My search terms report is showing searches where literally none of the words in the search match any of my keywords or even a misspelling/variation of the keywords. Is phrase match just broad match-lite now?
Or otherwise emphasize modern business development? By recently I mean within the past 10 years or so. A lot of books that I am reading were written by people who built their book 30 years ago and are living off of the referrals. That's great if you're in that position but I am in the early-mid stage of my career so I'm not there yet. I want to get some ideas how to grow my practice today. I read Delivering Massive Value and that one seemed to have a lot of stuff that is relevant today but some other books I am reading just have these horribly outdated scripts that sound corny AF. I got Alex Hormozi's $100m Leads and that one is next on my reading list.
Smoking weed is not a pleasant experience for me.
I smoked weed maybe 30-40 times in my life. I tried to get into it. People always say its more relaxing than alcohol and doesn't have the negative side effects. Not true for me AT ALL.
Sometimes, it was sort of relaxing but most of the time, it just gave me an anxiety attack and I had to go lay down and wait for the effects to wear off. Just not my thing, I suppose.
I don't really drink for the sole purpose of getting drunk either but a few drinks to relax on the weekends or while watching a movie or something helps to take the edge off. No hangovers when used in moderation.
When I was a credit union advisor, we had a free program that I could refer our members to that offered things like basic budgeting assistance and debt counseling. Sometimes, I am meeting with a prospect and it's clear that they aren't going to become clients anytime soon and have some fundamental issues that they need to get fixed with their finances.
I don't like to end the conversation with, "Well, I don't think we're a fit for you. Best of luck. Have a nice day." I would like to be able to send them somewhere so that they can get some help. Are there any free resources out there for people like this that aren't a debt consolidation mill? I don't like to send them to a place where they are just going to get another loan while the underlying issue is unchanged.
I have been having some disappointing interactions with Google that have been leaving a somewhat sour taste in my mouth. I am a small advertiser by Google's standards so I'm sure that they couldn't care less what I think about them.
With the rising costs of search ads and the fact that I am a local guy competing for impression share against multi-billion dollar financial firms, it has gotten me to thinking about whether I can get better value elsewhere. I have never run Bing ads before and I have done some basic research into it but I'm still not super familiar with the platform.
The thing that got me thinking about Bing is that my client base tends to be older (roughly 80% are 40+) and more affluent. My industry is not impulse driven. Most people using my services are going to want to sit down and do research. Because of this, Bing being more desktop heavy is appealing to me. I am just a local guy running a small financial firm so I don't need massive scale. Adding more than 2 new clients in a given month is a huge month for me. A small, well-targeted campaign is better for me than a campaign where I am chasing down a bunch of junk leads. Obviously, lower CPCs are appealing to me as well.
My main concern lies with the fact that, being a small (and relatively new) advertiser, I don't have tons of data to say what will or will not translate to Bing. Also, with my campaigns on Google being tight, exact/phrase search ads, is Bing going to have enough search volume? I already have problems with impression/click/conversion volume on Google so would this problem be worse for Bing? What is the level of bot/spam clicks on Bing? Better, worse or about the same as Google?
Maybe I'm just pissed that it feels like Google loves taking money from small businesses and the large national firms get all of the benefit but is this something worth thinking about? What should I consider before doing this? Is there an alternative that I'm not considering?
So I know the conventional wisdom has been to start a search campaign with no conversion data with max clicks rather than max conversions. Over the past couple of months, I have seen several YouTube channels saying that smart bidding has changed and to start with max conversions.
Their logic seems to be that the campaign isn't going to perform well initially, regardless of whether max clicks or max conversions is selected so just select the thing that you want Google to optimize for. Google thinks they gave you what you want if someone clicks the ad accidentally when using max clicks. Also, that Google is getting smarter and is pulling data from similar businesses, not just my campaign.
Is there any truth to this or no? Is max clicks still the best place to start?
Email? Phone call? Letter? Post card?
What is your process if they don't respond?
What kind of language are you using to frame the review so it doesn't sound like something that is just a requirement that we have to get through but rather, something that is beneficial to them?
While I'm sure that we all have clients that are genuinely appreciative of their review, some of us have clients that just don't see their review as a priority and it gets put on the back burner.
TLDR: are there any changes that can be made to a campaign that has low impressions and no clicks without resetting the learning phase?
About my business: Financial services (financial planning). $50/day budget. The top of page bid range for most keywords I am targeting goes from about $2 to $15. The population of the metropolitan area where I live is just under 800K, so not super densely populated but not small either. I am targeting an 80 mi radius.
I know keywords in my industry can be on the expensive side so I am trying to niche down and target cheaper keywords around specific services, starting with my highest volume service. Most of the high volume keywords (financial advisor near me, financial planner near me, etc) are dominated by the national firms with infinite ad budget. Not an area where I can compete at this time.
I am sure part of the problem is with my ad headlines. Since my industry is heavily regulated at the state and federal level, there are a lot of advertising restrictions. Because of the language in my headlines, my compliance department has told me that I must include the words "fee-based." I am sure that having the word "fee" in a headlines doesn't do wonders for my CTR but it is going to be difficult to advertise my value proposition without it. (Side note/gripe: I love how some of my competitors can get away with running TV ads making ridiculous claims yet guys like me who have to do things the right way get hosed. My compliance department would have a stroke if I were running ads like they do) On the positive side, we get contacted by a lot of freeloaders looking for free financial plans so I am sure having the words, "fee-based" will filter out bad clicks that aren't going to use my services anyway.
I started off doing a max clicks campaign to gather data. After about a week, I had zero clicks and 20 impressions. I got contacted by one of the Google Ads strategists who encouraged me to do a max conversions campaign. I didn't go along with that since I have no conversion data but after a week of low impressions and zero clicks, I relented and switched to max conversions since I'm sure Google's AI isn't learning anything with zero clicks anyway. Admittedly, it has been only 2 days since the change but now I am sitting at 3 impressions, zero clicks. Low impression share too. Is Google even learning anything or should I just make a change now?
There are a few things that I am thinking about doing. First, is that I am using only exact match and phrase match. I wanted to avoid wasted ad spend so I didn't use broad match. The budget isn't being spent anyway so I can add some broad match keywords. Because of my niche marketing strategy, search volume is on the lower side but I had assumed that phrase match would give me enough impressions. I guess not. Second, I could expand to an additional geographic location. I can work virtually and there is a medium sized city just outside my current radius. Third, I can add another campaign for a separate service. Not as high volume as the current ad I am running but it is a growing market and I am one of maybe 2 or 3 advisors in my area that offer it.
I know Google takes time to learn but is it learning anything with 0 clicks? Can I implement some of these changes without resetting the learning phase?
TLDR: are there any changes that can be made to a campaign that has low impressions and no clicks without resetting the learning phase?
About my business: Financial services (financial planning). $50/day budget. The top of page bid range for most keywords I am targeting goes from about $2 to $15. The population of the metropolitan area where I live is just under 800K, so not super densely populated but not small either. I am targeting an 80 mi radius.
I know keywords in my industry can be on the expensive side so I am trying to niche down and target cheaper keywords around specific services, starting with my highest volume service. Most of the high volume keywords (financial advisor near me, financial planner near me, etc) are dominated by the national firms with infinite ad budget. Not an area where I can compete at this time.
I am sure part of the problem is with my ad headlines. Since my industry is heavily regulated at the state and federal level, there are a lot of advertising restrictions. Because of the language in my headlines, my compliance department has told me that I must include the words "fee-based." I am sure that having the word "fee" in a headlines doesn't do wonders for my CTR but it is going to be difficult to advertise my value proposition without it. (Side note/gripe: I love how some of my competitors can get away with running TV ads making ridiculous claims yet guys like me who have to do things the right way get hosed. My compliance department would have a stroke if I were running ads like they do) On the positive side, we get contacted by a lot of freeloaders looking for free financial plans so I am sure having the words, "fee-based" will filter out bad clicks that aren't going to use my services anyway.
I started off doing a max clicks campaign to gather data. After about a week, I had zero clicks and 20 impressions. I got contacted by one of the Google Ads strategists who encouraged me to do a max conversions campaign. I didn't go along with that since I have no conversion data but after a week of low impressions and zero clicks, I relented and switched to max conversions since I'm sure Google's AI isn't learning anything with zero clicks anyway. Admittedly, it has been only 2 days since the change but now I am sitting at 3 impressions, zero clicks. Low impression share too. Is Google even learning anything or should I just make a change now?
There are a few things that I am thinking about doing. First, is that I am using only exact match and phrase match. I wanted to avoid wasted ad spend so I didn't use broad match. The budget isn't being spent anyway so I can add some broad match keywords. Because of my niche marketing strategy, search volume is on the lower side but I had assumed that phrase match would give me enough impressions. I guess not. Second, I could expand to an additional geographic location. I can work virtually and there is a medium sized city just outside my current radius. Third, I can add another campaign for a separate service. Not as high volume as the current ad I am running but it is a growing market and I am one of maybe 2 or 3 advisors in my area that offer it.
I know Google takes time to learn but is it learning anything with 0 clicks? Can I implement some of these changes without resetting the learning phase?