E119–Tips for Local Google Ads At Scale w/ Scott Clark - a podcast by Mat Siltala & Dave Rohrer

Scott started by digging into his background and some of the most common things he sees wrong when looking at Google Ad accounts.

Common Google Ad Mistakes & Problem Spots

• Opportunity costs that your spreadsheet doesn't tell you. Lots of managers rely on what has worked or on just the data they see. Look beyond those metrics.
• Accounts left in cruise control sometimes have small problems that hold back accounts and allow competitors to gain share.
• Conversion setup - look at what is being imported in the Conversion Manager. Are there any? Do they use micro conversions?
• Audiences - are bid adjustments setup and are they using them?
• Search Term Report - using the past 90 days he digs into what he sees, the breakdown of keywords, campaigns, match type and uses this to help direct him where to dig next.

SKAG - Good, Bad, Horrible, Awesome?

Dave poses the question to Scott on where he stands with SKAGs (single keyword ad group) in 2019. The upside to them has started to decrease and Scott prefers single themed ad groups and not SKAGs. This is partly due to the time it takes to manage SKAG, you fight AI upside and the changes to match type have made him just move away

Tips for Scaling PPC For Multiple Locations

Part of what you can do will come to a few things like if they use a central account for all, separate accounts, budgeting, coop models and so on.

Scott prefers the "Gold Standard" method. This is basically you optimize and crush it with one location and then replicate it for all other locations once you get it dialed in.

Staged bidding is another tactic that Scott likes to use. For those with multiple locations in small areas using the staged bidding with a bulls-eye radius around a store usually is pretty effective. The closer someone is to a store the more you bid.

Depending on how many locations and geo markets you are in there are shared audiences that can

Ad Customizers, Sheets & Scripts

Ad Customizers are a great way to scale ad text using Google Sheets, triggers and more to really scale creating ads in bulk and not have to slowly do it in the Google Editor.

• About Google Ad Customizers
• 3 Cool Things You Can Do with Ad Customizers

Another upside to using Google Sheets and Ad Customizers is that you can allow the client to review and edit in Google Sheets and not run the risk of them making changes in the account itself.

Tools?

Scott really likes using Excel + Google Ads Editor to help scale and improve speed for working with a large number of accounts and locations.

Google rules and scripts are not a silver bullet but can be used to tweak productivity and take some tasks off your hands.

Further episodes of The Business of Digital Podcast (Learn SEO, PPC, Social Media, Content Marketing

Further podcasts by Mat Siltala & Dave Rohrer

Website of Mat Siltala & Dave Rohrer