Google Insider Secrets from A Former Google Employee with Ben Lund

Andy Splichal:

Welcome to the make each Click Count podcast. This is your host, Andy Spleichel. We are happy to welcome this week's guest to discuss today's topic, which is Google Insider secrets from a former Google employee. Today's guest is a former Google employee and founder of Rise Marketing Group with over 14 years of digital advertising experience. A big welcome to Ben Lund. Hi, Ben.

Ben Lund:

Hey, Andy, thanks so much for having me.

Andy Splichal:

We're excited to join us, hoping you're going to give us some good secrets on Google today.

Ben Lund:

Oh, yeah, well, I'll do my best. No one really knows what's happening at Google. It's just probably three engineers, and that's about it. I'm just kidding.

Andy Splichal:

Well, you probably, I'm sure more than most. How long did you work there and what was it like?

Ben Lund:

Yeah, I worked there 2014 to 2018 and in the Cambridge office. So where I am stationed, just right outside of Boston, and that's where Rise Marketing Group is based out of. But yeah, I was there 2014, 2018. It was a great experience. I mean, I've been in the space for a long time. I worked primarily at large companies. So, like Yahoo back in the day in the mid 2000s, when people didn't Google, they Yahoo. I was there and then an ad agency, and then eventually landed at Google. I got just a referral, and I'm like, well, shoot, I love marketing. I can't turn down Google. And I was there a lot of really positive things, a lot of positive things about their culture, how they train people and treat people. And it was a great experience. But I mean, really, the main reason why I left is I always just had an itch, which turned into a desire to jump into entrepreneurship and just kind of start my own thing.

Andy Splichal:

So I remember it must have been late 2000, ODS, like 2008, 2009, but I toured the Yahoo campus and that's Yahoo was in his prime, and it was filled with ping pong tables and foosball tables, and they just had taylor Swift actually had just given them a concert like the week before to just see employees. But was Google like that or was 20, 14, 15? Was it more of a normal corporate environment?

Ben Lund:

Yeah, no, Google definitely had excellent amenities for employees. Like insane. Yeah, they really rewarded people to be in the office and there and like, to make it easy for people to come to work. So they catered. They catered towards the employees for breakfast, lunch, dinner. I never took advantage of this, but there's like nap pods that you can nap pods? Yeah, pretty much anything. They just made it very easy to get to campus and stay on mean. I'm sure there's tons of mean behind this on why they did it. Just because morale was better. They're in the office more, they collaborated better. So, yeah, no, they did that. But Yahoo back in the day was an awesome organization to work for as well. They were a behemoth. I know they're just like raking in money, I'm sure just because they had so much visibility and market share of just like online traffic, not just search, but all their properties back then, sports, finance, and even today they have a pretty solid network. It's not a Google, but they have their own niches that they focus on. More on content creation.

Andy Splichal:

Right now as an agency owner myself, I mean, I get calls all the time from Google employees. I guess they're Google employees recommending things for me to do with my clients Google Ads account.

Ben Lund:

Yes.

Andy Splichal:

Who are these people? Are they google employees? Because a lot of time they don't know what they're talking about.

Ben Lund:

Yes, I would agree. So let me set the table. There are great Google employees and great Google account reps. Absolutely. And had our fair share of them. Hopefully when I was at Google, our clients would say the same about then. You know, on the flip side of, you know, hate to say, but Google is contracting out help. So some people that reach out to you, they're not actually even a Google employee, they're just a contractor of Google and they have KPIs and metrics to hit. And it's really important as an agency owner or business receiving these calls of what's motivating this Google rep and is it investment or is it even just like opting into certain optimization metrics or enhancements that you have to hit? Which sure may work really well for some businesses, but not the best for others. So anything that Google says, take it with a grain of salt. And the best Google reps are probably not out cold calling. They've been probably promoted within the organization. They really understand the customer, what their needs are and then giving them solution to meet all their needs in their criteria. And then of course, ad spend will grow. But anyone who's listening to this gets lots of solicitation from Google. Just because they're calling from Google doesn't mean they have all the answers and are going to say, do the right things for you. The end of the day, they're motivated by probably increasing your ad spend and you just have to have that lens on why they're calling. Doesn't mean to dismiss it, but just don't just take everything like, oh yeah, sounds great, this is amazing, and just go on like that.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah, no, I mean great point and I've had some really good Google Ad reps too, but you said the really good ones. It doesn't seem like they're there very long. They're promoted quick. Now another one of my favorite things that Google does, and listeners might not know this, but for ad agencies, they will actually reward ad agencies for getting X amount of their clients to accept these optimizations or those optimizations. And those points can be accepted by ad agencies for different gifts, different Google merchandise, et cetera. Now as an agency owners, what's your thought about those recommendations that Google gets? And do you even pay attention to earning reward points or anything like that?

Ben Lund:

Yeah, I mean, reward points doesn't really motivate us that much. It's more if a recommendation makes sense for our clients, we're going to do it. It's actually funny. We have a decent amount of ad spend under management, but I feel like our point balance is, I don't know, maybe we're going to get a hat this quarter. It's not that mind blowing. It's not like a hefty contribution or like, hey, congrats, you just won $5,000 gift card to Amazon. Or they wouldn't give it to Amazon, maybe $5,000 worth of Google clicks, I don't know. But what I focus on instead is one thing I really do like is partner status that Google gives out. So earlier this year, we achieved a Premier Partner status, which I was pumped that we got just because that and they factor that based off of ad spend as well as just optimization scores. And for me and for our team, that's the most fulfilling because that's like stamp of approval. These guys know what they're doing. And again, I'm not going to just accept every recommendation gives to me, but you have to achieve certain level of scores and ad spend. And for anyone who's seeking an agency, they probably look at one of those things like, okay, they seem legit by that. So not as much motivated by any products that they give out just because it hasn't been that tangible for us. But I like just the Premier partner status that they give out.

Andy Splichal:

Now, how do you and your team go about evaluating Google's best practice optimization? I mean, for listeners who are inside the Google account, they might see that optimization score that Google gives. But how do you guys evaluate what recommendations will help an account and what might just increase spend?

Ben Lund:

Yeah, so for any of the listeners out there that's looking at their score and let's say it's 50%, they're like, oh no, I'm doing awful. Like my account's tanking because Google is giving me a 50% doesn't mean your account is tanking. And you could have a very fine optimized account with a 20% optimization score as long as you know what you're doing. But within the recommendations tab in Google, it's always suggested and recommended, even on our behalf, is just to go into it every couple weeks, take a look at what Google's saying, but then again, have that lens of, is this right for my business? So, for example, if you have an ad campaign and volume isn't an issue, but efficiency is an issue, and making things convert and Google's like add more broad match keywords, that's not going to be the recommendation for you because you don't need more traffic. You're just trying to hone in and maximize efficiency in terms of cost per lead or cost per customer. And so when you go through those recommendations, it's good go through, dismiss what's not applicable for you. And sometimes it might show some things like maybe different ad assets or extensions that you should be adding or different automated bidding. So, for example, if you have conversion tracking and you're doing manual biding, yeah, maybe you should opt into maximize conversions. But you really do need to know the platform. And I hate to say this, but in and out when you're going through these recommendations because unless if you've been doing this a long time, unfortunately with one button click can make or break a campaign. It'silly but I'm sure you've seen that all the time of for sure, even a binding change will just make a campaign awesome. Or just like, no, you blew it up and game over. Yeah.

Andy Splichal:

And for us, a lot of times well, not a lot of times, but it's happened where a client will look at those recommendations who's not really touching anything and make the changes, or Google rep will call them and they'll make changes that will negatively affect and quickly negatively and quickly impact very fast.

Ben Lund:

I've had many conversations even like a text of like, oh my gosh, what's happening with you know, it's because a client just hit one too many buttons that Google is you know, it happens, but thankfully for any professional can go and diagnose like, oh, what went wrong here? Okay, let's just pull it back a little bit and get back on track. So it's good to always look at those recommendations, but have it with review it with your agency partner and just like with someone who understands Google.

Andy Splichal:

Now for a company, what have you seen for those managing accounts themselves or some of the key mistakes that can be made and how can they be avoided?

Ben Lund:

Yeah, so anyone who's listening, the best thing that you can do for your ad account is making sure your tracking is ironclad. So have the Pixel on the site, have Google Analytics connected, make sure you have these conversion events set up. If there's revenue that's assigned to each conversion event, even better. It's one of the best things that you can do because then it enables automated bidding and you can see how much you're spending, what the return is, and then even use the algorithm to bid to a certain return on ad spend. If your account is large enough to do that. That's one of the things I would recommend. And I see so frequently accounts that we take over, and I'm sure you do as well. Clients, they just get lazy or they just didn't know and they're just driving traffic to a page or maybe they're tracking half the conversion events. And you really have to take the time, and it gets technical. And for anyone who if it's a small business that isn't sure if they set it up correctly, pay a developer who knows what they're doing a couple of hours of their time, set it up right, and that is going to be one of the biggest things that you can do for your campaign. If not, you're just kind of gambling with money is what you're doing.

Andy Splichal:

Great advice. Yeah, that's great advice. Now, we recently launched a couple of your courses, Google Ads AdWords Course, taught by a former Google employee and SEO for Small Business course within Make Each Click Count University for listeners. What do these courses include and what can someone gain from taking one or both of these courses?

Ben Lund:

Yeah. So Google Ads for beginners. I started recording these courses right when I left Google 2018. Now, this content isn't that old. Every year I refresh the content because Google Ads continues to update and makes enhancements. So Google Ads for beginners, as the name alludes to is just for whether the college student, small business owner, or someone who's just looking to get into the field of marketing. Want to have some level of baseline, I just go through and walk through account setup, what to do, what not to do. Again, success can be based off of just one button you click or you don't click. So if you're operating at Google Ads Express, that's a big no no, which is usually the default when you set up accounts. But I walk through how to set up an account for success, how to get Google Ad credit. Like, there's a $500 Google Ad credit right now that you can find and append to your account how to create search campaigns, display video, and then share my screen of how I look at accounts when optimizing. But it's very much for the beginner, not the advanced, but someone who just wants to get at it. And then also the other course recently published SEO for small businesses. It's again targeting for that small business owner or someone who's going to own marketing for that small business and how to get them to achieve higher ranking on Google. I try to demystify it as much as possible and break it down to three core strategies that we do for our clients. And it's proven to work, but you have to be consistent at it's, really. These courses are for the beginners and really just to make it very approachable and understanding how you can be visible on Google Ads in a profitable way. And then also with organic search.

Andy Splichal:

Now, the Google Ads course. So it goes into search, display, and video, correct? Yep. But not shopping.

Ben Lund:

Not Shopping. Actually, I add Performance Max, which for anyone who knows Google Ads Shopping is pivoting into Google or Performance Max. And there's a strong intersection right there. So not as much shopping. So if you are an e commerce retailer, you can watch it for some of the basic search account setup. But that would be another great course to watch for shopping, which I know you have on your.

Andy Splichal:

Was a if I am a business owner and I wanted to start advertising on Google, but my thought is, well, I'll just hire somebody to run it or launch it under Google recommendations. Why is it important to really know Google before you do that? As a business owner, you have to.

Ben Lund:

Know Google and you can definitely hire someone, but making sure that they're qualified, ask references, maybe they come from a past agency so that's some side of credibility. But don't just hire a body to be like, oh, I just hired someone because they like marketing, they can figure it out. If they don't have experience in Google Ads, I would say a couple of years of experience, they're going to figure it out on your dollar. Unfortunately, that's just what's going to happen. So just make sure that you're hiring someone who really knows it. And for a lot of small businesses, it makes sense to hire an agency because otherwise you're going to pay full time employee and the cost associated that with that's significantly higher than hiring an agency where the knowledge behind the agency is significantly higher and the cost is lower. But you just have to be confident on who you're bringing in to manage these accounts. Because I've seen so many accounts just go or transfer to us that there's no strategy and it's just kind of a mess.

Andy Splichal:

This would be an interesting test that I don't know if anybody would ever do, maybe a fake account where somebody but what if you just opened an account that had traffic and accepted every single one of Google's recommendations?

Ben Lund:

Man.

Andy Splichal:

How do you think that would look?

Ben Lund:

I would love to do a simulation on that and that would be such a fun YouTube video. And I bet you would probably spend a million dollars within three think like I think because Google will be like, oh, you're hitting your budget caps increase button. Oh, add these broad match keywords. Add this, add this, add this. And I swear you'll just be compounding. I think if there's a simulation out there, if anyone wants to set that up, that would be a really interesting test just to see what happened. If you just click accept, accept. You're like that little bird.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah, I was just thinking that. Now I could see that Google would recommend you upping budget and keep going to maximum clicks for recommendations.

Ben Lund:

Oh, yeah. And then opt into this, that it would actually be really funny. I would be happy to run that test and that'd be pretty entertaining.

Andy Splichal:

Now, if you had a magic eight ball, where do you see Google going over the next twelve to 18 months? Especially with AI such a big thing going right now.

Ben Lund:

Yeah, AI is everywhere. Google is rolling that out. I mean, Google has been practicing AI for years, and even, I'm sure years even before that. Because even automated bidding is all machine learning in AI. Predictive intelligence. And Google rolled that out probably in mid 20, 10, 14 Ish time frame. And at that time it was okay. And it just got better and better. Everything's going to automation. And so as a marketer, it's even that important to make sure your conversion tracking is set because inputs in is going to factor into better inputs out. And so you're feeding the machine, you're feeding the machine proper inputs. How are these Ads working in terms of conversions or uploaded customer lists? Also you're feeding it with some really good branded assets. So copy headlines, descriptions, video, you're feeding it and then you're just kind of managing the machine. So it's really interesting. Like, a lot of people could say, oh, agencies are going to be dead in five years. AI is going to take over it's. Actually, you definitely need an agency now more than ever because you're running almost like a lamborghini. You need to know how to run this AI machine that's going to power your business. If you don't understand how the AI works by clicking on those recommendations, you're going to be spending a million in no time. I don't know if that's true or not, but yeah, AI is where it's going to go. So it's all about feeding the machine and understanding the algorithm in terms of Ads management.

Andy Splichal:

Now, what advice would you give someone just starting an ecommerce business opposed to an ecommerce business doing well or relatively well a little bit further down, maybe doing 2 million a year or so?

Ben Lund:

Yeah, definitely. So just starting off an ecommerce business is just to kind of like temper expectations because anyone who starts an ecommerce business like, oh, everyone's going to love my product, it's going to be the best thing ever, going to get so many customers. And that's not always the case. And it's really you're not focused on scale. You're focused on, do I have a good product? Do customers like it? And is there an audience for that? And one of the best ways that you could tell by that is just by looking at your conversion rates early on before you even think about scale, are you at a sufficient conversion rate? Are people who are exposed to your site interested in the product? And are they happy with it? Then a couple of years later, once you start scaling on the flip side of it, then you're not really concerned of, is this a viable product? And is there a niche and market for this? Then you're all about scaling. What can you do there? So the conversations are totally different. And that conversation is all about forecasting, looking at where your audience is top, performing channels and things like that. But when you're just starting, it's almost like just prove out the concept before you have big ambitions of scale and things like that.

Andy Splichal:

Now, as you've grown your own agency, have there been any business books out there that you could attribute to your journey?

Ben Lund:

That is a really good question. There's not one in particular. I do love reading a lot about business and marketing. I would say there's not really one in particular that's like, oh, my gosh, this is what I'm basing our agency from. So, unfortunately, I'm going to give you kind of a lame answer there that I don't really have anything, but it's all about just kind of keeping your antenna up. So whether you're getting information from books, YouTube, video, client, business partner, podcast host, keep your antennas up because you never know when that next good idea is going to come and then try it out. Does it fit right, and does it feel well?

Andy Splichal:

So let me ask you, what inspired you to create your courses?

Ben Lund:

Yeah, you know what, I just felt like I had a ton of knowledge gained over the years and especially from Google, and I felt there's a lot of people that could use it. And again, the courses that I create is much more for the beginner and I just wanted to demystify make Google Ads approachable and yeah, that's really why I did it. And to date, I think we're almost at 10,000 students now. This is over the course of four or five years, and this has been posted on another platform in the past, and I'm really glad to have it on yours, but feedback has been really good. Sometimes we even get clients from it, and that's not why I did it, but we get clients are like, hey, took the course. And they'll even truthfully say your course is awesome. But I just realized I'm not going to have time to do all this myself because I never knew what actually goes into Manchi and Google Ads. And they're like, actually, could you help us out? And we've gotten a few clients just.

Andy Splichal:

From that for sure. Now, besides the course and keeping the course updated, what else do you occupy your time with?

Ben Lund:

Yeah, so courses and then running Rise Marketing Group, that is the main job that I have and staying on top of all the changes of the industry and then figuring out focus areas for our agency and how we're delivering satisfaction to our clients. So, yeah, majority of the time is running Rise Marketing Group.

Andy Splichal:

Great. And how can an interested listener learn more about you?

Ben Lund:

Yeah, check out our website. Just Google Rise Marketing Group There are a couple of Rise Marketing Groups, rise companies of various industries. So just make sure you Google Rise Marketing Group will pop up number one. And yeah, if anyone's interested in chatting, click on our contact page, fill out the lead form, happy to have a conversation. And of course, anyone's interested in taking one of these courses. Yeah, Andy, you can share where to.

Andy Splichal:

Find that for sure. Well, this has been great. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap it up today, Ben.

Ben Lund:

No, I really do appreciate this. This has been fun.

Andy Splichal:

All right, well, thanks for joining us again today. Thanks for listeners. Remember, if you like this episode, please go to Apple podcasts and leave us an honest review. And if you're looking for more information regarding connecting with Ben, you will find the links in the Show notes below. And if you're interested in becoming certified in Google Ads or SEO, check out his courses. Google Ads AdWords course taught by a former Google employee and SEO for small business course. You'll find information on those courses and all other courses at www.makeeaachclickcountuniversity.com. In addition, if you're looking for more information on growing your business, check out our Podcast Resource Center, available at podcast makeeachclickcount.com. We have compiled all of our different past guests by show topic and included each of their contact information. In case you would like more information on any of the services I have discussed during previous episodes. Well, that's it for today. Remember to stay safe, keep healthy and happy marketing, and I'll talk to you in the next episode.