June 18, 2025 • 27 mins
Susan Richards-Benson, a 20-year PPC veteran and independent contractor, shares her experience with a devastating account suspension that cost her client tens of thousands in revenue during their busiest season—all due to client dishonesty.
The Setup:
Client: Indoor children's playground in Florida
Timing: Christmas period (peak season)
Problem: Google Ads account suspended for "circumventing systems"
The 2-Month Investigation:
Google support only provided generic responses
Team checked for malware, IP issues, site problems
Developer unavailable during holidays
Client increasingly frustrated as traffic plummeted
Key Takeaways
1. Client Transparency Works Both Ways
Agencies aren't the only ones who can lack transparency
Dishonest clients can create major problems for agencies
Always verify client claims rather than taking their word
2. Enhanced Onboarding Process
Red flags to watch: Clients being "cagey" about previous data, refusing analytics access, claiming previous agencies won't release data
New process: Screen share with clients to check existing accounts at ads.google.com
Due diligence: Don't just ask—verify what accounts already exist
3. Crisis Management Best Practices
Document everything in writing
File support cases immediately
Don't try to solve complex issues alone
Stay accessible and communicate regularly with clients
Be transparent about what you're seeing on your end
4. Industry Evolution Insights
Then: Keyword stuffing, siloed thinking worked
Now: Requires holistic approach across SEO, social, PPC
Key mindset: Don't resist change—embrace it or leave the industry
5. Healthy Approach to PPC Mistakes
Mistakes are inevitable for everyone in PPC
Own up immediately and explain implications
Don't let mistakes rattle your confidence
Share failures, not just successes, to help the community learn
The industry will humble big egos
6. AI & Automation Cautions
Example: P-Max with store visits has 5-7 day reporting lag
Be careful with click-based conversions like "Get Directions"
Don't blindly trust algorithm optimization
Professional Impact
This experience taught Susan to completely revamp her onboarding process and be more selective about clients who show transparency red flags. The relationship ultimately soured and ended, highlighting how client dishonesty can damage professional relationships beyond just the immediate technical problems.
Bottom Line
The biggest lesson: Trust but verify. Even experienced PPC professionals can be blindsided by client dishonesty. Implementing thorough onboarding processes and maintaining detailed documentation can prevent similar disasters.
00:00 Introduction to PPC Live Podcast
00:49 Guest Introduction: Susan Richards-Benson
02:19 Susan's Journey from Journalism to Paid Search
03:48 The Evolution of Digital Marketing
06:00 Fun Facts and Personal Interests
06:58 The Big F-Up: A Client's Google Ads Suspension
16:27 Lessons Learned and Advice for Marketers
21:53 The Role of AI in PPC
25:00 Conclusion and Upcoming Events
Find Susan on LinkedIn
Book a coaching call with Anu
PPC Live The Podcast features weekly conversations with paid search experts sharing their experiences, challenges, and triumphs in the ever-changing digital marketing landscape.
The next PPC Live event is on July 31st
Follow us on LinkedIn
Follow us on Twitter
Join our WhatsApp Group
Subscribe to our Newsletter
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Hello and welcome to PPC Live, the podcast formerly known as
PPC Chat Roundup. My name is Anu, the founder of
PPC Live. And if you're used to hearing
from PPC experts about how to ensure that we are keeping up
with the ever changing landscape, don't worry, you are
still in the right place. But instead of relaying what the
PPC experts are saying, I'm going to be bringing the PPC
(00:29):
experts to you. Every week I'm going to be
speaking to a different PPC experts about the biggest F OPS
that they have faced and how they've turned it around.
We'll share about what was disappointing, what was
surprising, and especially that they learned from it, ensuring
that they continue their career in a very successful way.
Today, I have the immense pleasure of speaking to Suzanne
(00:52):
Richards Benson, and she's been in industry for close to 20
years now. She actually started her
unlimited company and contracting before it was in
call for close to 10 years now. And she's got some really,
really cool interests outside ofpaid search as well.
She's going to be sharing some interesting facts for us, but
she's also definitely going to be sharing some really
(01:12):
interesting stories about an experience she faced about
dealing with a client that had some downtime over.
Christmas. How the investigation went, how
Google was in that process, how the client was in that process,
and how they ultimately fixed that issue.
So yes, I hope you enjoyed the story.
Let's go speak to Susan now. Hello, and welcome to PPC Live,
(01:34):
the podcast, and I'm so excited to bring on our latest guest on
the show to Susan Richards Benson.
Welcome, Susan. Hi Anea, I'm so glad to be here.
Also, yeah, Susan is someone whoI'm so glad that she's on the
show because she's being. Part of the.
PPC live community for quite a while but even more than that,
she's been part of the paid search world for like close to
(01:56):
20 years now. She's got her own.
She's got not quite agency you've got.
Yeah, you're a limited company that you contracting and
freelancing work with and that'sbeen going on for 10 years now.
And yeah, very much an accomplished digital marketer
with extensive experience and loves analytical side of things
(02:17):
a lot. So really like digging into it.
You started off like in journalism, you said, when
things were way back and when paid search was such a little
thing and everybody was more on Twitter.
Yeah. Tell us more about that.
Like literally how that switch from journalism to paid search?
What? Happened.
Yeah. As you mentioned, I was trying
to help the news agents I was working with establish their
(02:38):
online presence. And so you set them up on
Twitter and you get exposed to the world that way.
Started to understand how hashtags work, how audience
building works. And through that ended up
working into Google Ads, basically looking to increase
our brand exposure. And this was, I think it was
even pre AdWords days, we're talking really nascent platforms
(03:00):
at the time. And from there grew my
connections. Started working with an agency
based out of the states. Who?
Owes me to additional accounts and it grew from there.
So yeah, it was something I fellinto and I wouldn't change it.
What? I'm sorry, I didn't even know I
was going to ask this question because I but I do think it's
(03:21):
very interesting for those who started so long ago and have
seen the industry evolve and change so much.
I almost feel like it's a different kind of digital
marketer than working in 2025 and when you started.
So what has been like the biggest learning curve for your
biggest shift for you in terms of how you what your mindset
(03:43):
needs to be now? Compared to what your?
Mindset needed to have been backthen.
I think the biggest shift is when you first started out, it
was all about keyword stuffing. It wasn't necessarily about the
actual audience that you were targeting and about the ultimate
conversion rate optimization andthe end journey.
And you could very much have siloed thinking.
(04:04):
So you can focus entirely on to say, Google Ads as a platform
and put all your efforts into Google Ads.
And as the digital space has evolved, I think the ability to
silo your thinking has increasingly diminished and you
actually put yourself at a disadvantage.
Now if you do silo yourself intosay, just Google Ads, you have
(04:26):
to be able to take a more well-rounded approach to
understand how Google works withorganic, works with social, and
be able to interpret the analytics off the back of that.
So it means you have to be much more collaborative with wider
digital teams, the SEO side of things, the social side of
things, because user behaviour online is not siloed anymore.
(04:48):
And with AI it's increasingly changing things as well.
So you have to be able to adapt,adapt quickly before we're
thinking and not be resistant tochange.
I think is the biggest learning really.
Don't be resistant to change. Oh my God.
As someone who's writing a new article and writing a new this
is different now, this is gone, this is coming, you are
(05:09):
resistant to change. Leave the industry, go and go
into construction work or something like that.
There is nothing about digital that stays the same.
And Oh my God, removing the silos, I would actually even
argue that consumer behaviour has never been in silence.
Just learning more about it now it's just more and more part of
(05:30):
being very aware. Oh, why did I spend budget and
pay search, but it didn't reallynecessarily come into a
conversion? Or why is it when I post display
my display accounts that I thought was not getting any
conversions, my paid search thatsuffered even when I didn't do
anything. Why is it and it's literally
realising that no one is in asylum.
(05:50):
People are experiencing things everywhere.
People, I've been using word of mouth, word of mouth, part of
the journey as well. How the heck do we measure word
of mouth? Impossible.
It's all parts of the journey. But I also wonder, like talk
about a very funny, interesting fact that we shared earlier on.
You love doing puzzles, and that's really what you're into,
Paige said. You love dirty documentaries and
(06:11):
you shared a really interesting fact about rainbows and I'm
going to ask you to share it again.
When you're looking at a rainbow, if you're lucky enough
to see a double rainbow, the double of the rainbow is
inverse, so colours are backward, which is probably
something you'd notice. No, but we will all notice that
now. Now on I'd be thanks to you
(06:32):
Susan. And with London being, yeah,
very rainy weather a lot, we will be seeing rainbows and
we'll be thinking about you, Susan.
Thank you for that fun, extremely fun fact.
So anyway, without further ado, we have kept our audience
waiting long enough, our listeners waiting long enough.
This show is talking about the FUPS that we've experienced and
(06:53):
how we've turned it around, how it's become a triumph and how
we've learned lots from it. Susan, what is the F up you want
to share with us today? Yeah.
So this one, it still haunts me a little bit because it was so
frustrating. And obviously as PBC marketers,
we've all had experiences where we've messed up with the budgets
or had wrong keywords running and obviously those are that
(07:16):
we're all very familiar with. But this one makes for a
curveball. So we were working with, they
were children's playground basedout of Florida.
And we took over the account towards the end of last year,
and things were running fine forthe first couple weeks.
And then out of nowhere, right around the Christmas period, our
Google Ads account was suspendedfor circumventing circumstances.
(07:40):
And that notification come through.
Obviously it's Christmas, so everybody's offline.
You're hoping that the business itself is really busy at that
time. And you think, Oh my God, what
am I going to do about this? So yeah, not good.
Not. Good.
Oh my God. So this was a time where you
like what kind of business were they?
Were you talking like econ business or bTB business?
(08:02):
No. So this was AB2C consumer
business. They were an indoor children's
playground, so very much focusedon those bookings that are
almost immediate when someone goes on to research, ultimately
sees the location is within a couple miles of them and then
goes to visit with their family.So being the holiday period,
this is obviously a very busy time for them and not having the
(08:23):
Google Ads account running was extremely detrimental and cost
them 10s of thousands of dollarsduring the time that it was
suspended if you will. Oh, gosh.
All right, so let's tease out the story a bit more.
Let's get into what happened. Who found the problem first?
Who noticed that this was had gone wrong?
Yeah. So it was actually our team that
(08:43):
my team that noticed it. And the first thing you do
obviously is you go in and you review and you think what's
caused the suspension? Is it something like is there
malware on the site? Is there masking on the site
itself? Is there something going on with
IP addresses? So the first thing you do is
obviously what Google recommendsand you reach out to support to
(09:04):
try and get a little bit more information as to what's
happening. And we sent e-mail after e-mail
to the support team and they kept coming back basically with
the same canned jargon information saying you
circumvented systems, check for malware, check for this, check
for that. So we were trying to coordinate
with the developer of the business, but again, because it
(09:26):
was Christmas. Off.
Oh. My God, that whole long.
Time for something to. Go wrong, I know.
And in the meantime, the client had obviously noticed that the
traffic had massively dropped off.
So they were emailing us and texting us constantly saying
what are you doing about this? How are you fixing this?
(09:47):
And we were sat there with our hands tied.
There's really not much we can do.
We need, first of all, we need your developer to see is there
something wrong on the site? Is there something in the back
end that's causing this flag forpotentially malware or IP
masking? Our ability to see that is
really limited at the moment. We can only tell you what we're
(10:07):
being told by Google, which unfortunately wasn't a whole
lot. Not a lot.
OK. And what was like the emotional
roller coaster that you were going through right now?
Because I imagine Google not telling you.
And maybe for a split second youthink to yourself, what have you
done? What how did you mess up?
How were you just what was your reaction to how did you keep
your cool to ensure that you didn't go?
Oh, I'm just going to quit. Don't give up on this.
(10:32):
There were definitely, I'm not going to lie, there were
definitely moments where I was like, I'm ready to throw in the
towel on this. This is ridiculous.
This is so stressful. But I think you, you have to
remember that at least from Google's perspective, it's not
personal. They are trying to protect their
consumer base. The issue was obviously on our
side. Something had gone wrong.
So we had to get to the bottom of what the issue was and trying
(10:54):
not to take it personally, not take it as a reflection of we
don't know what we're doing or we're terrible at our jobs.
And at the same time, try and understand from the client's
perspective who are getting increasingly Aggie and
increasingly frustrated in theirtexts and emails.
And you get to a point where youalmost feel like you're on the
(11:15):
back foot a little bit and you're trying to yourself.
And at the same time, you don't know what you're defending
yourself from. Yeah.
OK, so going to the crux of the big question that people are
probably asking, who was that fault?
So ultimately what ended up happening, and it took us a few
months to figure this out. When we first identified the
issue, obviously the first thingwe turned to was it malware on
(11:38):
the site. So the developer once he was
back from the holiday season, scanned the site, said nothing's
wrong. So we resubmitted an appeal,
came back again with circumventing systems.
So by about mid February, so at this point we're talking, it's
been ongoing for almost two months.
We got the client on a call and we got her business partner on a
(11:59):
call and said we need you to do something for us because we've
done everything on our side. We need you to check that
there's not something that you've perhaps overlooked on
your end. Can you please go to
ads.google.com and log in and tell us what?
And it turns out that the clienthad actually had a original
(12:23):
Google Ads account that they hadnot told us about that had been
set up, was actually running in overlap with our campaign for a
short period of time. And they had not closed or
suspended the account when they moved over to our agency and
started running ads with us. In hindsight, Google was totally
justified in their suspension because the client had very
(12:44):
clearly violated the T's and C's.
And it's unfortunate that it took so long to actually
establish that, despite repeatedly asking the client,
Are you sure you've never set upan account before?
Are you sure you've never run campaigns before?
And yeah, it was. Oh, gosh, that's annoying.
Yeah. So what?
(13:06):
So what are the signs? Did they give any indication
that they were that kind of client?
Like what? Are there any signs we'd say
that you missed looking back, that maybe you could have have
gone to that conversation earlier or that was due to the?
Yeah, I think in hindsight theredefinitely were.
So when we were onboarding the account, the client was always a
(13:27):
little bit cagey about their previous data and they would say
it was who they were working with previously wasn't releasing
data to them. And I'm sure many of the
listeners have experienced that where the agencies that don't
release the data to the client. So you think, OK, that's not an
unusual scenario, but they didn't want to share access into
(13:50):
the analytics or anything like that.
So we basically had to set everything up from scratch and
this is not a new business. So you think that's a bit
unusual? Are we sure that there's nothing
that's been set up? Then when you went and you
looked at the actual code that was on the site, you could see
that there was an existing analytics tracker on there.
So they obviously had something set up, but they just insisted
(14:11):
to us that they've never had access to it.
They didn't know if it was stilllive or anything like that.
So I think the lack of transparency when we were
upwarding the account should have been a much bigger red flag
to us. And in hindsight, again, I think
we should have done a bit more due diligence in maybe getting
(14:32):
on that initial screen share with the client and saying, can
you visit these URLs and let's just see what you've got access
to before we go through and set up all the accounts and end up
in the situation that we end up in.
Amazing. Yeah, that's a great process to
put in mind. I think we are.
We're very much to pick on agencies who are like not
transparent. I mean, that's good.
(14:52):
Some of them are not, as you said, and some clients have
dealt with that, but they can also very much be clients who
are not transparent. That puts you in a pickle.
It's two ways that kind of can happen on both both sides of the
agency client relationship. So like someone is going through
this kind of process. Somebody has is busy periods,
(15:12):
some has busy periods for a lot of brands as well.
And yeah, traffic has just plummeted, account has been
suspended. They're not sure what to do.
What's your advice? Someone is like at the beginning
stages, first few weeks of this issue happening.
What's your with them? Definitely to start with is to
reach out to Google support, obviously.
(15:32):
And even though the information that we got back from them was
pretty canned responses, it was still very relevant to the
situation at hand. Looking back, I think first of
all is obviously make sure that you've got those support cases
rolling in. And then the next thing to do is
keep a record of everything. Keep everything in writing.
Make sure you've got what you sent to the client, any
(15:55):
communication that you've had with the client, anything like
that. Make sure you've got a log of it
says that you have not only a record of what your actions have
been, but also you can try and use that to isolate the issue
down to say, well, it's not this, it's not this, it's not
this. Get people involved.
It's not necessarily a burden that you can solve on your own,
and ultimately try and be as forthcoming and transparent with
(16:18):
your client as possible as to what you're seeing on your end,
but equally, don't assume that the issue lies solely with you.
Yeah, absolutely. And so how did that experience
change your process because you later on in life you've now
we've built your own limited company that you do your
contracting work. Did that particular story make
(16:39):
you go OK this is a process I need to now need to put in place
to ensure something like that doesn't happen?
Yeah. Obviously one of the key things
is to make sure if we're going into a holiday period that we
have a point of contact first ofall.
Because I think in the instance where we were waiting to say,
for example, for the developer to come back, see if there was
malware on the site, we need to make sure that there is going to
(17:00):
be someone on both the client side and our side.
He was able to pick up these issues if they do arise.
Yeah. But the bigger picture is in how
we on board accounts now and howif there are those red flags
from the beginning, you think isthis going to be the right fit
for us? Because the end result of that
relationship is unfortunately it's soured.
(17:22):
We no longer work with that client and it knocks the
confidence of me and my wider team.
And it was unnecessarily so. I think establishing those
processes in the beginning whereyou have a very clear framework
of what's been set up previously, get on the client
calls. If they're not too tech savvy,
which a lot of smaller accounts won't be told them through the
(17:45):
process, guide them through to see what they may have set up
previously, what they haven't set up.
Don't just assume and take them for their word that no, we've
never done this before and treated as a little bit more due
diligence. And that's definitely what we do
when we're on boarding now. Amazing.
Thank you so much for that front.
Just as you were just talking there, like I can't help but I
(18:05):
think I just, I love doing this.I love these conversations and
because this is where you learn,this is where.
You get those particular. Specific issues like we get a
lot of people just complaining and shattered about what's going
on in our English, but we need to go back to the whole what are
the mistakes that have happened?How do you learn from it?
How do you move forward? And that's how you become a
better marketer, a better marketer and I love that.
(18:29):
And then just Swifty time getting on to exit kind of
questions, which is just relevant, very relevant to what
I've just said. Why is it then it really do you
feel important? That we talk about.
You'd say this errors that we make because imagine you see on
LinkedIn all that I did this andI, I made this amount of
conversions and we hit our revenue target.
(18:49):
Why is it important that we actually talk about when we've
messed up? Yeah, I think to your point on
LinkedIn, it's so full of success stories.
It can be really easy to first of all, to develop an imposter
syndrome where I'm not seeing that level of success.
What am I doing wrong? Am I in the wrong job?
Am I making mistakes I shouldn'tbe making?
(19:10):
But also the humility in paid search.
And if you have a big ego in paid search, it is inevitably
going to humble you because we will all make mistakes.
And as the platforms evolve, those mistakes become almost
inevitable because you don't know what you don't know until
you make that mistake. Then you can learn from it and
(19:31):
move forward. So by sharing the mistakes
within the community, it gives us all that opportunity to see
the potential potholes that you may not be aware of.
And instead you get focused on the noise of all the success.
And I think it's wonderful to chat about your success, but
it's equally important to be able to say, well, actually,
these are the the mistakes that I've made that led me to that
(19:53):
success and to see that full journey, because then it becomes
really more of a journey itself rather than just a start point
and then destination of success.Yeah, absolutely.
And what would you say as your advice to folks where I'm just
thinking that, you know, but I want to do so well in this job
and if I make a mistake, I mightget fired.
Is there a Safeway to fail in digital markets or to mess up in
(20:16):
digital marketing? Or is it, would you say it's
always risky? What kind of mindset should
people have if they feel like, OK, I might mess up?
I think there's always going to be an inherent risk in digital.
That is the nature of the business, especially when you're
dealing with clients and you're dealing with clients budgets.
But the important thing to remember is that mistakes will
(20:38):
happen. We're all human.
You can't be infallible. And when you do find a mistake,
the most important thing is to own up to it, to understand why
the mistake happened, to be totally open with the client and
explain the implications. And nine times out of 10, you'll
actually find that your client or your boss or whoever it may
(20:59):
be is actually very understanding of the situation,
especially if you go in with theownership and processes to say
this is what happened, this is how it won't happen again in the
future. And really lay that groundwork
out like that. But the important thing to
remember is that mistakes will happen.
We're all human. So yeah, yeah, don't let it
rattle your confidence. Amazing.
(21:20):
Don't let it rattle your confidence.
That is very true because it will happen.
There is no successful paid suchperson that can honestly say
they've never made a mistake. Like it's like it's the name of
the game. And so about being honest and
open in communication. I always say that when the
mistake happens, try not to be like a little bit invisible.
Make sure that you're accessible.
Don't be there. All of a sudden no one can hear
(21:41):
from you. I know responded to Igor and let
people know that you're working problem.
Try not to panic too much. And now going into a little bit
of talking about an area of paidsearch that is very dominant now
for us talking about AIPPC and AI and how we deal with it.
(22:03):
Do you have any examples of how people could or have messed up
in terms of using AI into working paid search?
I think there's some potential areas where mistakes could
happen. So for me in particular, there's
one account that I work with andthey're very focused on store
visits that is driving in store traffic.
And we find that P Max is the most effective at doing that for
(22:25):
us. The challenge with store visits
is that there's anywhere from a five to seven day lag in those
being reported back into the platform.
There's initial, that initial week of data you have to fly by
the seat of your pants if you will trust that the algorithm is
doing what it needs to be doing.But recent indications are that
(22:46):
Google is going to be changing slightly how they measure store
visits and how they optimise towards store visits with one of
key areas being get directions. And so for marketers who do rely
on a Max conversion bidding in AP Max situation, for example,
it's something to be very cautious of because get
directions as a click based conversion event and P Max, at
(23:09):
least in my experience, has a tendency to go a bit wild with
click based conversions. You're much to attract
irrelevant clicks that way. So it's about making sure that
if you are going to be optimising towards some of those
more offline like store visit type conversion goals, to not
inherently trust the algorithm and to make sure that you're
(23:29):
putting those parameters in place lest you end up with 1000
get directions clicks and the client is saying to you, I've
only have 10 store visits, what are you talking?
About interesting, yeah, I'm glad you give that specific
example because I think we're all just looking, which is all
fine about the bigger implications of AI and how help
us and how people should use it.That kind of specific answer in
(23:50):
terms of specifically like what you could do and how it could go
wrong. Love that answer Susan, you have
been been such a delight. This has been such a great
conversation. But before we go off, just a fun
question. There's nothing to do with pace
and nothing to do with marketing.
If your PPC career was a movie, what would be the title?
(24:11):
I think I like the idea of clickpanic and optimise.
I love it. You've just.
Told people not to. Panic, Susan.
What? Are you talking about this is my
story that you have to remember and I can be a bit of an A
personality? That is like for your one to
live off. But before we leave you, where
(24:33):
can people find you to follow your fantastic insights that you
want to share with the industry?Yeah, they can find me on
LinkedIn. So I tried to be more active on
LinkedIn. I know I should be even more
active than I am, but I'll be onLinkedIn.
But I'm also part of the PBC Live community and I'm happy to
chat to anybody within PBC Live.So yeah, please feel free to
reach out. Fantastic.
(24:54):
So lovely to have you on the podcast, Susan.
And yeah, take care. Bye.
Thank you so much, Suzanne, for that amazing share and that
story and being so honest and transparent about, yeah, that
memory of that story of three months downtime of a client.
Although I'd. Feel like it's not as painful
because that's something that a client messed up with.
(25:14):
It's more annoying than painful.So yeah, remember, make sure
that your clients are being transparent as well as much.
Not just an agency's job to be transparent about what they're
going to do, how they're runningyour campaigns, but make sure
you're getting the best and the most out of your client and you
feel that you can trust them as well.
So yeah, for all information andthe full transcript and not just
(25:37):
a show notes, yeah, go to podcast at PBC dot Live and
you'll get all the full details about this fantastic episode.
An update about PPC Live. Unfortunately, the PPC Live
leads event that is happening orwas supposed to have happened on
the 26th of June is not going tohappen anymore.
That has been cancelled. Everybody who bought a ticket is
(25:57):
going to get a refund back. Unfortunately, we just didn't
quite get the interest that we want to to and didn't quite
manage to secure a sponsor. So yeah, we are going to put
that on hold for a while and tryto come back to that.
In terms of coming back to lead,reassess that, see what's
actually the best way to ensure that the people who need to be
(26:18):
at the event are fully aware that's going on and maybe even
partner with other companies that are doing events in that
area as well. So yeah, we are now full hog
ahead in planning PPC Live still17, but this time in London and
this is going to be happening onJuly the 31st.
So yes, go to PPC dot live to get your tickets from there.
(26:39):
We've got three amazing speakers, heads of PPCS, paid
media leads, the people that youwant to be listening to, that
who know their stuff, who have made mistakes in the.
Past who are going. To go through presentations that
are really. Very much learnings about.
Mistakes from the past so that you don't make the same mistakes
as well. So yeah, go to PPC dot live to
(26:59):
get those tickets. I'm also doing coaching
sessions, so if you want to bookan hour with me, just go to
themarketingannual.com for that so that I can help you reignite
your love for paid search and just ensure that you are on the
right path of your career. So yeah, I hope you have enjoyed
that show and I look forward to bringing you more PPCF ups and
(27:20):
triumphs next week. Thank you.
Bye.
Hello and welcome to PPC Live, the podcast formerly known as
PPC Chat Roundup. My name is Anu, the founder of
PPC Live. And if you're used to hearing
from PPC experts about how to ensure that we are keeping up
with the ever changing landscape, don't worry, you are
still in the right place. But instead of relaying what the
PPC experts are saying, I'm going to be bringing the PPC
(00:29):
experts to you. Every week I'm going to be
speaking to a different PPC experts about the biggest F OPS
that they have faced and how they've turned it around.
We'll share about what was disappointing, what was
surprising, and especially that they learned from it, ensuring
that they continue their career in a very successful way.
Today, I have the immense pleasure of speaking to Suzanne
(00:52):
Richards Benson, and she's been in industry for close to 20
years now. She actually started her
unlimited company and contracting before it was in
call for close to 10 years now. And she's got some really,
really cool interests outside ofpaid search as well.
She's going to be sharing some interesting facts for us, but
she's also definitely going to be sharing some really
(01:12):
interesting stories about an experience she faced about
dealing with a client that had some downtime over.
Christmas. How the investigation went, how
Google was in that process, how the client was in that process,
and how they ultimately fixed that issue.
So yes, I hope you enjoyed the story.
Let's go speak to Susan now. Hello, and welcome to PPC Live,
(01:34):
the podcast, and I'm so excited to bring on our latest guest on
the show to Susan Richards Benson.
Welcome, Susan. Hi Anea, I'm so glad to be here.
Also, yeah, Susan is someone whoI'm so glad that she's on the
show because she's being. Part of the.
PPC live community for quite a while but even more than that,
she's been part of the paid search world for like close to
(01:56):
20 years now. She's got her own.
She's got not quite agency you've got.
Yeah, you're a limited company that you contracting and
freelancing work with and that'sbeen going on for 10 years now.
And yeah, very much an accomplished digital marketer
with extensive experience and loves analytical side of things
(02:17):
a lot. So really like digging into it.
You started off like in journalism, you said, when
things were way back and when paid search was such a little
thing and everybody was more on Twitter.
Yeah. Tell us more about that.
Like literally how that switch from journalism to paid search?
What? Happened.
Yeah. As you mentioned, I was trying
to help the news agents I was working with establish their
(02:38):
online presence. And so you set them up on
Twitter and you get exposed to the world that way.
Started to understand how hashtags work, how audience
building works. And through that ended up
working into Google Ads, basically looking to increase
our brand exposure. And this was, I think it was
even pre AdWords days, we're talking really nascent platforms
(03:00):
at the time. And from there grew my
connections. Started working with an agency
based out of the states. Who?
Owes me to additional accounts and it grew from there.
So yeah, it was something I fellinto and I wouldn't change it.
What? I'm sorry, I didn't even know I
was going to ask this question because I but I do think it's
(03:21):
very interesting for those who started so long ago and have
seen the industry evolve and change so much.
I almost feel like it's a different kind of digital
marketer than working in 2025 and when you started.
So what has been like the biggest learning curve for your
biggest shift for you in terms of how you what your mindset
(03:43):
needs to be now? Compared to what your?
Mindset needed to have been backthen.
I think the biggest shift is when you first started out, it
was all about keyword stuffing. It wasn't necessarily about the
actual audience that you were targeting and about the ultimate
conversion rate optimization andthe end journey.
And you could very much have siloed thinking.
(04:04):
So you can focus entirely on to say, Google Ads as a platform
and put all your efforts into Google Ads.
And as the digital space has evolved, I think the ability to
silo your thinking has increasingly diminished and you
actually put yourself at a disadvantage.
Now if you do silo yourself intosay, just Google Ads, you have
(04:26):
to be able to take a more well-rounded approach to
understand how Google works withorganic, works with social, and
be able to interpret the analytics off the back of that.
So it means you have to be much more collaborative with wider
digital teams, the SEO side of things, the social side of
things, because user behaviour online is not siloed anymore.
(04:48):
And with AI it's increasingly changing things as well.
So you have to be able to adapt,adapt quickly before we're
thinking and not be resistant tochange.
I think is the biggest learning really.
Don't be resistant to change. Oh my God.
As someone who's writing a new article and writing a new this
is different now, this is gone, this is coming, you are
(05:09):
resistant to change. Leave the industry, go and go
into construction work or something like that.
There is nothing about digital that stays the same.
And Oh my God, removing the silos, I would actually even
argue that consumer behaviour has never been in silence.
Just learning more about it now it's just more and more part of
(05:30):
being very aware. Oh, why did I spend budget and
pay search, but it didn't reallynecessarily come into a
conversion? Or why is it when I post display
my display accounts that I thought was not getting any
conversions, my paid search thatsuffered even when I didn't do
anything. Why is it and it's literally
realising that no one is in asylum.
(05:50):
People are experiencing things everywhere.
People, I've been using word of mouth, word of mouth, part of
the journey as well. How the heck do we measure word
of mouth? Impossible.
It's all parts of the journey. But I also wonder, like talk
about a very funny, interesting fact that we shared earlier on.
You love doing puzzles, and that's really what you're into,
Paige said. You love dirty documentaries and
(06:11):
you shared a really interesting fact about rainbows and I'm
going to ask you to share it again.
When you're looking at a rainbow, if you're lucky enough
to see a double rainbow, the double of the rainbow is
inverse, so colours are backward, which is probably
something you'd notice. No, but we will all notice that
now. Now on I'd be thanks to you
(06:32):
Susan. And with London being, yeah,
very rainy weather a lot, we will be seeing rainbows and
we'll be thinking about you, Susan.
Thank you for that fun, extremely fun fact.
So anyway, without further ado, we have kept our audience
waiting long enough, our listeners waiting long enough.
This show is talking about the FUPS that we've experienced and
(06:53):
how we've turned it around, how it's become a triumph and how
we've learned lots from it. Susan, what is the F up you want
to share with us today? Yeah.
So this one, it still haunts me a little bit because it was so
frustrating. And obviously as PBC marketers,
we've all had experiences where we've messed up with the budgets
or had wrong keywords running and obviously those are that
(07:16):
we're all very familiar with. But this one makes for a
curveball. So we were working with, they
were children's playground basedout of Florida.
And we took over the account towards the end of last year,
and things were running fine forthe first couple weeks.
And then out of nowhere, right around the Christmas period, our
Google Ads account was suspendedfor circumventing circumstances.
(07:40):
And that notification come through.
Obviously it's Christmas, so everybody's offline.
You're hoping that the business itself is really busy at that
time. And you think, Oh my God, what
am I going to do about this? So yeah, not good.
Not. Good.
Oh my God. So this was a time where you
like what kind of business were they?
Were you talking like econ business or bTB business?
(08:02):
No. So this was AB2C consumer
business. They were an indoor children's
playground, so very much focusedon those bookings that are
almost immediate when someone goes on to research, ultimately
sees the location is within a couple miles of them and then
goes to visit with their family.So being the holiday period,
this is obviously a very busy time for them and not having the
(08:23):
Google Ads account running was extremely detrimental and cost
them 10s of thousands of dollarsduring the time that it was
suspended if you will. Oh, gosh.
All right, so let's tease out the story a bit more.
Let's get into what happened. Who found the problem first?
Who noticed that this was had gone wrong?
Yeah. So it was actually our team that
(08:43):
my team that noticed it. And the first thing you do
obviously is you go in and you review and you think what's
caused the suspension? Is it something like is there
malware on the site? Is there masking on the site
itself? Is there something going on with
IP addresses? So the first thing you do is
obviously what Google recommendsand you reach out to support to
(09:04):
try and get a little bit more information as to what's
happening. And we sent e-mail after e-mail
to the support team and they kept coming back basically with
the same canned jargon information saying you
circumvented systems, check for malware, check for this, check
for that. So we were trying to coordinate
with the developer of the business, but again, because it
(09:26):
was Christmas. Off.
Oh. My God, that whole long.
Time for something to. Go wrong, I know.
And in the meantime, the client had obviously noticed that the
traffic had massively dropped off.
So they were emailing us and texting us constantly saying
what are you doing about this? How are you fixing this?
(09:47):
And we were sat there with our hands tied.
There's really not much we can do.
We need, first of all, we need your developer to see is there
something wrong on the site? Is there something in the back
end that's causing this flag forpotentially malware or IP
masking? Our ability to see that is
really limited at the moment. We can only tell you what we're
(10:07):
being told by Google, which unfortunately wasn't a whole
lot. Not a lot.
OK. And what was like the emotional
roller coaster that you were going through right now?
Because I imagine Google not telling you.
And maybe for a split second youthink to yourself, what have you
done? What how did you mess up?
How were you just what was your reaction to how did you keep
your cool to ensure that you didn't go?
Oh, I'm just going to quit. Don't give up on this.
(10:32):
There were definitely, I'm not going to lie, there were
definitely moments where I was like, I'm ready to throw in the
towel on this. This is ridiculous.
This is so stressful. But I think you, you have to
remember that at least from Google's perspective, it's not
personal. They are trying to protect their
consumer base. The issue was obviously on our
side. Something had gone wrong.
So we had to get to the bottom of what the issue was and trying
(10:54):
not to take it personally, not take it as a reflection of we
don't know what we're doing or we're terrible at our jobs.
And at the same time, try and understand from the client's
perspective who are getting increasingly Aggie and
increasingly frustrated in theirtexts and emails.
And you get to a point where youalmost feel like you're on the
(11:15):
back foot a little bit and you're trying to yourself.
And at the same time, you don't know what you're defending
yourself from. Yeah.
OK, so going to the crux of the big question that people are
probably asking, who was that fault?
So ultimately what ended up happening, and it took us a few
months to figure this out. When we first identified the
issue, obviously the first thingwe turned to was it malware on
(11:38):
the site. So the developer once he was
back from the holiday season, scanned the site, said nothing's
wrong. So we resubmitted an appeal,
came back again with circumventing systems.
So by about mid February, so at this point we're talking, it's
been ongoing for almost two months.
We got the client on a call and we got her business partner on a
(11:59):
call and said we need you to do something for us because we've
done everything on our side. We need you to check that
there's not something that you've perhaps overlooked on
your end. Can you please go to
ads.google.com and log in and tell us what?
And it turns out that the clienthad actually had a original
(12:23):
Google Ads account that they hadnot told us about that had been
set up, was actually running in overlap with our campaign for a
short period of time. And they had not closed or
suspended the account when they moved over to our agency and
started running ads with us. In hindsight, Google was totally
justified in their suspension because the client had very
(12:44):
clearly violated the T's and C's.
And it's unfortunate that it took so long to actually
establish that, despite repeatedly asking the client,
Are you sure you've never set upan account before?
Are you sure you've never run campaigns before?
And yeah, it was. Oh, gosh, that's annoying.
Yeah. So what?
(13:06):
So what are the signs? Did they give any indication
that they were that kind of client?
Like what? Are there any signs we'd say
that you missed looking back, that maybe you could have have
gone to that conversation earlier or that was due to the?
Yeah, I think in hindsight theredefinitely were.
So when we were onboarding the account, the client was always a
(13:27):
little bit cagey about their previous data and they would say
it was who they were working with previously wasn't releasing
data to them. And I'm sure many of the
listeners have experienced that where the agencies that don't
release the data to the client. So you think, OK, that's not an
unusual scenario, but they didn't want to share access into
(13:50):
the analytics or anything like that.
So we basically had to set everything up from scratch and
this is not a new business. So you think that's a bit
unusual? Are we sure that there's nothing
that's been set up? Then when you went and you
looked at the actual code that was on the site, you could see
that there was an existing analytics tracker on there.
So they obviously had something set up, but they just insisted
(14:11):
to us that they've never had access to it.
They didn't know if it was stilllive or anything like that.
So I think the lack of transparency when we were
upwarding the account should have been a much bigger red flag
to us. And in hindsight, again, I think
we should have done a bit more due diligence in maybe getting
(14:32):
on that initial screen share with the client and saying, can
you visit these URLs and let's just see what you've got access
to before we go through and set up all the accounts and end up
in the situation that we end up in.
Amazing. Yeah, that's a great process to
put in mind. I think we are.
We're very much to pick on agencies who are like not
transparent. I mean, that's good.
(14:52):
Some of them are not, as you said, and some clients have
dealt with that, but they can also very much be clients who
are not transparent. That puts you in a pickle.
It's two ways that kind of can happen on both both sides of the
agency client relationship. So like someone is going through
this kind of process. Somebody has is busy periods,
(15:12):
some has busy periods for a lot of brands as well.
And yeah, traffic has just plummeted, account has been
suspended. They're not sure what to do.
What's your advice? Someone is like at the beginning
stages, first few weeks of this issue happening.
What's your with them? Definitely to start with is to
reach out to Google support, obviously.
(15:32):
And even though the information that we got back from them was
pretty canned responses, it was still very relevant to the
situation at hand. Looking back, I think first of
all is obviously make sure that you've got those support cases
rolling in. And then the next thing to do is
keep a record of everything. Keep everything in writing.
Make sure you've got what you sent to the client, any
(15:55):
communication that you've had with the client, anything like
that. Make sure you've got a log of it
says that you have not only a record of what your actions have
been, but also you can try and use that to isolate the issue
down to say, well, it's not this, it's not this, it's not
this. Get people involved.
It's not necessarily a burden that you can solve on your own,
and ultimately try and be as forthcoming and transparent with
(16:18):
your client as possible as to what you're seeing on your end,
but equally, don't assume that the issue lies solely with you.
Yeah, absolutely. And so how did that experience
change your process because you later on in life you've now
we've built your own limited company that you do your
contracting work. Did that particular story make
(16:39):
you go OK this is a process I need to now need to put in place
to ensure something like that doesn't happen?
Yeah. Obviously one of the key things
is to make sure if we're going into a holiday period that we
have a point of contact first ofall.
Because I think in the instance where we were waiting to say,
for example, for the developer to come back, see if there was
malware on the site, we need to make sure that there is going to
(17:00):
be someone on both the client side and our side.
He was able to pick up these issues if they do arise.
Yeah. But the bigger picture is in how
we on board accounts now and howif there are those red flags
from the beginning, you think isthis going to be the right fit
for us? Because the end result of that
relationship is unfortunately it's soured.
(17:22):
We no longer work with that client and it knocks the
confidence of me and my wider team.
And it was unnecessarily so. I think establishing those
processes in the beginning whereyou have a very clear framework
of what's been set up previously, get on the client
calls. If they're not too tech savvy,
which a lot of smaller accounts won't be told them through the
(17:45):
process, guide them through to see what they may have set up
previously, what they haven't set up.
Don't just assume and take them for their word that no, we've
never done this before and treated as a little bit more due
diligence. And that's definitely what we do
when we're on boarding now. Amazing.
Thank you so much for that front.
Just as you were just talking there, like I can't help but I
(18:05):
think I just, I love doing this.I love these conversations and
because this is where you learn,this is where.
You get those particular. Specific issues like we get a
lot of people just complaining and shattered about what's going
on in our English, but we need to go back to the whole what are
the mistakes that have happened?How do you learn from it?
How do you move forward? And that's how you become a
better marketer, a better marketer and I love that.
(18:29):
And then just Swifty time getting on to exit kind of
questions, which is just relevant, very relevant to what
I've just said. Why is it then it really do you
feel important? That we talk about.
You'd say this errors that we make because imagine you see on
LinkedIn all that I did this andI, I made this amount of
conversions and we hit our revenue target.
(18:49):
Why is it important that we actually talk about when we've
messed up? Yeah, I think to your point on
LinkedIn, it's so full of success stories.
It can be really easy to first of all, to develop an imposter
syndrome where I'm not seeing that level of success.
What am I doing wrong? Am I in the wrong job?
Am I making mistakes I shouldn'tbe making?
(19:10):
But also the humility in paid search.
And if you have a big ego in paid search, it is inevitably
going to humble you because we will all make mistakes.
And as the platforms evolve, those mistakes become almost
inevitable because you don't know what you don't know until
you make that mistake. Then you can learn from it and
(19:31):
move forward. So by sharing the mistakes
within the community, it gives us all that opportunity to see
the potential potholes that you may not be aware of.
And instead you get focused on the noise of all the success.
And I think it's wonderful to chat about your success, but
it's equally important to be able to say, well, actually,
these are the the mistakes that I've made that led me to that
(19:53):
success and to see that full journey, because then it becomes
really more of a journey itself rather than just a start point
and then destination of success.Yeah, absolutely.
And what would you say as your advice to folks where I'm just
thinking that, you know, but I want to do so well in this job
and if I make a mistake, I mightget fired.
Is there a Safeway to fail in digital markets or to mess up in
(20:16):
digital marketing? Or is it, would you say it's
always risky? What kind of mindset should
people have if they feel like, OK, I might mess up?
I think there's always going to be an inherent risk in digital.
That is the nature of the business, especially when you're
dealing with clients and you're dealing with clients budgets.
But the important thing to remember is that mistakes will
(20:38):
happen. We're all human.
You can't be infallible. And when you do find a mistake,
the most important thing is to own up to it, to understand why
the mistake happened, to be totally open with the client and
explain the implications. And nine times out of 10, you'll
actually find that your client or your boss or whoever it may
(20:59):
be is actually very understanding of the situation,
especially if you go in with theownership and processes to say
this is what happened, this is how it won't happen again in the
future. And really lay that groundwork
out like that. But the important thing to
remember is that mistakes will happen.
We're all human. So yeah, yeah, don't let it
rattle your confidence. Amazing.
(21:20):
Don't let it rattle your confidence.
That is very true because it will happen.
There is no successful paid suchperson that can honestly say
they've never made a mistake. Like it's like it's the name of
the game. And so about being honest and
open in communication. I always say that when the
mistake happens, try not to be like a little bit invisible.
Make sure that you're accessible.
Don't be there. All of a sudden no one can hear
(21:41):
from you. I know responded to Igor and let
people know that you're working problem.
Try not to panic too much. And now going into a little bit
of talking about an area of paidsearch that is very dominant now
for us talking about AIPPC and AI and how we deal with it.
(22:03):
Do you have any examples of how people could or have messed up
in terms of using AI into working paid search?
I think there's some potential areas where mistakes could
happen. So for me in particular, there's
one account that I work with andthey're very focused on store
visits that is driving in store traffic.
And we find that P Max is the most effective at doing that for
(22:25):
us. The challenge with store visits
is that there's anywhere from a five to seven day lag in those
being reported back into the platform.
There's initial, that initial week of data you have to fly by
the seat of your pants if you will trust that the algorithm is
doing what it needs to be doing.But recent indications are that
(22:46):
Google is going to be changing slightly how they measure store
visits and how they optimise towards store visits with one of
key areas being get directions. And so for marketers who do rely
on a Max conversion bidding in AP Max situation, for example,
it's something to be very cautious of because get
directions as a click based conversion event and P Max, at
(23:09):
least in my experience, has a tendency to go a bit wild with
click based conversions. You're much to attract
irrelevant clicks that way. So it's about making sure that
if you are going to be optimising towards some of those
more offline like store visit type conversion goals, to not
inherently trust the algorithm and to make sure that you're
(23:29):
putting those parameters in place lest you end up with 1000
get directions clicks and the client is saying to you, I've
only have 10 store visits, what are you talking?
About interesting, yeah, I'm glad you give that specific
example because I think we're all just looking, which is all
fine about the bigger implications of AI and how help
us and how people should use it.That kind of specific answer in
(23:50):
terms of specifically like what you could do and how it could go
wrong. Love that answer Susan, you have
been been such a delight. This has been such a great
conversation. But before we go off, just a fun
question. There's nothing to do with pace
and nothing to do with marketing.
If your PPC career was a movie, what would be the title?
(24:11):
I think I like the idea of clickpanic and optimise.
I love it. You've just.
Told people not to. Panic, Susan.
What? Are you talking about this is my
story that you have to remember and I can be a bit of an A
personality? That is like for your one to
live off. But before we leave you, where
(24:33):
can people find you to follow your fantastic insights that you
want to share with the industry?Yeah, they can find me on
LinkedIn. So I tried to be more active on
LinkedIn. I know I should be even more
active than I am, but I'll be onLinkedIn.
But I'm also part of the PBC Live community and I'm happy to
chat to anybody within PBC Live.So yeah, please feel free to
reach out. Fantastic.
(24:54):
So lovely to have you on the podcast, Susan.
And yeah, take care. Bye.
Thank you so much, Suzanne, for that amazing share and that
story and being so honest and transparent about, yeah, that
memory of that story of three months downtime of a client.
Although I'd. Feel like it's not as painful
because that's something that a client messed up with.
(25:14):
It's more annoying than painful.So yeah, remember, make sure
that your clients are being transparent as well as much.
Not just an agency's job to be transparent about what they're
going to do, how they're runningyour campaigns, but make sure
you're getting the best and the most out of your client and you
feel that you can trust them as well.
So yeah, for all information andthe full transcript and not just
(25:37):
a show notes, yeah, go to podcast at PBC dot Live and
you'll get all the full details about this fantastic episode.
An update about PPC Live. Unfortunately, the PPC Live
leads event that is happening orwas supposed to have happened on
the 26th of June is not going tohappen anymore.
That has been cancelled. Everybody who bought a ticket is
(25:57):
going to get a refund back. Unfortunately, we just didn't
quite get the interest that we want to to and didn't quite
manage to secure a sponsor. So yeah, we are going to put
that on hold for a while and tryto come back to that.
In terms of coming back to lead,reassess that, see what's
actually the best way to ensure that the people who need to be
(26:18):
at the event are fully aware that's going on and maybe even
partner with other companies that are doing events in that
area as well. So yeah, we are now full hog
ahead in planning PPC Live still17, but this time in London and
this is going to be happening onJuly the 31st.
So yes, go to PPC dot live to get your tickets from there.
(26:39):
We've got three amazing speakers, heads of PPCS, paid
media leads, the people that youwant to be listening to, that
who know their stuff, who have made mistakes in the.
Past who are going. To go through presentations that
are really. Very much learnings about.
Mistakes from the past so that you don't make the same mistakes
as well. So yeah, go to PPC dot live to
(26:59):
get those tickets. I'm also doing coaching
sessions, so if you want to bookan hour with me, just go to
themarketingannual.com for that so that I can help you reignite
your love for paid search and just ensure that you are on the
right path of your career. So yeah, I hope you have enjoyed
that show and I look forward to bringing you more PPCF ups and
(27:20):
triumphs next week. Thank you.
Bye.
Popular Podcasts
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!