April 7, 2025 • 17 mins
Think your ad campaigns are performing well? Think again. In this week’s episode of Digital Horizons, we’re uncovering 5 costly mistakes most businesses make with their Google Ads, Meta Ads, and overall digital marketing strategy—and how to fix them.
✅ Why Meta’s ASC campaigns might be inflating your results
✅ How brand search is sabotaging your ROI
✅ Why you should ignore Google reps (yes, really)
✅ The truth about ROAS and why it’s misleading
✅ Why spending too little could be your biggest problem
Whether you’re a business owner, eCommerce brand, or marketing manager, this episode will help you cut the waste and scale your ad performance profitably.
💡 We’re pulling back the curtain on agency tricks, platform manipulation, and budget traps—so you can take control of your marketing spend.
📈 Get smarter with your ads. Stop wasting money. Start seeing real results.
🎧 Subscribe to Digital Horizons for weekly insights into modern marketing and AI tools.
The Digital Horizons Podcast is hosted by:
James Walker - Managing Director WHD
Brian Hastings - Managing Director Nous
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Actually thinking is this in my best interest,
Because everything Google'srecommending is not there's?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
nothing better than when we're looking at taking
over another agency searchaccount for a client and we get
the keys to it and we're like,oh, they've been cheating.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Next time you get a phone call from the Google rep,
you're going to be hanging up onhim and he'll keep calling back
.
Just keep hanging up.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, we're back with Digital Horizons this week with
five ways you're wasting moneywith your digital marketing.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Everybody who's currently spending money on
advertising is really justtrying to get the most
performance out of it.
The problem with a lot of theseplatforms and what Google ads,
meta ads, all the differentplatforms is that they're
becoming more and more a blackbox of data and it's making it
harder to understand what to doand what levers to pull to
really get the most out of it.
So today, what we're going tobe doing is talking about the
five different things that youcan do right now and have a look
(00:47):
in your accounts and yourcampaigns.
That is going to increase yourefficiency and improve your
performance because it's goingto eliminate wastage out of your
campaigns.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Let's get into it.
So we'll move through thesepretty quickly.
What is it, how it works andhow you can avoid it.
Starting with the first one ASC.
So ASC stands for AdvantagePlus Shopping Campaigns, so just
the appended shopping campaignsto the end of Advantage Plus
there.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Okay, asc campaigns.
Now this is one where Metabrought these out.
This was like their response toPerformance Max.
It was there.
Hey, just give us your money,let us take care of everything.
We're going to get you the bestresults we possibly can.
And on the surface it looksgreat.
Like you start looking at it,you'd be like, hey, I'm getting
20 rowers from this campaign.
Problem of what's happening, andespecially if you're running
multiple channels if you sayyou're running Google search or
Google shopping and then you'rerunning ASC, that ASC is going
(01:34):
to be claiming everything thatis coming through from a view,
through campaign, and measuringthat as a conversion.
So when we're looking at thesecampaigns, the way that we want
to set them up and this is ifyou go into and have a look is
make sure that you have youraudiences defined in your
settings in Meta.
Now what that means is you canthen tell Meta hey, I don't want
to be targeting my currentcustomers and there's a specific
(01:55):
amount I want to be spending onmy engaged audiences.
So you can give a list or youcan connect it into your Shopify
and you can say, all right,this is who my current customer
base is, and then you can setyour engaged audiences so that
you're remarketing audiences.
So you'll say all right, callanyone who's been to my website
in the last 90 days or anyonewho's engaged with one of my
Facebook ads or any of thesekinds of things.
Set them as an engaged audienceand limit the amount of budget
(02:16):
that I'm spending to them.
No-transcript.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
And they're likely to convert anyway.
They're already on the path todoing that.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
They're probably already converted.
So they're probably seeing aGoogle ad taking 24 hours to
make a purchase and potentiallyyour meta ads potentially are
having a positive impact on it.
But the but the way that thatmeta is reporting on it with the
view through conversions, andif you're not paying attention
to your click-throughs, is thatmeta is going to be claiming so
much over um, over reported row,as and if people are looking at
the row isn't like fuck you,I'm just going to keep spending
(02:53):
more and more money on this.
Frequency is going to keep goingup and you're just capturing
people that are going to convertanyway and just dumping money
in there.
So that's the first place wherewe see a lot of businesses that
are absolutely burning throughcash and Put your percentage
because you can actually putyour spend percentage of how
much is going to go to newcustomers versus old, and I
(03:13):
would put it at zero.
So we want to see 0% of thatbudget in the ASC, because if
it's going to be a trulyprospecting campaign, you want
to put it at zero and that wayit's only going to be marketing
towards your new customers.
Set up your other remarketingcampaigns.
Marketing is a really importantpart of your campaigns, but you
don't want to be sitting mixedup with your other top of funnel
campaigns because all it'sgoing to do is over-report and
overspend in areas that youdon't need to be.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, those prospecting budgets need to be
doing their job, reaching newpotential audiences.
Second one we're going to talkabout is overspending on brand.
Yes, specifically in search.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
This is the 100% so performance max search shopping,
any of these campaigns.
You want to make sure youhaven't got brand in there and
we ordered an account, and thisis something we've been noticing
more and more is the amountpeople are spending on
converting their own brand andthey're all like, hey, my
Google's doing all right, Idon't really need to work with
an agency, we're doing all right.
And so we convinced them for usto have a look and I think
about 90% of their conversionswere coming from brand.
(04:05):
This is a company that wasspending $5,000 a month on
Google Ads and they were justsmashing all their brand
conversions and thinking they'redoing a pretty decent job.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, there's nothing better than when we're looking
at taking over another agencysearch account for a client and
we get the keys to it and we seethat brand spend and we're like
, oh, they've been cheating.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
That's the thing, and I mean on paper, it looks
amazing, just like the.
ASCs.
It's like, hey, we're fuckingkilling it.
Look at our great results.
Our PMAX has got a 20 row ASL.
Our search campaigns are doinggreat.
But then you look at the searchcampaigns and it's just
capturing all brand as well.
Even though you're notspecifically targeting your
brand term, google's still goingto think that, well, the
intent's pretty similar to yourbrand term, so we're just going
to show you brand there becausethat's what's converting the
best.
(04:44):
So, making sure at allcampaigns that are not to
capture brand search, you'vecompletely removed it and this
is something you can do withintwo seconds and it's going to
see an immediate positive impact.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
So how does this happen?
In a lot of agencies and let'ssay, large volume agencies, they
have a very similar structurefor how they build out their
search campaigns and a lot ofpeople have generally been
taught to do a prospectingcampaign, a brand campaign and
maybe a test or a retargetingcampaign.
This has been carried throughfrom sort of low-level operators
who've taken it through toother agencies and it is always
(05:22):
going to mean that brandsearchers so people searching
for your company name are goingto have a higher propensity to
convert on your site.
And to make the reportingmeetings easier for that agency,
they're going to pump up thespend in that brand campaign
because it's got a higherconversion rate.
(05:42):
Then they're going to presentto you the total conversions
generated by the ad campaign andmake it seem like they're doing
a whole lot of work to reachnew customers in their
prospecting activity and look atall the conversions it's
generated.
But when you dig into the data,the brand campaign spent half
of your budget or more andgenerated 80, 90% of the
(06:03):
conversions.
You were probably going to getthose anyways.
So that's the first thing we dowe cut it right down, have a
minimal level of brandprotection if it's a competitive
industry and we generally seethose conversions picked up in
organic anyway.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yes, yeah, 100%, and it's just.
I mean, I think that it's gonefrom in PMAX.
You couldn't even exclude brandfrom the start.
So I think the agencies werelike fuck it, it's going to fall
in there anyway.
So we're just going to leave itin there because the client's
used to seeing it.
So the way that you initiallyset up a PMAX campaign, maybe
years ago, when that type ofcampaign come out and then the
clients may be used to seeing,hey, we're getting a 10 rise
(06:38):
from our PX campaign, so they'rescared to pull it out because
the reality of it is they'regoing to get a two or this
campaign's unprofitable, so it'sbetter to keep never really
working, but they're probably abit worried about that.
I think there's also a bit ofjust inexperience from people
who have set it up.
It's like if businesses aresetting up these campaigns from
themselves, google and Facebookmake it so easy to create a
(07:01):
campaign yes, and you don't knowwhat the best things you're
supposed to be doing, becausethe whole way through Google has
gone recommended, recommended,recommended, which is all the
shit and so you need to bepaying attention to that and
actually thinking is this in mybest interest?
Because everything Google isrecommending is not, which
brings us to our next one, ournext one.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I'm glad you did that segue.
So Google offers the access toa Google representative to help
you set up and run yourcampaigns.
They offer it to agencies aswell.
We're constantly trying toavoid phone calls from our
Google reps.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
They are persistent fuckers, man.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
They are constant, it's a new person every single
week as well.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
They've got their targets.
I guess they're doing their job.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
But it's a hassle, but they present themselves as
they're coming out to help you.
Yeah, which is not the case.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
And what better person, in the eyes of a new
agency or potentially a clientwho's trying to do it themselves
, a better person to advise themthan the owner of the platform?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
100% yeah.
If Google gives you a call,you'd expect they're going to be
telling you how to get the bestout of Google, but it is not.
Yeah, they'll know better thanan agency?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
It's not the case.
They've got targets to push thehigher margin stuff that's less
competitive, like display,obviously.
Youtube.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yeah, brand performance max.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So they'll generally run through a checklist of
things that seem like failuresin the campaign and you have to
correct these issues.
And in correcting those issuesmeans a higher spend on Google
on the inventory.
That is less competitive.
Yes, so it's a way of them notletting your budget stagnate and
get stuck only looking for thestuff you really want and
(08:35):
spreading it out to the stuffthat no one really wants,
exactly.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
And so I guess as a point then here is if you have
had a call with a Google rep andyou have implemented changes
based on that phone call, Iwould immediately seek
assistance from someone who doesnot work for Google who can
potentially provide you withguidance, because there's a good
chance you're spending money inareas that you shouldn't be
spending.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
The fourth way that you're wasting your money in
digital marketing is focusingpurely on ROAS return on ad
spend.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
That's it, and this is a combination of probably the
first two that we talked about,three that we talked about
Because if you're just lookingat your ROAS in your campaigns,
then you would have ignoredeverything that we've talked
about in the first two, becauseall your brand stuff is making
it look amazing, your ASC iskilling it because you're just
doing all your remarketing.
But if you're only payingattention to ROAS, you're not
paying attention to what it'scosting you to acquire a new
(09:23):
customer in your business.
That's where things can gowrong, because the platforms
it's in their best interest toover-report and inflate the
results to make sure youcontinue spending, but if the
bank account doesn't align withwhat's actually happening, so if
you're showing in your agency,showing your 20 railways, but
you've worked out, hey, I onlyacquired five new customers this
month, but I've spent fivegrand.
That's not adding up.
(09:45):
You need to be looking at whatyour lifetime value is to then
understand, well, what can youactually afford to pay for a new
customer that's going to beprofitable for your business?
And pay less attention to theROAS and the in-app metrics
because they're going to beover-inflating to make sure you
continue to spend on theplatforms.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Completely agree the focus on ROAS.
Again, just to reiterate,you'll get the double counting
of the revenue that you'regenerating because Meta and
Google are both calculating thatconversion as theirs.
But also you're going to befocusing on your existing
customers and, yeah, they'regoing to have a higher return
because you've earned thatcustomer.
(10:18):
They like your product.
They're coming back again andagain.
So, to go back over it, it isimportant to consider that there
is a return on your ad spend,but it's a much more complex
environment.
There are other factors andstrategies.
You need to be considering thelifetime value of winning a new
customer.
You should be willing to spenda bit more to get that, first on
(10:38):
that new one.
And then you should have morecost-efficient campaigns and
ways of communicating with yourexisting customers to bring them
back email marketing,automation, text and so on,
still using those campaigns toreignite and re-engage with your
existing customers, but notblending all that into the same
row as target 100%, yeah, andhaving used it as a metric, I
(11:01):
mean it's still important to belooking at and when you are
comparing separate campaignswithin separate ad sets, within
a campaign or even a performance, it is a good indicator.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
But solely relying on that and I know that we've been
guilty of it in the pastbecause it used to be a very
reliable number, or much morereliable than other metrics that
we were able to see so makingsure that you are paying
attention to it, but not usingthat as your sole North Star for
how your performance ormanaging your performance in
your campaigns.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
So I love this last one In a session on how you can
stop wasting money.
This is your suggestion.
Is not spending enough?
It starts to sound like we're aGoogle rep right here, like
listen, I think you should spenddouble to save some money.
But there is some logic to this.
Do you want to jump into it?
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Yeah, and I mean the point of this is don't just put
20 bucks a day on a campaign andexpect to see a result out of
it unless you get willing towait a long time and accumulate
data.
And if you're paying an agencyand you're only spending that
much, it means you're payingmanagement fees on top of that
and it just means the data isgoing to take longer and longer
to be able to then optimize andlearn what's working and improve
(12:04):
performance.
So I feel, unless you're willingto invest in the success of
your marketing, it's better notto doing it and the money that
you are spending, that smallamount of money that you may be
investing into it and when we'resaying small, it's going to be
different for differentindustries and different
businesses but if you're onlyputting a small amount in and
you know that you probablyshould be putting more in, maybe
(12:26):
it might be time to startthinking about make sure that
I'm not wasting it in theseareas that we just talked about
and go all in yes, Don't go allin.
Go hard yeah, Just don't go toosoft, because you're just not
going to get the results.
You'd be like this shit doesn'twork because you probably
wasted it and you need to beserious about the way you're
going to take on yourperformance marketing.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, there's a variable of budget and it's
different for every clientdepending on whether they're
using an agency or thecompetitiveness of the
environment that their industryis in.
And the number, the thresholdthat I like to think of, is a
variable number that you'll workout.
If you try with like a hundredbucks or, you know, 500 bucks
spend in search over the month,what are the chances that no
(13:10):
other competitors are willing topay more than you to capture
that, those audiences, you'rejust going to waste that budget
on the few clicks that do comethrough and you're not going to
get enough traffic to convert.
So, you're just going to see alittle drip feed of traffic and
you're going to call it afailure and never come back to
(13:30):
it.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
That's right, or just continue putting the money in
and not seeing anything out ofit because there's not enough
data for it to learn.
Like you look at Google, youlook at meta, they have
thresholds to get out of thelearning phase and then that's
supposed to be when it's doingits optimal performance, the
algorithms working for youproperly, and I think that
requires about 20 conversionevents per week.
It might change a little bit,but I'm pretty sure it's about
20 conversion events per week.
(13:51):
So if you want to think aboutthat and say, all right, well,
on average it's costing me $50CPA to get a conversion, then I
need 20 of them.
Then I need to be spending aminimum of $1,000 per week to
get out of that learning phase.
Per ad set or per campaign.
I'm pretty sure to spend 50bucks a week.
My average CPA is $50.
(14:11):
So I'm going to get oneconversion.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Like what's the point ?
You might as well just quitthere.
Absolutely.
That threshold goes up again ifyou're paying an agency.
So we can extract way morevalue than a client side
specialist generally who saysthey can do paid search or
someone giving it a crack forthemselves, who may be an
entrepreneur or starting theirbusiness out and running their
(14:35):
own search campaigns.
Of course an agency can getmore value for the same budget,
but you have to offset theirfees.
The additional value that theycan bring really needs a higher
threshold of spend for it to beworth their while and worth your
while in having that agency runthose campaigns.
So if you are going to anexpert and a specialist agency
(14:59):
to do this, make it worth it byspending enough for them to
extract that value out for you.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yeah, I mean I think you at least want to be looking
at two for one ratio, so you'dbe wanting to look at say, your
management fees $1,500 per month.
You want to be looking at atwo-for-one ratio.
So you'd be wanting to look at,say, your management fees
$1,500 per month.
You want to be spending atleast $3,000 per month to make
sure that you're going to getthe benefit of actually the
management fees diluted enoughin your overall marketing spend
that if you're spending $1,000and your management fee is
$1,500, there's no way you'regoing to see a positive return
on that.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
So you need to make sure that you're spending enough
to make it worthwhile in thatinvestment.
I would also use that as a redflag check for agencies who are
willing to let you spend $1,000a month media on Google, but
take $1,500 a month inmanagement.
You're better off looking tothe Google reps.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Listen to your Google rep.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Your money's just going to be spent anyway, thrown
away anyway, until you can getit up to a threshold to really
take advantage of those agencies.
That's it.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
So, to wrap this up, what we're going to do is check
your ASC, add your definedaudiences and then make sure
you're reducing your spend onreturning and engaged audiences.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
You're going to reduce your brand overspend?
Yes, so you're not spending toomuch budget on the traffic
you're already going to get wholikes your brand and is
searching for your brand terms.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Yep.
Next time you get a phone callfrom the Google rep, you're
going to be hanging up on himand he'll keep calling back.
Just keep hanging up, yep.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Until you have an issue within your account that
you need, like something turnedon or something Great with
tracking.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
I feel the Google reps are great for tracking
situations, not so much onperformance advice.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
You're not going to purely focus on a blended return
on ad spend across the entirecampaign.
It's a much more complexstrategy.
Strategies are needed for that.
You want to spend more on a newcustomer than you are on
getting your own customers back.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Yeah, look at your ANCAC, look at your LTV, look at
your ROVs and make sure thatyou're paying attention to these
numbers and what's actuallysitting and hitting your bank
account, not just what theplatforms are telling you.
And the last one, what was it?
Again You're not spendingenough.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Spend more.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Just fucking spend more.
That's what we find.
Any account, every client,everyone that we work with the
ones who are spending the mostare the ones who are getting the
best results.
Yeah, and that's just.
There's more data within theirad accounts, they're able to
learn faster, they're able totest more creatives.
Spend more, you're going to getbetter results, and that's just
the reality of it.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
There are points of diminishing returns after you
start outpacing the availableaudiences.
But I guarantee you you'reprobably not there, not even
close, yeah.
So that's.
Digital Horizons for this thisweek.
Thanks for listening.
Thanks for watching.
Actually thinking is this in my best interest,
Because everything Google'srecommending is not there's?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
nothing better than when we're looking at taking
over another agency searchaccount for a client and we get
the keys to it and we're like,oh, they've been cheating.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Next time you get a phone call from the Google rep,
you're going to be hanging up onhim and he'll keep calling back
.
Just keep hanging up.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, we're back with Digital Horizons this week with
five ways you're wasting moneywith your digital marketing.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Everybody who's currently spending money on
advertising is really justtrying to get the most
performance out of it.
The problem with a lot of theseplatforms and what Google ads,
meta ads, all the differentplatforms is that they're
becoming more and more a blackbox of data and it's making it
harder to understand what to doand what levers to pull to
really get the most out of it.
So today, what we're going tobe doing is talking about the
five different things that youcan do right now and have a look
(00:47):
in your accounts and yourcampaigns.
That is going to increase yourefficiency and improve your
performance because it's goingto eliminate wastage out of your
campaigns.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Let's get into it.
So we'll move through thesepretty quickly.
What is it, how it works andhow you can avoid it.
Starting with the first one ASC.
So ASC stands for AdvantagePlus Shopping Campaigns, so just
the appended shopping campaignsto the end of Advantage Plus
there.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Okay, asc campaigns.
Now this is one where Metabrought these out.
This was like their response toPerformance Max.
It was there.
Hey, just give us your money,let us take care of everything.
We're going to get you the bestresults we possibly can.
And on the surface it looksgreat.
Like you start looking at it,you'd be like, hey, I'm getting
20 rowers from this campaign.
Problem of what's happening, andespecially if you're running
multiple channels if you sayyou're running Google search or
Google shopping and then you'rerunning ASC, that ASC is going
(01:34):
to be claiming everything thatis coming through from a view,
through campaign, and measuringthat as a conversion.
So when we're looking at thesecampaigns, the way that we want
to set them up and this is ifyou go into and have a look is
make sure that you have youraudiences defined in your
settings in Meta.
Now what that means is you canthen tell Meta hey, I don't want
to be targeting my currentcustomers and there's a specific
(01:55):
amount I want to be spending onmy engaged audiences.
So you can give a list or youcan connect it into your Shopify
and you can say, all right,this is who my current customer
base is, and then you can setyour engaged audiences so that
you're remarketing audiences.
So you'll say all right, callanyone who's been to my website
in the last 90 days or anyonewho's engaged with one of my
Facebook ads or any of thesekinds of things.
Set them as an engaged audienceand limit the amount of budget
(02:16):
that I'm spending to them.
No-transcript.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
And they're likely to convert anyway.
They're already on the path todoing that.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
They're probably already converted.
So they're probably seeing aGoogle ad taking 24 hours to
make a purchase and potentiallyyour meta ads potentially are
having a positive impact on it.
But the but the way that thatmeta is reporting on it with the
view through conversions, andif you're not paying attention
to your click-throughs, is thatmeta is going to be claiming so
much over um, over reported row,as and if people are looking at
the row isn't like fuck you,I'm just going to keep spending
(02:53):
more and more money on this.
Frequency is going to keep goingup and you're just capturing
people that are going to convertanyway and just dumping money
in there.
So that's the first place wherewe see a lot of businesses that
are absolutely burning throughcash and Put your percentage
because you can actually putyour spend percentage of how
much is going to go to newcustomers versus old, and I
(03:13):
would put it at zero.
So we want to see 0% of thatbudget in the ASC, because if
it's going to be a trulyprospecting campaign, you want
to put it at zero and that wayit's only going to be marketing
towards your new customers.
Set up your other remarketingcampaigns.
Marketing is a really importantpart of your campaigns, but you
don't want to be sitting mixedup with your other top of funnel
campaigns because all it'sgoing to do is over-report and
overspend in areas that youdon't need to be.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, those prospecting budgets need to be
doing their job, reaching newpotential audiences.
Second one we're going to talkabout is overspending on brand.
Yes, specifically in search.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
This is the 100% so performance max search shopping,
any of these campaigns.
You want to make sure youhaven't got brand in there and
we ordered an account, and thisis something we've been noticing
more and more is the amountpeople are spending on
converting their own brand andthey're all like, hey, my
Google's doing all right, Idon't really need to work with
an agency, we're doing all right.
And so we convinced them for usto have a look and I think
about 90% of their conversionswere coming from brand.
(04:05):
This is a company that wasspending $5,000 a month on
Google Ads and they were justsmashing all their brand
conversions and thinking they'redoing a pretty decent job.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, there's nothing better than when we're looking
at taking over another agencysearch account for a client and
we get the keys to it and we seethat brand spend and we're like
, oh, they've been cheating.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
That's the thing, and I mean on paper, it looks
amazing, just like the.
ASCs.
It's like, hey, we're fuckingkilling it.
Look at our great results.
Our PMAX has got a 20 row ASL.
Our search campaigns are doinggreat.
But then you look at the searchcampaigns and it's just
capturing all brand as well.
Even though you're notspecifically targeting your
brand term, google's still goingto think that, well, the
intent's pretty similar to yourbrand term, so we're just going
to show you brand there becausethat's what's converting the
best.
(04:44):
So, making sure at allcampaigns that are not to
capture brand search, you'vecompletely removed it and this
is something you can do withintwo seconds and it's going to
see an immediate positive impact.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
So how does this happen?
In a lot of agencies and let'ssay, large volume agencies, they
have a very similar structurefor how they build out their
search campaigns and a lot ofpeople have generally been
taught to do a prospectingcampaign, a brand campaign and
maybe a test or a retargetingcampaign.
This has been carried throughfrom sort of low-level operators
who've taken it through toother agencies and it is always
(05:22):
going to mean that brandsearchers so people searching
for your company name are goingto have a higher propensity to
convert on your site.
And to make the reportingmeetings easier for that agency,
they're going to pump up thespend in that brand campaign
because it's got a higherconversion rate.
(05:42):
Then they're going to presentto you the total conversions
generated by the ad campaign andmake it seem like they're doing
a whole lot of work to reachnew customers in their
prospecting activity and look atall the conversions it's
generated.
But when you dig into the data,the brand campaign spent half
of your budget or more andgenerated 80, 90% of the
(06:03):
conversions.
You were probably going to getthose anyways.
So that's the first thing we dowe cut it right down, have a
minimal level of brandprotection if it's a competitive
industry and we generally seethose conversions picked up in
organic anyway.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yes, yeah, 100%, and it's just.
I mean, I think that it's gonefrom in PMAX.
You couldn't even exclude brandfrom the start.
So I think the agencies werelike fuck it, it's going to fall
in there anyway.
So we're just going to leave itin there because the client's
used to seeing it.
So the way that you initiallyset up a PMAX campaign, maybe
years ago, when that type ofcampaign come out and then the
clients may be used to seeing,hey, we're getting a 10 rise
(06:38):
from our PX campaign, so they'rescared to pull it out because
the reality of it is they'regoing to get a two or this
campaign's unprofitable, so it'sbetter to keep never really
working, but they're probably abit worried about that.
I think there's also a bit ofjust inexperience from people
who have set it up.
It's like if businesses aresetting up these campaigns from
themselves, google and Facebookmake it so easy to create a
(07:01):
campaign yes, and you don't knowwhat the best things you're
supposed to be doing, becausethe whole way through Google has
gone recommended, recommended,recommended, which is all the
shit and so you need to bepaying attention to that and
actually thinking is this in mybest interest?
Because everything Google isrecommending is not, which
brings us to our next one, ournext one.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I'm glad you did that segue.
So Google offers the access toa Google representative to help
you set up and run yourcampaigns.
They offer it to agencies aswell.
We're constantly trying toavoid phone calls from our
Google reps.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
They are persistent fuckers, man.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
They are constant, it's a new person every single
week as well.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
They've got their targets.
I guess they're doing their job.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
But it's a hassle, but they present themselves as
they're coming out to help you.
Yeah, which is not the case.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
And what better person, in the eyes of a new
agency or potentially a clientwho's trying to do it themselves
, a better person to advise themthan the owner of the platform?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
100% yeah.
If Google gives you a call,you'd expect they're going to be
telling you how to get the bestout of Google, but it is not.
Yeah, they'll know better thanan agency?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
It's not the case.
They've got targets to push thehigher margin stuff that's less
competitive, like display,obviously.
Youtube.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yeah, brand performance max.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So they'll generally run through a checklist of
things that seem like failuresin the campaign and you have to
correct these issues.
And in correcting those issuesmeans a higher spend on Google
on the inventory.
That is less competitive.
Yes, so it's a way of them notletting your budget stagnate and
get stuck only looking for thestuff you really want and
(08:35):
spreading it out to the stuffthat no one really wants,
exactly.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
And so I guess as a point then here is if you have
had a call with a Google rep andyou have implemented changes
based on that phone call, Iwould immediately seek
assistance from someone who doesnot work for Google who can
potentially provide you withguidance, because there's a good
chance you're spending money inareas that you shouldn't be
spending.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
The fourth way that you're wasting your money in
digital marketing is focusingpurely on ROAS return on ad
spend.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
That's it, and this is a combination of probably the
first two that we talked about,three that we talked about
Because if you're just lookingat your ROAS in your campaigns,
then you would have ignoredeverything that we've talked
about in the first two, becauseall your brand stuff is making
it look amazing, your ASC iskilling it because you're just
doing all your remarketing.
But if you're only payingattention to ROAS, you're not
paying attention to what it'scosting you to acquire a new
(09:23):
customer in your business.
That's where things can gowrong, because the platforms
it's in their best interest toover-report and inflate the
results to make sure youcontinue spending, but if the
bank account doesn't align withwhat's actually happening, so if
you're showing in your agency,showing your 20 railways, but
you've worked out, hey, I onlyacquired five new customers this
month, but I've spent fivegrand.
That's not adding up.
(09:45):
You need to be looking at whatyour lifetime value is to then
understand, well, what can youactually afford to pay for a new
customer that's going to beprofitable for your business?
And pay less attention to theROAS and the in-app metrics
because they're going to beover-inflating to make sure you
continue to spend on theplatforms.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Completely agree the focus on ROAS.
Again, just to reiterate,you'll get the double counting
of the revenue that you'regenerating because Meta and
Google are both calculating thatconversion as theirs.
But also you're going to befocusing on your existing
customers and, yeah, they'regoing to have a higher return
because you've earned thatcustomer.
(10:18):
They like your product.
They're coming back again andagain.
So, to go back over it, it isimportant to consider that there
is a return on your ad spend,but it's a much more complex
environment.
There are other factors andstrategies.
You need to be considering thelifetime value of winning a new
customer.
You should be willing to spenda bit more to get that, first on
(10:38):
that new one.
And then you should have morecost-efficient campaigns and
ways of communicating with yourexisting customers to bring them
back email marketing,automation, text and so on,
still using those campaigns toreignite and re-engage with your
existing customers, but notblending all that into the same
row as target 100%, yeah, andhaving used it as a metric, I
(11:01):
mean it's still important to belooking at and when you are
comparing separate campaignswithin separate ad sets, within
a campaign or even a performance, it is a good indicator.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
But solely relying on that and I know that we've been
guilty of it in the pastbecause it used to be a very
reliable number, or much morereliable than other metrics that
we were able to see so makingsure that you are paying
attention to it, but not usingthat as your sole North Star for
how your performance ormanaging your performance in
your campaigns.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
So I love this last one In a session on how you can
stop wasting money.
This is your suggestion.
Is not spending enough?
It starts to sound like we're aGoogle rep right here, like
listen, I think you should spenddouble to save some money.
But there is some logic to this.
Do you want to jump into it?
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Yeah, and I mean the point of this is don't just put
20 bucks a day on a campaign andexpect to see a result out of
it unless you get willing towait a long time and accumulate
data.
And if you're paying an agencyand you're only spending that
much, it means you're payingmanagement fees on top of that
and it just means the data isgoing to take longer and longer
to be able to then optimize andlearn what's working and improve
(12:04):
performance.
So I feel, unless you're willingto invest in the success of
your marketing, it's better notto doing it and the money that
you are spending, that smallamount of money that you may be
investing into it and when we'resaying small, it's going to be
different for differentindustries and different
businesses but if you're onlyputting a small amount in and
you know that you probablyshould be putting more in, maybe
(12:26):
it might be time to startthinking about make sure that
I'm not wasting it in theseareas that we just talked about
and go all in yes, Don't go allin.
Go hard yeah, Just don't go toosoft, because you're just not
going to get the results.
You'd be like this shit doesn'twork because you probably
wasted it and you need to beserious about the way you're
going to take on yourperformance marketing.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, there's a variable of budget and it's
different for every clientdepending on whether they're
using an agency or thecompetitiveness of the
environment that their industryis in.
And the number, the thresholdthat I like to think of, is a
variable number that you'll workout.
If you try with like a hundredbucks or, you know, 500 bucks
spend in search over the month,what are the chances that no
(13:10):
other competitors are willing topay more than you to capture
that, those audiences, you'rejust going to waste that budget
on the few clicks that do comethrough and you're not going to
get enough traffic to convert.
So, you're just going to see alittle drip feed of traffic and
you're going to call it afailure and never come back to
(13:30):
it.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
That's right, or just continue putting the money in
and not seeing anything out ofit because there's not enough
data for it to learn.
Like you look at Google, youlook at meta, they have
thresholds to get out of thelearning phase and then that's
supposed to be when it's doingits optimal performance, the
algorithms working for youproperly, and I think that
requires about 20 conversionevents per week.
It might change a little bit,but I'm pretty sure it's about
20 conversion events per week.
(13:51):
So if you want to think aboutthat and say, all right, well,
on average it's costing me $50CPA to get a conversion, then I
need 20 of them.
Then I need to be spending aminimum of $1,000 per week to
get out of that learning phase.
Per ad set or per campaign.
I'm pretty sure to spend 50bucks a week.
My average CPA is $50.
(14:11):
So I'm going to get oneconversion.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Like what's the point ?
You might as well just quitthere.
Absolutely.
That threshold goes up again ifyou're paying an agency.
So we can extract way morevalue than a client side
specialist generally who saysthey can do paid search or
someone giving it a crack forthemselves, who may be an
entrepreneur or starting theirbusiness out and running their
(14:35):
own search campaigns.
Of course an agency can getmore value for the same budget,
but you have to offset theirfees.
The additional value that theycan bring really needs a higher
threshold of spend for it to beworth their while and worth your
while in having that agency runthose campaigns.
So if you are going to anexpert and a specialist agency
(14:59):
to do this, make it worth it byspending enough for them to
extract that value out for you.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yeah, I mean I think you at least want to be looking
at two for one ratio, so you'dbe wanting to look at say, your
management fees $1,500 per month.
You want to be looking at atwo-for-one ratio.
So you'd be wanting to look at,say, your management fees
$1,500 per month.
You want to be spending atleast $3,000 per month to make
sure that you're going to getthe benefit of actually the
management fees diluted enoughin your overall marketing spend
that if you're spending $1,000and your management fee is
$1,500, there's no way you'regoing to see a positive return
on that.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
So you need to make sure that you're spending enough
to make it worthwhile in thatinvestment.
I would also use that as a redflag check for agencies who are
willing to let you spend $1,000a month media on Google, but
take $1,500 a month inmanagement.
You're better off looking tothe Google reps.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Listen to your Google rep.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Your money's just going to be spent anyway, thrown
away anyway, until you can getit up to a threshold to really
take advantage of those agencies.
That's it.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
So, to wrap this up, what we're going to do is check
your ASC, add your definedaudiences and then make sure
you're reducing your spend onreturning and engaged audiences.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
You're going to reduce your brand overspend?
Yes, so you're not spending toomuch budget on the traffic
you're already going to get wholikes your brand and is
searching for your brand terms.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Yep.
Next time you get a phone callfrom the Google rep, you're
going to be hanging up on himand he'll keep calling back.
Just keep hanging up, yep.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Until you have an issue within your account that
you need, like something turnedon or something Great with
tracking.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
I feel the Google reps are great for tracking
situations, not so much onperformance advice.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
You're not going to purely focus on a blended return
on ad spend across the entirecampaign.
It's a much more complexstrategy.
Strategies are needed for that.
You want to spend more on a newcustomer than you are on
getting your own customers back.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Yeah, look at your ANCAC, look at your LTV, look at
your ROVs and make sure thatyou're paying attention to these
numbers and what's actuallysitting and hitting your bank
account, not just what theplatforms are telling you.
And the last one, what was it?
Again You're not spendingenough.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Spend more.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Just fucking spend more.
That's what we find.
Any account, every client,everyone that we work with the
ones who are spending the mostare the ones who are getting the
best results.
Yeah, and that's just.
There's more data within theirad accounts, they're able to
learn faster, they're able totest more creatives.
Spend more, you're going to getbetter results, and that's just
the reality of it.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
There are points of diminishing returns after you
start outpacing the availableaudiences.
But I guarantee you you'reprobably not there, not even
close, yeah.
So that's.
Digital Horizons for this thisweek.
Thanks for listening.
Thanks for watching.
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