Kat Sale’s Post

3 Google Ads tactics I've changed my mind on after ~10 years of paid search: 1️⃣ Broad match keywords. I used to think broad match keywords were the worst. And they probably were. While they still should be used carefully with negative keywords and efficiency-based bidding, they've become one of the better methods for capturing longer-tail searches and shouldn't be ignored. 2️⃣ Going all in on one type of bid strategy. Earlier in my career, I was overly dedicated to manual bidding. I thought I was beating the system. Later, I became overly devoted to smart bidding. I thought I was beating the people who still thought they were beating the system. It's worth regularly testing different bid strategies. Harrison Carroll has a great example that I'll link to in the comments. 3️⃣ Single-keyword ad groups. I used SKAGs for years. I always liked the clean organization and simple, human-oriented optimization. But today, more granular approaches like SKAGs dilute the efficacy of tools like smart bidding. Instead, I've started favoring ad groups organized by themes. What have you changed since you started using Google Ads? #googleads #paidsearch

If you only look at ROAS when optimizing #Googleads it’s time to broaden your perspective. While important, it isn’t the only metric that indicates an adjustment should be made. Sure you may be hitting goal – but is there more headroom? How are people responding to the ad copy? What else can be done? Don’t fall into the trap of chasing the perfect ROAS at the expense of meaningful long term growth for the account. Maintain a reasonable ROAS, but optimize to grow. #PPC #PPCChat #Googleads #SEM #PaidSearch

Google Search Ads Update

Responsive search ads can now show one headline when it’s predicted to improve your performance. As part of this change, a headline will now be eligible to show at the beginning of description lines.

Campaign-killer setting: This is one of the most stupid mistakes you can make when creating a new Google Ads campaign. "Use only broad match keywords for your entire campaign"=>ON I'm not saying I don't ever use broad match keywords, this is a completely different thing. What I'm saying is don't enable this mode, because this mode will: -Make "broad match" any keyword you enter in this new campaign -You won't ever have the ability to introduce any new "phrase match" or "exact match" keywords in this campaign. #googleads #ppc #sea #sem #paidsearch

I think this is good news. Searchers rarely read past the headline so pinning a highly relevant headline is often (not always) a good policy. This single line setup will increase the impact of the headline and alter how you think about copy. Additionally, it's always been a challenge to write ads where any given combination of 15 can make sense, not repeat, and drive a clear message but now you need to be cognizant of the fact that any available headline can appear as a preamble to your description. So the answer here is not to write the exact same text in your descriptions as present in headlines or it'll just look bad.

Linked accounts in Google ads. I am liking the range of different accounts and products that you can link to your Google ads account nowadays. I remember back in the day when it was so hard to link anything other than a product in the Google ecosystem to your account. Today you can choose from over 4000 products. I was on a call with a new client today, and they use a booking engine I've never heard of. We were talking about getting some of the data from there into their Google ads account. A quick search in the linked accounts section and sure enough we can hook Google ads to it via Zapier. Makes updating audiences for them and me really easy. Take a look through the extensive list, it is possible that there is a link available to help you. #semaphoresearch #googleads #sem #ppc #ppcchat #digitalmarketing #google

Are you still using exact match keywords? Google keeps pushing advertisers to use broad match keywords, promising it will help cast a larger net to reach more prospects. But broad match has been known to spend ad budget on a relatively high share of irrelevant search queries, increasing CPA and decreasing ROAS.   Over the past months, I’ve seen multiple posts and articles claiming broad match has improved. It’s different now, bringing much better results. In addition, exact match isn’t what it used to be. Google will now trigger ads for reverse-order search terms, acronyms, and even synonyms. So does it still make sense to bid on exact match keywords? The answer is YES. Ads showing for exact match keywords will still have the highest relevancy, which should lead to better performance. As I mentioned in a post last week, broad match keywords still catch a lot of irrelevant traffic, and I’ve seen significantly worse CPAs in both brand and non-brand campaigns. So my advice would be to continue using exact match. Google’s expansion of exact match actually saves advertisers some work. If you’d like to grow your account with broad match, do it gradually, by adding those keywords to one campaign at a time, and maybe even putting them in a separate ad group. Test it for 2-4 weeks, and if performance is good, repeat in more campaigns. What’s your approach towards exact and broad match keywords? Happy to hear your thoughts in the comments below 👇 #googleads #ppc #paidsearch #performancemarketing #sea #sem

ICYMI: Google Ads to pause low-activity keywords: Google Ads informed advertisers about an upcoming change to how the platform handles low-activity keywords in search ad campaigns. This change is set to take effect in June 2024. #digitalmarketing #marketing

Google Ad$ To Automatically Pause Low-Activity Keywords. Google Ads will automatically pause inactive keywords starting in June. Google is emailing advertisers to notify them it will soon begin automatically pausing low-activity keywords. According to the email, positive keywords in search ad campaigns will be considered low-activity if they haven’t generated impressions in over a year. This change is designed to help advertisers focus on valuable keywords rather than clutter their accounts with underperforming keywords. #ppcnews #googleadsexpert #sem #marketung