The 'Other' Bucket: What is Google Ads Hiding?

[00:00:00] It is Wednesday, June 5th. Today, why is Google dumping up to three quarters of your ad results

[00:00:07] into an unmarked bucket? HubSpot is about to get more expensive. Finally, a framework

[00:00:13] for dated deletion requests and Microsoft's change to shopping campaigns is coming. Whether

[00:00:20] you want it or not. I'm Tod Maffin. That's ahead, today in Digital Marketing.

[00:00:27] Today or Wednesday, our Google Ads correspondent Jill Saskin-Gales joins me. Jill spent six

[00:00:32] years at Google Ads and now runs the Inside Google Ads training program for practitioners.

[00:00:37] If Google Ads isn't relevant to your day-to-day work, premium members, you can just skip to

[00:00:41] the next chapter by tapping the next story or if you're not a premium member, skip

[00:00:45] to about the seven minute and five second mark. Jill, hello.

[00:00:48] Hello.

[00:00:49] It's been a couple of weeks since Google's big marketing live event. And one of the

[00:00:53] things that they like to talk up at these events is just how much transparency and control

[00:00:58] they're giving advertisers. And then out the back door, they're removing controls,

[00:01:04] putting more things into the black box. Am I just a grumpy old man? Is that your sense

[00:01:09] too?

[00:01:10] Well, you may be a grumpy old man, but I do share the same sense with you. Google

[00:01:15] announced some more transparency and control features coming to Performance Max, for

[00:01:20] example, more asset group reporting, more opportunity to add exclusions. But on the whole,

[00:01:25] if you're a Google Ads practitioner in 2024, you have way less transparency and control

[00:01:30] over your campaigns than you even did in, let's say, 2020.

[00:01:34] Can you give me a couple of examples of that? How have we been losing control in Google

[00:01:37] Ads over the last few years?

[00:01:39] I think one of the big ways is actually the other search terms. So when you run

[00:01:44] a search campaign, you enter your keywords into Google Ads and then you check your

[00:01:49] search terms report to see which user searches actually match to your keywords.

[00:01:54] And usually you would be able to actually see those search terms and add negatives

[00:01:57] and optimize based on it. But now, due to privacy, according to Google, a lot of

[00:02:03] those search terms you're advertising on, you can't actually see. And with some

[00:02:07] of my coaching clients, I can see that as much as 50% or even 75% of their

[00:02:13] search ad spend is going to other search terms that they can't even see so

[00:02:17] they don't even know what they're advertising on.

[00:02:19] Is this similar to when Google Analytics, you know, back in the day, Google

[00:02:23] Analytics, you'd be able to see every keyword, everything that came in. And

[00:02:27] then one day they just basically deleted all of them and put them... What was

[00:02:32] the key word they use? Like not provided or not available or something?

[00:02:35] Like all of a sudden all of them disappeared. Is this kind of the

[00:02:37] same thing on the ad side?

[00:02:39] It's a similar kind of idea. I'm not familiar with the specifics of

[00:02:42] the Google Analytics example. But in the last, I'd say five or so years,

[00:02:47] Google has become much more conscious of user privacy, thinking about

[00:02:51] privacy thresholds. Another example of this is back in 2017 or so, you

[00:02:57] could advertise to people based on words in their Gmail inbox. So you

[00:03:02] could keyword-based advertise based on the emails people had. You cannot

[00:03:06] do that anymore.

[00:03:08] Was it effective though? I mean, privacy issues aside.

[00:03:11] Highly effective. The clients I worked with at Google who used this, you

[00:03:15] could advertise to people who you know were getting emails from your

[00:03:17] competitors. There were lots of really creative ways to use that when

[00:03:22] Gmail's were their own separate campaign type. Now Gmail has been

[00:03:25] brought under the umbrella of demand and a performance max. So you can

[00:03:28] use audience targeting. But it's not quite the same as targeting ads

[00:03:32] based on what people have in their inbox.

[00:03:36] Is it unfair for me to call this a scam? Like Google has you

[00:03:40] paying ostensibly to advertise on searches that you pick, but you

[00:03:44] can't actually see those searches?

[00:03:46] Yeah, there are definitely folks in the industry who especially after

[00:03:50] all the news Google has had recently about the way they may

[00:03:54] have misled SEOs or the DOJ case about bid floors and things. So

[00:03:59] some people think like, oh, which is the way to get you to

[00:04:01] advertise on garbage and ignore your negative keywords. We

[00:04:04] have no way to prove or disprove that. What I can say as someone

[00:04:07] who worked there is like, that's not the Google I know. And I

[00:04:10] think on the whole Google does intend to do right by its

[00:04:13] advertisers. Is it because of privacy or some other reason? I

[00:04:17] don't know. But if you're someone who has not checked your

[00:04:19] search terms report in a while, or maybe you have but you've

[00:04:22] never scrolled down to the bottom to see that other

[00:04:24] search terms line, you're gonna want to check, you know, I

[00:04:27] was on a coaching call yesterday. And my client,

[00:04:30] actually their other search terms performed way better than

[00:04:33] their search terms. So you know, not so concerned

[00:04:36] but then a client call I had last week, their other search

[00:04:39] terms performed way worse than the search terms we could see. So

[00:04:43] it's definitely worth looking into and ultimately you have to

[00:04:46] rely on something like your bid strategy to guide Google

[00:04:50] whether it's search terms you can or can't see towards the

[00:04:53] outcomes you want to achieve.

[00:04:54] I wonder if this is in the long run, a good thing. Because

[00:04:58] you know, like, I mean, one of those sort of debates, I

[00:05:01] think in the digital marketing space is that when AI first

[00:05:05] entered the media buying space, it was terrible. Now I think

[00:05:09] most people have accepted that, you know, AI, especially around

[00:05:12] targeting, especially around generating audiences, much less

[00:05:15] so on the creative side. But, you know, the targeting part has

[00:05:18] actually done pretty well. And I, you know, I'm not as familiar

[00:05:22] with Google as I am with Meta. But I would say most senior

[00:05:24] Meta media buyers have said that it actually performs a

[00:05:28] little bit better than when the marketers got their hands,

[00:05:31] you know, the human has got their hands in kind of

[00:05:33] micromanaging stuff. Is that, do we see that in this kind of

[00:05:38] big mysterious lumped other search terms?

[00:05:42] I guess yes with asterisk. So like, yes, the automation,

[00:05:45] whether it's optimized targeting or the search terms you

[00:05:48] can't see or running a Pmax campaign, like yes, the AI

[00:05:52] and automation can do better targeting than humans if

[00:05:55] given the right information. And that's the gap that I

[00:05:58] think, you know, Google product managers have a blind

[00:06:01] spot around. Because in many cases, with your small

[00:06:04] business owners or your small budget accounts, you know,

[00:06:07] they don't have the correct data feeding in or complete

[00:06:09] data feeding in if you're a lead gen advertiser, you may

[00:06:12] not have the full funnel leading in, you may not have

[00:06:14] conversion tracking set up, you may not be sharing

[00:06:16] first party audiences. So when all those foundations of

[00:06:19] the account are in place, the AI has the data it

[00:06:22] needs to drive good results for you. But so

[00:06:24] frequently for so many different reasons, we don't

[00:06:26] live in an ideal world. And so you don't have all

[00:06:28] those fundamentals in place. So the AI doesn't have

[00:06:31] the correct data to work off of. And as a result,

[00:06:33] it's not able to drive the best results for your

[00:06:36] business. So I don't think that's Google's fault. You

[00:06:38] know, AI does exactly what we tell it to do. But at

[00:06:41] the same time, it's not the business owner's fault

[00:06:44] either that they can't properly implement these

[00:06:46] things that are really complicated.

[00:06:48] Yeah, fair. Okay, Joe, thank you.

[00:06:49] Thank you.

[00:06:50] Joe Saskin Gales is our Google ads correspondent.

[00:06:52] She's here every second Wednesday. You can learn

[00:06:55] more about her Google ads training program at

[00:06:57] our affiliate link at b.link slash GA training.

[00:07:06] New data from Bright Edge confirms what we reported

[00:07:09] yesterday that Google has quietly pulled way back

[00:07:12] on its AI summaries. Those summaries sit at the

[00:07:15] top of the search results page and were the big

[00:07:17] star at Google's recent IO event. But since

[00:07:20] launch users found it giving nonsensical and

[00:07:23] sometimes dangerous answers. And marketers said

[00:07:25] it was all but plagiarizing their web pages

[00:07:28] with only a tiny credit link. Google responded

[00:07:32] by saying essentially working as intended and

[00:07:35] blaming media outlets for reporting on outlying

[00:07:37] searches that don't get a lot of queries. That

[00:07:39] said, clearly the attention spooked Google

[00:07:42] with Bright Edge finding that now fewer than

[00:07:45] 15% of queries have that AI overview on them.

[00:07:50] Compare that to when they rolled it out. That

[00:07:51] number was almost 85%. So when do the

[00:07:55] summaries show up now? Bright Edge says

[00:07:57] there are a few things that make it more likely

[00:07:59] for them to trigger. There are almost three

[00:08:01] times as likely to show up when featured snippets

[00:08:04] are also on the page. They're also more likely

[00:08:07] to show up when the search query is a question.

[00:08:10] As for what keeps them away, so far questions

[00:08:12] about local topics or businesses are the

[00:08:15] least likely to have AI overviews and site

[00:08:18] links are also less likely to trigger an AI

[00:08:21] overview, presumably trying to keep the risk

[00:08:23] of providing inaccurate information about brands

[00:08:25] down. Bright Edge also looked at how often

[00:08:28] AI summaries now show up based on industry.

[00:08:31] 63% of keywords in health care will trigger

[00:08:35] an AI overview in B2B tech. 32% of keywords

[00:08:39] will in e-commerce. 23% restaurants and

[00:08:44] travel tend to barely show any.

[00:08:51] It's going to cost more to use the popular

[00:08:52] marketing platform HubSpot, the company

[00:08:54] announcing higher fees for payments

[00:08:57] processed through their commerce hub. It'll

[00:08:59] also increase its surcharge on payments that

[00:09:02] go through Stripe. Specifically, the current

[00:09:05] HubSpot clearing fees are 0.5%. That's

[00:09:08] moving to 0.8%. The commerce platform

[00:09:11] itself was free. Not anymore. It will have

[00:09:14] an additional 0.5% fee to use it. And if

[00:09:18] you're using Stripe, you'll of course be

[00:09:20] paying Stripes fees plus HubSpot's

[00:09:22] surcharge, which moves from a half

[00:09:24] percentage point to three quarters of a

[00:09:26] point. There is a way to hold off this

[00:09:29] increase a bit if you are using HubSpot

[00:09:31] payments by June 20th. They say they will

[00:09:34] push that fee increase back a year for

[00:09:36] you. To mother updates, a new vertical

[00:09:38] sidebar navigation replaces the old top

[00:09:41] drop down menus, which might make it

[00:09:43] easier to navigate. Users can now add

[00:09:45] up to four custom fields to invoices.

[00:09:48] They've introduced navigation bookmarks

[00:09:50] so you can keep most of your frequently

[00:09:52] used tools close at hand. For email

[00:09:54] metrics, HubSpot now separates bot

[00:09:57] included and bot excluded metrics, which

[00:10:00] should provide a more clear picture of

[00:10:01] actual human engagement. And leaders

[00:10:04] can now manage approvals directly from

[00:10:06] their mobile devices and super

[00:10:07] admins are gaining more control over

[00:10:10] feature release timing.

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[00:11:58] marketing. That's D Y N A D O T

[00:12:03] dot com slash marketing. YouTube

[00:12:06] continues to hand out features that

[00:12:07] used to be locked behind minimum

[00:12:08] subscriber counts and this latest

[00:12:10] escapee could be a pretty solid

[00:12:12] tool for your brand's social media

[00:12:14] efforts. In addition to videos, you

[00:12:16] can also post text updates like you

[00:12:18] might on Facebook. They're called

[00:12:20] community posts on YouTube and you

[00:12:22] can add polls as questions get

[00:12:24] comments from it that kind of thing.

[00:12:26] Previously, you had to hit a

[00:12:26] subscriber count threshold. Now

[00:12:28] YouTube in its weekly update video

[00:12:30] says that soon everyone will have

[00:12:32] access to it. These posts show up

[00:12:34] on the subscriber feed and

[00:12:36] occasionally in the main feed.

[00:12:37] Users can also find them on channel

[00:12:39] pages under the community tab.

[00:12:41] This might take a couple of weeks to

[00:12:42] get to all accounts, but it is on the

[00:12:44] way. They've also revamped the

[00:12:45] research tab in YouTube Studio

[00:12:47] Analytics to provide some

[00:12:48] recommendations for new video

[00:12:49] ideas. They've also renamed that

[00:12:51] tab from research to inspiration.

[00:12:54] One of the elements there will be

[00:12:56] what they call breakout videos.

[00:12:57] These are videos from similar

[00:12:58] channels to yours that have

[00:12:59] performed well. There's also a new

[00:13:01] kind of inspo search engine there

[00:13:03] you type in a topic and it'll

[00:13:04] spit out some ideas based on what

[00:13:06] it thinks your viewers would

[00:13:07] respond to this new inspiration

[00:13:10] tab should now be available to

[00:13:12] everyone everywhere except the

[00:13:14] EU, the UK, Switzerland and

[00:13:16] India. YouTube says it's planning

[00:13:18] to get it global soon.

[00:13:24] Microsoft will be moving all your

[00:13:26] smart shopping campaigns to its

[00:13:28] version of performance max in the

[00:13:29] next few months. If this is

[00:13:31] something you want to do now for

[00:13:32] some reason you can force the

[00:13:33] update by looking for upgrade to

[00:13:36] performance max under edit.

[00:13:38] Microsoft says all the related

[00:13:40] bits should stay the same set

[00:13:42] up reporting performance history.

[00:13:43] All that should carry over.

[00:13:45] What won't carry over though is

[00:13:46] your campaigns learning data.

[00:13:48] The company says you can expect a

[00:13:50] new learning period to last up

[00:13:51] to two weeks after the move.

[00:13:54] A few other small updates their

[00:13:55] ad platform now speaks Thai

[00:13:56] Turkish Korean Russian Dutch

[00:13:58] and Filipino as we reported

[00:14:00] yesterday video and connected

[00:14:02] TV ads are now in their ads

[00:14:03] editor including Netflix's

[00:14:05] inventory. You can now use

[00:14:07] generative AI to create an edit

[00:14:08] graphics for your display ads

[00:14:10] and they have started putting in

[00:14:12] some audiences specifically

[00:14:13] honed for the upcoming Olympics.

[00:14:20] If you've ever tried to get your

[00:14:21] website compliant with privacy

[00:14:23] legislation you'll know it's a

[00:14:25] lot harder than it seems.

[00:14:27] Do you use the European version

[00:14:29] with its buttons or the American

[00:14:31] version with its don't use my

[00:14:33] data link and which

[00:14:35] American version the California

[00:14:37] one do you even know the

[00:14:38] differences.

[00:14:40] The interactive ad bureau recently

[00:14:41] released what it hopes will be

[00:14:42] a standard a new dated

[00:14:44] deletion request framework

[00:14:46] quoting Martek quote it lays out

[00:14:48] how to validate request

[00:14:50] origins ensure request or

[00:14:51] authenticity confirm receipt

[00:14:53] and employ cryptographic

[00:14:54] signatures for authentication.

[00:14:57] Its solution for handling data

[00:14:58] deletion requests means the

[00:15:00] framework aligns with the right

[00:15:02] to delete a data subject

[00:15:03] right protected by the GDPR

[00:15:05] 16 US state privacy laws

[00:15:08] and additional privacy

[00:15:09] legislation including Quebec

[00:15:12] law 25 unquote.

[00:15:14] The Martek piece noted it's a

[00:15:15] little frustrating to see the

[00:15:16] private sector having to step

[00:15:17] in when this is something

[00:15:18] governments could create and

[00:15:20] mandate.

[00:15:21] The IAB says they can provide

[00:15:23] implementation support and

[00:15:24] guidance from their tech lab

[00:15:25] team.

[00:15:27] That is it for today.

[00:15:28] I'm Todd Maffin.

[00:15:29] Thanks for listening.

[00:15:30] See you tomorrow.

[00:15:34] This is the story of the

[00:15:36] wand as a maintenance

[00:15:37] engineer he hears things

[00:15:39] differently to the untrained

[00:15:40] ear everything on his shop

[00:15:42] floor might sound fine

[00:15:44] but he can hear gears

[00:15:45] grinding or a belt slipping

[00:15:47] so he steps in to fix the

[00:15:49] problem at hand before it

[00:15:50] gets out of hand and he knows

[00:15:52] Granger's got the right product

[00:15:54] he needs to get the job done

[00:15:55] which is music to his ears

[00:15:57] call click Granger.com or just

[00:15:59] stop by Granger for the ones

[00:16:02] who get it done.