Google Ads Limits Search Query Reporting & September Updates [PODCAST]

On this special Marketing O’Talk podcast, host Christine “Shep” Zirnheld is joined by PPC experts to break down the Google Ads updates and rumors that the PPC community is talking about this week.

• Julie Bacchini: President of Neptune Moon, named to PPC Hero’s Top 25 Most Influential PPC Experts list, and organizer of Twitter’s Weekly PPC Chat
• Andrea Cruz: Digital marketing Manager at KoMarketing and named to PPC Hero’s Top 50 Most Influential PPC Experts list
• Mark Saltarelli: Digital Marketing Manager at Cypress North and cohost of Marketing O’Clock

If you’re unable to catch the episode on Spotify, be sure to watch the video version on the Search Engine Journal YouTube channel.

Google Ads to Hide ‘Insignificant’ Search Queries

To start the roundtable, we talked about what is arguably the most controversial Google Ads news of the week.

Google alerted advertisers that they will start limiting the search query data available to advertisers for their campaigns.

Hey @GoogleAds, what’s this about? So we will be potentially paying for search terms tht are irrelevant but won’t be privy to the keywords we need to add as negatives? What’s the logic behind this please? Thanks. #ppcchat @gregfinn pic.twitter.com/B8oK149YiU

— Rachel (@PPCRachel) September 2, 2020

Why Is This Such a Hot Topic in the PPC Community?

As Julie Bacchini puts it:

“I think less data, especially for paying advertisers, is never really a great thing. I have concerns about this, especially for smaller advertisers who have smaller budgets and who have lower search volume where you may have a decent number of terms that could hit this, sort of, ill-defined threshold…. What is significant? Nobody knows. It has the potential to be really problematic for advertisers of all sizes if you can’t see those terms and negative-out the ones you don’t want.”

Are Text Ads Being Phased Out?

Also in the news this week, some advertisers logged into their Google Ads account to find that they were only able to create responsive search ads and not manual text ads (formerly expanded text ads).

Google has not confirmed whether this test could lead to a permanent change.

First topic…

Q1: News broke about Google Ads testing Responsive Search Ads (RSA) becoming the default ad type this week – thoughts?#ppcchat pic.twitter.com/QsDlA3eS1c

— Julie F Bacchini (@NeptuneMoon) September 1, 2020

Do You See Reporting & Optimization as a Problem for Responsive Search Ads? How Could Advertisers Be Impacted If Text Ads Are Phased Out?

Here’s Andrea Cruz’s take on this:

“They (Google Ads) don’t give you a lot of information (on Responsive Search Ads). They’re (Google Ads) going to say, we give you these ratings and we tell you your ad is average… You’re telling me there’s so much we can say with the characters we have, so give me my data and let me optimize from there. Maybe the whole ad is underperfroming just because of one headline. Let me take a little bit of power so I can improve.”

Google Ads to Invoice Advertisers for UK DST Fees

In our final topic, Google announced that the 2% UK DST fee will be absorbed by advertisers.

If a user clicks on an ad from a location impacted by these DST fees, the 2% fee will be added to the advertisers’ invoice.

WELL #PPCChat #fees

"As of November 1, 2020, a 2% UK DST Fee will be added to your next invoice or statement for ads served in the United Kingdom. The fee is driven by the new digital services tax in that country."@GoogleAds

— Rachel (@PPCRachel) September 1, 2020

Are You Surprised That Google Ads Is Passing This Tax on to Advertisers?

Mark Saltarelli has this to say:

“The way that this is being passed on to advertises and there being no part of the legistlation to make sure it was coming directly from Google really just reminds me how little governments actually understand how online advertising works… the fact that there isn’t any language that prevents it from being passed on to small businesses, that reeks of them not thinking it through. At least the way Google is passing it on is direct. If they didn’t do it directly, they could just increase what a click costs. Either way, advertisers are going to pay for it.”

Head over to the Marketing O’Clock site for more information on these stories. Don’t forget to subscribe while you’re there!

Featured Image Credit: Cypress North