Is Google ad Specialist legit

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February 11, 2022
Is Google ad Specialist legit
Mohamed Ghoneim
Paid Search Manager
Jellyfish (Marketing & Advertising, 1001-5000 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Google Ads to buy search, shopping, display, and video ads on Google and partner sites for our clients to drive traffic at all levels of the marketing funnel. With our tailored strategies, we help promote our clients' business to drive sales of products services through their websites and apps.

Pros and Cons

  • Search ad placements on Google & Search Partner's Search Engines
  • Display ad placements on Google partner sites and apps that embedded Google AdSense & AdMob
  • Video ad placements on YouTube and partner sites and apps
  • Google is evolving rapidly with new features added very frequently, so there is nothing to complain about from my perspective, except for some random ad disapprovals who usually get approved after an appeal as long as it doesn't actually violate the ad policy.

Likelihood to Recommend

Google Ads is an essential buying platform for all e-commerce businesses to promote their products and drive sales. Smart Shopping Campaigns have improved significantly over the last 2-3 years. Through the "Maximize revenue" bid strategy, it became more efficient to utilize compared to standard campaigns in terms of return on ad spend and the time needed to manage and optimize.
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January 17, 2022

A top paid marketing tool to generate qualified leads & reach out to prospects & customers

Is Google ad Specialist legit
Vijeta Chaudhary
Sr. Manager - Strategic Marketing, Communications & Business Development
Riello Power India (Electrical & Electronic Manufacturing, 201-500 employees)
Score 8 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Google Ads extensively for Leads generation. We're into manufacturing & marketing of Capital Goods for various industries & business verticals. For us, Google Ads have been the major source of getting a high ranking on search result pages and promoting our products to our target audience. We have also been able to create a Database of our segmented prospects & users through the help of Google Ads.

Pros and Cons

  • It helps us to show our Ads to the right target audience at the time when they're searching for a product like that of ours.
  • It helps us to rank better in the first - three results shown on Google
  • It improves our brand visibility and helps us get better web traffic
  • It has helped us to convert multi-million dollars enquiries into business.
  • It's very expensive which at times becomes a constraint for the businesses.
  • As a user, we should have better control & know-how on how the google algorithm works which is missing.
  • It's a very dynamic platform & does not guarantee success & quick results. I think Google Team should do better hand-holding for the users.

Likelihood to Recommend

It's the best tool for qualified lead generation for any business. It also improves web traffic & gives your business and products better visibility and credibility over your competition. We are happy with the results and have been putting significant amount of our marketing budget on Google Ads. However, its dependence upon good SEO is also evident. Thus, we take a lot of effort in creating better and attractive Landing Pages for our Ad Campaign to get better results and Click-Through Rate. We also work continuously on improving our Quality Score to get more qualified leads and better search results and ranking.
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December 29, 2021
Is Google ad Specialist legit
Subhasish Munsi
Digital Specialist
Self employed (Marketing & Advertising, 1-10 employees)
Score 9 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Google Ads on behalf of our customers. As we all know Google Ads is one of the best-paid search campaign makers and managers. We especially use Google Ads to create display ads and make dell funnel as per our client's need. Google's huge user base helps a lot of our clients to get [their] results.

Pros and Cons

  • One of the best search ads provider
  • Its keywords planning tools are very useful
  • With Google Ads, it's easy to set up an ad campaign within 2 min
  • Google Ads offer many types of ad campaign options, you can use them as per your need
  • Customer support is not so ideal.
  • You can't prefix your campaign launch date.
  • Google Ads take too much time to optimize.
  • It's also [more] costly than Facebook ads.

Likelihood to Recommend

Google Ads are the best option for search ads. With its widely spread networks, it's one of the best ad networks. It's pretty costly [compared to] its competitors. Customer support is decent. With Google Ads, you can make your ad campaign quick but [it can] take a long time to properly optimize. So if you want a good result then you have to wait for some time.
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November 11, 2021

Best paid search management tools via the Google Ads platform

Is Google ad Specialist legit
Phil Parrish
Co-founder, Managing Director
PrograMetrix (Marketing & Advertising, 11-50 employees)
Score 9 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Our agency utilizes the Google Ads platform within our Client Services department. We actively manage the Google Ads platform to provide campaign management services for our clients with the following Google Ads products: paid search, Google Shopping campaigns, YouTube, and app install campaigns. The Google Ads platform helps our agency develop keyword strategies, targeting strategies, and helps us optimize our client's campaign performance. The Google Ads platform is a key part of our ad tech stack and it saves our team a lot of time managing Google campaigns.

Pros and Cons

  • Paid search (PPC) campaign management
  • Keyword planning and analysis
  • App install campaigns
  • Google shopping campaigns for direct response
  • Advertising on YouTube
  • Bid and budget management
  • Conversion tracking
  • Lack of hands-on customer support and dedicated account management resources
  • Google automatically turns campaigns on - they should make it easier to set launch dates in the future
  • Doesn't integrate well with third-party technology platforms

Likelihood to Recommend

If you are a small business looking to get started in digital advertising, Google Ads is a great product because there is no additional cost to license the technology - you simply pay when users click on your ads and are redirected to your website. Google also provides a wealth of training and tutorial content to get you up and running. While the Google Ads platform is suitable for small businesses, it is also a technology that can scale with your organization. Our agency manages millions of media dollars in Google Ads, and many mid-market to enterprise brands manage the Google Ads platform in-house. If you are a small business getting started in Google Ads, you need to invest the time to learn the system because you will receive little to no support from Google's account management department.
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November 04, 2021

King of Search Engine Marketing

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Analyst in Research & Development
Research Company, 1-10 employees
Score 7 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Google Ads to drive more traffic to our website. Our marketing department mainly uses Google ads but the analytics team uses it for reference. It addresses our problem of growing our user-base and increasing traffic to the website.

Pros and Cons

  • Google Ads does SEO very well.
  • The user interface is pretty simple and easy to figure out
  • Has great reach.
  • Can be pretty expensive for smaller firms
  • Dashboard views sometimes have issues
  • We had some issues with customer service

Likelihood to Recommend

It is very well suited towards B2C products where the target audiences are already expressing a good amount of interest in a specific product. However, it seems to be less effective for increasing the visibility of a new or lesser known companies. Also since, it could be pretty expensive for companies with lower budget that have to compete with large corporations.
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September 03, 2021

AdWords - A Search Perspective

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Executive in Marketing
Marketing and Advertising Company, 51-200 employees
Score 10 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

AdWords is currently being used as a marketing tool to support other channels such as Paid Social and Programmatic. As AdWords works lower down the funnel it helps to generate leads and increase revenue via selected targeting, either it is B2C or B2B marketing. It is currently being used by our specialist Paid Search teams that use AdWords and BingAds.

Overall, AdWords solves many problems, these include but are not limited to, low organic search rankings, finding new customers, driving more users to your site, as well as allowing the business in question to increase their overall revenue.

Pros and Cons

  • AdWords utilizes audience lists very well. These are lists that are created either with cookies, first-party data (from the business) or by using Google's own created topics. Audience lists are a strength mainly because it allows the business to target users who are more relevant to them, this, firstly, reduces spend on less relevant users and also increases revenue and conversions, which can really help a business grow.
  • AdWords also circumvents the problem regarding low organic search rankings.
  • For many businesses, organic search rankings could be very low for many non-brand related terms. AdWords gets around this by allowing you to bid on the first 4 positions on the search results page. This is essential to increase the visibility of the business, as well as allowing you the choice to bid on certain terms.
  • AdWords also provides Ad Extensions, these are extensions to your usual PPC ads and allows you to add additional information that you may not be able to fit into the character limit. The ad extensions include sitelinks (links that take you to various pages on your site), callouts (a list of unique selling points that will entice the user to click), Call extensions (a phone number).
  • These extensions allow your business to firstly take up more space when the advert is shown on the results page, which takes attention away from competitors and thus, vastly increases the likelihood of a user clicking on your ad. These extensions would not always be available if you run your business using SEO only.
  • AdWords editor doesn't allow for the editing of Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) campaigns. I would like for this to be changed, as I prefer to see my changes before they go live, however for DSAs you are unable to do this and all changes have to occur live in the account.
  • I would like to see a functionality that allows you to apply an audience list to a device, without the need to create a separate device-specific campaign. This would be beneficial if you see a certain type of user is more likely to click on a specific device.
  • I would like to see the user interface to change slightly to allow for more visibility of overall performance in a graph. This could be done by setting primary and secondary KPIs in the account and then these could be displayed on a top-level chart. The idea of this is to see where drops and peaks occur and where you could investigate it more.

Likelihood to Recommend

AdWords works very well as a lower funnel channel, this means that you are able to target users who are already expressing interest or intent to buy or sign up for a specific product, it works very well as a B2C product, where you have a product to sell, or you want to push a certain product.

I think AdWords is less suited when it comes to a branding piece if you are trying to give your business more exposure in the public eye. This could work as support to other channels, such as out of the home, or paid social.
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August 27, 2021
Is Google ad Specialist legit
William Copeland
CFO (Chief Financial Officer) / CEO
Bio-One, Sweet Cakes Bakery, Effin Cool Stuff (Consumer Services, 1-10 employees)
Score 1 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I have used Google ads for over 5 years, at this point in my professional career. The ads platform is utilized to drive new business leads and sales. We are not using Google PPC for anything other than marketing.

Pros and Cons

  • Its Google so everybody uses it.
  • You can lose as much money as you want and have full control over the speed in which you lose money.
  • When there is an issue you get the pleasure of chatting with an AI bot who will repeatedly email you the same auto-response with links to policies, no matter what question you ask it!
  • If you make a mistake and accidentally talk to a real human they will quickly route you to the correct bot to send you repeated and useless emails.
  • [I believe] regardless of any government and legal requirements to start and run a business, Google will determine if you are allowed to have customers.
  • Customer service is non-existent, unless youre maybe spending millions.
  • No visibility to ad delivery. You simply must trust that your ads are targeting your customer profile.
  • Youll likely get flagged as some type of scam and have your account suspended, while you also get bombarded with actual scams.

Likelihood to Recommend

Here is the core problem with Google. [I believe] nearly every consumer is using Google, which means every business is somewhat dependent upon Google. Since theyve become so fundamental to society theyve taken the approach of being so big they dont have to care about their customer base. Google is now much like the IRS. [In my experience] nobody wants to pay their taxes, but you simply must. Same with Google ads. Dont want to use it but a business is no business without advertising.
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August 23, 2021

A Great ROI for PPC Marketing

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C-Level Executive in Corporate
Computer Networking Company, 11-50 employees
Score 8 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Google Ads for its intended use... pay per click advertising. We target our customers based on location, age, and income - all of which Google Ads allows us to narrow down. It is a great marketing tool to get new customers. We set up many of our clients on the platform to attract customers for them as well.

Pros and Cons

  • Target Marketing
  • Ease of Creating PPC Ads
  • Great Reporting Features
  • If you don't know what you're doing, it will be a costly mistake. You need to target ads, and it is difficult the first time to do that.
  • There isn't a feature to run an add for a couple set date spans, just hours you want to run them or a single date span.

Likelihood to Recommend

It really depends on your business. Some businesses will benefit greatly from pay per click ads and some will just waste endless money. Not only does your customer need to be searching for the keywords you are using, but the ad has to be enticing for them to click on it. We have also found that only advertising with Google Ads gives us better results than advertising with their search partners (like YouTube).
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July 29, 2021

A strong platform but costly and complex

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Director in Information Technology
Education Management Company, 51-200 employees
Score 8 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Google ads to drive paid traffic to our website - primarily as a source for inquiries. We also use the platform to do some brand awareness pieces - in conjunction with our organic search techniques, this platform allows us to get our brand out there in a meaningful way. The business problem this platform address is the shift from traditional advertising to online - years ago our primary sources of inquiry was through print publications - as the world changes, newspapers have disappeared and AdWords has filled in the gap.

Pros and Cons

  • Conversion tracking - it is very easy and insightful to track ROI.
  • Detailed analytics - tells you what keywords/ads are working and which are not.
  • Customer service/ account executives - if you spend over a threshold you get dedicated, rotating google AdWords expert who is very helpful in providing tips and advice on tuning your account.
  • There is a lack of transparency around the different ad bidding options - it often feels like we are spending more than we need to due to this lack of clarity.
  • For experts or those willing to learn, the platform is great - however, we have had trouble with more novice users being able to navigate the system.
  • The product is very focussed on selling traditional products - the product in our case is private education, in which some terminology needs to be translated in order to best use the product.

Likelihood to Recommend

Google Ads is very well suited in scenarios where you are looking to drive traffic using targetted methods to your website with the ultimate goal of a conversion (sale, submission). This is especially effective if you have a good idea of which keywords would drive traffic. It is also prudent for those using the platform to develop meaningful, engaging ads (both traditional text and dynamic video, etc) - It is less appropriate if you are not clear on what your target market is looking for - this would result in wasted spend.
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July 12, 2021
Is Google ad Specialist legit
Alek Babaa
Owner
Above All Media (Marketing and Advertising, 1-10 employees)
Score 7 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Google Ads (formerly AdWords) every single day to manage the accounts of other businesses. We have various campaign types that we manage, between search, shopping, display, video, app, and local campaigns. The campaigns are designed to facilitate one of three things: brand awareness, leads, or purchases for our clients.

Pros and Cons

  • Data collection. Not in the sense of privacy, but in terms of numbers it gives owners or of the accounts an immense amount of data to use for the management of the campaigns.
  • Integrations. For the most part, you can find ways to integrate Google Ads with other digital platforms in order to ensure that you are collecting the right information.
  • Provides multiple types of campaign options for different campaign objectives.
  • The user interface is too gimmicky at times and does not cater to the more experienced user.
  • If you are inexperienced, they do not do a good job of explaining how the system works and try to push you to automation, which can lead you down a bad path. If you do not know what to look for then you can find yourself in trouble and may spend a lot of money thinking you are doing a good job.

Likelihood to Recommend

I wouldn't recommend Google Ads (formerly AdWords) for personal management to someone who does not have the time to devote to it. If you are running a business and are already spread very thin across multiple departments, do not try and take on Google Ads (formerly AdWords). If you do have the time, then I highly recommend it to someone who is looking to build and scale their business, as it can be an extremely useful tool to ensure visibility to potential customers.
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July 06, 2021
Verified User
Supervisor in Marketing
Marketing and Advertising Company, 1001-5000 employees
Score 10 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Google Ads is utilizing by the entire paid search department and is a big part of our whole organization. Google Ads delivers premium search traffic volume on a cost-per-click basis. The volume it can reach is bar none in the industry and is the leader in the marketplace.

Pros and Cons

  • Search traffic
  • Management of budgets and bids
  • Control over delivery
  • Service team
  • Analysis reporting team
  • Revenue management

Likelihood to Recommend

Google Ads is well suited for any business looking to advertise. he paid search media vehicle is the lowest funnel initiative & opportunity in paid media, while Google Ads is at the top of volume contributors. So therefore it would be good to test any low or initial marketing budget on Google Ads to begin to get your feet wet any evergreen advertising ploy.
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July 01, 2021
Is Google ad Specialist legit
Lee L Kennedy
Analytics Director
TLo Ventures (Marketing and Advertising, 1-10 employees)
Score 8 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Google Ads [(formerly AdWords)] is mostly a middle and bottom of funnel marketing channel for our ecommerce brands. We have some success in top of funnel, but it tends to be quite expensive and typically not worth it. We use it for search ads mainly, from capturing branded clicks with the additional real estate, to bidding against competitors on non-branded search terms.

Pros and Cons

  • Google Ads is the best in class at search ads.
  • The setup of their campaigns is relatively simple, and their support is decent.
  • They have a big display ad network as well, although display campaign management can be difficult.
  • Google's heavy dependence on AI makes many of the campaign behavior inscrutable and, often, it performs poorly as a result.
  • Their responsive ads, for example, which are heavily recommended by them, often perform significantly worse than normal text ads.
  • Their support, while relatively quick, becomes useless if you need any deep insight/help.

Likelihood to Recommend

Google Ads [(formerly AdWords)] should be your go-to when running search ads. Branded terms, non-branded terms, and shopping ads are especially powerful. With some extra experience/skill, YouTube ads can be powerful as well. Top of funnel is a bit more difficult though unless you create and manage some very powerful display creative.
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June 28, 2021

Google is suited to showcase your website

Is Google ad Specialist legit
Ruben Diaz
Search Engine Marketing Manager
RnR Marketing (Marketing & Advertising, 11-50 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Google Ads (formerly AdWords) to manage multiple business search campaigns--over 1,000 keywords and 20 campaigns. SEM solves many issues with regard to brand awareness and product awareness. Utilizing Google Ads (formerly AdWords) allows us to conquer all aspects of marketing. I'm able to add images and reviews of our products so that our potential clients see our products and see how great our products are.

Pros and Cons

  • Drive traffic
  • Keyword research
  • Campaign analytics
  • Smart bidding
  • Conversions
  • Smart bidding audience adjustments
  • Smart bidding bid adjustments
  • Distinguish between new and existing potential leads

Likelihood to Recommend

It's basically monopolizing search because Google doesn't allow other companies to bid on Googles SERP. Google is basically everywhere and thus is the SERP of choice. Google is suited to showcase your website based on the keywords you want to be seen under. I honestly wish they kept the BMM modifiers in broad match. Switching it over to phrase match sucks.
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June 24, 2021
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Anatoly Lubarsky
Founder and lead developer
x2line (Computer Games, 1-10 employees)
Score 8 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Google Ads to advertise my apps mobile platforms to get new installs and for retention. I usually create either short campaigns or long running campaigns. Google Ads is used each time for a different product, we usually create targeted ads that are targeted for a specific audience. We try to be as [...] targeted as [much as] possible.

Pros and Cons

  • Easy to use - possible to create a campaign within minutes.
  • It has broad audience and millions of users.
  • Relatively simple interface.
  • It takes 2 weeks for a campaign to optimize itself.
  • The system is over engineered from a security perspective - there are many false positives.
  • High cost - higher than Facebook Ads.

Likelihood to Recommend

Google Ads is well suited if we want to reach any specific audience. It has lots of traffic and there are many options to create targeted ads. It is relatively easy to use and learn, therefore it [fits] well for beginners. Google Ads is less appropriate when you want to use short campaigns (below 2 weeks) because it takes time for a campaign to optimize itself. It is also less appropriate if you need to utilize social targeting - in this case, Facebook Ads is more appropriate.
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May 16, 2021

Great Resource to Drive Brand Awareness and Conversions

Is Google ad Specialist legit
Sydney Lovegrove
Digital Media Assistant
Haberfeld (Marketing & Advertising, 51-200 employees)
Score 8 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

In my last role, our company used Google Ads across our whole marketing department. It was an option we provided to clients but only about a third would choose to utilize Google Ads. It was a great resource for driving applications at financial institutions which were our main goal. Google Ads was only one portion of our whole marketing strategy - it is a great tool to drive brand awareness! I love that you are getting right in front of your desired audience when they need you most and are searching directly for you and your business's service.

Pros and Cons

  • Reporting Dashboard
  • Ad Setup Wizard
  • Geographic Targeting
  • Keyword Pricing
  • Reporting Dashboard Organization

Likelihood to Recommend

Google Ads is great because you can target essentially anyone - the reach is limitless. It is a good resource when you are wanting to get relevant content directly in front of the right people. It's also nice that you only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad. The platform itself does a nice job gathering any and all data you would ever need to continue improving your campaign performance.
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May 13, 2021

Increase website traffic with Google Ads

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Analyst in Marketing
Information Technology & Services Company, 201-500 employees
Score 8 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We used [Google Ads (formerly AdWords)] across the marketing and sales dept. We hired an outside ad agency that helped us with SEO and Ads. I was in charge of the agency account and kept them on track and on budget. I reviewed and supplemented the ads before publishing and helped create the keywords and ads for Avidex.

Pros and Cons

  • Making it easy to create and publish the ads
  • Helps with budget and timing
  • Product support is great!
  • Suggested keywords based on previous content
  • Help with ad timing and imaging
  • Better detailed explanation of ideas

Likelihood to Recommend

There are many how-to videos online to help with Google Ads newbies. Google also has lots of information regarding keywords, starting your ads account, SEO, and any specific questions you may have regarding set-up. Using Google Ads is very beneficial if done correctly and goes well with other marketing campaigns. I would recommend it to any marketing professional looking to increase website traffic.
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May 12, 2021

Solid Google Ads manager

Is Google ad Specialist legit
Kristopher Harris
Assistant Analyst, Social
Resolution Agency (Consumer Services, 51-200 employees)
Score 9 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using Google Ads [(formerly AdWords)] as a digital advertising engine. It allows us to create, manage, analyze, and edit advertisements on Google. It is mostly used across the entire organization and across many different teams.

Pros and Cons

  • Create and manage advertisements on Google
  • Provide keyword and ad planning tools
  • Provide data on search traffic and queries
  • UI is sluggish and buggy at times
  • Optimization/recommendation tool has to be continuously monitored and recommendations have to be dismissed multiple times
  • Google has started limiting search query report tool and hiding low traffic search terms

Likelihood to Recommend

Google Ads [(formerly AdWords)] is well suited when researching, creating, managing, editing, or analyze advertisements on Google. It is solely for advertisements on Google, so if you want to manage ads on other platforms, youll need to use those respective engines or a management tool (like Googles SA360).
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May 12, 2021
Is Google ad Specialist legit
Darien Chaffart
Associate Pastor
Gateway Alliance Church (Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

As a non-profit organization, we use Google Ads through the Google Ads Grant and as such have setup numerous search ads to help people discover our organization or to promote big searchable events. Currently, it is only used within our communications/marketing team, but we plan to expand usage to create targeted ads for each individual area of interest within our organization, as well as to eventually run ads targeting questions people frequently ask about Christianity and religion that would link back to an in-depth article about the subject in question.

Google Ads helps address the problem of getting our organization in front of potentially interested people, and has helped boost us ahead of other larger organizations that currently rank ahead of us in terms of SEO.

Pros and Cons

  • Keyword Research - Google Ads has a handy built in tool that helps determine important keywords to target both for Ads & SEO
  • Intuitive Analytics Dashboad - Google Ads makes it fairly simple to see and analyze important metrics on how your ads are running week after week
  • Intuitive Setup - Google Ads makes it easy to figure out how to run ads with little to no training (although training is highly recommended to run effective ads), as their interface is clean and easy to figure out (unlike competing products).
  • Google Ads allows you to make and manage multiple ads accounts; the downfall being that if you ever click "New Ads Account", that accidental account can seemingly never be deleted/removed from your login page.
  • Google Ads offers two separate dashboard views - "Summary" and "Detailed". Both are useful, however summary seemingly removes 3/4 of the features I frequently use. This only became an issue however when Google Ads first decided to change me to "Summary" view without asking my permission or informing me how to return to the "Detailed" view.
  • No matter what kind of Ads account you setup (using the non-profit grant or not), you get the exact same Google Ads account - with all the features. For non-profits under the grant, this means you have to be careful not to test that cool new feature Google is promoting that will immediately disqualify you from the grant.
  • Google Ads tries to make things simple by giving you suggestions, and will sometimes penalize you if you ignore their suggestions. The issue is when their suggestion is to add misspelled words and improper grammar into your ads - which, if you ignore, decreases your optimization score, and comes back no matter how many times it is reported.

Likelihood to Recommend

As we only use Google Ads for search ads (under the Ad Grant), I cannot speak to their display, discovery, smart, shopping or video ads. However for our goals, which is to help people searching for an organization such as ours get connected to us, with proper setup Google Ads is very effective. We have had great success running Ads for our organization, helping hundreds of people click on our website and visit our location; and we've had great success running ads targeting big events we put on for things such as Easter and Christmas.

The only time Google Ads would not be appropriate for our usage is if we were to use it to try and target something people weren't searching for, or if we did not do our due diligence in keyword planning.
Read Darien Chaffart's full review
April 16, 2021
Is Google ad Specialist legit
Danilo Roberto Zerón
Vice President of Digital Media Operations
TLC Marketing & Training (Non-profit Organization Management, 1-10 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Google Ads offers all eligible 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations the annual grant credit amounting to a maximum of $120,000 of advertising credit via Google Ads. The primary objectives that this completely free advertising credit affords our organization include, fundraising opportunities, general brand awareness, recruiting for volunteers, and promoting special events within the community.

Pros and Cons

  • Keyword-Based Targeting.
  • Integration with Google Analytics.
  • Lead Generation, Brand Awareness, and Website/Phone Call Traffic.
  • User Interface & Algorithms Dictating Ad Auction Regularly Change.
  • Google Ads Support "Strategists" Recommend Ill-Advised Structural Account Changes Far Too Often.
  • American/Fluent-English-Speaking Customer Phone Support Only Available for Accounts with Massive Advertising Budgets.

Likelihood to Recommend

Google Ads is well-suited for organizations seeking to utilize Search Engine Marketing as a medium for increasing brand awareness, promoting direct response marketing offers, achieving & sustaining ROAS (i.e. Return on Advertising Spend) or ROI (i.e. Return on Investment) via an online mechanism, generating highly-qualified online leads via website or phone call traffic, and scaling an organization's business or revenue growth.
Read Danilo Roberto Zerón's full review
April 14, 2021

Essentially no substitute for Search Engine Marketing

Is Google ad Specialist legit
Scott Walker
Director of Digital Marketing
407 Marketing (Marketing and Advertising, 1-10 employees)
Score 9 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Google [Ads (formerly AdWords)] on behalf of our clients for a variety of different success metrics. Many of our campaigns are focused on conversions: purchases, calls, or bookings for services. Though measuring these conversions can be a bit tricky (as with any system), Google Ads is probably the easiest to measure the actual performance. Additionally, Google Ads uses machine learning to ensure that you are optimizing your ads and placement for maximum conversions for the ad spend. Other campaigns focus on win-back and remarketing, overall web traffic, and brand recognition (awareness) campaigns. Something new we've started doing for certain clients is using the Local Services Ads (Google Guarantee). These have been tremendously helpful and are one of my new favorite tools for certain industries.

Pros and Cons

  • Automatic Ad Creation
  • Machine Learning-based refinement
  • Keyword Research
  • Performance Planning
  • Display Advertising
  • Search Advertising
  • Search Term refinement
  • Reporting is powerful but clunky
  • Budget Management leaves a lot to be desired (no monthly maximum spend option)
  • Recommendations are almost always trying to increase budget
  • Quarterly Google Ads techs are often less experienced than average user
  • Appeal Process is very vague and doesn't allow for explanations

Likelihood to Recommend

There's no mystery here: when it comes to Search Engine Marketing, Google reigns supreme. Though you can still get decent performance from Yahoo and Bing, if you want to reach most searchers, you need to use Google Ads [(formerly AdWords)]. And, with the power and polish in Google Ads, there's rarely any reason to use a third-party ad purchasing platform. Display Advertising may be better with an different platform, but Google still has some of the best display placements and prices available.

I used to think local services (think plumbers, repair shops, etc) weren't very well suited for Google Ads [(formerly AdWords)], but recently their local inventory options and their new Local Services Ads have really made Google a powerhouse for local businesses.

There are certain business types that might find Google Ads [(formerly AdWords)] difficult to use. Google has an extensive yet confusing list of products and services it won't allow you to advertise, such as weapons, fireworks, pharmaceuticals, gambling, etc. And these categories and policies will often prevent similar or related (though not disallowed) industries to get blocked as well. So, for industries even tangentially related to risky industries, you may find Google Ads to frustrating to deal with.
Read Scott Walker's full review
April 14, 2021

A Quick Review of Google Ads

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Patrick Stephens
Director Of Communications
The Suzuki School (Education Management, 51-200 employees)
Score 7 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It is used solely in my department. I do use it on consulting assignments, and have often taught individuals how to use it, so my experience lies in several facets with the program. Ultimately, it addresses our need for digital marketing.

Pros and Cons

  • Options. It gives you plenty of ways to customize and build your ads as you wish (obviously within their parameters).
  • User Functionality. While it would be burdensome (see weaknesses) for some, if you are familiar with these types of programs then you will be able to navigate around Google Ads pretty easily.
  • Budget Friendly. You can set your own budget. That, in and of itself, is key for us.
  • Support. Almost every account rep we've had has been a bully. They've harassed our employees to get to me, all to tell me that they think I need to raise my budget (mind you, as a school we aren't able to simply raise a budget just because someone thinks we should). In another instance, an account rep was claiming to help us (this was several years ago), and made changes on the ads - they ended up making the ads for something we were not affiliated with.
  • Not for Beginners. Many marketing companies use the expansive display as a way to stymie clients, making it seem like the overview is more complicated than it seems. If you are new to the program, you will be fooled. Be mindful that this facet of Google Ads allows for manipulation.

Likelihood to Recommend

It can be a great deal of your marketing. If you study how the program works, and how the ad space runs, then you can make this work for you very well. For us, we have run ads for many years on Google Ads, refining the budget very carefully. We have been able to suss out competitors' tactics based on how the bids in our area look. It has not just readability for you, but for your industry.

Just be mindful that the representatives are there to raise your budget, first and foremost. Most marketing companies will go out of their way to confuse you by downloading the Overview and making it seem like they put in hours of work, especially if it nets them profit. Many industries just need someone to train an in-house person to handle the ads (which is also better because then you can avoid the third party not fully knowing your brand). Once you get it, you get it.

Support Rating

1
We have not yet had an account rep who hasn't tried to bully me or other employees to raise our budgets. At the same time, several years ago, one attempted to help refine our ads and ended up changing the ads to be something we were not affiliated with.
Read Patrick Stephens's full review
April 09, 2021

Google AdWords

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Missy Geyer
Ad Operations Manager
WRAL Digital Solutions (Marketing and Advertising, 501-1000 employees)
Score 9 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Google Ads is being utilized for our digital department. We run AdWords campaigns on behalf of our clients. We run anything from your typical search campaign, to display campaigns, shopping campaigns, and YouTube campaigns. We are a digital agency that can pitch and fulfill a client's Google AdWords campaign. We manage hundreds of clients on a monthly basis.

Pros and Cons

  • A strong audience
  • An easy to use UI
  • A great value proposition for clients
  • Many targeting capabilities
  • Could use some help in the ad builder, it would be great to have examples of ad copy to use.
  • The set up is easy, but it is a long process from start to finish.

Likelihood to Recommend

Google Ads is perfectly suited for a number of client verticals. Real estate, home services, retail, restaurants, and general services, etc. It works well when there are a promotion or special driven offers to get more of a call to action. It is something great to have to run all year long and update throughout the year based off of seasonality and special offers!
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April 01, 2021
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Consultant in Marketing
Biotechnology Company, 11-50 employees
Score 8 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Many companies I work with have used Google Ads to effectively distribute their message to different target audiences. With Google Ads, we are able to fine tune both the intended marketing message as well as the type of consumer that will be interested in that message. This platform has had continued success with high clickthrough rates and conversions.

Pros and Cons

  • Finely tuned messaging
  • Real-time analytics
  • Ability to quickly react and adjust ads to industry trends
  • Typically more expensive than some ad channels such as Facebook
  • Algorithms are constantly updated with major affects to current campaigns
  • Some ads are disapproved for unforeseen reasons

Likelihood to Recommend

Google Ads is a requirement for any company that is looking to increase sales and brand awareness. However, the most successful results will be seen by organizations that are willing to set a significant marketing budget and put in the time to constantly manage ads and bids throughout the changing industry climate. Smaller companies may not see Google Ads as money well spent for this very reason.
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March 25, 2021
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Consultant in Corporate
Environmental Services Company, 1-10 employees
Score 1 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Simply opened up an account to familiarise myself with google ads. It was going to help us gain visibility on the web and gain more prospects.

Pros and Cons

  • It is probably the best methods for reaching out to prospects, BUT sadly we have no other choice due to GOOGLE's monopoly as a research engine in western nations.
  • Ergonomic interface
  • Easy to setup an account
  • A support team that is rude and unaware how their processes work
  • They didn't know that google ads requires your payment details to sign up
  • They don't know how a campaign is set up
  • They conned me with the free voucher
  • They automatically started a campaign for me, billed me 128 euros and don't know how to activate the voucher on this bill, even if the voucher has been granted.
  • They need to fuse : Google ads, google mybusiness and google analytics, so many accounts to create if you are a company

Likelihood to Recommend

Biggest bully on the planet ! They already have one the biggest business empires and they still take (steal) money from a small startup in France.
Beware at the beginning ! When signing up, they require payment details.
Beware when trying to request a voucher "to try" a google ad campaign, they launch it without validation (maybe a mistake on my behalf, but unlikely i would validate a campaign with my website not ready. Now they are not able to tell if i can redeem the voucher on my total bill ! Absurd! Then they tell me, "our email must be in your SPAM" . You are sending an email from google ads to a gmail?! How can you not rectify this !? Sorry, don't really have a good point for them, except google ads is only suited to you if you are in the right sectors and your clients have the good demographics







Support Rating

1
They somehow they cannot explain that a campaign was triggered on its own. They then got me a voucher as a refund for half the price. Then they don't know if it will be applied on the bill they just sent. They cannot figure the due date for the billing (they thought it was last month).
The person on the phone said the technical team are busy, i said : i will wait. He said you d be better off sending a new ticket. I said you should be able to simply forward my file to that team internally !!? She said "Yes i can..." huffing and puffing...
AWFUL ! But its google, no other choice for many.
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March 07, 2021

Customer service is disgraceful! Beware small business owners!

MG
Monica Galloway
Owner
The Red Cottage -Vacation Rental Property (Hospitality, 1-10 employees)
Score 1 out of 10
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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I am expanding my business as a vacation rental owner. I currently utilize various vacation rental websites that charge service and subscription fees. I am seeking other independent avenues to promote my vacation rental property to generate more business. This will allow me the opportunity to book reservations at a lower cost and to give my guests more personalized service.

Pros and Cons

  • Google Ads lures in new clients with great front-loaded discounts/credits.
  • Service representatives are slick with unrealistic goals for small businesses.
  • Google is world renowned and one would assume high expectations.
  • The Google representative prematurely activated my Ad Campaign before my website was completed. Subsequently, my credit card was charged for 1000's of 'clicks' and zero, not one booking inquiries.
  • There is no system in place to differentiate who or where the 'Clicks' are coming from. From me, my Google Ad Campaign representative, or one of Google Ads terrible service support team.
  • Good luck trying to get customer service to resolve any issues that pertains to specific complaints about the Ad being run prematurely or getting any kind of refund.
  • My initial contact with the Google Ads sales rep was just before Thanksgiving 2020. I started getting billed and paused the account on January 1. Since then I received a partial refund AND another bill for almost $300!

Likelihood to Recommend

Once the Ad Campaign was initiated at the end of November 2020 my 'slick' Ad Specialist would not answer my emails or take my calls. When I noticed that my credit card was being charged I filed a complaint through Google Ad support link. Since that time I have received countless auto-response emails and have been directed to the 'support link'. This resulted in even more auto-response emails from Google Ads for promises that someone will call me or that my complaint has been forwarded to their review team. I was even sent emails stating that a phone call was attempted but "there was no connection"! What?!
More than I month after pausing the account on Jan 1, 2021 I received a partial refund. A week later I was billed again for almost $300! 3 weeks have gone by with several emails sent and phones calls made to Google Ads. Still no resolution. No explanation. No refund!

Support Rating

1
I would have rated Google Ads support team a zero if it were at all possible. Since the last week in November, 2020 I made countless attempts and spent over a month trying to reach a live person to help me. My website was incomplete, the Google Ad was running prematurely and my credit card was being charged. When I finally received a callback on Jan 1, 2021 it was advised that I pause my account and wait for the outcome for my refund. On February 4th I received a partial refund. I was in the process of contesting for the full refund. To my surprise on February 14th my credit card was billed again for almost $300! Another call made and an email sent! As of today, 2 weeks have gone by and I have still not receive any word Google Ads. "Here we go round the Mulberry Bush!"

Addendum- The very day that I wrote this review I received this email from A Google Ads Manager II, Sales Service Delivery, "Hi Monica, We have confirmed there is an issue with your refund and we are working diligently to resolve this! Rest assured we will do everything we can to do right by you in this situation".
Their "resolution" came the following morning when I received an email notice stating,"You are receiving this message because you have an outstanding balance on your Google AdWords Account"!
The nightmare continues! Unbelievable!!


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