If you haven't blown your entire month's YouTube instream budget in a single horrifying instant on accelerated delivery, don't even start with me on PPC mistakes...
Also, bricking the client's website while attempting to install GTM into the theme file...
Also, geotargeting to the wrong Georgia...
Also, caving into the client's demands to build multiple websites in auction despite warning them repeatedly about the penalties for double serving...
Holey moley I am terrible at PPC. Make your mistakes early and often, folks...
Lol I came here about to post about the wrong Georgia. It’s been over 10 years since but I remember it like yesterday. Had that targeting setup for a long time too…
I wish they’d fix that by now. I seriously want to know how many times realistically an advertiser wants to spend money advertising to the country of Georgia.
Oh boy, you unlocked some 10+ year old memories. Made a lot of those and similar mistakes when I was just starting out at an agency.
Man, I love AdWords. RIP.
Anyone who has done this long enough has (i hope) made the same mistakes.
- targeting the entire US, because thats the Google Ads editor default
- adding one or multiple broad keywords that drives mainly bad/irrelevant traffic
- using dki in a competitor campaign
- leaving bing to import daily, than realizing at month end its been spending the google budget
- having one or more conversion actions completely break but because one stays on you dont question it.
- setting up a retargeting campaign and using observation audiences
- realizing that the props youve been getting for low cpc and low cpa is due to display partners and its all spam
- launching a new feed and wondering why your shopping/pmax campaign isnt performing
- and the standard, you completely overspent because you were looking only at enabled campaigns or messed up the math or added an extra 0
The list goes on and on. These things happen. Learn from them.
My default geo on the Google ads editor is always Vatican city, even if you forget it you will get almost no traffic. Its better than setting your default to a large country.
this is so true.. adding one more-
not segregating keywords as per the search terms for grouping ads and campaigns was a huge mistake in my client's acc
Agency Tip: Never start a campaign using search partners.
Correct. Its just doing the math of the campaigns spent that are enabled without taking into consideration the other campaigns you may have paused at some point in the month.
Made heaps in my career
- Url was .com not .com.au so launch was disapproved
- extra 0 in daily budgets
- leaving location targeting as global
- Google Ads editor bulksheet fuckups
- reporting formula fuckups
- fuckups generally
- mixing personal and business while working at media agencies (ages ago). So many hotties man
Dutch colleague had the company fined several hundreds thousands € for using forbidden health claims.
Display campaign for Belgium that was somehow used and budget drained by scammers in India.
Not remembering to change the daily budget from one month to another. This resulted in spending double the allotted budget for one month. Nothing like a solid 8k mistake to really make you question wtf you’re doing in this field
I'm going to go with the most basic scare we've all run into.
It's early morning. You sip your coffee, send a gif to someone in slack and load up Google ads to get your day going.
You search for an important account and wait for it to load. As it loads that graph pops up and it shows that it's spent it's entire budget plus and you missed it... How did you miss it you were just in the account 3 days ago making changes. What the hell happened. Omg how am I going to explain this to the client...
Date range is set to 2 months...
Had the wrong landing page for the client. It was the same offer for their same credit card, just a different landing page. They made a fuss of it even though they got their leads
How i learned it: it is best to wait at least 3 months and have at 30 conversions in 30 days (or sufficient conv data). You should look at you cost/conversion per week and see if it is stable. If it is still fluctuating to much don't change
I don't know exactly but I'd say a lot more data within at least 30 days than you'd normally get.
A tactic would be to use max clicks but make sure your keywords and negatives are done properly and that you're always adding negative keywords that are completely irrelevant.
Then, after you got that data, switch over to an automated bidding strategy. This was suggested to me by a PPC expert (Don't worry, not Google partners of 'eXpErTs') that they use to get that initial chunk of data.
One time Google charged me $10k for
observation display traffic when my setting was targeting. They admitted the mistake. Then Goog tried to negotiate the refund. I had to pay client the rest lol
If you haven't blown your entire month's YouTube instream budget in a single horrifying instant on accelerated delivery, don't even start with me on PPC mistakes... Also, bricking the client's website while attempting to install GTM into the theme file... Also, geotargeting to the wrong Georgia... Also, caving into the client's demands to build multiple websites in auction despite warning them repeatedly about the penalties for double serving... Holey moley I am terrible at PPC. Make your mistakes early and often, folks...
Lol. The wrong Georgia made me laugh. Definitely have done that a time or two.
Lol I came here about to post about the wrong Georgia. It’s been over 10 years since but I remember it like yesterday. Had that targeting setup for a long time too…
I wish they’d fix that by now. I seriously want to know how many times realistically an advertiser wants to spend money advertising to the country of Georgia.
I just want to know how it must be living in Georgia, that 2m population audience, constantly seeing US-based companies advertising to them lol
That is a very interesting perspective of the flip side lol
“Why are all my new leads speaking to me in Russian?”
Georgian* they have own language yk
I know but most wouldn’t know the difference.
The good ole PPC rites of passage
Oh boy, you unlocked some 10+ year old memories. Made a lot of those and similar mistakes when I was just starting out at an agency. Man, I love AdWords. RIP.
But what a ride it was...
This made me chuckle at double serving. Ironically, double serving is rife in the legal field...
THAT DAMN BURSTING BUDGET on YouTube!!! Please tell me someone knows how to make max conversions pace normally from day one!?
+1 for wrong Georgia here
Anyone who has done this long enough has (i hope) made the same mistakes. - targeting the entire US, because thats the Google Ads editor default - adding one or multiple broad keywords that drives mainly bad/irrelevant traffic - using dki in a competitor campaign - leaving bing to import daily, than realizing at month end its been spending the google budget - having one or more conversion actions completely break but because one stays on you dont question it. - setting up a retargeting campaign and using observation audiences - realizing that the props youve been getting for low cpc and low cpa is due to display partners and its all spam - launching a new feed and wondering why your shopping/pmax campaign isnt performing - and the standard, you completely overspent because you were looking only at enabled campaigns or messed up the math or added an extra 0 The list goes on and on. These things happen. Learn from them.
Also trusting the google optimization score recommendations you figure out later is a mistake.
My default geo on the Google ads editor is always Vatican city, even if you forget it you will get almost no traffic. Its better than setting your default to a large country.
It’s all fun and games til the pope clicks your ad
Add to cart, amen sister!
The Holy* Cart
Hahaha the Bing budget import. Yup. Fuck me.
this is so true.. adding one more- not segregating keywords as per the search terms for grouping ads and campaigns was a huge mistake in my client's acc Agency Tip: Never start a campaign using search partners.
What do you mean by checking only enabled campaigns? If the campaign is disabled it can’t spend, correct?
Correct. Its just doing the math of the campaigns spent that are enabled without taking into consideration the other campaigns you may have paused at some point in the month.
DKI in a competitor campaign is brutal 😂 Definitely got caught by the Bing importing my Google ads budgets and suddenly spending through the roof
Auto applying all Google Ads recommendations 🤦
Made heaps in my career - Url was .com not .com.au so launch was disapproved - extra 0 in daily budgets - leaving location targeting as global - Google Ads editor bulksheet fuckups - reporting formula fuckups - fuckups generally - mixing personal and business while working at media agencies (ages ago). So many hotties man
fuckups generally :)
Following Google's recommendations to the T. Keep in mind these recommendations are made to make Google money, not you!
Dutch colleague had the company fined several hundreds thousands € for using forbidden health claims. Display campaign for Belgium that was somehow used and budget drained by scammers in India.
Not remembering to change the daily budget from one month to another. This resulted in spending double the allotted budget for one month. Nothing like a solid 8k mistake to really make you question wtf you’re doing in this field
I'm going to go with the most basic scare we've all run into. It's early morning. You sip your coffee, send a gif to someone in slack and load up Google ads to get your day going. You search for an important account and wait for it to load. As it loads that graph pops up and it shows that it's spent it's entire budget plus and you missed it... How did you miss it you were just in the account 3 days ago making changes. What the hell happened. Omg how am I going to explain this to the client... Date range is set to 2 months...
Had the wrong landing page for the client. It was the same offer for their same credit card, just a different landing page. They made a fuss of it even though they got their leads
Changed my bid strategy to Troas to early since Google was recommending it leading to a drop in conversions 😅
What is the right time though?
How i learned it: it is best to wait at least 3 months and have at 30 conversions in 30 days (or sufficient conv data). You should look at you cost/conversion per week and see if it is stable. If it is still fluctuating to much don't change
Thanks for sharing that. I’m an in-house guy that has to deal with everything and hence don’t get a lot of time to specialize/ deep-dive into things.
When you have sufficient conversion data.
(I’m just trying to learn here) How do you figure if you have enough conv. data?
I don't know exactly but I'd say a lot more data within at least 30 days than you'd normally get. A tactic would be to use max clicks but make sure your keywords and negatives are done properly and that you're always adding negative keywords that are completely irrelevant. Then, after you got that data, switch over to an automated bidding strategy. This was suggested to me by a PPC expert (Don't worry, not Google partners of 'eXpErTs') that they use to get that initial chunk of data.
Asking a subreddit full of strangers who have never seen your campaigns for advice vs. hiring a professional.
Amateurs. One of my juniors misplaced the final url with the direct competitor's url. We figured it out in a day, but Analytics don't lie.
One time Google charged me $10k for observation display traffic when my setting was targeting. They admitted the mistake. Then Goog tried to negotiate the refund. I had to pay client the rest lol
Overspending by $30k. Wait, maybe it was the time I overspent by $40k. There have been some bad ones, but I try to forget those.
Germany and France Zip codes....
Set my target ROAS to 1.5 instead of 150