KHML Podcast 4 | 9-16-22
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[00:00:00] Hi, everyone. I'm PIP from Seymour digital media. You're listening to know how marketing lab podcast. This podcast brings together different experts in marketing from our Facebook group, cyber punk geeks marketing mixer. Each week we get on here and we talk [00:00:20] about something. Search marketing, like Google.
Or SEO, social media marketing from Facebook to TikTok or website marketing. If you're a marketer or aspiring marketer, a business owner, or entrepreneur, this podcast for you, we're gonna share the best SEO search, social and website strategies. We share tips and [00:00:40] hacks, Google ad strategies what's going on in the current market.
Each week we discuss something exciting and awesome in marketing. You know what that means? It's Thursday, it's time for geek speak. And just by sheer happenstance, it happens to be the two of us. Once again, at this two weeks in [00:01:00] a row, they'll be wanting us more after they haven't seen us for a while. Sure.
Absence makes a heart grow fonder, but again, we are gonna be continuing our discussion from last week. Now that we talked about who is good for Google ads, now we're gonna be moving on to how to start picking your keywords, using the keyword planner from Google, and also how to start tracking your results.
So you can actually get an [00:01:20] ROI and make sure that you're not just throwing money into the void of Google ads. Yeah. And the same principles will also apply to if you're doing Facebook ads or really any ads that you should be doing your conversion tracking because they're really good at taking your money.
There's a void in all of them. yes. Yeah, exactly. And they'd like you [00:01:40] to really not think about it too much. But also to introduce ourselves, my name is Phelan. I work at Seymour digital media, where we focus on search engine market. And I am Greg McKinnon with original 72 creative, and we're a full service website, graphic design, and digital marketing firm in Vancouver.
Perfect. [00:02:00] Okay. So I think let's start off with the keyword planner and picking your keywords. So when we started this. So when we were starting with prepping the notes we had talked about one of the really cool features is you can just straight up put in a URL and it doesn't even need to doesn't necessarily be your own.
So it's really good for a little bit of competition [00:02:20] research. And so the really good thing about doing it where you're using just. Domain, not even giving it a keyword to filter down is that we'll let Google know what it thinks about your website. So it scans through your site and then it's going, Hey, you think that you're gonna be showing up for Air duct cleaning services.
And they're like, we think you're a carpet cleaning company [00:02:40] that could also help with you to fix messaging on your website, figure out where they got that from. And then it'll also improve your SEO because you're honing it. So it makes it easier for Google to know what's going on with your site.
Yeah, I think one of the things that I should experiment with more is Audiences like very [00:03:00] specific audiences. Yeah. So I don't typically set that stuff up for the, minor. Google ads and things that I do for tracking purposes. So I actually, this, I will probably learn a little bit from you today.
Yeah. And the audience is definitely, that's a, that's gonna be a big one that builds out over time and putting [00:03:20] audiences over top of like broad match, because they used to have broad match modified. Now they're just like, no, you're getting pure broad and who knows? What's showing up. And the only way to really contain that is to have the keywords.
And so you could pick some. Very vague keywords at the top. And then. Put an audience over top, so it doesn't go wild. And you know that I want, I'm selling [00:03:40] car parts and I want people interested in automotive, stuff. And so that way you're keeping it a little bit constrained where Google's not gonna be able to like, oh, you meant auto healthcare.
And just like random stuff. Cuz if you like Google go wild, they will spend your money in a way. It. Better because you are [00:04:00] defining a specific audience. If you define it, which you need to, or else, like you said, it'll go wild. But over the old way I think this broad match with an audience over it is actually a better way to.
Especially when you're first getting started, because what you think your [00:04:20] messaging is and what people respond to might not be the same. And so finding out what keywords people are actually typing in or what they're typing in, cuz also the part that pairs with what we're talking about is that the search terms.
So when you go to keywords and then there's gonna be a tab underneath of it called search terms, it will give you six times the data now that [00:04:40] it used to. So you can get way more information about what is actually going in and also which ones you want negative out. So there might be ones about jobs, the cheapest, the words like that, that generally you want a negative vote anyway.
And so that will let you know pretty quickly that you should what you need to constrain. And so that's definitely one that kind of pairs with it [00:05:00] nicely as you figure out again, with the keyword planner, it's gonna give you some ideas and. It's gonna get some vague notions, and this is a way for you to take that kind of expand it out and then tighten it up again, as you start to grow and build and figure out even what's converting.
And for everyone watching, [00:05:20] I remember at one point the keyword planner was available to anyone, but I believe that changed at some point. That you needed to have a Google ads account to get access to the keyword planner. Is that still the case or can [00:05:40] anyone. Use the keyword planner. Now the, so anyone can use the keyword planner.
You do need to set up a Google ads account, but it, and you can even do that without even creating a campaign, putting in your credit card, you can avoid all of that. They do not make it obvious. They do not make it clear. Yeah. If people do [00:06:00] want that just ask about that in the comments and we have a giveaway.
A PDF that we can give you guys that will actually go through those steps to do that. But yeah, you do need to have an account, but it doesn't need to, they, they set it up in such a way that they lead you down little like wizard, builder. And you're just like, [00:06:20] and if you're not very careful, you'll be building a campaign all of a sudden it, and it'll be a smart campaign.
And you'll just be like, what the, what happened here? They're very good at leading you down to oh no, you don't wanna. Choices. You wanna give us some vague instructions and put in your credit card details? Yeah it's definitely, they have made it way more cumbersome to not to avoid that. It's not very obvious at [00:06:40] all, where to go.
The thing that gets me about them, cuz they do plug it a lot. They make it sound so. And that you will be so successful as soon as you like sign up and go through these like minimal steps and then give us your credit card that like magic will happen. [00:07:00] People get sucked into that and it drives me nuts. Yeah, it's definitely one.
And my favorite is of course clients that say, oh yeah, no, I'd tinkered a little bit with Google ads. And they set up like a smart campaign, which. It's definitely good for getting your feet wet if you're going down that road and just getting [00:07:20] around the mechanics, but like definitely March that budget cuz they'll burn through it.
But yeah, it's definitely one. The smart campaigns are all like huge black boxes. So what we've been talking about, picking your keywords, finding out what the search terms are that none of that you, none of that is on the cards for you. And it's even worse with their new performance [00:07:40] max, where basically they all the only input we got back we were auditing a client and the only thing we found in it is that they're like, yeah, your ad stuff.
Like the. Text that they submitted and the photos they're like, yeah, it's really poor quality. And they're like, they do not tell you anything else about what you've showed up for where you [00:08:00] showed up, like what audiences were showing up with these none of that was on the table. So it's definitely one where watch out.
Yeah. Okay. So keyword planner back to get back on track here, it's available to anyone with an ads account and you can have an ads account without ads running. Yeah. Or even a [00:08:20] campaign. There was something you were gonna share if people wanted to get access. Is that yeah. Yeah. So J if you just leave a comment wherever you're watching I'll try and find it and respond.
I have access to pretty much all of them, so yeah. Just let us know cuz I don't have it right on hand for that part. So the keyword planner for me, I'll ask you this [00:08:40] question is something that I used often initially when setting up campaigns and forget about. As as time goes on and campaigns are running.
Do you have a better approach to using keyword planner? Is it [00:09:00] something you're in there every month looking for things? And would you say that would, that should be the way you use it? Is to continue looking. That's a really good question. There are some tools in there that I haven't used, like forecasting, and generally I don't use a lot of [00:09:20] the cuz there are some tools that do what you're talking about.
Generally. I find that once the campaigns are going and we're getting some traction, like we're getting clicks, we're getting conversions then. I'm not, I don't go back to the Gilbert planner in as much, mostly because I'm then doing battle with the search terms and filtering those out and getting the most out of the campaigns that are existing.
[00:09:40] Yeah. Generally though I always get weird when they do the forecasting, cuz I'm like, where are you pulling this from? How are you able to predict people's clicking habits? Like I, I know that they're like they have some predictive elements to what they're doing, but it, I always get a little wary about any of the like.
Tools that they have that are designed to do what you're saying. [00:10:00] I generally just work with what's existing. And maybe if we've got a new campaign or we're launching a new product, I might do some more research based on that. And it'll be specific to that new campaign that we'll be launching, but it's definitely one where.
Once the campaigns get going. There's so much information that you're gonna get feed so much feedback that [00:10:20] generally the keyword planner isn't as useful. But I spend pretty much all my time with it at the start, figuring that out. That's what I figured I use it. I did the same way. I just didn't know if others used it more.
Even while camp, the same campaigns were running to do introduce new keywords or if they stuck to Google. [00:10:40] Suggested added keyword, options that they pop up once in a while. Yeah no, it's totally, it's a good one, cuz there's there's add so many tools inside of that system that there's there's a ton that you can get lost down a rabbit hole.
So that's the other reason why we try not to go, chasing shiny new object to think it's gonna be the cure all and try to stay [00:11:00] focused on the ads cuz you can die with analysis. Inside of the ads platform. So other than using the Google keyword planner to do your research while you're setting up a campaign, are there any other things with the planner that you would suggest or are good to to use it for?
[00:11:20] Yeah. So the one of the big ones that you're gonna get, and this is why I started with using the whole website rather than specific keywords is that sometimes. What you think will be a winning key word might not be. And this is one of the big reasons why, they have a bunch of data on when you're in there, you're looking for things that are gonna be lower, medium [00:11:40] competition.
They're gonna be less than a a hundred plus searches in a month, meaning that it's a hundred or even a thousand. If you can get that and it to be low, medium competition, that's golden. And generally we find that, when we're using it, it's it. Showing what, when you talk to your client or when you're thinking about it yourself, what people are typing into Google and what, how much they're searching for [00:12:00] that, you might get disabused of that idea pretty quickly.
Once you get the data that Google's giving you and saying actually you're getting 10 searches a month, but this other term that's related is actually getting a thousand. And so there's a lot of demystifying a little bit on what people are actually typing into Google and figuring out from there, oh, okay. It turns out that like our messaging, wasn't the [00:12:20] one that we were expecting. So a, maybe we should focus on this keyword or maybe have one ad group. That's all this really technical stuff that like yeah. Those people that type it in are actually well worth, like worth targeting, but like the majority of the ad spends probably be gonna be on these, top of funnel, they're just learning about problems and you're just there to go Hey, you [00:12:40] have this problem. This is a good solution. Yeah. And I want to make sure people knew that one of the reasons why you want to get access to keyword planner, even if you're not running ads is because it's not just ad related.
It's the search volumes for your, or whatever keywords that [00:13:00] you. Wanting the volumes on. So even if you're doing, if you're not doing ads, but you're doing a lot of SEO local, or those types of things, that information is the exact same. So you wanna use the keyword planner to find out that information, figure out if you are, optimizing your website.[00:13:20]
With the correct keywords that you've identified and things like that. It's not strictly for Google ads. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And that's why, like I said, at the very top, you can find out that what Google thinks your website's about so that can also be helpful for a myriad of different like messaging SEO, all these other things about like the, it's coming [00:13:40] from the horse's mouth, right? Cuz Google's the one who's gonna be showing you up. So the more you use a Google tool and especially the one that has any data, because ultimately Google's the one that's running the search algorithm. And so no matter if you're using any third party tool, Google's still they're the.
First party for all intensive purposes. And if they're telling you this information, that's closer to [00:14:00] gospel than anything else you're gonna find out there because they're the ones that are ultimately showing your ad or your website. When you do SEO. Want to know more about SEO. We've got a class for that.
Our mission is to educate students about the right tools, techniques, and strategies to grow their businesses. Using the most up to date search [00:14:20] engine marketing optimization, techniques and tools. Find out [email protected]
and you were just saying You can really come across certain words that you might think are the ones to use. And an alternate is actually searched a [00:14:40] lot more, besides that type of a thing that you could find when you are looking up the terms, what would you say. Would be the best ones to pick.
That's a good question. It's definitely one. The problem you'll run into with picking something super targeted. That's low volume is because things like [00:15:00] broad match have come up, the broad might encompass those. So even if you're not necessarily bidding on it, your competition might have bid on it because they're just doing broad.
And so the getting super targeted, these. It's tricky. It used to be that, you would do an exact campaign and I wanna show up for that exact keyword, but now with Google playing [00:15:20] fast and loose with even exact and how the broad works is that you're gonna want to go for something that's a little.
I'm gonna go with higher search volume personally. That's what I aim for and lower competition. If you can get low competition great. With those weird overlaps abroad where they're like, you're both bidding on similar keyword and then you're [00:15:40] gonna show up in the same election and just a way to get around that to, yeah, it's definitely one where you're the there's gonna be low competition, so you're not having to fight with everyone.
Who's gonna be bidding. If that kind of makes sense. It's a little confusing, cuz I'm trying not to like, dip into oh, what's the auction gonna work? And I'm just, but yeah, generally higher search volumes, even if it's not your [00:16:00] favorite key word, because you might show up with a broad and a broad campaign and find those other keyword that are a little bit lower competition.
Okay. I think we've talked enough about keyword planner figure. We should maybe move on to some conversion tracking and. Yeah. Yeah, that, because now you're gonna wanna not only have the keywords, [00:16:20] but you also wanna make sure that before you even launch your campaign, that you have the conversion tracking cuz way too many times, have we seen the conversions not set up or track properly and the client just goes shrugs their children, not say, I don't know if this is working and you find out pretty sure there has no conversion tracking in smart.
You no, you had to set them outside. So the [00:16:40] conversions are set either campaign level or account level and you I just mean like people who have smart campaigns running. Oh yeah. Probably don't have conversion tracking running because it's not something that also gets set up by. Yeah. By default, they're not like I'm set up this campaign and a Google assured me that.
Comically dust my hands and walk away [00:17:00] from this situation. yeah, it's definitely one. Yeah. I agree with you where it's, you're gonna wanna set it up. It used to be way more complicated to set up, but with tag manager, honestly, it's pretty straightforwards these days because you just need to know the action.
This thank you page. If it loads, [00:17:20] then when they get to this page, then load the, Google ads, conversion tracking. You can do it as simple as that and make it only when this specific page loads, the tools are nice and pretty abstracted. It is a little technical when you first get started, it's a little overwhelming.
But there's. The other thing is nowadays there's like tons of YouTube channels that go over how to set it [00:17:40] up, how to do the conversion, tracking, how to even like, and then, from beginner to like the most advanced, you can do. There's so many more resources now than when I got started.
And you'd just be like, trying to Google something and no one had any content about it. So these days tag manager definitely the way to go. You're still wanting to, I would still recommend setting [00:18:00] up. If you set up your Google ads, conversion tracking, you can also use the same trigger, meaning like anytime this specific event happens, you can also do that for events, for Google analytics, for, and UA.
So you pretty much. Get three birds with one stone by basically sending the signal to the three platforms [00:18:20] universal analytics, GA four and Google ads that when this event happens, like I wanna track it with all three. So it's definitely super easy like that, that you can just reuse the same little snippets that you have inside your tag manager.
Yeah. So in this scenario, obviously people need to have Google analytics set up first [00:18:40] with. Both your universal analytics and your GA four analytics in there. Yeah. And once you have that, the third component is what you were saying is the tag manager. And once you have tag manager integrated your tag manager is the only snippet of code that [00:19:00] has to be inserted in your site.
Once that happens, your tag manager can be used to control. Everything and insert on your website, whatever snippets you need through the tech manager. Yeah, exactly. I like to think of it as kinda like a conductor and it's like telling people like, [00:19:20] okay, now it's your turn. Okay. Now I need you to come here because this event happened.
Okay. You're gonna be here now. And it's telling orchestrating when the tags are firing and then generally it's gonna have. Universal analytics are GA four, just running all the time. Cause there's no point there's no page where not running it. It's going isn't beneficial. So those two are pretty much [00:19:40] running the whole time.
And so with all of that set up, people will then use Google tag manager to set up any conversion tracking they want within their site. And then it'll just be reported on your UA or GA four. Analytics. Yeah. So after [00:20:00] the fact, what you can do is do reporting and then just say oh, we got a conversion here.
The good thing about setting up with the same trigger and having it set up for the two analytics is when you get into multi-channel funnels so you're getting to see the whole journey and you may see that like we've had it for a couple of clients where the ads were the first step. And then the person [00:20:20] did found them on through SEO and then converted.
Having, being able to track all those steps along the journey, super valuable for you as like a marketer, because you can still show value because most people are busy, they go oh I was gonna look up that thing about air duct cleaning. Okay. Let me just Google that.
And then it was like, oh, I remember going to this person's website. [00:20:40] And you're getting people. On the repeated steps in the journey, which is. That's the most common way that you're gonna see it in Google analytics these days. The, and so the Google ads, conversion tracking also sends a signal that, you know, because you set like a couple of a window that like within seven days, if this person's clicked on this ad, and later [00:21:00] on, I want to still give some attribution to that because, that was the step on the, along the journey.
And so for us we give it. Distribute the attribution evenly, because we don't really think of Like personally, we are not like, oh, this obviously this last step, that's the only step that matters. It was like there's a whole bunch of steps [00:21:20] along the way. So why don't we track all of them?
And they're all valuable. And it gives credit for everyone along the path. A lot of people shopping online will. Come back and complete a purchase later, like a couple hours later, even days later, right? Yeah. People do research online. We know this they're figuring out what [00:21:40] it is they want and they might have found.
Something on your site and gone through a process, but not completed it, but then did more research and then came back and decided that's the one I'm gonna get. So they come back to your site and complete a purchase. So you do want that to be tracked [00:22:00] as its own individual. Conversion yeah. From when it first happened, hours or days before to when it was completed.
Yeah, exactly. I'd say, and then in and in this I would say there's one little distinction and it's a big. Kind of argument that, there's no really right or wrong answer. There's just personal opinions. But if you're [00:22:20] doing something like e-commerce that some people are like each step I in that journey from add to cart to, start checkout to complete purchase are all, can be considered goals.
I don't subscribe to that. I consider only when, like they've made the purchase and you, they see that thank you page that's to me, the goal and everything else are [00:22:40] events leading up to that goal. And and that's just a personal. Preferences or something. I would agree with that. Although each event leading up to the goal is important in itself.
Yeah. You, do you do wanna track and analyze how many people added something to their cart? Yeah. Versus how many people actually [00:23:00] completed the transaction. Cuz if you have a 75% drop off, then you're looking. That information is valuable because you're like, okay, why is 75% of the people adding something to their cart and not completing an order?
Like it might is my shipping too high. Is there a, [00:23:20] an issue with the process of checking out like that in itself, seeing that information could be really valuable to figuring out what is happening on your. Oh, absolutely. Yes. Like a e-commerce funnel analytics. Yeah, that is very important to discussion I'd say just for another time, [00:23:40] just because like we could totally go down a rabbit hole right there.
Yeah, no, I just wanted to show that as an example of why, the events leading up to the actual goal is, are important as. Oh, yeah. A hundred percent. No, it's definitely knowing your funnel and knowing where your drop off is the most is definitely one you wanna be paying attention [00:24:00] to. And that's again, why the conversion tracking is so important is because once you've set it up as goals and conversions, and you've got that in your analytics, you can go back and be like, Hey, I've had to spend a bunch of money on Facebook, retargeting ads to get people to go back to this point in the funnel.
Okay. That's weird. Why is it. You can start to make associations with particular channels [00:24:20] that you're putting money into and how they how they affect you. In the last couple minutes, there is one thing that we did discuss, which is related to the tag manager, which is setting up server side, Google tag manager.
And yeah, I think I wouldn't mind like a high level overview of what. This is, and this potentially could [00:24:40] be a future topic on it, on its own for people to understand what it is and where this is going. Yeah, a hundred percent especially if you are doing Facebook ads running it through a server side, Google tag manager, basically.
Just so we, we will go through the high level of it. What it is that tag manager [00:25:00] generally loads with your website, then it. Like I did said with the, conducting it, then reaches out to people and says, okay, I need you to now get this tag. And it does it, it loads to the website. Then it reaches out to a third party to load the analytics, JavaScript including Facebook pixel.
That's one of the big issues that it had with the iOS update. So [00:25:20] what it, what the server site does is it says, okay, I know that everything I'm going to need to load is gonna be these scripts. Okay, I'm gonna load them in the back end so that when someone loads the website, it's all coming in one go.
And so it seems like it's all from one party, even if it actually is gonna then go to a third party afterwards, it initially [00:25:40] launches as a first party. Meaning it's that web it's part of the website. N normally. And so what it does is it helps it a, it helps with the speed of the website, which is always important because everything's loading at once.
It's not having to make extra calls afterwards to all these other parties. And then the other thing is it helps with security as well, because [00:26:00] there's a bunch more rules that kind of come up. It's not anything we have to be concerned about, but it's, it makes it. For the, for all parties concerned, having it all load in the back end.
If I'm not mistaken, there's no difference in all of the other things that need to be set up. The difference comes in using the server side [00:26:20] method of getting it loaded onto your website. So this doesn't eliminate anything else that we've talked about, setting up. It really is a different way of.
Having all of this implemented to get onto your website. Yeah. Or even I would say even simpler than that, it's just an extra step. [00:26:40] It's just you cuz you still have to do a regular web container of Google take manager and then it's gonna be wrapped in a server side one. It's basically that. And then there's one extra little step for doing the Google analytics that I'm not gonna get into here, but.
It's the only part that's a little can trippy up if you're not familiar with it, but I'll post a [00:27:00] guide on how to set it up in the comments, because I did find a really helpful one. If you just follow it step by step. Honestly, I that's. Yeah. Is that the one you sent me? The other day? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I look forward to reading that cause I think I'm gonna be having to do a lot more of this in the near future for implementing and stuff like that.
So I actually look forward to reading that and getting [00:27:20] into possibly a future topic to. Take this across to everybody else. Yeah, for sure. And we are definitely up on time, but yes, I will get that posted and and I'll have it in the one for the cyber punk marketing mixer, Facebook group. If you aren't a member of it, feel free to come over to there.
[00:27:40] And we talk about fun things like this every Thursday next week is the monthly round. Oh, it's the monthly one. And okay. So my name is FA. And I'm Greg. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you and see you next week.[00:28:00]
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