have NO idea how i\u2019d do it differently @Aaronlevy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n AI definitely complicates all of this. I agree on your assessment of the feedback sessions. And to be fair, I do think that the folks who are working on the various product aspects for the platforms are working hard and doing what they think is best. That misalignment is just always there with regard to interests. And teams are definitely more siloed than you would think, which platforms could certainly address if they wanted to\u2026@NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n the sitelink pm doesn\u2019t talk to the text ad pm who probably doesn\u2019t know the callout extension pm exists (purposefully obtuse\/smarmy example. @Aaronlevy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes when you talk to product folk it can feel like the \u201cit goes to 11\u201d scene from Spinal Tap\u2026 Like they genuinely have no idea why you would even be asking about some aspect of their piece of the product in the way that you are. And your question is pretty elemental to how a lot of advertisers think about and\/or want to use that feature. It is WILD. NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Make it one louder! @Aaronlevy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n PPCChat Participants<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Related Links<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This week\u2019s PPCChat session brought industry professionals together to examine common areas of confusion in PPC. What do industry experts find most confusing about PPC? Which aspects do PPC professionals and clients commonly misunderstood? And how do these misconceptions affect the way PPC accounts are managed and optimised?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ub_ctt_via":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ppc-chat"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Amita","author_link":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/author\/amita\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28697"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28708,"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28697\/revisions\/28708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Q2: What do you find most confusing or vexing in PPC as a PPC professional?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Q3: What do you think is the most misunderstood aspect of PPC by clients or stakeholders?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Q4: How does misunderstanding of PPC impact your ability to effectively manage accounts?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Q5: How do platforms contribute to PPC misunderstanding? And how could they do better?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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