Google has confirmed a bug with its Google Shopping Ads product where the cost per click (CPC) prices spiked from 50% to over 200% over the weekend. The issue happened last night, Friday, November 12th between 9pm EST (6pm PST) through this morning, Saturday, November 13th at 12am EST (3am PST).
Confirmation. Google confirmed the issue after 1pm EST today, November 13th on Twitter saying “The Google Ads system encountered an unexpected issue between 6pm PST on Friday Nov 12 – 3am PST Saturday, Nov 13 that affected Shopping Ads. We identified and fixed the issue. Everything is working as expected now.”
The Google Ads system encountered an unexpected issue between 6pm PST on Friday Nov 12 – 3am PST Saturday, Nov 13 that affected Shopping Ads. We identified and fixed the issue. Everything is working as expected now.
What’s next. It appears that if you were impacted, a Google Ads representative will be in touch with more details. Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison from Google wrote on Twitter “impacted advertisers will be notified with more details.” Of course, it doesn’t hurt for you to check your Google Ads reporting and see if you were impacted and then to proactively reach out to Google for help and refunds.
How bad was it. Well, look at this chart from one Google Ads advertser:
Why we care. If you have any Google shopping campaigns in Google Ads, you will want to check to ensure your ads were not impacted. If they were, make sure to reach out to Google for some sort of remedy so that you are not over-billed and your ad campaigns do not suffer in other ways.
Google is rolling out product feed support for awareness and consideration Video campaign subtypes, the company announced Friday. The update, which rolls out over the coming weeks, enables brands to show browsable product images below their video ads for campaigns that have “Product and brand consideration” or “Brand awareness and reach” set as the goal.
An example of products showcased below a video ad. Image: Google.
Previously, Video action campaigns were the only campaign type that could be linked to product feeds from Google Merchant Center.
How it works. When a user is shown your video ad, the panel below the ad automatically expands to show your products. At this time, products only appear when the user’s mobile device is in portrait mode. Selecting an image takes the user to the product landing page, where they can continue the transaction.
Advertisers must include at least four products in their Merchant Center product feed, with a 1:1 ratio image for each product to be shown (only the primary product image will be used). The Google Ads Help center has more detailed instructions on adding a product feed to your Video campaigns.
Why we care. Advertisers can now make any Video campaign more shoppable without having to create a separate TrueView for shopping campaign. “On average, advertisers that add product feeds to their Video action campaigns achieve over 60% more conversions at a lower cost,” Google said, citing its own internal data in which it compared 941 campaigns with product feeds to campaigns without them. While this new feature may help you achieve greater efficiency, it’s always important to test it out for yourself to assess how it may or may not benefit your overall strategy.
Google has is testing adding a few new columns of metrics to the Google Keyword Planner Tool. The new columns we’ve seen on the Google Keyword Planner Tool include year-over-year change, three-month change and trend type.
New in Keyword planner tool. You can access the keyword planner tool over here if you have a Google Ads account. When you run a new report, Google may pop up a message saying “Keyword trends: Now you can compare recent and past keyword trends.”
Google’s Keyword Planner tool helps you research keywords for your Google Search campaigns. You can use this free tool to discover new keywords related to your business and see estimates of the searches they receive and the cost to target them.
New columns. Google has added new keyword trends data including:
YoY Change – The year over year change compares the monthly search volume of the latest month with the same month the previous year.
Three month change – The three month change shows a three month change in search trends by comparing the latest month’s data, with the data from two months prior. For example, if the latest month is July, the July data would be compared to May to show change in search volume over three months.
Three month trending type – This shows you if the trend is going up or down or remaining flat for the keyword. I no longer see this but Google was testing this.
What it looks like. Here are screenshots of these new columns; one from Patrick Garde on Twitter and the other from Arbab Usmani’s on Twitter:
New YoY Change ColumnThree Month Trend Type Column
Google statement. “This is a small experiment. We’re always testing new ways to improve our experience for our advertisers and users, but don’t have anything specific to announce right now,” a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land.
“This is a small experiment. We’re always testing new ways to improve our experience for our advertisers and users, but don’t have anything specific to announce right now,” a spokesperson told @sengineland. #PPCChathttps://t.co/FEY50fbw37
It looks like Google has continued to experiment with new keyword planner columns.
Why we care. Having more data, be it trending figures for the past three months or year-over-year, can be useful for marketers to see trends and plan their campaigns with more insight. Check out the keyword planner tool and utilize as much of the data Google is giving you to benefit your customers and your own campaigns.
Numerous advertisers have reported “Destination mismatch” ad disapprovals in Google Ads that may be the result of a glitch. “I had five clients impacted; most ads are no longer disapproved (though one account still has some). Of the other four, three have ads Eligible (Limited) for Destination Mismatch,” said Director of Search Strategy at JumpFly, Nikki Kuhlman, who first brought this to our attention.
Update as of this morning: I had five clients impacted; most ads are no longer disapproved (though one account still has some). Of the other four, three have ads Eligible (Limited) for Destination Mismatch. pic.twitter.com/IRsHaVM5Jx
The Google Ads team is aware of the issue and is currently investigating it, said Ginny Marvin, Google’s ads product liaison.
Several PPC professionals are experiencing the same disapproval. After Kuhlman shared the issue, other PPC practitioners commented that they’re also noticing the same disapproval. “Confirming. We just got 1,000’s of disapproval’s for that,” Andrew Kachel commented. And, as Shaun Maharaj has pointed out, the empty fields in the notice (shown below) may indicate that something isn’t working properly on Google’s end.
Seeing the same. New rejections coming in every couple of hours. Seems like a bug because the fields are blank pic.twitter.com/AcsC78lGBf
One professional, Christian Rios, said that he’s now seeing destination mismatch disapprovals for ads that “haven’t been touched in ages.”
One glitch after another? There seems to be another Google Ads issue going around: Since mid-October, some advertisers have reported that they’re receiving an error saying their ads aren’t showing due to a location targeting issue. One advertiser has allegedly been told by a Google representative that the error is now fixed, however many are still reporting the issue. It is unclear whether these issues are connected.
PPC professionals are testing solutions. “Have a look at account settings > tracking and see if you have anything in the tracking template field,” Mark Bissoni suggested, “Could be this. Remove it and appeal.”
If you’re also experiencing destination mismatch disapprovals, but at a much smaller scale than what other PPC professionals are describing, it’s possible that your disapproval isn’t due to a bug. If you suspect that’s the case, you can turn to Google’s Advertising Policies Help page for guidance on how to troubleshoot destination mismatches.
Why we care. “I had a client messaging me on Facebook last night because she was freaking out,” Kuhlman told Search Engine Land, “She was also the biggest impacted — she had about 500 ads disapproved.” If you’re suddenly experiencing widespread destination mismatch disapprovals, it may be due to an issue on Google’s end. Informing your clients that others are experiencing the same issue and that Google is aware and investigating it may ease their concerns. It’s also important to make note of the disapprovals for reporting purposes.
We are quickly approaching the height of the holiday shopping season. Hopefully, Google is able to get things working properly, or explain the issue so that advertisers can resolve it themselves, before it begins to impact any Cyber Week promotions that brands may be planning.
Google introduced their Policy center for Ad Manager, AdMob and AdSense to ensure that Ad Managers had a comprehensive view of potential violations that would prevent their ads from displaying to searchers. The Policy center also ensured that publishers were able to keep as much of their inventory compliant with Google Ads policies. Along with an updated interface, Shreyas Deshmukh, Product Manager at Google Ads, said new features are available for users of the product.
Account health summary updated. The improved account health summary gives a zoomed-out view of the total number of sites and/or apps with issues. The health summary also shows a red highlighted section for issues that are categorized as must fix. “This can help publishers better prioritize the issues that require their attention. The account health summary also shows the impact on ads serving for any given page where ads have been disabled or restricted,” said Deshmukh.
Source: Google AdSense
More filtering options. “Publishers can now filter the tables using single or multiple columns, such as all issues reported on a given date that are a ‘Must fix.’ A list of issues can also be downloaded as a CSV file for a filtered view,” added Deshmukh. The new filtering and search systems make sure Ad Managers can highlight specific or high-priority issues in order to focus on what matters most to their accounts at that time.
Comprehensive view of issues across ad inventory. Along with the ability to look at overall ad health and sort by specific issues, there is a new table view so “Ad Manager publishers have a more comprehensive view of issues across their inventory.” The new table now includes an aggregate column “Ad requests – last 7 days” so publishers can determine the impact that violations have on their accounts.
Source: Google AdSense
Why we care. The announcement also indicates that upcoming features include “enabling screenshots of issues in the Policy center. This will help you pinpoint exactly where the issue is, and give you the context to fix it quickly.” Along with an easier-to-use interface, these sorting and updated view features will give publishers better insight into issues that are holding up their accounts and the tools to fix them quickly.
Google Ads is introducing conversion goals, which group conversion actions into categories based on conversion type and can be used to optimize bidding at the account or campaign level, the company announced Monday. Alongside conversion goals, the company also announced a troubleshooting tool called Tag Assistant and explanations for Search campaigns.
Standard goals — Conversion actions added by the advertiser, which are then automatically grouped into conversion goals based on their conversion category type (e.g., “Purchases,” “Contacts” or “Submit lead forms”).
Account-default goals — The standard conversion goals (above) that you have designated as your account default. When you create a new campaign, all account-default goals in your account are selected for optimization by default.
Custom goals — Goals that advertisers can create and add any combination of primary (used for bidding) and secondary conversion (not used for bidding) actions.
“For example, let’s say you’re an online clothing retailer. Going forward, you can set a purchase as your account-default goal so that all of your campaigns can optimize for that outcome,” Google said in the announcement, “Within this purchase goal, you’ll also be able to define which specific conversion actions, such as ‘completed sale’, should be used for bidding.” Advertisers can decide which individual conversion actions are used for bidding optimization when the goal it belongs to is used for bidding.
Advertisers will begin seeing their conversion actions grouped by these new conversion goals when they create new campaigns over the coming weeks. Existing conversion, conversion optimization and bidding settings will not be changed.
Tag assistant. Your conversion actions play an important role in facilitating the aforementioned conversion goals. To that end, Google is also introducing Tag Assistant, a tool that can help you diagnose issues with your conversion actions, such as unverified conversion actions, inactive tags or no recent conversions.
The new Tag Assistant in Google Ads. Image: Google.
Additionally, the Tag Assistant shows which conversion actions are being properly measured in real time.
Explanations for Search campaigns. Google has also added explanations for Search campaigns. “With explanations, you can view the reason for any change in conversion value in a single click,” the company said.
An example of an explanation in Google Ads. Image: Google.
Explanations are currently available for search campaigns using manual CPC, enhanced CPC, enhanced CPC for value, target CPA, maximize conversions, maximize clicks bidding, maximize conversion value and target ROAS, as well as app campaigns using target CPA.
Why we care. Conversion goals may simplify conversion management and improve campaign performance by giving Google’s machine learning more data to work with.
The Tag Assistant can help advertisers troubleshoot unverified or inactive conversion actions, which can help them more accurately record conversions.
And, explanations may help advertisers learn why account performance has changed, in one place, without having to cross-reference reports. This may also be useful for identifying potential reasons behind those performance changes.
Another quarter’s earnings report shows that Google is among the winners when it comes to the shifting pandemic landscape. It makes sense that their investment in e-commerce and multi-channel advertising options continues to pay dividends as many people are still hesitant to participate in in-person shopping, dining, and more. That, plus many have just come to prefer the convenience of pick-up, delivery, and online ordering options.
41% year-over-year growth. Revenues for Google’s parent company, Alphabet, went up a whopping 41% YoY according to the report, with ad revenues driving $51.3 out of the $65.1 billion. Google attributed the continued increases to its big push for commerce in Q3 (and before) in the earnings call. Along with the investment in commerce, Google is offering even more options for advertisers who are seeing a return to in-person shopping, especially as the holiday season nears.
YouTube is the breakout star. “YouTube advertising revenues reached $7.2bn, an increase of 43% from the previous quarter thanks to both direct response and brand advertising,” reported John Glenday for The Drum. This is the result of YouTube’s CTV (connected TV) advertising increases and its competitive product Shorts, which competes with the likes of TikTok and Snap. This increase is a big deal since Apple’s App Tracking Transparency had the potential to affect YouTube similarly to other video social media apps.
Google revenues not affected by legal troubles. Recent lawsuits and controversy with documents being unsealed in those cases don’t seem to be harming the company’s revenues or usage of their products. These controversies include the allegations that the company throttled non-AMP pages, which it “claimed would ‘dramatically improve’ mobile web performance when it launched in 2015, was in fact a scheme to coerce publishers into using the format in order to limit advertising dollars not spent on its own ad exchanges.” Plus, there is a history of alleged collusion with Facebook to “kill header bidding” and essentially rig the ad market in the tech giants’ favor.
Why we care. “Google chief business officer Philipp Schindler explained on the call that while shoppers are returning to physical stores, the company’s also seeing ‘strong growth in local shopping queries’ at the same time,” said Sean Hollister for The Verge. Advertisers can expect to see the continued shift in local and omnichannel search marketing strategies, so if you’re not preparing yet, it’s something to consider for your 2022 strategy.
On the power dynamics side, Search Engine Land has written multiple times before about the juggernaut that Google has become. Many search marketers are aware of (and not surprised by) the moves the company has allegedly made, and many believe we just have to operate in this environment since we lack the control to change it. However, we can still exercise our power to do good in the industry via constant feedback and
This past Friday a New York judge unsealed previously redacted documents in the lawsuit against Google led by the State of Texas. One of the main allegations of the antitrust lawsuit is that Google and Facebook colluded to rig ad prices and “kill header bidding” (the attempt by competitors to make the ad market less Google-centric).
“The lawsuit claims that when Facebook began to gain traction as a rival advertiser, Google made an agreement with Facebook to reduce competition in exchange for giving the social media company an advantage in Google-run ad auctions. The project was called ‘Jedi Blue,’” we wrote in April of this year.
The newly unredacted information shows just how deep the alleged agreement went between Facebook and the search engine giant.
Jedi Blue and Facebook/Google ad exchanges. Code-named “Jedi Blue,” the arrangement between Facebook and Google meant that Google would “charge Facebook lower fees and give Facebook information, speed and other advantages in header bidding auctions in exchange for Facebook’s support of Open Bidding, Google’s header bidding alternative,” wrote Allison Schiff for AdExchanger.
Some suspect that Facebook initially backed header bidding in order to force Google’s hand in the arrangement and force a mutually beneficial deal. “Partnerships like this are common in the industry, and we have similar agreements with several other companies. Facebook continues to invest in these partnerships, and create new ones, which help increase competition in ad auctions to create the best outcomes for advertisers and publishers. Any suggestion that these types of agreements harm competition is baseless,” Facebook said in a statement.
The internal documents at Facebook reveal that the company had “four options: to ‘invest hundreds more engineers’ and spend billions of dollars to lock up inventory to compete, exit the business, or do the deal with Google.”
Meanwhile, Google’s main goal was to figure out any way to stop header bidding from gaining steam in the industry.
What is header bidding? “Header bidding helped website publishers circumvent Google’s exchange for buying and selling ads across the web. The exchange auctions ad space to the highest bidder during the split second it takes a webpage to load. Header bidding allowed the publishers to directly solicit bids from multiple ad exchanges at once, leading to more favorable prices for publishers,” explained Ryan Tracy and Jeff Horwitz for the Wall Street Journal.
Google worried, according to court documents, that having a large ad rival (like Facebook) embracing header bidding would disrupt what was essentially their monopoly on the ad market. “Header bidding was bad because it allowed publishers to bypass fees which we now learn ranged between 19-22% of revenues,” said Jason Kint in a tweet thread analysis of the court docs.
How Project Jedi worked. In order to win in the exchange, Google created the Open Bidding program. This program, in theory, let publishers display their inventory to multiple ad exchanges at once. This was presented as a competitor to header bidding. However, the lawsuit alleges that Google manipulated Open Bidding to give Facebook’s Ad Network (FAN) an unfair advantage. “Jedi’s success was measured not by financial targets or output increases, but by how much it stopped publishers from using header bidding,” said Janice Tan with Marketing Interactive after an assessment of the documents.
From there, the partnership with Facebook meant the social media giant also threw its weight behind Open Bidding over header bidding. In exchange for backing Google’s open bidding over header bidding, Facebook received “information, speed and other advantages in the auction it runs in the US,” added Tan.
“Both companies also had an illegal advertising deal that allowed the social media company to appear more in Google Ads. Google did this by fixing bids in ad auctions to Facebook’s favor,” alleges Nalin Rawat for FossBytes.
Why we care. Well, firstly, it’s a lot to digest. There is potential that publishers and advertisers have been overpaying and missing out on placements due to Google’s alleged collusion with Facebook to essentially rig the ad market. According to the unredacted documents, Jedi “generates suboptimal yields for publishers and serious risks of negative media coverage if exposed externally.” Also with Google promoting FLoC, FLEDGE, and the rest of their sandbox as a privacy solution for the open web, these revelations call into question their motives (especially if the company is sharing sensitive data with other firms that have agreed to terms with them for ads). Many advertisers complain about the lack of reach with other competitive ad networks and the revelations in the unredacted Google lawsuit show that the tech giant’s leadership worked diligently to ensure that competition was squashed.
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Good morning, Marketers, and how much TV do you watch?
Since having my daughter over a year ago, I have only been able to make time for The Great British Bake Off on Friday nights. But as a millennial and a latchkey kid, I was raised on TV. I just saw that Project Runway, one of my college TV favorites, is now in its 19th season!
In case you’re not a reality TV buff, Project Runway is a show where aspiring fashion designers face weekly challenges to create a garment based on the theme. As someone who never learned to sew well (sorry, mom) the fact that they could come up with a look, design it, create it, and have it modeled all in one week was mind-blowing.
The best part was Tim Gunn, a mentor to the designers throughout the week who helped them course correct and encouraged them when they were on to something. His famous catchphrase was, “Make it work, designers.” I still say it now to myself and to others when things are getting weird and we just have to push through. Make it work!
Tim Gunn proves the importance having a guiding hand can be in helping up-and-comers achieve their goals. As the Search Engine Land mentorship program winds down, our group’s mentees have achieved AMAZING things (new jobs, promotions, new projects, and more). They likely would have achieved these things on their own (they are awesome, after all), but having a guiding hand to help you choose the right path for you is ALWAYS a professional benefit.
We’re lucky to have our mentors joining us for a panel at SMX Next to talk about how to be a mentor (which could be great for new managers too!), and how they balance what’d they’d do versus guiding someone along their own path.
If you’re looking to mentor or manage people, it’s a don’t-miss. Register here!
Carolyn Lyden, Director of Search Content
Podcast knowledge panels go live in Google Search
Google seems to be rolling out podcast-based knowledge panels in Google Search. When you search for your favorite podcast, you might see a new knowledge panel show up in the search results.
Why we care. If you or your clients run a podcast, check to see if you are noticing this new knowledge panel in the Google search results. If not, it might be related to the RSS feed your podcast is produced on. Sadly, there is no official documentation on how your podcast can show as a knowledge panel.
What does Google’s infinite scroll on mobile mean for advertisers?
Google’s announcement about infinite scroll has many advertisers wondering what will happen to their Google Ads on mobile devices. This change, which is rolling out over the next two weeks, “does not affect how the ad auction works or the way Ad Rank is calculated,” said Mohamed Farid, Product Manager at Google Ads. But there may be some changes in metrics.
How will my metrics change? You may see more mobile impressions and a lower CTR on Search, Shopping, and Local Ads. “We expect clicks, conversions, average CPC, and average CPA to remain flat,” added Farid in the Q&A document. “Search campaigns may see more impressions from top ads and fewer impressions from bottom ads.”
Why we care. This is an important change to communicate to clients and stakeholders who may be invested in the minutiae of campaign metrics. Google recommends reviewing your advertising goals and “monitoring your campaigns and continuing to optimize them based on your business objectives.” This change is only for U.S.-based queries right now but will roll out to additional countries and languages in 2022.
Create effective communications strategies that articulate Knoetic’s core benefits, and continually test, track, and report on results.
Consistently produce high-quality content (including articles, white papers, blogs, emails, case studies, etc.) that drive inbound interest in Knoetic’s offerings.
Lead day-to-day execution of organic search engine campaigns including keyword research, content gap analysis, strategic optimization of existing content, competitor analysis, on-page SEO factors and site architecture improvements.
Work with content leads to create SEO content strategies for each of the verticals and work on executing evergreen strategies for existing and new content.
What We’re Reading: We’re all hackers now: Journalist “decodes” HTML to find PII
A local Missouri media publication warned the state’s administrative officials that their website exposed the social security numbers of multiple teachers. The reporter did so as a courtesy before publishing the news, as the PII was publicly available for anyone to find.
The news went “viral” after Missouri Governor Mike Parsons posted a tweet thread saying the website was hacked:
“Through a multi-step process, an individual took the records of at least three educators, decoded the HTML source code, and viewed the SSN of those specific educators. We notified the Cole County prosecutor and the Highway Patrol’s Digital Forensic Unit will investigate.
Upon receiving this notice, DESE immediately contacted the Missouri Office of Administration ITSD, who programs and maintains the web application, to remove public access to the portal and update the code. This matter is serious. The state is committing to bring to justice anyone who hacked our system and anyone who aided or encouraged them to do so — in accordance with what Missouri law allows AND requires.”
Search marketers know, of course, that there’s no “decoding” source code. A quick right-click and “view source code” makes it available to all. The issue is actually that social security numbers were included in the HTML, to begin with. The Missouri administration believes it was hacked, though.
We hope the misunderstanding is cleared up and that the Governor’s office stops putting social security numbers in the HTML of their sites.
Google announced that mobile users will now have continuous scroll in search results. This means that instead of coming upon a “See More” button after about ten results, searchers will be able to continue scrolling through approximately four pages of search results before seeing the “See More” link.
This has many advertisers wondering what will happen to their Google Ads on mobile devices. This change, which is rolling out over the next two weeks, “does not affect how the ad auction works or the way Ad Rank is calculated,” said Mohamed Farid, Product Manager at Google Ads. But there may be some changes in metrics.
If the page is “infinite” what will happen to ads at the top and bottom? Because of the change to the way search results are now displayed on mobile devices, Google is “redistributing the number of text ads that can show between the top and bottom of pages for US-English mobile queries. Now, text ads can show at the top of the second page and beyond, while fewer text ads will show at the bottom of each page,” said Farid. Shopping and Local ads will remain the same.
Can ads show multiple times for a single query? In short, yes. Google says that this has always been the case, though. “Ads have always been eligible (based on Ad Rank) to show on a search results page and again on a subsequent page,” wrote Farid. Google Ad’s systems take into account if your ad was shown on a previous page when it calculates your Ad Rank for each page.
How will my metrics change? You may see more mobile impressions and a lower CTR on Search, Shopping, and Local Ads. “We expect clicks, conversions, average CPC, and average CPA to remain flat,” added Farid in the Q&A document. “Search campaigns may see more impressions from top ads and fewer impressions from bottom ads.”
Should I change anything? “To understand your performance based on where your text ads show on the search results page, consider segmenting your performance data by “Top vs. Other” and reviewing your prominence metrics.
Why we care. This is an important change to communicate to clients and stakeholders who may be invested in the minutiae of campaign metrics. Google recommends reviewing your advertising goals and “monitoring your campaigns and continuing to optimize them based on your business objectives.” This change is only for U.S.-based queries right now but will roll out to additional countries and languages in 2022.
