Forums Forums White Hat SEO PPC Why do Google reps push maximize conversions so hard?

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    Why do Google reps push maximize conversions so hard?

    Posted by seohelper on August 24, 2021 at 2:09 pm

    Every time I speak to them they push this bidding strategy really hard. I know they certainly have Google’s best interest in mind, but I’m not sure if they have mine as well…

    That being said, can I trust them when they advocate for maximize conversions over manual cpc?

    armorm3 replied 2 years, 7 months ago 1 Member · 13 Replies
  • 13 Replies
  • OneWhoDoubts

    Guest
    August 24, 2021 at 2:17 pm

    Maximize conversions works great given the account has enough data to go by. The problem is that Google Reps try to push it too early or in accounts without the proper setup for it to work well.

  • petebowen

    Guest
    August 24, 2021 at 3:06 pm

    Google reps push hard for whatever they’re incentivised to do. This month it’s max conversions. Last month it was image extensions. Some time before that it was TargetCPA.

    I understand that they get rewarded for things like when you increase your spend, use an automated bidding strategy etc.
    Incentivising employees to meet the business goals is a common approach. Sales people are paid commission, executives get bonuses for meeting KPIs and so on. There is nothing wrong with this, but, sometimes employees game the system. They optimise for what’s best for them today rather than what’s best for your business in the long term.

  • jsppc

    Guest
    August 24, 2021 at 4:33 pm

    Max conversions can be ok, although I prefer something like Target CPA/ROAS.

    Almost anything can be an improvement over manual cpc, but you’ll have to make sure that conversion tracking is set up properly and you’re getting enough to let the machine learning work.

    If you’re getting a few conversions a day you probably could give it a shot. If you’re nervous about it, run an experiment and see. Then you can test it without committing.

  • LevSmash

    Guest
    August 24, 2021 at 4:35 pm

    Because it will spend the budget and you can’t set a max CPC, which licenses them to get as much money as possible. Even in campaigns of mine using that bid strategy that perform well, I always notice the odd CPC spiking way higher than would be reasonable. It also treats all conversion actions the same, so they will tell you to track more touch points as conversions, like treat a form lead with the same value as a view of a key page, and then the bid strategy believes it’s doing a good job if it just increases the total number of conversions even if they’re only the low value conversions.

    To be clear, I do use this bid strategy quite often, but it’s important to know what it is and what it’s not.

  • TTFV

    Guest
    August 24, 2021 at 5:06 pm

    Reps have little to no context for your business or goals. While it’s true that max conversions will often outperform a manual bidding option, that’s not always true.

    And when they recommend it, they don’t think of mentioning oh by the way, since you’re spending $50/day on your $200/day budget, switching means Google will spend all of that budget with no regard for CPAs.

    So be careful with any recommendations from Google reps.

    You can always provide context and ask lots of questions when they make a suggestion. We do this every month with all of our client accounts.

  • cmsciguy

    Guest
    August 24, 2021 at 5:29 pm

    100% Reps have their own self interest in mind. Max Conversions will nearly always spend the full budget, so I’ve heard them often use the argument that switching to max conversions will “give you more traffic.” Great, except I don’t care about traffic unless it converts.

    That being said, I’m a FIRM believer in Target CPA… But Maximize Conversions has no joke resulted in my CPA’s being lowered about 15%-20% over the last year or two since introducing it slowly. I still scale with Target CPA, but if for whatever reason I’m budget constrained (usually due to lower inventory) I almost always switch over to Maximize Conversions because it will give good results.

    Let me preface this by saying you need A LOT of data for it to work, and even then it’s iffy. Also, I primarily use the Display Network which is where I see Max Conversions do really well, but I do have some Search Campaigns and YouTube campaigns using Max Conversions with decent results too.

  • HawkeyMan

    Guest
    August 24, 2021 at 5:41 pm

    Google reps are evaluated internally by how much they can get you to spend and how many recommendations they get you to adopt

  • bdhssbshwh

    Guest
    August 24, 2021 at 6:18 pm

    They push it because it’s more willing to spend, presumably haha

  • nom3rcy88

    Guest
    August 25, 2021 at 2:49 am

    Just set Maximise conversion with Target CPA > max conversion?

  • 80RT

    Guest
    August 25, 2021 at 3:43 am

    This is why I don’t bother taking their calls.

  • KiD_Rager

    Guest
    August 25, 2021 at 6:11 am

    We were starting to do well with Maximize Conversions after 3 weeks of testing and optimizing our Search ads, until our rep suggested Conversion Value (since we have a small daily budget)

    That destroyed our results and now we’re back to Max Conv.

    It’s not a bad strategy if you have enough data for Google to focus on the winning ads and keywords, but it can get real costly on auctions that you don’t care for. It’s up to you to see if the cost of conversion is worth it.

  • Irina_Aven

    Guest
    August 25, 2021 at 3:33 pm

    Great question, since the subject of “trusting Google reps” has been on my mind lately, more than ever before.

    To answer your question first: We always start with Manual CPC when launching new campaigns/business/products. Once a pixel has enough conversions we then move to Conversion optimization with target CPA.

    Google managers Always want to make businesses spend more money, unfortunately regardless of the results (in most cases). Presumably (I don’t know this as a fact) they are getting incentivized according to someone’s spend rather than success.

    Perhaps Google had a good intention in place assuming if the budget is scaling up results might be satisfactory, meanwhile, these two are not correlated when it comes to someone who’s just starting and could lead in lots of $ to be wasted before the lessons learned.

    Here is a side note, to why I don’t trust Google reps and don’t think anyone should unless absolutely clear on what’s going on and convinced this is the best course of action.

    We ran many campaigns for a variety of businesses, disapproved or limited approved ads here and there is a norm for some “sensitive” industries. Therefore opening a support ticket for a manual review is a routine task.

    Long story short, reached out to the support to submit the Ad for the manual review. Rep says he sent us an email and we need to accept it in order for him to open a ticket. (Already something never heard off, but whatever). Check the email and here is what it said:

    “To allow us to make Approved Adjustments, please click “I accept” for account: \[…..\] to indicate that you’ve read and understood the changes, and authorize Google to act on your behalf in making any Approved Adjustments.

    Here is the fun part, the list of “Approved Adjustments” listed in that email:

    “On behalf of my company, …, I give Google my blanket approval to make all of the following types of modifications in Google Ads Account […] without first notifying me:

    1. Campaign Changes: [including pausing and resuming campaigns, changing targeting settings, adding or editing ad groups, editing campaign distribution..
    2. Placement Changes: [including adding and deleting placements, pausing and resuming targeted placements, adding or deleting negative sites and categories, and editing placement-level bids]
    3. Creative Changes: [including rearranging text within an ad, adding or removing keywords, and changing URLs].
    4. Remarketing/Conversion tracking: [including creating or editing remarketing or conversion tracking code and/or conversion settings, as well as creating or editing remarketing lists].”

    An and THE most Important note at the very bottom of that email:

    It’s important to note that Google doesn’t guarantee or promise any particular results from implementing the changes you authorize. You will be responsible for any impact these changes have on your account, including impact on your campaign performance or spending.”

    Um…Excuse Me! I reached out to get 1 ad submitted for review. Mindblowing!

    Of course, I told the rep that he must be out of his mind and not in a million years I will sign approval for that.

    After that, he (THE Google Rep) straight up lied to me (I’ve saved the entire transcript since the level of ridiculousness was through the roof) here is one of the final parts of our chat:

    Rep – i cant send over a review without your ok because I get credit for speaking with you. so without your permission it looks as if I didnt get your consent and I am just sending this over.Me – there are two different things, consenting to allow google to make all the changes listed or simply request to review the disapproved adRep – well then I will send review without permission. They will probably then need to contact you for permission so this can take up to 72 hours to get all completed.

    P.S. He never actually submitted our ticket for that Ad. Had to reach out to another rep and the conversation went the same exact way as it normally does. In a few minutes, I had a ticket opened.

    Maybe the first rep was not making his monthly bonus and desperately needed to get into someone’s Ad account to max it out ? ?

    Such a BS and the sneakiest possible way to make someone sign something they never intended to.

    I guess my point is: most likely if that would not be me talking to them, but someone inexperienced or the one who does not read before accepting things, assuming they are trustworthy and it must be related to the support ticket, next time they would log in to their Google Ads account it would be unrecognizable with all of the “Approved Adjustments” they have made to it.

    In many years working on the platform I’ve seen a lot, but never a straight-up Scam like this.

    Therefore, I would highly recommend doing your homework, reading everything you are about to accept, and never blindly follow the “instructions” regardless of whoever is the one providing these. At least this is my rule of thumb.

    Hope this helps and sorry for the mile-long answer, apparently I’m still pissed off. ?

  • armorm3

    Guest
    August 27, 2021 at 5:00 am

    From a logical standpoint, it makes sense to collect as much data about your app/website as possible, and conversions do just that. Say for example you have a landing page with analytics enabled, but also have gated content behind a login/similar. It’s more valuable to them in terms of understanding your business if they can have analytics on all areas of your business, and if that happens to help you out with your ad campaigns, great. Either way conversion data reveals more things like engagement rate/etc