Today I’m going to talk about Google ads and whether or not you should actually take the assistance of Google Ad Account Strategies, which is basically a fancy way of saying Google sales people. They reach out to set up your account “the right way” and explain how to properly invest your money in google ads. The past few months, I myself have been in communication with a Google Ads Representative.
Do I know Google ads? Absolutely.
Have my colleagues in the industry told me to stay away from Google Ad Reps? Also, yes. Yet, at the same time, I like to experiment. I don’t know everything in the world and we should always be open and humble enough to learn from others. So I said yes to working with this strategist. I had to know for myself if a Google Ads Representative was worth my time. So this is back in October of last year, when I set up the ad account with them. Since then, I learned quite a few things about working with one.
Firstly, Google Ad Strategists most certainly are helpful in setting up your account.
That was something she did very well in. It was a smooth process and she took all of the stress away from starting the process. That might have been the only positive part of my experience, though.
They Are Also Very Good at Helping You Spend a Lot of Money.
The sad part is that you’ll spend a lot of money but get few results. At least this is what I found in my experience. I’ve spent about $700 in the last few months and I’ve reached the point where I want to shut it down because she simply does not have the data to show me that this amount of money is worth it. We hear the fancy title of “ad strategist” and we forget that these people’s salaries are based off of YOU spending money with them.
They Didn’t Take the Time to Learn My Business.
This is a major issue I had with my strategist. She asked me what I do. I replied that we help small businesses with their online presence. I left it there and she didn’t ask me any further questions. This was red flag number one. How in the world is she supposed to set me up for success when she barely knows what my business does? She was giving me a cookie cutter solution, when a strategist should be giving their clients specific and tailored solutions to their campaigns. I ended up having to go out of my way to tell her about our podcast and about how I would like to advertise it. She loved the idea and set it all up for me. And here comes the second red flag she showed me.
My Strategist Failed on the Basics of Google Ads.
For reasons I explain in my training sessions, when setting up a campaign you never mix search campaigns and display campaigns together. It is a complete headache to track the two jumbled data together. Furthermore, never use broad match keywords. This is just Google Ads 101. Guess how she set up my campaign? She combined the search and display networks and used the broadest of keywords. She was already failing in the basics of google ads!
Imagine you’re going to the gym to lose weight. You get there and your fitness trainer is handing out donuts. And then you’re doing the workouts the wrong way with the wrong form. In the end, all you’re going to do is end up becoming fatter. That’s what happened with Google. Fast forward and we had a follow-up call every month. She asked me if I had looked at analytics and I said I hadn’t. Instead of talking me through analytics she jumped to her next strategy idea.
She Skipped All of the Data Analysis.
How in the world did she have the audacity to suggest more techniques when she hadn’t even analyzed the first campaign she had created? I am a numbers person. I want to see results and I want to see them clearly laid out before me. She gave me none of this. What is the point of a strategist if they won’t even analyze their own work? In the end, I ended communication with my Google Ad Strategist. I was getting nowhere and felt like I was simply wasting my money.
My Advice Is to Do it Yourself.
Google Ad Strategists make you feel inadequate because you aren’t an “expert” at analytics. However, you know your business better than anyone. And you know it better than a strategist will ever try to learn it. Learning Google Ads is free and there are plenty of different resources where you can gather enough information to excel at it. In fact, I plan to put together a free training course that will give out the basics of setting up your Google Ads properly. I don’t want anyone else to go through the same pain I have been through with Google Ad Strategists. If you still don’t feel comfortable doing it, hire someone who is not an employee of google. At least then you’ll know that they aren’t trying to get you to spend more money on ads because it pads their commission. Whatever you do, just stay away from Google Ad Strategists with a 10-foot pole!
