We are a podcast and we love podcasts so we are very happy to have one of the co-hosts of Marketing O’Clock – Greg Finn. Recently Marketing O’Clock and this very podcast were listed on SEJ’s Top SEO Podcasts – so thanks to them for listing both of us along with some other great shows.
The final straw for Greg and the where the guys started to dig in is with the following image and tweet:
The 74% score bump that set Greg off was for Google Shopping. The discussion turned to the issues with this type of recommendation.
Google Partners Badge & Status
The partners program in 2020 was to require agencies to maintain 70% scores but it has been pushed back to 2021. For Greg the issue is that to keep in the Google Partners Program agencies will need to keep a certain score but so often to do that goes against the best interests of the client.
So what are agencies to do? Help sell for Google or protect the client? The recommendations so often go against what will drive ROI
Pros to Google AI Recommendations
While it was difficult to get some Pros to the recommendations from Greg we did get a couple of suggestions and ways it can help:
- Search Partners – maybe there are times where it does make sense as something to do that you missed.
- If you are running out of budget on a campaign so raising the budget is something that makes sense.
- Missed site extensions sometimes we miss in campaign/ad group creation. Just in general it can be helpful to catch things we miss but it is so rare.
- Automated bid according to Greg maybe outdoes manual by 50-60% but to rely on the automation 100% the time just isn’t the best for most accounts either.
If nothing else the recommendations can show you things to try and test so even if you don’t hit apply, take a look and maybe test out or experiment with some of the recommendations.
Cons to Google AI Recommendations
Raise your budgets. How is that a good suggestion for a client? A company has a set budget and usually approval for an entire quarter or year – an agency or PPC Manager can’t just go and spend more in 99.99% of the times it is recommended.
Greg talks through just how bad the UI and recommendations can be where there was an instance that instead of Apply This Change, it was a button to Apply All 116 Recommendations – why would Google do that and why would someone blindly say yes to such a thing??
Many times the AI doesn’t understand the business and keywords. In one example a pest control company was told to target “computer mouse” – not sure how that would help a pest control company.
Another note about the optimization scores is from Mark: I love that how a 100% optimization score when taking on a new client is usually a red flag.
Greg’s Suggestions for Google Ads
Instead of just turning something on, what if there was a button to create an experiment with a recommendation and test it with X dollars for Y days.
Use automation and AI to leverage experiments and how things react in a way that won’t tank an account, relationship, campaign or someone’s job.
Full Transcript
Matt Siltala: [00:00:00] Welcome to another exciting episode of the business of digital podcast, featuring your host, Matt scintilla and Dave roar. You guys excited to have everybody join us on another one of these business of digital podcast episodes. And, uh, I believe we have Dave over there. How’s it going, Dave? I am here and now today, guys, I just want to introduce a very special guest, a friend of mine, Greg Finn.
How’s it going, Greg?
Greg Finn: [00:00:27] Fantastic. Hey Matt. Hey Dave.
Matt Siltala: [00:00:30] You know, we were talking before, just before we started recording, it seems like it’s been forever since we’ve hung out in real life. And it probably has literally been a couple of years, Greg.
Greg Finn: [00:00:40] I know, I really miss that with the in-person conferences. It’s it’s, Twitter’s great.
You can still sort of keep in touch, but it’s just not the same as in-person.
Matt Siltala: [00:00:48] Yeah, absolutely. And the thing that’s even crazier is this last year, you know, 20, 20, we don’t talk about, um, the, the year that shall not be named, but, uh, um, it just was a blur [00:01:00] too. And so it’s like you think about like, You know?
Oh, it was a year ago since I saw someone. No, it was actually two years ago because 2020 was just this blur, but it’s just weird.
Greg Finn: [00:01:09] I know. It’s crazy. Well,
Matt Siltala: [00:01:10] anyway, I do appreciate you joining us. And before we really jump into anything, I’ll let Dave go ahead and, uh, And, and, and do the intro as far as what we’re going to talk about with you.
Well,
Dave Rohrer: [00:01:21] Greg can do the full intro. I mean, he does have a lot of, can I say people should be listening to
Matt Siltala: [00:01:26] why don’t you, you just give us a little bit of a, uh, you know, just an intro, Greg, where you want us, you know, where people can find you, how people can listen to you because. Uh, you have your own podcast as well.
And, uh, we’ll just go from there, man.
Greg Finn: [00:01:39] Yeah. Great. Thanks. So I’m Greg Finn. I am a partner here at Cypress North and agency in Buffalo, New York. The podcast that you so gracefully mentioned is marketing a clock. It’s actually on the search engine journal network. So if you follow a search engine journal on YouTube and you check it out, we put a podcast on once a week.
You know, you guys do a fantastic [00:02:00] job giving tactical information. We kind of just joke with the news. So it goes hand in hand. So people want to learn. They can listen here and if you want to laugh, we got a couple over there.
Dave Rohrer: [00:02:09] Well, you guys covered a lot of stuff. We just can’t cover. So like you guys cover everything that’s happened every week.
So it’s very timely. Ours is more of the, you know, evergreen, I guess the big topics. Yeah. I mean, I listened to you guys whenever I’ve had questions about, when did that come out and what was it like? I will go back and dig through your, your archives and dig into it and listen to you guys. Just talk about something.
So while I’m working and have question, sure. I can read it, but for me, it’s handy to just listen to you guys, even jokingly about it. It’s fun. But to listen to you guys, talk about, you know, whatever, whatever Google’s unleashed that day or Facebook or Instagram
Greg Finn: [00:02:52] or someone talk or rant and scream. Do you mean
Dave Rohrer: [00:02:56] we may do that from time to time too.
Like, we will literally [00:03:00] just have a title. Hold a placeholder. Just Matt rant. Dave rent. Yeah. Buckle up folks. Very very true. This may be a rant and I’m also on December 3rd and much, much. Thanks to Mr. Roger Monte. Both of us were listed as top 17 SEO podcasts to listen to in 2021 congrats guys. So it made sense to have you as our first guest, since I do talk to you a lot.
Greg Finn: [00:03:25] Awesome.
Dave Rohrer: [00:03:27] Um, but what we’re actually going to talk about that people might care about, um, is one of Greg’s favorite things to rant about on Twitter. And if you have no idea and you completely didn’t read the title, it’s basically Google ads and their optimization score. We’re going to talk other stuff.
But, um, I think you’re, and I already talked about it right before we said anything December of 21st, you already, you know, This is truly too much, um, 74% optimization [00:04:00] score, um, hit to your, you know, to your client and you, because you didn’t switch to smart shopping campaigns.
Greg Finn: [00:04:09] Yes. And
Dave Rohrer: [00:04:11] I think as like, just a perfect example of just how crazy that score is.
Greg Finn: [00:04:16] And there’s a lot to unravel with this because I am, I work in an agency, Cypress North as an agency. We’re also a Google partner. And back in the day, uh, having a Google partner status really sort of meant things, right? You had a directory that people could search and, and let’s say you’re just a client out there and you’re looking for a good, a good agency, like any of ours that, that could, you know, manage those spends right.
You could go to Google partners and search for. The area and find a directory of, you know, reputable agencies or partners. Right. Um, and so that meant a lot back in the day and people. I mean now really it’s used as [00:05:00] quite frankly, a sales tool for Google. If you go in there and you look at what they’re trying to do, it’s like you need more international business, get new clients.
It’s like things, I didn’t know I needed any of that. Um, but for the partners, there was a big change there. Um, and that’s, that’s one of the kind of underlying things with the optimization score where in 2021 here, if you want to keep your partners badge. You are going to have to hit a specific score. Um, and that is one thing that I just don’t agree with.
And then, you know, going through accounts and you can see that this will really make that partner’s program even more of a sales tool for Google ads. Right? If you do like that egregious example of me that I showed where that client, um, had a 26% optimization score. To get to 70 take to get, to add that 74%.
I had to do smart [00:06:00] shopping campaigns. If I hit that button, I would lose that client. Right. Like I would lose that client and our agency. And the funniest thing about that one example where they said you get 74%. If you, if you hit this. We’ve spent roughly 4 million, four and a half million last year. And the recommendation I give the client on spending on Google ads in 2021 here was near eight.
And I’m trying to get them to give more to Google ads because it’s working so well. And these recommendations do not go hand in hand with what the actual account successes. And it’s just there. There’s. At one point that that kind of flipped where Google used to work with people and really try like, like significantly to improve their business.
And like, that’s just not there anymore.
Dave Rohrer: [00:06:51] Let’s let’s flip it. Where, what recommendations do you see that come from it that you do actually like, like, do you ever [00:07:00] see any recommendations that come through the AI, you know, playing devil’s advocate that you’re like, yeah, that’s a good one. I’ll actually take a look at that.
Like, is there any good use out of it other than, you know, when it comes with the 74% for something that’s going to lose money for a client? If, if
Greg Finn: [00:07:14] you want the real talk, um, I don’t look at any more because it’s just kind of a waste of time for me. Um, when we bring a client on, we might take a look and see, like, maybe it can fast track some stuff if we’re doing an audit or something like that.
Um, you know, one of the, the, the real shifts that we’ve seen with Google over the past few years is. Kind of kind of going all in on automation. Right. And so that’s what you see for a lot of these, but, um, um, you can’t see me right now, but I’ll shoot you over a picture. Sure. This is raise your budgets as it was a really funny tweet that Joe Martinez, um, had put out where a Google rapid had reached out to them.
I can say that they’ve got a, he’s got a bunch of recommendations that will be beneficial to your account. And it just says, raise your budgets. So you get a lot of garbage like [00:08:00] that in there. It’s like, sorry, I can’t raise my client’s budget. Like it’s it’s I have what they have. They’ve already submitted everything.
They’ve got their budgets for the year. I can’t raise those. Right. Like, again, I will lose that client. And if I just listened to these things, now, there could be some things like, you know, maybe you’re you for very specific campaigns, you might add search partners. Like that can be cool. Um, if your, your campaign is ending at a certain time early and you’re running out of budget, like, and you actually have that, it could be helpful.
But there’s a lot of things that are really geared towards automation. Um, and, and again like that one example I had smart shopping campaign is completely different than what I am doing for that client, for that client. We’re going out, we’re prospecting the shopping campaigns. And I want that to be only on search and I want it to only be on Google search.
Right. I don’t even want search partners or anything. I don’t wanna be on Breitbart or anything. So like specifically, yes, I do smart shopping. All of a sudden that turns into remarketing. Right. So now I’m [00:09:00] up on YouTube. I’m on Gmail, I’m remarketing and that’s completely different. And I think a lot of these are, are these changes that come out.
They don’t really explain it that well. And many times they really try to push it. There was a great tweet from PPC, Rachel, on Twitter, where now there’s like one recommendation that might be good at the top. Right? Like it might be like, expand your hours or something like that, or consider different different time.
Let’s say. And instead of having a, uh, apply button for that recommendation, she had it where it said apply, and it says all 116 recommendations. So like everything else was hidden. Yeah. PVC swear to God. And so, you know, a lot of these things, I think they. Or a little tricky, right? Like they’re, they’re tricky.
And my, my, my, the thing I’m so sad about and why I rant about this all the time, because I love Google ads. I love it so much watch. And it’s like how to build a [00:10:00] company and employ people. Like it’s fantastic. And it means so much to me and seeing them like, take this really short term view for like, let’s hit these quarterly.
Okay. Ours, and let’s just get this done and really transform this wonderful thing. Into, like, how do we push this on people? How do we do this? I’ve talked to people that are Google, that were on the other side of Google before, um, you know, on the ad side and their compensation, isn’t based on client success.
It’s based off of programs that they are able to people into. And I just, it, all of this is like, as, as like a big Google ad Stan, like it just is, is saddening and, and I want it to be better and I just. I dunno if that’s, so that’s why I’m so passionate and fired up about this, but I really don’t feel like most people could go in there, especially anybody that’s a novice level in get much out of those recommended.
No,
Dave Rohrer: [00:10:59] I’m [00:11:00] looking at one of my other clients. It’s a reach additional customers on partner sites. Nope. Um, it’s only 5%.
Greg Finn: [00:11:08] Right. And, and again with that, they don’t say like, you can’t see every, like you’re right. And I think sear had a good article back in 2019 where they said we can’t 3,785, um, of the partner of Google partners and 3,785 of them.
Right. It was a, it was it’s. But if you don’t know that it, it, you might look at that. And then again, I’m, I’m always like, just critical. Cause it’s like. If you put that, that client, you’re talking about Dave into search partners, isn’t the Google experience. Isn’t the isn’t Google ads going to work worse?
Like why would you want that? If you’re, if you’re a Google ad and you’re an ad platform. Well,
Dave Rohrer: [00:11:51] and then also when it’s funny is that recommendation, we’re already hitting budget with them because we have a very limited budget and we’re already hitting budget. So right [00:12:00] next to it is like literally next to it is your ad stopped running on your busiest days.
You should up your budget. So wait, do you want me to spend more on partner sites and less on Google?
Greg Finn: [00:12:10] I know. I know
Dave Rohrer: [00:12:13] like, literally this is an example I’m looking at right now and that’s what it’s telling me.
Greg Finn: [00:12:18] I know it’s so perplexing as is Matt. I’m sure you’re like this as well. It’s like, let’s just make the best thing that we can, right?
Like, wouldn’t you do that instead of trying to like trick people and I don’t know, I just, it, it, it, it kind of, I don’t think that it’s fully aligned as to longterm success.
Dave Rohrer: [00:12:36] No. And sometimes there’s like, you’re, you’re missing opportunities because you know, you have a negative keyword. And sometimes I look and I’m like, well, that’s because I’ve set it up.
It’s not, it’s not a traditional, like single keyword, but there’s like weird things where, um, I don’t even know. I’m trying to think of like, We were targeting men’s shoes and women’s shoes. We wanted to make sure that, you know, we [00:13:00] didn’t have any women’s shoes because there was some, some that were crossover.
And we wanted to make sure that if someone screwed up and we, you know, put women’s shoes somewhere that, you know, just kind of covering our butt, um, maybe there was something, or there was something about schools or one of my other clients where we just wanted to make sure that a certain keyword. Went to another landing page that we’d seen convert better than this one.
So we put it in there and you know, of course at some point, um, you know, part of my 22% rate here, I’m sure is, Oh, Hey, you’re blocking these types of keywords that are showing up. And I’m like, but I already have another campaign. And other ad group that is targeting them. Why aren’t you showing those Google?
Greg Finn: [00:13:44] Yeah. And to that point too, um, a lot of the recommendations are going to make you perform worse, right? Like, like that. And, and example was one of my favorite tweets of 2020. I believe it was James Salvador or I think at real city on [00:14:00] Twitter. He was working for a pest, like an extermination company. And one of the recommendation re rec recommended keywords to put in, to add via the optimization score and Google recommendations was computer mouse.
And it’s like get more visibility at computer mouse and it’s like, well, that is a very, very, very bad example. And, um, I, I think the, the main, I know that I sound a little bit negative on it, but I think the main thing is from a marketing standpoint, you can see how, you know, as marketers we’re needed, right?
Like as good as Google is with all these, these different issues. It’s. You still need really good marketers to look at accounts and make sure ads are being that, that the ad budgets being spent. Well,
Dave Rohrer: [00:14:52] yeah, like the only time I look at the recommendations and I’m like, Oh yeah, let me look at this one. Um, is probably [00:15:00] like the extensions, like we’re in a rush, I’ll upload some new ones.
I won’t go through and add a bunch of site extensions. Um, or maybe I’d make, I don’t, I don’t double check and make sure that we have a phone number or something like that. And then that’s a great one. And then a couple of weeks later. Yeah. You know where we could, so later I’d come in and it’s like, Oh, Hey.
And I’m like, I might actually look at it, you know, just dismiss, dismiss, dismiss, dismiss. And then I’m like, Oh wait. And then I’ll look at it and go, Oh shoot. And then I say it I’ll do it later. And I’ll actually go. And, you know, later that day I’ll go and double check and I’m like, Oh shoot. You know, we didn’t ad campaign or ad group or whatever it was site linked.
So I’m like, okay, But that’s like one out of
Greg Finn: [00:15:38] 10. Yeah. It really is. And speaking yeah. Of those extensions, like I definitely see there may be some things in there that they could pop up for. You that’d be, that’d be fantastic. But again, I, my main thing is never hit that dismiss off. Speaking of the extensions, um, I’d have to find it.
It’s it’s uh, it’s an article on search engine journal. Mom. And somebody had tried to accept [00:16:00] 100% of all of the recommendations and they, that the short they, they weren’t able to do it. Right. So then one of the things was, it was pet cremation. Right? And so the example was that they’re proving all these things.
What happened is the overall success dropped, the spend increased, and they basically stopped when they got to the recommendation of putting price extensions. In on cremation services and putting like, say like, they’re like, that’s not tasteful, right? Like, we don’t want to talk about price on this. And quite frankly, like I don’t, I don’t disagree with that.
Dave Rohrer: [00:16:36] Yeah. I, I just, I, it doesn’t understand the business. It doesn’t understand your. When you sit down with a client and you’re like, so what are our goals for 2020? What are our goals for 2021? What are your goals for this quarter? Okay. So we really want you, you have this new product launching, you have this new service, you know, shoe, whatever, um, or a prioritization of XYZ.
[00:17:00] Okay. So we want to move budget from this, to that. We want to do more brand awareness. We want to do more of this. There is no understanding of that. It just looks at. You know what data it has and goes, Oh, Hey, you don’t have, you’re not spending enough money on this campaign. And you could be getting 20 more clicks when it doesn’t know that you’ve been told by the, the, your contact at the company or you work at a company.
And you’re like the sales managers walked over and said, we can’t implement anymore. The salespeople have enough leads for this week. Turned down budget, absolutely turned down, leads the easiest way to turn down the lead is not organic. It’s, you know, you turned down your ad spent,
Greg Finn: [00:17:43] right? Yeah. Totally. And it’s just, you, you, there’s no way to take, understand that nuance.
And then, you know, again, just, just to talk about some of those things, I think many people could do good. If they tried some of the automated bidding, we use it for many, many, many, [00:18:00] many of our campaigns, like for it outperforms manual. Probably maybe even more than half of the time, let’s give it, let’s give a credit.
Right. Um, I’d say probably outperforms a 55, 60% of time of what you can do manually for something like, uh, uh, target row as, or, or something like that. Right? Like there’s a lot of value for that. It’s just not concrete. Right. And, and that’s, that’s one of the issues that, um, some of the, some of the, again is a little bit lost with just accepting all these different, different items.
And then. Another thing that I think is a little bit disturbing is that with some of the automation that occurs, you don’t have as much data that comes along with it, which is again, you really valuable for marketers, but. Um, has kind of gone by the wayside with some of the new campaigns that are out there.
And Kirk Williams at PPC Kirk on Twitter had a great tweet last week, where he talked about automation, not equaling data loss. And he said, [00:19:00] we shouldn’t have to choose between supporting automation and exciting changes in marketing tech and losing access to important data. Those two things can stand together and someone expressing concern, re losing data.
Doesn’t make them a lot easier. And. That example I gave, if I switched things to smart shopping, I wouldn’t see any keywords. I wouldn’t see any placements. You basically, um, Kirk described it as a black hole. Like you just lose that data. And that is, to me, one of my fears with some of the continued push towards automation is you can have both, right?
Like why, why can’t we have both, we’re all adults here. Like we’re trying to make good decisions for clients and for our business.
Dave Rohrer: [00:19:40] Hey, PPC people welcome to the SEO world where Google takes all your day. Well, and that’s 10 years later laughed at us and now your data’s going away too.
Greg Finn: [00:19:51] Don’t get me. Don’t get me started on the search query report and the omitted results.
I saw
Dave Rohrer: [00:19:57] someone tweet the other day saying that they [00:20:00] actually had a keyword that converted, that they bid on that was being admitted.
Greg Finn: [00:20:07] Brooke. Uh, Budsman I think from nor to click,
Dave Rohrer: [00:20:10] I, I was digging through something I just have, or I was at, happened to be on Twitter the other day, um, for good and bad. But, um, yeah, I just happened to look and I saw someone say that I’m like, Oh, good luck.
Greg Finn: [00:20:21] Yeah. She had 10 conversions in a given period. Um, two of them were attributed to the search terms and the other eight were insignificant. Imagine that, that those are 80%
Dave Rohrer: [00:20:33] of her keywords that converted were insignificant.
Greg Finn: [00:20:35] Oh, yeah, the conversion for insignificant terms insane.
Dave Rohrer: [00:20:40] And so when Google and your Google rep calls you and says, we need to up budget and you’re like, I would, if I knew what I was spending on that was converting, I would find a whole lot more money on these eight keywords.
They are.
Greg Finn: [00:20:51] That’s the thing is, I think there’s, you know, a sincere disconnect where, you know, there’s so much value that is being used [00:21:00] with this data where. We see the information we’re able to spend more, right? Like if we’re running something that’s a modified broad match, uh, campaign term out there in a campaign.
And we find again, different packets and different things we might not have thought about before and take that, add that in, spend more help our clients make more money. Like that’s really valuable. And again, kind of headed towards the automation path, um, and, and losing that is just, it is. It makes Google ads less effective.
It makes our marketing less effective. Obviously there’s still ways around it, but it’s just, you know, I don’t know if the people that are building these and making these changes are actually using the actual tool.
Dave Rohrer: [00:21:44] I don’t have that many calls with Google reps because most of my clients are really small PBC.
So every so often I’ll get a new rep and they want to have a call. I can almost guarantee what the script’s going to be. And the very first thing is we walk through the optimization scores and [00:22:00] they start going down the list of what, where, why haven’t I turned on, you know, letting the AI run it. Why haven’t I turned on this?
Why haven’t I turned on that? And so anytime I know I have a call coming up with one I will go through and just dismiss everything. Just, you
Matt Siltala: [00:22:15] know, here’s another interesting facts that you brought that up. David makes me laugh. I can’t think of the amount of, I mean, there’s been so many times, and I don’t know if you’ve experienced this too, Greg, with, um, bigger budget clients, but there’s been so many times when we’ve talked with the Google reps and we’ve walked them through something and they’ve tried to show us something, but we ended up teaching them how to use their own product better.
And that’s what always blows my mind
Greg Finn: [00:22:39] a hundred percent. It’s insane. I, I was on a call with a Google rep, um, trying to get something done. I I’m on this kind of help side and they didn’t know what alphabet was, parent company word, but then I get Amazon on the help side of it. Wasn’t didn’t have a rap, but it, I [00:23:00] mean, it’s, it’s really deprioritized, right?
Like I think a lot of that is very much so, um, The support and the reps it’s really, if you gave them a truth serum, it would be a sales move. Yeah,
Matt Siltala: [00:23:15] totally.
Dave Rohrer: [00:23:17] Because like you said, that’s what the goals are based on the goals for the AI is to get you to spend more. The goals for the reps is to help you spend more.
The only time I, I get pings from the reps is when suddenly one of my PPC clients, you know, ups spend for some sort of campaign or something, or I start working with someone for short-term just to help clean them up, clean something up and they start spending more. And, uh, um, I get pinged about it like, Oh, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.
I’m like, yeah, there. No, just go
Greg Finn: [00:23:50] away. Yeah. And, and again, I, I don’t want to, I don’t want anybody to listen to this and think that a lot of the smart bidding is bad. [00:24:00] Again, it is very good. And there there’s even. Really awesome stuff within there. Like people don’t talk about the pay for conversion model in Google ads that they launched, I believe in 2019.
Um, but we have had clients that were in the event space that we’re not doing right now. Cause there’s no events, but cleaned up on being able to say, I will take a conversion at this price. Cool. Let’s run it. And then Google brings it in. You only pay that price. And to me, that’s really, really powerful, again, anything on e-commerce.
If there’s not specific nuance, we do B2B commerce. A lot of it when things do come through reps and we just can’t use it because it focuses so much on online transactions. But if you are just, e-commerce like target return on ad spend is phenomenal. Like that’s great. Target CPA can work. Fantastic. So. Um, a lot of these automations do make sense, but I would love it.
If the recommendations were like, Hey, we’re going to set up an experiment for [00:25:00] you. Right? Like, let’s try the experiment against what you’ve got and let’s make an experiment automatically for you. And it’s going to go against target CPA. And that’s your right. Like, I would love that. I bet. Oh, great. Let’s do it.
Dave Rohrer: [00:25:11] That would be awesome if it would, instead of, you know, here do this crazy thing to this, you know, campaign that if it tanks you’re getting, I’m getting fired, whether I’m in-house or an agency, um, why don’t we take 10% of the budget for the next two weeks and test it. Okay. I know. And that’s what you do it for me.
Cause then you’re helping me do it for me. You’re automating it for me
Greg Finn: [00:25:38] a hundred percent. And that’s, that’s really what you’re thinking is like, is, is AI, right? Like it’s like, or machine learning. Right. I know that let’s test it out and in the experiment. And so you can do with Google ads are phenomenal.
Like it is so beneficial to experiment and see how things work, how they react. [00:26:00] Um, and main thing we do is a different bidding types of experiments, and that would just be such a no-brainer help for. Agencies and any advertiser. Um, but that’s, that’s not in the case. And then many times, you know, when you do, if you do accept that specific recommendation, you perform worse, right?
Like let’s do a task inside. I would love that.
Matt Siltala: [00:26:24] So, um, so now that we’ve solved all of Google’s problems, Dave and Greg, um, how long you mean.
Dave Rohrer: [00:26:31] Yeah. All of those. I mean, there’s still an antitrust. I mean, they still got that problem.
Matt Siltala: [00:26:37] We, we can only give him so much of our time. Um, but, uh, any, any final questions or final thoughts for Greg?
No,
Greg Finn: [00:26:45] I, I sorry for the phone. I know it’s so ramped up on this topic. I don’t know. Do you have anything else for me?
Dave Rohrer: [00:26:51] I was going to say we were going to talk about other stuff, but Greg wasn’t mine when he’s like, I could talk for a week just on this and we’re like that sort of thing. Go for it. Yeah. Google three weeks.
I [00:27:00] think. Name one pro Greg, that you haven’t listed already about, you know, the, the recommendation stuff. And one thing you’d like to see changed other than the thing we just mentioned, if you, if you can think of something or anything else you want to talk, one other thing you want to talk about that we didn’t touch on for
Greg Finn: [00:27:20] this?
Yeah, I think, I think one definite pro is it. Shows you different things that can work well. And if you’re outside of an agency setting, you know, you might be used to doing something one way and just continuing it, but, um, it gives you an opportunity, like all these different flavors of things to try and test out and see.
Um, and, and that is something I think that that is very beneficial. Do I agree with what the recommending no, but to Dave’s point, the extensions is great. Like, people might not know that. So, um, for people that aren’t that experienced and don’t have, you know, a team of people to bounce ideas off of it’s, it’s [00:28:00] great for that.
Um, would I use a different tool? Yes. But if you don’t have any budget, then cool. Use that. Um, so I think that’s one, one really good benefit is it shows you different items to try. Um, now, if I were looking for something. To improve upon. I think one of my biggest concerns is when you use this optimization score and you hold it over, your head is almost a kind of negotiating tool and you start forcing people to, and, you know, like I mentioned very quickly at the beginning, if you want to keep a Google partner badge, you have to hit a 70% recommendation score one and 2021
Dave Rohrer: [00:28:39] does that start.
I know it was going to happen last year. And so I started looking at it and then they pushed it back and I went, okay. I don’t really care
Greg Finn: [00:28:44] today. All we have is 2021. That’s only mentioned.
Dave Rohrer: [00:28:48] So they pushed it back, I think was supposed to be August last year.
Greg Finn: [00:28:52] I believe it. Yeah, I believe it was summer. I forget the temper, they pushed it off and just said 20, 21 and it still gets pushed back to
Dave Rohrer: [00:28:58] this year, some part.
Okay.
[00:29:00] Greg Finn: [00:29:00] Right. And so if, if I just, I don’t think that that aligns with an agency providing value for their customer. If you’re out there hitting, apply all and applying these recommendations. So you can keep your little badge, count me out. I happily lose our Google partner status. Uh, I’ll kick it out the door, uh, and will not do anything to impact our clients.
And that’s the one thing that I think with this optimization scores, you may have to be careful if you’re using agency. See now and they, um, and let’s say it’s 20, 22. You know that they’re applying 70% of those recommendations. And I think that it’s almost could take this partner status as something good and take it as like, Hey, this is a Scarlet letter they’re doing Google’s bidding for them.
And then, you know, who gets the, the ax at the end of all this it’s the agency not Google because the agency, well, I was forced to make these changes to keep that partner badge. And that is something I’ve been [00:30:00] screaming about and nobody
Dave Rohrer: [00:30:01] cares. Yeah. Uh, actually I didn’t even realize he’s on, he’s one of the, co-hosts on your show now.
Uh, marketing, Mark. I love how a hundred percent optimization score when taking on your new client is usually a red flag.
Greg Finn: [00:30:16] It’s usually a lot to undo there and it’s probably like,
Dave Rohrer: [00:30:19] what did they turn on? So
Matt Siltala: [00:30:22] well, um, Greg, I do appreciate you taking the time and, and, uh, chatting with us. I really, you know, it’s been great listening and.
Yeah. I mean, side note, you know, it’s been great catching up with you, but it’s been great listening and, and hearing all the, your insights and what you have to talk about with us. So I appreciate you being on.
Greg Finn: [00:30:39] Thanks. It was a blast. I hope, I hope I didn’t lose you too many, too many listeners with my whining.
Dave Rohrer: [00:30:44] I’d also like to point out that of all of the football teams, all three of us follow mine is the only one that’s in the playoffs. So I don’t know what, so now’s a good time for us. So I don’t really know what’s in store for 2021 because that’s just
Matt Siltala: [00:30:57] weird. Yeah, [00:31:00] you’re going to be out this first round, Dave.
Dave Rohrer: [00:31:02] So, uh, we’re playing the saints. We’re D we’re doing also, when this comes out, we’ll, it’ll be right after that game. So yeah.
Matt Siltala: [00:31:13] All right guys. Well, for Dave roar and Greg fin, I met and we appreciate everybody and we’ll catch you on the next.
Dave Rohrer: [00:31:19] Thanks. All right. Thanks Greg. Bye.