TPE #109: 6 powerful Google Ads lessons I learned on our podcast
Sep 30, 2024Read time: 4 minutes
GM, Miles here with a special edition of The PPC Edge.
Over the last 9 weeks, I’ve released 8 episodes of The PPC Mastery Podcast.
And on Wednesday, I’m airing the season finale (with none other than the legend Mike Rhodes, who blew my mind with his insights on how to leverage AI in PPC).
Today, I want to reflect on the top 6 lessons I have learned from interviewing 9 awesome guests.
(And that’s exactly why I love hosting interviews on my show: because just like you, I also get to learn from smart, like-minded people).
I consider myself to be a good Google Ads Specialist…
But in these interviews, I put on my “humble noob hat” who just wants to learn and is open to new perspectives (no ego).
And in today’s newsletter, I’m sharing my 6 key takeaways, to help you become a better Google Ads Specialist.
Let’s dive right in, shall we?
Lesson 1: is Google price fixing auctions? (John Moran)
PPC legend John Moran came by to discuss how he recently exposed big problems with Google Ads data.
He found out that his CPCs got inflated when he scaled his ad spend, and showed proof.
My mind was blown and got me wondering: is Google truly price fixing auctions?
He shared his solution:
- Kill conversion tracking (he used YouTube Engagements).
- Gauge performance with third-party attribution tools.
- Use Manual CPC to take back control.
And he shared proof of how Google’s algorithms tend to favor existing traffic before going for incremental growth from colder audiences.
Please note that I do not recommend testing this unless you know for 110% what you’re doing and why.
John is a smart man and understands the game on a deep level.
He does a LOT of pre-work to determine whether or not he should use this “kill conversion tracking and use manual CPC” strategy.
If you haven’t already, definitely check out the episode to get your mind blown:
Lesson 2: Demand Gen has a lot of potential (Thomas Eccel).
Thomas Eccel has become a good PPC friend of mine over the last year or so.
I was blown away by his depth of knowledge about Demand Gen campaigns.
This conversation opened my eyes on the power of this campaign type, which for some reason doesn’t get talked about much on LinkedIn.
Did you know:
- Demand Gen learns on the AD GROUP level (which is different from all other campaign types)?
- Therefore, Thomas recommends only using 1 campaign (consolidation is key here too).
- And Thomas uses Meta audiences and data to improve his Demand Gen performance (so that it learns faster), smart!
As a little bonus, he also shared his CustomGPT called “PPC Support and Strategic Advice”. I love it when people build awesome tools!
I think Demand Gen will see a huge uplift in adoption in 2025, as Google has announced that YouTube Video Action campaigns will be migrated to Demand Gen.
Interesting times ahead — and now is the time to get familiar with this still relatively underused campaign type.
Catch my episode with Thomas here:
Lesson 3: Google Ads CAN work with small budgets (Geert Groot).
You guys LOVED this episode (and so did I)!
Geert Groot is a legend: he works with 100+ small accounts and his approach to Google Ads and client management is different from most people:
- He only works with small, local clients.
- He doesn’t send monthly reports.
- He knows how to drive results with limited funds.
So I asked him how, and he gave me his unfiltered best practices on how to grow clients with limited budgets, and he said you need to “focus on relevance”:
- A small set of hyper-relevant keywords (mostly Exact Match).
- A strong landing page.
- Relevant, local targeting.
- Manual CPC to take back control.
- Use scripts to stay on top of results.
- And a LOT of negative keywords.
In his words: “keep it simple and don’t overcomplicate things”.
What’s interesting about Geert’s approach is that he ignores pretty much every modern-day best practice. Everything he does, is with his Dream Clients in mind (local small business owners).
If you have clients with limited funds, you’ll love this episode. Catch it on:
Lesson 4: want to scale 20x? Look beyond Google Ads (Niklas Buschner).
Where Geert showed us how to get results with limited budgets, Niklas Buschner (CEO @ Radyant) went the other route and talked about how he scaled a Lead Gen client from €28K to €550K in 1.5 years.
That’s insane scale… So I analyzed his case study and came to the following conclusion:
If you want to make real impact and grow a company super fast, look beyond just Google Ads.
After laying the foundation with a well-optimized account, he took it a step further that most PPC Experts:
- He set up Offline Conversion Tracking and actively steered on Qualified Leads (instead of just all, low-quality, spammy leads).
- OCT also helped him gain insights in Closed Deals (aka the real value of Google Ads).
- He took control of the landing page and optimized it for his client.
- He implemented his Local Search Strategy (creating a combination of hyper-relevant keywords, ads, and landing page copy).
In addition, Niklas shared that “you need to learn to speak the language of your client”.
In this case, that meant getting familiar with and steering and reporting on the metrics and goals that his client cared about.
Generally speaking, that means more Qualified Leads, more Closed Deals, and more Profit.
A super inspiring conversation if you’re into scaling! Catch it on:
Lesson 5: Search has changed a LOT (with Bob Meijer).
I loved having Bob on the show twice. The first episode was about “Modern-Day Search”, aka best practices for Search campaigns in 2024 and beyond.
Here are a few of my key takeaways:
- Consolidation is the key to success with Search (simplify your structures).
- RSAs kinda suck because you need way too much data to make them work.
- Broad Match is not as bad as people say it is, but you need to run controlled tests (Bob shared examples of when it worked, and when it didn’t).
This conversation is full of golden nuggets for both Lead Gen and Ecom accounts that run Search campaigns.
Watch it here:
Lesson 6: AI is a huge opportunity when used correctly (Mike Rhodes).
Spoiler alert: Mike Rhodes is coming on for the season finale this Wednesday!
In a super inspiring conversation, he shared his vision on how to leverage AI with Google Ads (even if it’s not perfect yet).
Some of my personal takeaways:
- It’s super easy to build scripts and PPC tools with ChatGPT.
- You can also leverage AI for analysis and ideation (for ads).
- Mike uses a creative way to brainstorm together with AI, as if it was his personal assistant.
- AI is changing faster than anything else. So even if it hasn’t worked for you up until now, try again in 3-6 months. It will have been upgraded significantly by that time. And to be honest, you may have been using it all wrong to begin with.
In Mike’s words: “AI is going to change things much faster than people think.”
And I agree with the sentiment. This inspiring episode is full of gems.
Catch it Wednesday on our YouTube channel and Spotify!
Get ready for the season finale (and more episodes).
Quick note: I didn’t mention 2 other great episodes:
- How to optimize Google Ads for profit (with Frederik Boysen from ProfitMetrics).
- The latest Google Ads news & trends (with Adriaan Dekker).
With that said: get ready for the season finale on Wednesday. Mike Rhodes stops by to inspire you on how to leverage AI as a Google Ads Specialist.
In addition: I’m already planning the next couple of episodes and have fantastic guests lined up to talk about:
- How to get ready for peak performance on Black Friday.
- How to get results with Google Ads for B2B Lead Gen.
- Google Shopping best practices.
- Insights from an agency CEO.
- … And so much more!
Don’t wanna miss anything? Subscribe now!
I will continue to release new episodes every Wednesday on our YouTube channel and Spotify.
And lastly: thank you for all your comments and feedback. Your kind words motivate me to create more high-level PPC content for you.
And of course a massive thank you to all our fantastic guests!
Are there are any topics or guests you want to see on the show? Let me know by sending an email to [email protected]!
And that’s all for today — I hope you liked it.
Have a lovely week and catch you later!
Cheers,
Miles (& Bob)
