Have you ever had that feeling in your business where you work so hard to optimize something, you come up with the perfect process, you follow the process for a while, see great results, and then... you get so sick of the thing you never want to see it again?
Just me? :)
Well, I relaunched this newsletter 5 months ago, and came up with a process to share a real Google Ads coaching story with you every issue. I love sharing these stories, you've been replying and giving me great feedback, but lately... I've gotten sick of writing these newsletters, and if I'm not feeling it while writing, then you're not gonna be feeling it while reading, which means - TIME FOR A CHANGE!
I'm still going to share a real Google Ads coaching call story with you in every issue of The Insider, but I'm throwing out the template, throwing out the AI-assisted writing, and bringing more authenticity, more specific details, more timeliness, and hopefully, more excitement and more value đ€© I look forward to hearing what you think.
Okay, here's a story of an Etsy seller turned ecommerce store owner who we'll call Marissa. We'll say that she sells handmade toys. She saw some of my Google Ads videos on YouTube, booked a 1-hour Google Ads coaching call, and then purchased a series of 5 more hours with me. These 2 stories are both from our second call, and I chose them because they both have some counter-intuitive takeaways for you to consider.
Story Number 1: While Marissa's toys sell well all year 'round, she has some products that sell really well around certain holidays. Her Standard Shopping campaigns took off during Easter, and then came crashing down afterwards.
Marissa wondered: should she add all of those Easter-related searches as negative keywords, now that the holiday was over? How should she think about adding and removing negative keywords in her Shopping campaigns?
Because Marissa only runs Shopping, not Search, she doesn't get to pick keywords at all. In fact, it surprised her to see all the "Easter toys" type searches popping up in her search terms report, since it wasn't something she had explicitly tried to go after.
First, I advised her to leave the holiday terms alone. No negatives. Easter will come back around next year, and the year after, and the year after. Let's keep things simple and give Google the leeway to pick up on trending searches as soon as they start trending, so that she doesn't miss out on opportunity.
Next, we took a look at how her campaigns were performing after removing a ton of negative keywords. In our first meeting, I'd advised Marissa to "reset" her negative keywords, since the transition from manual bidding to smart bidding meant that Google might be able to find new opportunities among previously "bad" search terms. I'm happy to report that this made a huge, positive difference - it turns out that competitor searches perform really well for Marissa, driving the majority of her conversions in some of the campaigns! What a win.
Third, we discussed how to double down on this holiday opportunity going forward. We discussed a few options, like creating product variants in Google Merchant Center with holiday-specific titles and descriptions, vs. setting reminders to update her "core" product titles and descriptions leading up to important times of year.
That brings us to storytime number two. Your Shopping feed product titles and descriptions are the key tools you have to influence the types of searches you show up for on Google. (As well as your bid strategy and conversion tracking, of course.) But over-optimizing these titles can have unintended consequences.
We looked at a different Shopping campaign for a different product that had previously performed really well, but had also suffered a drop in performance recently - even though it was completely unrelated to Easter. Because this was such a hero, top-performing product, Marissa had decided to create multiple product listings with very specific titles and descriptions highlighting various toy features.
The problem? These more specific titles did not match what people were searching for! For example, let's say the product used to be called "Wooden Stacking Toy" when it performed well. One would think that a more specific title, like "Handmade Wooden Stacking Toy Non-Toxic for Toddlers" or "Rainbow Wooden Stacking Toy Made in USA Unique Gift for Grandkids" would be more appealing, but the CTR and conversion rate don't lie:
- Single "basic" variant: 1.8% CTR, 3% CVR, 10 sales
- New "specific" variants: 0.5% CTR, 0% CVR, no sales
It just goes to show that "best practices" are not always the answer. And it gave us food for thought about our holiday strategy - did we still want to test more specific product variants next year?
These are just some of the things we'll be keeping a close eye on together in our next call.
Want to optimize your Google Ads together? Book a call with me and we'll dive deep into your campaigns to find new opportunities.
One more thing...
I'm boarding a plane right now to San Francisco because tomorrow is Google Marketing Live, and I'm going to be there in person!
Join me for:
- The 4th Annual Unofficial Google Marketing Live Tailgate on YouTube and LinkedIn at 8am PST on May 21, 2025
- A special Inside Google Ads podcast episode all about GML on May 22, 2025
- The Monthly Meet for Inside Google Ads course members, featuring guest experts sharing our top takeaways from GML and what you need to know for 2025, also on May 22, 2025
