Jay Leonard
I’ve been managing Google Ads (formerly AdWords) accounts for close to a decade now. I’ve witnessed the evolution of Google Ads. I have been through several expansions and helped clients navigate and manage what use to be a pretty simple PPC platform.
I begrudgingly forced myself to play with the new Google Ads dashboard as the old version slowly sank into the digital abyss. It was a fun ride with the old Google Ads dashboard. Thanks for the memories.
It took me some time to get use to the new dashboard as I was conditioned to using the old version for so many years. Google tempted me with having some exclusive features you can only use in the new dashboard, like call bid adjustments.
It worked.
Ultimately, I think the new Google Ads dashboard has a better user-interface and is an overall better experience than the old version. It does seem to be a bit slower for me, but I digress.
Changes like this can be good. It may take us a while to adjust, but change is necessary in an ever-evolving digital marketing landscape. Adapt or get left behind, right?
One change that I have noticed over the past few years that I will not get use to is the increased aggressiveness of Google Ads reps.
As a Google Partner who gets assigned a new rep every quarter, I get bombarded with calls weekly from reps wanting to help me with accounts. They send me emails with suggestions on specific accounts. Sometimes, these emails are exactly the same with only the date of the email and client accounts being different. When a new feature rolls out, the emails come in hot and heavy.
Increasingly, I have clients who will forward me emails from Google Ads reps asking me to review them and give my thoughts. I say increasingly because the number of emails my clients receive has been increasing. I’ve seen emails from Google Ads reps asking clients for permission to make edits in their account. This use to never happen and represents a pretty big shift in the role of Google Ads reps.
Google is increasingly trying to play more of a role in the day-to-day operations of Google Ads accounts. But, is this a good thing? Do we really want representatives from one of the world’s largest profit-driven companies to play an even larger role in how we run our Google Ads accounts?
For me, the answer is absolutely not. I say that for a couple of reasons
Conflict of Interest
I believe there is too much of a conflict of interest. Google Ads is the “cash cow” of Google. The more money we spent in Google Ads, the more money Google makes. Google Ads reps are a part of this and they have an incentive to get people to spend more money.
After speaking to many reps over the years (I have since stopped answering their calls), reading countless emails, it became clear that a bulk of the recommendations involved some sort of account expansion. Whether it was through keyword suggestions or bid adjustments, many of the suggestions centered around making sure you don’t “miss out” on getting your ads in front your target audience… or anyone who may potentially have some vague interest in your product or service at some point now or in the distant future.
Often times, these types of “recommendations” require you to spend more. This is why I say there is a conflict of interest.
With that said, I’ve seen good recommendations come from these reps, but it’s not enough for me to pick up the phone or recommend to clients to even listen to Google reps.
They Don’t Know Your Goals
I have yet to hear a Google Ads rep give me recommendations based on my client’s CPA or ROI targets. None of the emails my client’s forward to me have CPA or ROI-specific recommendations based on their goals. Increasing reach and clickthrough rates are nice KPIs to monitor, but at the end of they day people need to make money with Google Ads.
If a Google rep does not know your target CPA or ROI goals, then how can they give you proper recommendations that will help you optimize your account to meet and exceed your goals?
The answer is, they can’t.
One Last Thing
Without being aware of it, many people just give the reps the benefit of the doubt and an unwarranted level of trust.
“Well, they are from Google. They should know how best to help me. Right?”
Please don’t think like that. It can get expensive for you.
So, if you are a business owner who continues to get hounded by Google reps, I would think twice before picking up the phone. Don’t blindly implement their suggestions. Don’t assume they have your best interest in mind. And, don’t blindly trust them just because they are from Google.
Read more: What Should You Do When a Google Rep Calls?
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Jay Leonard.
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Nick, I agree that the Google reps are contacting you and me in an effort to get us to increase the spend. However, when they call I take the call. I do it because the changes keep coming at very fast pace, and I have learned things from the Google reps that have helped me in managing my clients accounts.
If they make a suggestion that has the potential to increase results, but I’m a little leery, I’ll implement the change on one campaign or ad group, then monitor to see what happens. If the results improve, I’ll make the change on other campaigns.
When I say results, I mean actual lead flow, because you are right that the reps don’t understand ROI. They pay lip service to the idea, but the reality is that they aren’t business owners and the ones I’ve spoken with never have been.
We owe it to our clients to be engaged with Google, if for no other reason than to know if the reps are giving us good guidance or poor guidance.
I’ve been managing PPC for 16 years. The reason they call is because getting you to make changes to your client accounts is how they get paid, period. That was the original “GoogleGate” (long before the James Damour thing) that Google has since made disappear. A rep who thought he hung up the phone got caught on an advertiser’s answering machine admitting that he had to get the client to turn on an extension in order to get paid for that advertiser. Google brushed it off as an errant, outsourced rep but that’s exactly how they operate. And they don’t care what your contact settings are. If there’s a buck to be made, they’re going to harass you. And yes, it’s absolutely a conflict of interest. Virtually everything they suggest is to get your clients to spend more money or give more control over to Google’s automated features. And yes, they have no idea what your client’s goals are, whether it’s ROAS for retail clients or CPA for lead gen. I once had a rep threaten me with, “You don’t want me to go to your client and tell them you’re not interested in improving their performance, do you?” because I didn’t want to implement her (Google’s) suggestions. Back when they were new, I had multiple reps suggest call extensions for clients that don’t have phone support and location extensions for clients who don’t have brick and mortar storefronts. I’ve had to explain to at least 30-odd reps that I’ll consider alternate attribution models from first or last click only after Google decides to make the sum total of attribution for a conversion add up to “1” (which I think they finally did after years of manufacturing false conversion counts with other attribution models). They have cost Google Ads advertisers billions of dollars since Google started the cold calling rep program well over a decade ago and the account “recommendations” tab is just an automated version that same program. “Really Google, if I add a bunch of broad match keywords I’ll convert more? Yes, I suppose if my client’s goal were to spend $10K to make another $1K, that might be sage advice, but considering the objective is to make money…”.
Someone needs to file a class action and if they do, please contact me because I’ve documented about a decade’s worth of their abuses. In fact, I’m writing this comment two-and-a-half years after the article was written (nice article, Mr Bennet) because I just had my third Google rep call today and I am so sick and tired of it that I thought I would search to see if I’m not alone in my absolute disgust with them.