By now, you probably think you know everything you need to know about Google Ads; you know the different platforms and probably even some of the configurations used in your campaigns. But here is the thing, Google Ads is a fastly evolving platform; it has always been, and by the time you get familiar with it, it will grow into something else.
On May 27th, Google hosted Google Marketing LiveStream, an event dedicated to share and promote Google Ads latest development and changes. Some of them are coming into effect immediately, and some others just high-level concepts that will not go into effect soon, but essential to keep in mind as it is where Google Ads is heading. The faster your law firm gets on board with the new stuff, the more likely you will beat your competitors. In this week’s conversation, we review everything your law firm can leverage and should keep an eye on after this year’s event.
Google Marketing LiveStream is not the only recent event that has impacted your law firm’s digital marketing strategy. Earlier this month, Google went through a core update which is the first out of two expected in the next two months, so tune in to hear more about it.
Resources mentioned in our episode:
- Google Marketing LiveStream 2021: Takeaways for Law Firms
- 14 Major Takeaways from Google Marketing Live 2021 For Brands and Advertisers
- Google advice on improving your site’s ranking for future core ranking update
Send us your questions at ask@incamerapodcast.com
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Liel: [00:00:00] On May 27, Google marketing, Livestream took place, and whether you watched it or not, it will affect your Google campaigns at some point. I’m Liel Levy, co-founder of Nanato Media, and this is In Camera podcast, where we see first-party data as the best data. Welcome to In Camera private legal marketing conversations, Grace. Welcome back. How are you today?
Grace: [00:00:52] Good. How are you, Liel?
Liel: [00:00:53] I’m good, Grace. Thank you. Very busy, just like you are. Not only not too busy to have a conversation like we always do every week, right?
Grace: [00:01:01] That’s right. That’s what we’re here for.
Liel: [00:01:03] Yeah. This time is sacred and nothing can get in the way of it. Grace. So, Grace, here’s what I had in mind right over the past few weeks. We’ve had quite a few guests and some amazing conversations with them. But during that same period, important events took place, at least for those who are involved with the Google ads every single day of our lives and the work that we do. And so this event, Google Marketing Lifestream, is kind of like the event of the year where news and updates as to where Google acts as a platform is headed to. Right. And this took place on May 27. And because we were actually having another conversation with a guest attorney, we did not really had a good opportunity to dive into what is it that we actually learned from the event, Google Marketing Lifestream. So I thought maybe you and I could have a quick revisit at some of the main points that we’re shared. I think when I say main points, it is also important that I note that this would be the points that are kind of relevant for marketing to law firms. Right. Because as you very well know, a lot of the topics and innovations that were announced, a lot of them are around the industry of shopping and in-store visits and that sort of thing. And that’s great, but it’s not very relevant for us. So we’re also going to be focusing here on the things that are more relevant to legal marketing. So how does that sound?
Grace: [00:02:38] Sounds like a plan.
Liel: [00:02:39] Excellent, Grace. So I think, you know, as we were having our conversation to prepare for these, one of the things that we both know, this is how massive the focus was on everything that has to do with privacy. Right. I think that, you know, Google made it very, very clear that it’s taking a proactive approach towards adapting the platform to be able to coexist in an Internet that has put privacy protection the main focus of users. So I think they’re very aware that if they don’t take more a more proactive approach to bring solutions to the table before regulation start falling on them, they’re probably going to struggle, just like we saw a little bit Facebook struggle last month when pretty much Apple put up restrictions on them. Right. And so I think Google does not want to be told by Apple or by governments what they are cannot do, at least not as much as they could potentially get told. What do you think?
Grace: [00:03:57] Definitely. I mean, you know, in legal we’re lucky in the sense, right, that we are used to regulations and we understand the ABA handbook, you know, the American Bar Association handbook for advertising and privacy and requirements that we have within our own industry. Right. I mean, you know, in marketing, just regular digital marketing. We have our own advertising rules that we buy. So for us, it’s not a huge shift in that sense, but it is a huge shift in the I think the thought and understanding that things do change and they can change pretty regularly. And I think that’s kind of what Google’s trying to say and correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like that’s kind of what they’re trying to say is like get it done before it becomes a problem potentially. And these are the things we’re doing to get it done before anybody has any issues.
Liel: [00:04:48] Yeah. So a lot of the things, Grace, are adaptations for them to be able to, as I’ve said, coexist within the existing regulations now and also a lot are innovations around still being able to provide data to provide a way to apply attribution and measure results, but within the confinements of data protection rights. So, for instance, one of the features that they announced was conversion modeling, the consent mode, which actually basically allowed tag manager to analyze data in a slightly different way than it would if the advertising wouldn’t have user consent. But if they do have user consent, then they can apply tags in a slightly different way, get more data. And these as a whole has proven to increase conversions by a few points. So, you know, these are actually good improvements that are making Google ads, relevant and useful platform, despite the limitations that are coming and could come to the United States also in the rise of privacy protection as a central element in the way that we use digital platforms. So, Grace, that kind of was a blanket statement because I think a lot of the new updates that we’re going to be talking about now are going to have a privacy update and side to it.
Liel: [00:06:22] Now, here’s one that I think was interesting is a very, very interesting update that really called my attention, because even though it’s been around since 2015, there are now really allowing you to use other type of data that you already have to actually try to find your target audience or your right audience. And that’s the expanded eligibility they added to customer-match. So before Grace, you could you were able since 2015, you could add email addresses to campaign so that Google could actually find users that are similar to those users associated to that email account and run ads towards that segment. Right. And so that’s great. It’s, as I’ve said, very similar to look like audiences that Facebook has. Now, what Google is doing now is it also allows you to use customer phone numbers and addresses as a way to actually find look like audiences. And so you’re not only limited to two emails, does that make sense?
Grace: [00:07:35] It does. It gives you more options. Right.
Liel: [00:07:39] Correct. It gives you a way to actually be able to create lookalike audiences by using other data that you have that you may have not been able to use before. You may not necessarily have had email addresses for some of your lists of either leads, contacts, whatever that is. And so now using other information, such as phone numbers or addresses, you could actually create other audiences. Now, Grace, these I can see it again, you know, like with everything that has to do with Mass Torts, it’s where you’re trying to speak to the general market, but at the same time, try to narrow down the audience to try to find who are going to be the most relevant users that are going to find your messaging applicable to them and then want to take action. This is good. This is a good way to experiment with that. Right. There is not going to be one hundred percent a one size fits all sort of solution. But this gives you an opportunity to experiment and it’s one hundred percent worth it. I don’t think necessarily it’s applicable for all types of cases, but I do feel that when you are targeting particular audiences that you would segment based on demographics. This could be actually a very, very useful and potentially powerful way to build lookalike audiences. But inside the Google platform. So that’s expanded eligibility for a customer much grace. Another one that I liked is the YouTube and displayed touch points, which now include in data-driven attribution models. So great. This one needs a little bit technical, but to try to make it more simple for people to understand, you’re going to see more granularly when people have interacted with your ads in both YouTube and display and see how that was part of their user journey, disregarding if their conversion happened after actually having seen a display or YouTube ad or if the YouTube and display interaction was just one touchpoint on a sequence of steps that then converted somewhere else in a different platform.
Liel: [00:09:59] And that’s something that it was not available before. And so I think this is going to be a way that, again, you’re going to be able to further understand where your users are actually seeing interacting with your ads. And I think this is a good reminder that the consumer journey can rarely be captured on a single channel. Right. And so now that you have a way to be able to see the journey across different platforms is actually very, very effective. Now, I’ll tell you something at our agency, because we use lead tracking software aside of what Google ads gives us as an option for tracking users we can actually monitor quite a few of these touchpoints and interactions, visits to the website, to landing pages and then be able to see the entire user journey even after conversion as they continue coming back and visiting sites and such. So that’s a really good thing to be able to do this from within the platform. And it’s always good, even if you’re already doing this through other tools and software solutions to have always both of them running simultaneously. So you can do side-by-side comparisons just to make sure that nothing is missing. And you have as many data points to actually reassure yourself that things are working as you’re intending them to work. So what do you think about that? Because I know you’re a big advocate on tracking in multi-touchpoints processes.
Grace: [00:11:42] Yeah, I mean, that’s all we do, right? Especially on the Persist software side where we constantly tell people, look, you cannot attribute one method for which the person is actually going to be contacting you. Right. So that’s what we always call attribution. And in marketing, we understand what that means implicitly. We know that, OK, I walk into a store, I might walk into a store, but nowadays I’ll probably see an ad that pops up on TV or I’ll see then I might go on my phone and look at something and then, I don’t know. Something else pops up a month later and it reminds me about that thing I saw a month before. And so now I’m going to go on their website and then from their website and I actually walk into the store. If it’s a store or if it’s a law firm, I might walk into their firm to talk to them. There’s so many different methods to get to somebody that we need something that can help us actually attribute along the entire cycle of a person’s journey to us. Right. To your firm, to your website, to whatever. So, no, I definitely agree. I’m glad that they’re able to kind of come forward and give us some more tools to work within the regulations, within the privacy requirements and all of that. So, yeah,
Liel: [00:12:57] One hundred percent, Grace, particularly because YouTube is becoming such a powerful platform. Right. Such a powerful venue to actually market and target. And so you want to make sure that you can get as much data from there. And also understand that the conversion journey, particularly on display in YouTube campaigns, can be a lengthy one, can be one that has multiple touchpoints, and they could all be actually on the same platform. So as granular as your data of what’s happening inside these platforms is the better A, not only are you going to be able to make results, but then optimize your campaigns. Right. And so that’s actually, I think, great, great features that are going to be very relevant. Now, Grace, the next one, I cannot explain how exciting and even though it’s theoretically like a small thing, how meaningful it will be to actually have these added up to search ads. And that’s image extensions. Grace.
Grace: [00:13:54] So I admit I got excited when I saw that.
Liel: [00:13:57] Yeah. And I’ll tell you what’s even better, we’re already using it with several accounts. It’s right now on BETA. But as Google partners, we already get access to some of these features and it works beautifully. And it is showing to increase the click-through rate. And it makes all the sense of the world, Grace, because while all of the other ads on the search network let me backtrack a little bit, because we were already super excited here talking about what the benefits of using these are without actually having to explain what it is. Right, exactly. So on your search ads, those ads that show up after you search something on the search network on Google, you traditionally only see text in some extensions like hyperlinks and that sort of thing. Right. Maybe opening hours may be a cold now, sort of button, but what image extension does is it actually adds an image to your search ad. Now Grace, what happens when you add the image to the search ads now or of the sudden your search ads look like a Local service ad, right. And so those local service tot’s that are so much sought after, particularly in the personal injury world, are now very unpredictable. I think we’ve heard a lot of stories from law firms that either are getting tremendous benefit from them, but some other law firms and others are more competitive markets are having a big-time struggle trying to get impression’s through them. And so with these new image extensions, while you’re not actually getting to be seen there with the LSA ads, you can still get shown on the search network.
Liel: [00:15:41] But you can make your ad look like analysts say it gives you the visibility, the prominence. You can show the face of the attorney. You cannot just that whatever picture you want right at Google still right now, that is particularly in BETA. It’s not an automated process. As a matter of fact, you submit the photo and Google manually checks it and after data approve it, then they allow it to run. And so that actually gives you that possibility of showing the image within your ad. And here is a nice thing, Grace, is that not all advertisers are going to be allowed to show their picture at the same time. It’s only going to be, as far as I can tell, so far, I’ve only seen it one at a time. I never see it in more than one advertiser. But even if it were to be two advertisers at a time, you are still one or two out of four. And so, again, it is very likely to increase your click-through rate. The one thing that it’s super important that everyone understands is that you do not control when these extensions show up, you just activate them, add them to your ads. But Google then ends up deciding who gets to show them and when. So you just need to add them and let Google do its thing. And most importantly, don’t get frustrated and don’t give a hard time to your agency or your coolants manager because you’re not seeing the extension of the image every single time that you’re searching for your ads, because it’s not intended to be shown every single time that you are searching for your own name or your own ad or whatever it is the case so that you can see it.
Liel: [00:17:29] Google will show it to users that Google feels and predicts that are likely to find that image useful. And so that’s one of the considerations to have this regarding Grace by the limitations that the extensions have as a whole. I think this is amazing. I think out of all of the extensions that have come out over the past few years, I think this is really the most exciting one that I can think of and relevant for a law firm. Right. How much difference does that make, having the picture, the actual face of the attorney, how much guesswork goes right there when you’re an actual law firm to try to stand out in the search network, differentiate yourself from the lead generation companies and the actual law firms? And so I think this is going to be a big move towards that direction. I think the other the only other thing that could compete with these four law firms would be seller reviews, which are available already. But there just have so many limitations around them to actually enable showing reviews on the ad itself that are almost not worth the while of a law firm to put all of the efforts and resources to actually activate them. But an image extension, it couldn’t get easier than that. What do you think, Grace?
Grace: [00:18:47] No, that’s great. I mean, you know how many times we talk about using video and pictures and people want to see who they’re hiring. I mean, they want to know who they’re going to be working for them. They want to know who my attorney is. And I mean, even like I mean, if you think about just regular brands. Right. And people want to know who they’re talking to. Yeah. You walk into a retail store, are you you’re buying because that’s a place that you know and you’re familiar with. But if you walk into a store and somebody is helping you, you’re buying from that person. Right. So I’ve always told people that there’s always the element of personal selling. And if you can add images, you need to have images. And with this image extension, I do feel like it’s going to change the game. And especially I mean, now you’re telling me that you’re already using it in BETA since your Google partner, I mean, and you have really good metrics. So if you’re telling me that it’s really just changed the game, at least for you, that tells me quite a bit on the side of everyone else. Right. If you can start using image extensions, it’s going to make a difference.
Liel: [00:19:53] Totally, Grace. And so there’s going to be also some experimentation to do with this tool, right? Well, nobody’s forcing you. To actually show image of an attorney or the head of an attorney, of course, that’s the first one that comes to mind because it’s effective. Right. And how do we know if it’s effective? Well, that’s what Google is doing for LSAs. And so I think that could as a cue. We’ve already started experimenting with other types of images, but it’s going to be interesting, right? I mean, what people are going to do, how they’re going to use it, what they’re going to try to put out, are we going to at some point start seeing pictures of the car accidents on the search page results? I doubt it. I don’t think that’s what Google is intending to use that extension for. I think what Google is trying to do here is to provide a visual asset to the users that could help them in their decision-making process. And so I think while it is worth trying and testing, different things like we always recommend is always good to already see what converts, what’s considered a good practice, and not reinvent the wheel when there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Grace, let’s move on to the next point, because we still have a couple of them to cover, and that is demand forecasts. Now, Grace. This one, there is the actual explanation of what demand forecast is, which seems to be more targeted towards shopping campaigns and commerce campaigns so that Google is trying to predict potentially. And I’m just going to use a simple example here, that, hey, you know, it’s October and we predict that over the next 90 days or is going to be a huge increase in interest with everything that has to do with holiday decorations. Right. And so Google is going to actually give you some data as to how it will, you know, how search volumes are going to increase, how many transactions are going to be taking place over the platform? We’re not too sure what exactly the data that they were going to be sharing with the demand forecasts. But what I’m hoping these transitions into this opens up a door for it to also become a way, a forecast of search volumes, because we right now have historical data of what search volumes are over a period after that period is behind us. But how amazing would it be to be able to predict, Grace, for instance, what the search volume for the paraquat lawsuit is going to be in the next 90 days? Right. And while it’s still a forecast. Right, we all understand that forecast is a forecast. It’s based on is based on your current data and on trends that are happening now that can get disrupted by other events that are not being accounted for. Right. But still, it could be such a powerful tool to try to understand what is the potential that something may have.
Liel: [00:23:12] Right. I think Google would be ideal, of course, for putting out this type of reporting because nobody has the amount of data that they have. Right. And with the amount of data that they have from past activities and with all of the power of their algorithm, I think they could very well potentially come up with very accurate predictions of what the search volumes could be for certain search terms in certain markets. And this is exciting. I think this is exciting. I think it could also be a double-edged sword, right. Because it could also put a disadvantage, smaller players, when all from the sudden there’s prediction that certain things are going to get a big momentum and then bigger organizations, bigger budgets can then become more active and increase on their budgets, on their bids, on whatever it is that they’re doing to capture that prize. I don’t know. It can be seen for potentially manipulating markets. I don’t really know. Well, the politics and legalities that would come into play here when it comes to Google predicting their own forecasts. Right. Maybe it’s not a 100 percent ethical, but that I think it’s one of those tools that it would be so wonderful to be able to have these data. So not necessarily the update that they’ve announced, but one that would be amazing to have.
Grace: [00:24:41] Again, you know how I am about forecasting and data and analytics. I love it. So if we can have a way to forecast the next 90 days of Paraquat, you definitely believe I want that. And so, you know, that’s kind of what we all live on, you and I both. Right? I mean…
Liel: [00:24:58] Totally.
Grace: [00:24:58] And for your agency, like, I need to know and I kind of ran always did run my own tests, right. Where like, if you’re a partner with Google or you’ve worked with Google for a long time and you have certain special things that they give you. Right. You get access to data and you get access to some of the testing stuff that I don’t think everybody gets right. Yeah, I always had to run my own tests and I would use a small budget. But even using a small budget, you use up money. Right? So if we can again, we know that forecasting isn’t always 100 percent accurate. And it’s called forecasting, not exact science, but it’s darn close. And that will help everybody, especially someone like you and me. Right. Like I feel like that really help out the law firms to understand where things are going and what kind of research volume and figure out how much money they should be spending. On different thing.
Liel: [00:25:54] Totally. Grace, I think, you know, a forecasting tool from that standpoint, from Google could be very powerful. I think keyword planner is already full of advantages and no complaints there. Right? I mean, we’re already getting quite some powerful tools there. But, you know, other than the estimated search volumes that you can get from tools like ahrefs or SEMrush, you don’t really have anything that is measuring search volumes based on current trends and projecting what the search volumes are going to be in the future, you’re just kind of like half like based on historical data. These are the average search volumes per month. And so we anticipate that every month or months going to be the same and it’s not the case. So it would be very cool to see, kind of like the next generation of search volumes, predictions, Grace. I think there’s one more that is really worth mentioning here, and that is performance max campaigns. And I know this sounds very cool for name, and it actually is because it’s a fully automated campaign that Google is intending to use for, I think, primarily sellers in this case to simplify their process of launching a campaign that is not just limited to either shopping, to display to YouTube or to search this campaign can run in all platforms simultaneously.
Liel: [00:27:25] And it actually just makes it easier for the user to set up the goal, which in this case has to be lead-gen. OK, so potentially a form submission. And so I think this could be an interesting type of campaign to experiment with, just like local campaigns are, because they’re very cost effective. They give you a lot of impressions. There are allow you to be everywhere, right? Like places, like in maps, like in the maps app. And users do search and they do use it. And so these are interesting campaigns. They’re fully leveraging Google’s AI and automation. And so one hundred percent something to be on the lookout for this. Right. Give it a try. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. The other good news that I think tie into these days is that Google is very aware that their learning period for their automated campaigns is a little bit too slow, and so they’re saying they’re doing something about it, they’re trying to shorten the period and they want to be able to give an experience to advertisers where they can use automated campaigns and start seeing results faster. Right now, learning periods can be extensive. Grace, you could be couple of weeks, three weeks, one learning period, sometimes you were just three or four days on learning period.
Liel: [00:29:02] It really depends on what you doing and most importantly, how frequently you’re changing things. And so that’s so there is a lot of limitations to automation from that standpoint, is that the more you mess with the machine, the more you’re actually changing and making adjustments, the less likely you are to see your results. And so that seems to be something we’re going to have to stick on, like there’s no solution for that. But at least the learning processes that you’ll have to wait to actually start seeing, some results are likely to get shortened. And Google is aware that this is an inconvenience, that advertisers are not necessarily happy with it, that that’s one of the detractors that has put people in a place where many of them, continue to prefer run their campaigns in manual. We run a lot of our campaigns in manual or using our own automation scripts, but it’s primarily for other reasons, not necessarily because of the learning periods being too long or too slow, but we certainly hear and empathy with people that are just not willing to put up with a two week learning period.
Grace: [00:30:06] Yeah, you know, we, at least I always try to try out new software, new systems, new things. Right. Constantly three to 10 a month or as many as I can really do. So I yeah, of course I agree with you. I think that those are things that people need to do. They need to test and they need to try it out. I mean, it’s that’s all there is to it. Right. When it comes to anything new, especially from Google, you need to try it out. You have to test it. And if you don’t have anybody to do that, then hire someone like Liel because you have to do this like there’s no question anymore. Everyone is remote, COVID has made things even more privacy require and everyone’s information is going online. And there’s so many things.
Liel: [00:30:54] And I think Google is also trying to offer solutions for business owners that don’t necessarily want to rely on an agency already, can’t afford one from the get-go. And so local campaigns, performance max campaigns. These are campaigns that are intended to be like super simple to set up. It’s very simple to run. And so, again, there are options, there are opportunities for you to explore and to at least set up a starting point. So I think it’s not an all or nothing, but they’re certainly are some drawbacks in some of these automated campaigns still. And one of them is that it just still takes time for it to start generating results. Now, Grace, the last part that I want is just to touch on very, very briefly is that June and I think this summer is going to be massive in terms of algorithmic updates. Right. As a matter of fact, also, while we’ve been all joyfully having conversations here with lovely guests, we had a core update that initiated on June 2nd. It wrapped up very recently. And so far, this core update, Grace, has not been considered to be very big in terms of what updates are. It hasn’t been very volatile. But we also need to remember that this is the first update of two, the second one scheduled to happen next month in July. Right. And so, as I said, we know already upfront, we’ve already been told that summer is going to be a time of big Google updates and changes, because what we have happening potentially next week is also the page experience update.
Liel: [00:32:55] Right. Which we’ve been talking about already since the beginning of the year. And while the page experience update is not meant to create drastic ranking fluctuation, it is obviously expected to have an impact and plus the updates. So when you add it all up, there is going to be some interesting changes happening over the next few months. So as we always do, Grace, whenever we are talking about updates, we remind our listeners that, hey, I was in position number one last week and now this week I’m on position number four or six or I was bumped out to page number two or three. First of all, don’t panic after updates. Some volatile activity can happen and you can also resettle itself. So that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve done something wrong, but. What is always worth your while asking yourself is the questions to consider of why you could have been hit by a car update. And this is a list of questions that Google has on their website, which we will be linking on the episode note so you can revisit them and give yourself a reminder that it’s not always things that are in your control, but many times there are things that are in your control and that are most of times basic maintenance to your website and to your content. And so definitely worth having a look. So, Grace, a lot of a lot of things happening with Google this month, right?
Grace: [00:34:41] It’s like they woke up from a coma. Let’s get going.
Liel: [00:34:44] This is exactly Google is also taking their mask off and they’re ready for business. So we all need to catch up there in case we’ve been slow to get caught up with everything that Google’s been telling us over the past six months. So, Grace, let’s bring these to our takeaways. Right, because I think there’s a lot of things here to be excited about. And what do you think are three things that we can be exploring and looking at?
Grace: [00:35:13] So I’d say the first thing is and it should probably be the last one, but I’m going to make the first one because I say it all the time. Test, test, test, test, test, try things out. And like you said before, if you don’t have the money to do it, Google is making things easier. And they do really seem to want people to do things for themselves if they can. And they’re trying to be helpful.
Liel: [00:35:34] Oh, absolutely, GRace. Absolutely. Whether is your image extensions, what images you were going to use to try different things, measure the CTR for each one of your ads. You see what’s working best for you, right? Test with new campaigns, new ad types, whatever it is that you haven’t tried yet. It’s one hundred percent always worth trying. We did not mention it here, but there are ways that you can experiment in your ad campaigns without having to make dramatic changes into what you currently have established that’s already working for you. And so there are ways that you can still keep things as they are and just test things are kind of like separately without necessarily impacting fully your campaigns. So definitely worth exploring and thinking always about what could be done differently. OK, but with that being said, Grace, I do want to say one more thing. You know, Google, Google ads particularly. It’s not a flat line that’s always consistent. It has ups and downs. And when you’re in the high and when things are actually going very well, OK, sometimes it’s just best, ride the ride until it lasts. Right. When you actually having momentum, let that momentum last for as long as you can make it last, and don’t go crazy trying to over-optimize when you are on a roll because you may very well be hurting yourself in doing that. So my thing my message to people who are actually concerned now that they are having a great day or a great week in Google ads and they don’t want it to end, is that I’m sorry to say it will end OK. But what happens is that as soon as things flat out and as soon as you are on a downward trajectory now, that’s a good time to actually test and do different optimizations that could potentially. You’ve been entertaining. Right. And that’s just a little bit of the nature of the platform, the way it works. So, Grace, that’s I don’t know, can be a takeaway number two. Don’t over-optimize when you don’t have to optimize.
Grace: [00:37:45] That’s right. I mean, I consider that one point five, two and a three because it will change things constantly. And instead of changing one thing at a time and doing true what’s called split AB testing, they tend to want to change three things at once instead of seeing to make sure that certain things are working as opposed to changing at all. You know, at the same time, I’m sure you’ve seen this plenty of times where people are like, oh, why don’t we change the color of the button? Why don’t we change the layout of the page? And you’re like, OK, if you want to do that, you’ve got to do that one piece at a time to make sure you’re maximizing conversion rather than just changing for changing.
Liel: [00:38:25] Very important. Grace, I think another potential takeaway here is commit the time to let things actually run. Right. You know, if you’re going for one of these new campaigns, whether it’s local ad campaign or whether it’s performance makes campaigns commit at least 30 days. I know it sounds crazy. It’s maybe sounding like a lot of time, but let the campaign actually run for a full 30 day period. Particularly these fully automated campaigns. You’ll have no idea how much progress happens over that period of time. And even if you are at week number two and a half and three and you’re still not seeing results, still get to the 30 days, and you will see improvements there. I mean, guaranteed. And while it may not get to the point that you wanted it to be by week number four or five, it would have made a lot of improvements and it has the potential of getting better and better as you continue to invest time in optimizing that campaign and letting it run, but I think going into testing things out with 30 day test period in mind, I know we are all very impatient. We want to see results yesterday and we want to see data in just a few hours. But the truth is, is that machine learning does take time. And at the same time, you need to accumulate substantial data to actually be able to have something to measure. Right. Otherwise, you’re just taking really information that it’s not significant enough to make decisions. What do you think?
Grace: [00:40:23] You’re right. You need statistical significance, right? I mean, I’m a math nerd. So when it comes to, you know, making sure that your sample size, what you’re actually looking at and the data that you’re actually looking at is relevant for what you need and that there’s enough data to make a decision of some sort rather than picking and choosing what you want to see and what you think should be happening. Use data to actually determine what’s going to happen
Liel: [00:40:48] And also learn to understand what are the different types of decisions that require that statistical significance and what doesn’t. What are just things that, oh, here there is an error that just needs to get blocked, removed, or fixed. You don’t have to wait for five thousand people to see it and five thousand people to bounce out of your page or not convert from your ad or something to actually understand it. So I think there is things were that would be applicable times that you could actually very well pick up on things on a daily basis after just having seen a few interactions of users with your ads. So you don’t just have one approach to assessing and measuring the performance of your campaigns. Optimization is something that can be done every single day. They’re great tools now, as we’ve seen and heard, that allow us to measure more effectively what’s working, what isn’t. But at the same time, we still are being reminded that there are still things and elements in the running of lots of campaigns that still require time. So, Grace, I think, you know, it’s always fun. We always enjoy talking about Google ads. We always enjoy talking about Google, even though core updates can sometimes be stressful. But I think we are up to very exciting things, and I’m looking forward to seeing what’s happening over the next few weeks and months. So we’re all definitely going to have to catch up again on this topic over the next few months here into summer Grace.
Grace: [00:42:35] Definitely. There’s so many different layers to this whole Google update that we’ll definitely be talking about it over the next few months.
Liel: [00:42:42] That’s right, Grace. The thing is that we don’t have to do it right now. And so with that said, we’ll just press hold and get back to it until next week. We have our next conversation. OK, thank you, Grace. Have a nice rest of the day. Bye.
Grace: [00:42:57] Thanks, Liel.
Liel: [00:43:01] If you like our show, make sure you subscribe. Tell your co-workers, leave us a review, and send us your questions to ask@incamerapodcast.com. We’ll see you next week.
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