this feels illegal to know would love to see a practical guide on how to setup things for better success like you guys thanks for sharing i love your content
The most simple change I made is turning off enhanced cpc on my manual bid strategies. Had no affect on my conversions or conversion rates and dropped cpcs 20-30% thus lower my cpas 20-30%.
I used automated bidding for one summer 5 years ago. I figured it out then. What's good for Google is bad for me and my clients. I am All Manual All the Time. I have been watching Solutions 8 videos for years. Thank you John for documenting this because you validated what I observed.
So, we switch the strategy to CPC, to get these results, correct? Am I missing anything? Do you do this with NEW campaigns, or run conversion campaigns for a while, and then switch to CPC? How long do these types of results last? Months? Weeks? I'd love details on HOW to do this to my account. Have you made a how-to video on this yet?
Great video insight - I have experienced a 100% increase in CPC when increasing my budget and adding a tROAS strategy. My margins have actually got worse and I had better margins when just doing a manual CPC. I would like to try out this strategy for 30 days for my shopping campaign. I am uncertain/confused on what to do with my the google tracking and how to take it away to show conversions at 0 while maintaining a campaign goal of Sales/Purchases? Any advice would be appreciated. Cheers Will
The challenge with manual bidding is that keyword matching has a close variant match, meaning it is harder to control the search term. Also, I guess this strategy only applies to certain accounts where you can no longer scale without increasing cpc. It is great to have another tactical tool to scale up the account. The other way of controlling the CPC is to use a portfolio bidding strategy with max cpc which allows you to control the max cpc while utilising the power of smart bidding.
Agree, i commented the same thing on LinkedIn post couple of days ago. Nonetheless, what Google is doing is concerning & am glad John has backed up his observations with compelling data.
@@yatinmulaydigital so I didn’t see any loss of search term quality as this is different than just switching to manual CPC. I am switching the primary conversion action to RUclips engagements. This way Google thinks it should be getting conversions and it won’t. This is where I saw the clicks spike up and positioning drop and my leads/sales spike up. When I tried just switching to manual, the sales dropped, I was limited by bid strategy and couldn’t scale the daily ad spend.
@@johnmoran5680 If I understood correctly, you said that you were using conversion values before and now as the campaign is not getting any conversions the conversion value dropped to 0. What if I’m not using values for conversions at all?
This literally happened to me before i found this video.... the other day i setup google ads. Day 1 i got 1 call spent $40. Day 2 i spent $60 and got 3 calls. someone told me to setup tracking even tho i already know how many calls i get because i answer them. Turns out my cpc went up 50%. THIS IS A GOOD SECRET IM KEEPING. I was paying around $2 cpc and went to $4.50-6 cpc for APPLIANCE REPAIR.
@@johnmoran5680 I have a query. I manage a home and bedding niche (e.g. towels, curtains. cushions, duvet sets, etc.) Google ads account, and the product's prices are 20 to 30 pounds. The daily budget is 700 pounds, so what should the ROAS be? At a low budget, the ROAS is above 3, and when we increase the budget, the ROAS goes down
@@johnmoran5680 Can you explain what you mean between 12:46-13:14? How do you set it up so it's not tracking for conversions but still firing? I don't understand these 2 rules but have done all the other ones after this. Is this something you have to do at the campaign level in conversion goals? And what would you select as the conversion goal for a search campaign? *I've previously written this in the comments but I wanted to see if you'd be able to clarify this for me directly*
Do you have a tutorial on how to do this with our current campaigns? Also, I smashed the like button and subscribed lol. So my question is, if you remove the conversions, how do you still track the conversions? Are you only removing them from Google Ads platform, but still tracking them in the Google Analytics account? I think think you are turning off the Auto CPC and doing that manually> those were the two major changes. Correct?
you just use “fake conversion” for example tag that fires on orphan page on your site that nobody visits so you will always have 0 conversions and that primary conversion can be deleted or set as secondary
I would guess most people don't have a conversion action similar to what you describe. Any suggestions for if you were working with a new client who only had the one existing conversion goal and attempting this strategy? Maybe, create a new conversion action that is something like visiting a specific page, let it season for a month, and then switch a campaign to it? Have you tried this strategy on a manual shopping campaign?
So do you need to be using tRoas first then remove it for this to take effect? As google sees a large shift in data? Because ive always just used manual cpc not trusting google
With the inability of google to track conversions as well due to all the privacy stuff, I guess it makes sense now to question - what is the point in using google analytics or google ads conversion data. Why not just go off MER etc? And when you consider points like these where google are manipulating pricing so much, it makes us question it now more than ever. We have often thought this - the fact that google essentially want to take as much of everyones gross margin as they possibly can get away with - and as far as I can see it, the only way to stop this is to stop giving google all of the data for them to be able to manipulate everyone's pricing so much.
very intresting.. i followed everything and not getting the results is there a time frame for when this would start to come into affect all im seeing now is less volume IE less clicks and impression share.. when did you start to see results in this method ?
I swapped the conversion goals of two of my campaigns, so they still trigger, but google thinks the campaigns suck. Will this method work too? First results looking good.
What about not setting up any conversion goals and using my website server conversion tracking tool? Is it "bad" not having a conversion tracking strategy in Google Ads?
Great episode. This was the hook (shared on LinkedIn) that got me to discover your channel. Love the mix of cynicism and hope (or reluctant reliance on these platforms) that I pick up on between the lines. In terms of the content, I'm curious about the Audience piece and why you guys don't touch on it as a factor of CPC cost fluctuation. Maybe I'm naive here, so please do share any obvious things I'm overlooking. My understanding is that Google also looks at the people behind the search terms (location, search history, digital footprint, etc). So - when you increase you cost, is it possible that the algorithm just goes to a broader, perceived-as-less-valuable-by-Google, audience?
hi John, I think this is a great insight and is something I've seen in my learnings as well. Here is a question I have for you. What if you used some kind of custom code on your conversion pixel within tag manager to make it fire randomly on a conversion completion at say a rate of 75%. Then when you bump up the budget more, you adjust the code so it fires only 70%? Then bump up the budget more and lower it to 65%. You see what I'm saying? Do you think this would be a workable strategy? Still you would be able to use smart bidding but also control the CPCs this way.
Can someone explain what John means between 12:46-13:14? How do you set it up so it's not tracking for conversions but still firing? I don't understand these 2 rules but have done all the other ones after this.
Now I wonder how many businesses will be able to figure out how to change their conversion tracking so that they do not track their website's actual conversions as the tags are set up now to RUclips engagement’s conversion action? we couldn't?
one thing when i switched to max conversions the cpc went 3x up but in ga4 the campaign session duration went way up. I d think really good traffic based on that because another high converting campaign has a similar duration. This is non brand cold traffic too. We did get conversions but also high season kicked in few weeks later so hard to tell until season is over. We had it on max clicks before and it would never go more than 50 cents a click, with max conversions it went to almost 2dollars a click. Its a big keyword with many searches and different traffic quality so based on avg sess duration id say the max conv hit the better group of people. Interesting no matter with or without max cpc it never went more than 50cents a click, search imp share at 25%
That is what I am trying to find out. So far, each test is still running very well. I even reverted back to tracking conversions on one of my tests and the topline metrics started to reduce as the clicks reduced.
i don't think Google would care as long as the spend, CTR & LP experience is consistent. It's not like Organic SEO SERP's CTR & post-click UX that can influence organic ranking as one of the organic ranking signal.
I am not sure if I missed it, but how/where did he turn off the conversion tracking? If it is in the platform (website) I cannot do that b/c my clients use a hosted website tool (not Wordpress website, etc). I "think" my option is to change the "event definition" in GA4?
I changed the primary conversion action to RUclips Engagements which tricks Google into thinking it should be getting conversions. When it doesn’t, Google spikes your clicks and positioning.
@@johnmoran5680 Is your conversion action status 'Active' , or is it on 'no recent conversions' ? It can only be active whilst actively using RUclips campaigns in an account.
@@johnmoran5680and you set previous primary conversion as a secondary? now we have youtube conversion as a primary and real purchase conversion as a secondary ?
Awesome, love it, long suspected. Can you also confirm the match types, were the match types phrase or exact? I've seen broad match blow out when no conversion metrics are present to rein them in.
No guys, Google would have made more. Their income went down. Other suckers would have paid the price. The clicks would have sold for more money. You Beat their algorithm for a time.
19:20 Hi, How can I measure conversion engine metrics? I hope you do that episode. Amazing epidose I'm listening at playback speed .75 and taking notes.
This all depends on your business you could leverage Shopify reports or use your CRM data like global leads then global closes leads. The goal is to track the business as a whole not just one platform versus another since they all work together.
What did the device based traffic look like? I have seen switching away from tcpa your your desktop / mobile traffic split went from 60/40 to something like 30/70.
@@johnmoran5680 so you are just setting the search & shopping campaigns to optimize to a YT engagement conversion? What tool are you using to track the actual conversion value for the business?
@@aminearbane8778 I believe, and I might be wrong, that the campaign is set with “No Objective” in the beginning. Then, the only “conversion” Goal is the Yt engagements, which could be set as default, not as purchase or lead, or contact. Might also be “Custom Goal”. But I believe this is to trick Google to think that the conversion per se, it’s a really cheap and “meaningless” one. Yet again, i might be wrong but this is how i see it.
@@johnmoran5680Do you think this would still work the same way with pMax active? It wouldnt get volume in the campaign where I will be testing, but there would be signals and conversion volume from the pMax campaign.
What if we did offline conversion tracking and import all conversions at a $0 value? Or would Google say - oh, they're getting conversions (even though they're valueless), they must be okay?
Possibly! I’ve only tested it this way where good thinks it’s should be getting conversions and is getting nothing. I’m using RUclips Engagements as my primary conversion action to do this.
Love it, so you just stopped reporting from GTM to google? So basically google thinks you entire businesd isnt making money? Can you do this on campaign level basis?
I’m using the RUclips engagements conversions so it’s still active, it just won’t get any conversions. And yes you have to set this goal at the campaign level
@harellevy8339 did you disconnect the google tracking from GTM in Google ads account? And what about enhanced conversions? Did you also de-select this in Google ads?
This is wild. Works well with Google ads, I see. But I don’t see how this would work with Meta ads like the guy mentions it might in the video. With Meta ads, feeding conversion data to Meta is a lot more important
So much Yup! UGHH - Same thing $13 for one click of the same word and $16 the next time when a sale was made. Plus Enhanced Conversion Issues every month that I have to pay to fix it and then it messes up again! As the tech saavy one, and the ED, I have to get it fixed. We get the google ad grant and when the Enhanced Conversion works, we spend the max amount of the grant ($329) with only 22-30 clicks, we'd get like a sale a day (Online Ordination Certification). But now it dropped to 1/3 almost exactly ($100 per day) and now no sales for the past month. I'm hitting my head against the wall because we don't have any money, I had to cancel a Youth Garden and Bike Repair Program because we just didn't have enough money to buy the dinnerware, utilities and supplies for the meals. It's been tough. Like $20 is one sale a day on our best months! with the $329 per day grant. I worry about trying to "fix" it because it says that something is wrong and I worry about losing our google ads grant.
@@BIGDAWG_314 oh it takes forever and a day! LOL... Ready? Well, we first have to be a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, (with the IRS letter of determination in hand), state level is not enough, and we have to have a website and in the website we have requirements: Must show EIN number among other data, webspeed has to be higher than a certain amount, wait for them to give you the number and if you try yourself and pay, then the whole thing gets thrown out and you have to try all over again! At least, that's how it worked for us! But I didn't pay for someone to set it up, I just struggled through it and got it done! But keeping it is hard because they are so vague and using all the ad revenue is also difficult when I don't "crack the google code" to figure out the right format to be able to use the maximum grant allowed. Oh and if you go lower than 5% CTR you can lose it, or if you don't check out the google ads at least once a month, there are a few other rules, but those are the ones I remember.
@@leom7375he doesn’t get any youtube traffic with this method. With this method google thinks that no conversions were made and therefore increases impressions on google search or shopping ads as I assume.you can also watch the new video on ppc mastery channel
I'd love some actionable steps on how to make this happen for a lead gen campaign. If I never had a conversion value assigned previously am I able to do this?
@@johnmoran5680 Sweet. We took a break from running ads but are starting a new campaign, should I just assign values to the converison actions already set up and then start running the campaign as "max conversions"? Then after it is going for a bit turn it to manaul CPC? Or am I good to just go manual from the outset? Not sure which will make Google feel like they're coming to rescue my struggling campaign, lol.
I’m actually tricking the conversion action and campaign objective to allow a manual cpc with no eCPC bidding strategy to not lose position and give me more traffic for the same cost.
Oh so I’m not using bid adjustments during this as the algorithm is spoiling the traffic for me. Also, no the max clicks still had a higher CPCs than this as the bids are still controlled by Google.
Gave this a shot and it doesn't work. The traffic quality is much lower on manual CPC. Not even worth it in fact. Low tROAS smart bidding strategy on upper funnel beats it hands down.
@johnmoran5680 How does this work for RUclips ads? Should we just run a views or traffic campaign? And what about Meta? You hinted at it in the video... where can we hear about that?
How niche are these auctions though? Do you think you could get these same results for a brand in a crowded vertical where all their competition is using automated bidding?
Bro it’s not about we don’t trust Google’s numbers it’s just that when Google See that your ROAS or CPA starts getting better then obviously you will try to scale once you try to scale your CPC increases
@@samarthmadan2352 makes sense doesnt it. is the way around it by deactivating Google Tag manager in Google Ads account so that none of your conversion data shows up in Google Ads dashboard?
@@johnmoran5680 I was thinking that maybe reporting conversions could be fine just to tell Google what's working for you... but reporting the values seems to be a big no no? Or you're saying that you shouldn't even report conversion amount? Literally give no data to Google? No conversion actions in the account? I thought maybe it would work if you reported conversion values but you spoofed them to a lower value so it looks like you're doing shitty relative to the cpcs/costs, and therefore the system would feel bad for you and try to throw you some free lunch...
@@PaulAllen48047 I am a witching the primary conversion action to RUclips engagements. This way Google thinks it should be getting conversions and it won’t.
🩸Don't give Google another excuse to remove manual bidding!
(also, excellent video)
🤞🏼
@@AndreyKisselev right??
Yes! Thanks guys.
+1 to this! At some point it will be the only way Google can guarantee their YoY growth, that'll be the point at which it's removed.
@@MattCocking Max Clicks enters the chat
this feels illegal to know
would love to see a practical guide on how to setup things for better success like you guys
thanks for sharing i love your content
You need to contact the FTC with the data you have on their price fixing! You would save us all!!!! You will literally be our HERO!!!!
Please!!! This really should be illegal
The most simple change I made is turning off enhanced cpc on my manual bid strategies. Had no affect on my conversions or conversion rates and dropped cpcs 20-30% thus lower my cpas 20-30%.
I used automated bidding for one summer 5 years ago. I figured it out then. What's good for Google is bad for me and my clients. I am All Manual All the Time. I have been watching Solutions 8 videos for years. Thank you John for documenting this because you validated what I observed.
Are you still tracking ROI? If so, what's been your approach to that - are you using an alternative tracking software provider? Thanks
@@Fiona-mm8zw I track calls and form fills
I'm just watching this now - I am going to do a react to this video! This is straight up insane! Thanks for your insights!
Already Watched Your Reaction. 🧐
It doesn’t sound true
Probably my favorite episode ever. SOOO insightful!
John is a genius, this is insane
This was an amazing video. Thank you for that.
Also shows an advert for the last decade they’ve been removing tools and making it harder
So, we switch the strategy to CPC, to get these results, correct? Am I missing anything? Do you do this with NEW campaigns, or run conversion campaigns for a while, and then switch to CPC? How long do these types of results last? Months? Weeks? I'd love details on HOW to do this to my account. Have you made a how-to video on this yet?
Thank you so much for this video. Super helpful and well-presented. Your time and effort is most appreciated!
let John speak. You interrupted way too much.
Great video insight - I have experienced a 100% increase in CPC when increasing my budget and adding a tROAS strategy. My margins have actually got worse and I had better margins when just doing a manual CPC.
I would like to try out this strategy for 30 days for my shopping campaign.
I am uncertain/confused on what to do with my the google tracking and how to take it away to show conversions at 0 while maintaining a campaign goal of Sales/Purchases?
Any advice would be appreciated.
Cheers
Will
This is exactly what I want to know
@@Lucasloans I also want to know this
Simply change the campaign-level primary action to RUclips subscribers
I want to know to
The challenge with manual bidding is that keyword matching has a close variant match, meaning it is harder to control the search term.
Also, I guess this strategy only applies to certain accounts where you can no longer scale without increasing cpc. It is great to have another tactical tool to scale up the account.
The other way of controlling the CPC is to use a portfolio bidding strategy with max cpc which allows you to control the max cpc while utilising the power of smart bidding.
Agree, i commented the same thing on LinkedIn post couple of days ago. Nonetheless, what Google is doing is concerning & am glad John has backed up his observations with compelling data.
@@yatinmulaydigital so I didn’t see any loss of search term quality as this is different than just switching to manual CPC. I am switching the primary conversion action to RUclips engagements. This way Google thinks it should be getting conversions and it won’t. This is where I saw the clicks spike up and positioning drop and my leads/sales spike up. When I tried just switching to manual, the sales dropped, I was limited by bid strategy and couldn’t scale the daily ad spend.
@@johnmoran5680 If I understood correctly, you said that you were using conversion values before and now as the campaign is not getting any conversions the conversion value dropped to 0. What if I’m not using values for conversions at all?
@@LanaABAI'm wondering the same thing.
Remember the email that leaked last year saying google was bumping prices to meet sales targets? There you go..
This literally happened to me before i found this video.... the other day i setup google ads. Day 1 i got 1 call spent $40. Day 2 i spent $60 and got 3 calls. someone told me to setup tracking even tho i already know how many calls i get because i answer them. Turns out my cpc went up 50%. THIS IS A GOOD SECRET IM KEEPING.
I was paying around $2 cpc and went to $4.50-6 cpc for APPLIANCE REPAIR.
I had the same thing. I looked at 10 use cases and found the same thing you said to be true which is what gave me this exact idea.
@@johnmoran5680 I have a query. I manage a home and bedding niche (e.g. towels, curtains. cushions, duvet sets, etc.) Google ads account, and the product's prices are 20 to 30 pounds. The daily budget is 700 pounds, so what should the ROAS be? At a low budget, the ROAS is above 3, and when we increase the budget, the ROAS goes down
Its crazy how John discovers this stuff. I would love at least to learn how to get to the starting point of that type of GAds knowledge.
Learning how the bidding strategy works has been the best start of my learning
@@johnmoran5680😢😊😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢
@@johnmoran5680 Do you reckon you could share a small tip on how to do that, without impacting the client’s sales?
@@johnmoran5680 How did you learn this?
@@johnmoran5680 Can you explain what you mean between 12:46-13:14? How do you set it up so it's not tracking for conversions but still firing? I don't understand these 2 rules but have done all the other ones after this. Is this something you have to do at the campaign level in conversion goals? And what would you select as the conversion goal for a search campaign? *I've previously written this in the comments but I wanted to see if you'd be able to clarify this for me directly*
Do you have a tutorial on how to do this with our current campaigns? Also, I smashed the like button and subscribed lol. So my question is, if you remove the conversions, how do you still track the conversions? Are you only removing them from Google Ads platform, but still tracking them in the Google Analytics account? I think think you are turning off the Auto CPC and doing that manually> those were the two major changes. Correct?
you just use “fake conversion” for example tag that fires on orphan page on your site that nobody visits so you will always have 0 conversions and that primary conversion can be deleted or set as secondary
I would guess most people don't have a conversion action similar to what you describe. Any suggestions for if you were working with a new client who only had the one existing conversion goal and attempting this strategy? Maybe, create a new conversion action that is something like visiting a specific page, let it season for a month, and then switch a campaign to it? Have you tried this strategy on a manual shopping campaign?
I want to try but I'm not getting why i need to "adjust" the conversions if you switch to manual CPC? Can someone explain please?
Same , how did he do by reming conversion tacking but still stay active
I needed this so badly right now....thank you so much
So do you need to be using tRoas first then remove it for this to take effect? As google sees a large shift in data? Because ive always just used manual cpc not trusting google
I think my favorite part of this video is Lauren sighing in the background like Napoleon Dynamite 😆
Hysterical
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Eye opening stuff here. Thanks
Hi John, what’s your experience with tCPA bid with max CPC portfolio? Will that generate higher conversions while maintaining the CPC? Thanks
Ha! John and his sneaky screen-sharing! 😃
With the inability of google to track conversions as well due to all the privacy stuff, I guess it makes sense now to question - what is the point in using google analytics or google ads conversion data. Why not just go off MER etc? And when you consider points like these where google are manipulating pricing so much, it makes us question it now more than ever. We have often thought this - the fact that google essentially want to take as much of everyones gross margin as they possibly can get away with - and as far as I can see it, the only way to stop this is to stop giving google all of the data for them to be able to manipulate everyone's pricing so much.
What's MER?
Marketing Efficiency Ratio
Won't google stifle your ads if you don't have conversion data - that's why it needs to be faked.
Wow.. John you are Genius.. gonna apply this strategy lets see how it works
very intresting.. i followed everything and not getting the results is there a time frame for when this would start to come into affect all im seeing now is less volume IE less clicks and impression share.. when did you start to see results in this method ?
What match types are you using on these: broad, phrase, exact... or all 3?
could someone help me understand it in practical way? I'm.a bit confused on the steps at the account level and campaign level
So does this mean, if your account is tracking conversions at account level does that also have a negative impact on CPC?
Well our google ads has been playing games for a while, thankyou for the knowledge
I swapped the conversion goals of two of my campaigns, so they still trigger, but google thinks the campaigns suck. Will this method work too? First results looking good.
how did you do that?
What about not setting up any conversion goals and using my website server conversion tracking tool? Is it "bad" not having a conversion tracking strategy in Google Ads?
Great episode. This was the hook (shared on LinkedIn) that got me to discover your channel. Love the mix of cynicism and hope (or reluctant reliance on these platforms) that I pick up on between the lines. In terms of the content, I'm curious about the Audience piece and why you guys don't touch on it as a factor of CPC cost fluctuation. Maybe I'm naive here, so please do share any obvious things I'm overlooking. My understanding is that Google also looks at the people behind the search terms (location, search history, digital footprint, etc). So - when you increase you cost, is it possible that the algorithm just goes to a broader, perceived-as-less-valuable-by-Google, audience?
This is incredible. Also I'm scared Google will see this and take away Manual CPC for good.
I'm sure they will do somthing to combat the adjustments people are making as their revenue drops.
Thanks! You just confirmed my thoughts and data!
What strategy did you use before manual CPC? Target ROAS or Max value?
This is insane 😮
I know it. Moran is a Google god…
so what do we do can someone please explain in simple terms what exactly do with do with our service ads?
🔥🔥🔥 John, this was amazing! - Michael
hi John, I think this is a great insight and is something I've seen in my learnings as well. Here is a question I have for you. What if you used some kind of custom code on your conversion pixel within tag manager to make it fire randomly on a conversion completion at say a rate of 75%. Then when you bump up the budget more, you adjust the code so it fires only 70%? Then bump up the budget more and lower it to 65%. You see what I'm saying? Do you think this would be a workable strategy? Still you would be able to use smart bidding but also control the CPCs this way.
Did the keyword type impact this at all or were they a mixture of match types?
what match type was he using I wonder...
😲. John is God father of PPC. Love the analysis
You guys are awesome! Pure gold
Can someone explain what John means between 12:46-13:14? How do you set it up so it's not tracking for conversions but still firing? I don't understand these 2 rules but have done all the other ones after this.
Now I wonder how many businesses will be able to figure out how to change their conversion tracking so that they do not track their website's actual conversions as the tags are set up now to RUclips engagement’s conversion action? we couldn't?
This is mad! Thanks for sharing!
Do you recommend a specific keyword match type when testing this?
one thing when i switched to max conversions the cpc went 3x up but in ga4 the campaign session duration went way up. I d think really good traffic based on that because another high converting campaign has a similar duration. This is non brand cold traffic too. We did get conversions but also high season kicked in few weeks later so hard to tell until season is over. We had it on max clicks before and it would never go more than 50 cents a click, with max conversions it went to almost 2dollars a click. Its a big keyword with many searches and different traffic quality so based on avg sess duration id say the max conv hit the better group of people. Interesting no matter with or without max cpc it never went more than 50cents a click, search imp share at 25%
But can this be a longterm strategy? Doesn’t Google think at some point that your products/brand is just bad when not getting conversions?
That is what I am trying to find out. So far, each test is still running very well. I even reverted back to tracking conversions on one of my tests and the topline metrics started to reduce as the clicks reduced.
@@johnmoran5680 will you share feedback with the results of the reverted test?
@@blashkovski CPCs went up about 80%, my click volume dropped about 40% and my lead flow dropped about 30%.
i don't think Google would care as long as the spend, CTR & LP experience is consistent. It's not like Organic SEO SERP's CTR & post-click UX that can influence organic ranking as one of the organic ranking signal.
So John, you are NOT feeding conversion data to Google anymore?
I am not sure if I missed it, but how/where did he turn off the conversion tracking? If it is in the platform (website) I cannot do that b/c my clients use a hosted website tool (not Wordpress website, etc). I "think" my option is to change the "event definition" in GA4?
I changed the primary conversion action to RUclips Engagements which tricks Google into thinking it should be getting conversions. When it doesn’t, Google spikes your clicks and positioning.
@@johnmoran5680 Thank you!
@@johnmoran5680 Is your conversion action status 'Active' , or is it on 'no recent conversions' ? It can only be active whilst actively using RUclips campaigns in an account.
@@johnmoran5680and you set previous primary conversion as a secondary? now we have youtube conversion as a primary and real purchase conversion as a secondary ?
Awesome, love it, long suspected.
Can you also confirm the match types, were the match types phrase or exact? I've seen broad match blow out when no conversion metrics are present to rein them in.
Yup! All exact match. Shopping search terms also didnt diminish.
Yup! I am using exact match
No guys, Google would have made more. Their income went down. Other suckers would have paid the price. The clicks would have sold for more money. You Beat their algorithm for a time.
Can we do it with Pmax? We are limited with the bidding options there, what do you suggest if we MUST run pmax?
Page views as conversions maybe?
19:20 Hi, How can I measure conversion engine metrics? I hope you do that episode. Amazing epidose I'm listening at playback speed .75 and taking notes.
This all depends on your business you could leverage Shopify reports or use your CRM data like global leads then global closes leads. The goal is to track the business as a whole not just one platform versus another since they all work together.
What did the device based traffic look like? I have seen switching away from tcpa your your desktop / mobile traffic split went from 60/40 to something like 30/70.
So far it’s stayed about the same either way. I have it on 10 accounts so far trying to see if it works.
Hey John, how did you make the conversion action active without allowing Google to track the conversions using Tag Manager?
I’m using the RUclips engagement’s conversion action, but with a shopping and search campaign
@@aminearbane8778 Yes sir that is correct. I am using server side first party cookie to view engagement and conversions so I know what is going on.
@@johnmoran5680 so you are just setting the search & shopping campaigns to optimize to a YT engagement conversion? What tool are you using to track the actual conversion value for the business?
@@aminearbane8778 I believe, and I might be wrong, that the campaign is set with “No Objective” in the beginning. Then, the only “conversion” Goal is the Yt engagements, which could be set as default, not as purchase or lead, or contact. Might also be “Custom Goal”. But I believe this is to trick Google to think that the conversion per se, it’s a really cheap and “meaningless” one.
Yet again, i might be wrong but this is how i see it.
@@johnmoran5680Do you think this would still work the same way with pMax active? It wouldnt get volume in the campaign where I will be testing, but there would be signals and conversion volume from the pMax campaign.
Good stuff!
What if we did offline conversion tracking and import all conversions at a $0 value? Or would Google say - oh, they're getting conversions (even though they're valueless), they must be okay?
Possibly! I’ve only tested it this way where good thinks it’s should be getting conversions and is getting nothing. I’m using RUclips Engagements as my primary conversion action to do this.
Love it, so you just stopped reporting from GTM to google? So basically google thinks you entire businesd isnt making money?
Can you do this on campaign level basis?
I’m using the RUclips engagements conversions so it’s still active, it just won’t get any conversions. And yes you have to set this goal at the campaign level
@harellevy8339 did you disconnect the google tracking from GTM in Google ads account? And what about enhanced conversions? Did you also de-select this in Google ads?
Anyone knows what screenshot software, John uses? The one where he can annotate straight on the screen?
It’s light shot. It’s a chrome plugin
This is wild. Works well with Google ads, I see. But I don’t see how this would work with Meta ads like the guy mentions it might in the video. With Meta ads, feeding conversion data to Meta is a lot more important
My note: he is decreasing manual cpc 30% comparing to history data when he used to use autobidding
How can I join the telegram group?
So much Yup! UGHH - Same thing $13 for one click of the same word and $16 the next time when a sale was made. Plus Enhanced Conversion Issues every month that I have to pay to fix it and then it messes up again! As the tech saavy one, and the ED, I have to get it fixed. We get the google ad grant and when the Enhanced Conversion works, we spend the max amount of the grant ($329) with only 22-30 clicks, we'd get like a sale a day (Online Ordination Certification). But now it dropped to 1/3 almost exactly ($100 per day) and now no sales for the past month. I'm hitting my head against the wall because we don't have any money, I had to cancel a Youth Garden and Bike Repair Program because we just didn't have enough money to buy the dinnerware, utilities and supplies for the meals. It's been tough. Like $20 is one sale a day on our best months! with the $329 per day grant. I worry about trying to "fix" it because it says that something is wrong and I worry about losing our google ads grant.
How do you get a Google ads grant?
@@BIGDAWG_314 oh it takes forever and a day! LOL... Ready? Well, we first have to be a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, (with the IRS letter of determination in hand), state level is not enough, and we have to have a website and in the website we have requirements: Must show EIN number among other data, webspeed has to be higher than a certain amount, wait for them to give you the number and if you try yourself and pay, then the whole thing gets thrown out and you have to try all over again! At least, that's how it worked for us! But I didn't pay for someone to set it up, I just struggled through it and got it done! But keeping it is hard because they are so vague and using all the ad revenue is also difficult when I don't "crack the google code" to figure out the right format to be able to use the maximum grant allowed. Oh and if you go lower than 5% CTR you can lose it, or if you don't check out the google ads at least once a month, there are a few other rules, but those are the ones I remember.
So are you wiping out your conversion tracking totally, or just changing your conversion actions from primary to secondary??
Switching the primary conversion action to RUclips engagements. This way Google thinks it should be getting conversions and it won’t.
Genius
@@johnmoran5680how would you accomplish this for a lead gen search campaign without RUclips traffic but strictly search?
@@leom7375he doesn’t get any youtube traffic with this method. With this method google thinks that no conversions were made and therefore increases impressions on google search or shopping ads as I assume.you can also watch the new video on ppc mastery channel
More with Less :) wow pretty interesting
I'd love some actionable steps on how to make this happen for a lead gen campaign. If I never had a conversion value assigned previously am I able to do this?
Do I did this for a lead gen company, but, I was assigning arbitrary values to the leads to get it to work.
@@johnmoran5680 Sweet. We took a break from running ads but are starting a new campaign, should I just assign values to the converison actions already set up and then start running the campaign as "max conversions"? Then after it is going for a bit turn it to manaul CPC? Or am I good to just go manual from the outset? Not sure which will make Google feel like they're coming to rescue my struggling campaign, lol.
Hey John. What kind of bid adjustments are you using after shifting to manual CPC?
I’m actually tricking the conversion action and campaign objective to allow a manual cpc with no eCPC bidding strategy to not lose position and give me more traffic for the same cost.
I meant bid adjustments for location / time.
Also, is the higher traffic resulting in higher sales?
Won't maximize clicks also achieve this purpose?
Oh so I’m not using bid adjustments during this as the algorithm is spoiling the traffic for me. Also, no the max clicks still had a higher CPCs than this as the bids are still controlled by Google.
Thanks
I was expecting the tint foil hat on the cover 😀 Amazing content always
Haha dang. Missed opportunity there
We def need a few thumbnails with John in multiple tinfoil hats
Wait - we need to split test this thumbnail!!!
Gave this a shot and it doesn't work. The traffic quality is much lower on manual CPC. Not even worth it in fact. Low tROAS smart bidding strategy on upper funnel beats it hands down.
@johnmoran5680 How does this work for RUclips ads? Should we just run a views or traffic campaign? And what about Meta? You hinted at it in the video... where can we hear about that?
If you increase your budget, I expect Cpc to increase
How niche are these auctions though?
Do you think you could get these same results for a brand in a crowded vertical where all their competition is using automated bidding?
My one test is on one of the most ripped off and copied products. It’s working good so far!
Same exact situation it’s worked for me across the board.
Now that we don't trust Google. How do we know that those Clicks on the CTR´s are real?
Bro it’s not about we don’t trust Google’s numbers it’s just that when Google See that your ROAS or CPA starts getting better then obviously you will try to scale once you try to scale your CPC increases
@@samarthmadan2352 makes sense doesnt it. is the way around it by deactivating Google Tag manager in Google Ads account so that none of your conversion data shows up in Google Ads dashboard?
@@samarthmadan2352 How do you avoid this from happening with a manual CPC strategy though?
Can't find the telegram group!
Hi go to perpetualtraffic.com/telegram
So the moment google tracks the conversion value it will manipulate the cpc? What is the solution? 😃
That’s correct. You have to stop feeding it conversions
Wow, so conversion campaigns without conversion tracking? 😱😱 but how can the algorithm learn without data?
@@patvertise So I am not letting it. That is how it spends more CPC. I am using server side data to measure success.
@@johnmoran5680 I was thinking that maybe reporting conversions could be fine just to tell Google what's working for you... but reporting the values seems to be a big no no? Or you're saying that you shouldn't even report conversion amount? Literally give no data to Google? No conversion actions in the account?
I thought maybe it would work if you reported conversion values but you spoofed them to a lower value so it looks like you're doing shitty relative to the cpcs/costs, and therefore the system would feel bad for you and try to throw you some free lunch...
And are you ever going back to max conversions or max conversion value? Or now you're going to stay on manual CPC with these accounts?
Complain Google to authorities
Wtf? I hope someone sues them
Google ads whistle blower 🤘
lol they are going to hate me for this one.
They already hate you @johnmoran5680….
🤯
John got a new chair hahah
I also moved! lol.
No more Moran shutters 😢
Why Telegram? Telegram is shady.
I blame our producer…it’s still a fun group tho
WTF, You are awesome but this is so depressing, this is my websites first dip ever in 10 years this year because of what you said in this video....
How do i add a goal without tracking the conversions? I am trying it out on my old campaign that was manual cpc for 9 years until this year...
@@PaulAllen48047 I am a witching the primary conversion action to RUclips engagements. This way Google thinks it should be getting conversions and it won’t.
Has been a game for years, now far more desperate than ever.
So does this mean, if your account is tracking conversions at account level does that also have a negative impact on CPC?