AdWords Account Management – Page 7 – McCord Web Services The Web Authority

August 5, 2019July 27, 2019

Not Advertising on Mobile in Google Ads? You Should Be.

I have been managing Google AdWords accounts for around thirteen years. This depth of experience has given me a unique point of view.

Here are a few nuggets to share with you on the topic of mobile.

1. Advertising in the mobile space has to be a part of your Google AdWords strategy. For some clients all leads will come in via mobile, for others just a part, and for some none.

2. If you are a lawyer, dentist, or a doctor where you have a mix of patient age groups, you will see strong activity in the mobile ad space and strong conversion activity there.

3. If your product or service deals with immediate decisions such as an animal emergency room your activity will be in the mobile ad space and nearly all of your lead conversions will be by phone.

4. Even if your business is tech software, know that although you may not get leads from mobile, early decision making and research is being done initially on mobile. It is better to control your ad spend on mobile in that case instead of totally moving out of mobile.

5. There is no single combination of what works best for businesses in mobile at this time and there does not seem to be one pattern of behavior that is repeated across diverse industries. What I have definitely seen is that mobile should be a very important part of every AdWords program.

If you need help with your Google AdWords campaigns I invite you to review our services and qualifications. We may just be the perfect match for your pay per click management needs.

May 27, 2019May 29, 2019

Doctor Websites and the Mention of Drug Name Brand Terms

McCord Web Services is a Google Partner and a Certified Google Ads Professional

Updated on 5-29-19.

Google Ads is cracking down again on dermatologists, plastic surgeons and other doctors that mention name brand drugs that they supply in office for treatments. Ads are market limited with a policy violation when brand names are listed or ads are flagged with one or multiple violations.

The Google required pharmacy registration, to show terms like BOTOX, is relatively costly and does not really apply to this market. These physicians are not selling these medications online, nor are they filling prescriptions. They just want to advertise that they are doing BOTOX injections or using other facial injectables on their website for in-office services.

Google is not not only searching terms on the landing pages, but now the entire website. So, removing the offending drug names from the landing page simply does not solve the ad issue.

From Google sponsored help forums I am seeing posts like this:

In the past we were able to contact someone at Google, show them it’s a hospital and that we weren’t advertising for any drug and the problem was gone. Now as of around Jan 20, this no longer seems possible so if something has changed (and let’s face it, Google is not 100% transparent about anything), then I would like to know what it is.

Well, these days this is the sole aim/goal the Policy enforcement team is focused on. You should also recognize that the policy is dynamic and changes continuously. We have no influence on the Policy team. I can only say – based on my wide experience with Policy issues – that Google is very strict with health-care issues (regulator scrutinize, Google was heavily fined in the past by regulators…). No waivers are granted.

So for medical professionals this new update from Google means absolutely no mention of name brand drugs on the entire website. They may not even be eligible for the medical/pharmacy registration that Google links to in their help notice pages for site and policy violations.

I called Google Partner support and got this clarification from staff on this issue this past week. For now, Google is showing ads but only in countries where there is not a policy issue and when they do show ads they are only showing to users 18 years and older.

Google staff recommended the full removal of all drug names from the entire website in order for the ads to no longer be flagged. They agreed that the $1,400 yearly fee and $495 application fee to get a pharmacy approval from one of Google’s two recommended vendor simply did not apply to these doctors, but that there was no work around.

Remember when you show ads on Google.com you have to play the way Google says and this new change means – know your ads will be flagged, your ad serving will be limited to adults only, and that the policy may change in the future.

If you need help with Google Ads, contact us today for a review and estimate of services.

May 22, 2019May 15, 2019

Discovery Ads – New Campaign Type to Appear in 2019

Google is mobile focused to the max as are these new ad products.

A new campaign type called Discovery Ads is coming to Google Ads later this year. It has been in beta for select advertisers but will be rolled out to all users later in 2019.

Discovery Ads will show on Google Discover, Gmail, YouTube and other Google properties. They consist of a swipeable photo carousel that renders ads by platform and artificial intelligence. They are supposed to anticipate consumer needs. Users so far have claimed 25% lower cost per lead.

In addition to Discovery Ads look for a new ad format for search called Gallery Ads. These photo heavy ads will allow 4 to 8 images with a 70 character tag line. Beta users claim 25% more interactions.

Both of these new items from Google are focused on products and cater to shoppers. You won’t be using either of these formats for services – just retail selling.

For more information on Google Ads and how to use the platform subscribe to our monthly newsletter.

May 15, 2019May 7, 2019

Google Ads Conversions – Deciding What to Measure

Be on target with deciding what conversions to let the Google AI base bidding on.

Deciding what to measure on Google Ads as a conversion has significant impact for your account performance. This is especially true when it comes to automated bidding.

For example, if you include page views in your conversions, you may skew results for any bidding algorithms you may use in the future.

When I manage an account, I look to include sales, completed web forms, and website phone calls as conversions. Other items that I may consider important depending on the client and what they are selling may be page views, whitepaper downloads, opening of the chat form. Typically I will consider those lower value actions in the “all conversion” category but not in the “conversion” category.

Doing so allows me to tell the bidding AI what conversions I really consider of value. Although I can add both sets of conversions to my reports, most decisions as to strategy should be based only on the high value conversions.

If you are not sure which and what you are tracking, click the wrench at the top right of your Google Ads account, then go to conversions. Take a look to see what data you are considering important and click on those specific actions to add or remove them from your reports.

You do not lose any data, it is simply whether those actions will be shown in the conversions column or the all conversions column.

Help Google bid smarter for you by only including “conversions” to give you better performance.

If you need help with Google Ads, please visit our website section on our services to check pricing and our programs.