ChatGPT Ads vs Google Ads (Episode 525)

0:19Chris Schaeffer: Welcome to the paid search podcast. My name is Chris Schaeffer and today I'm going to talk about Google Ads. In fact, I have a little bit of a discussion about Google Ads and ChatGBT. I tried ads on ChatGBT and I want to talk about it. Let's talk about my experience, what that was like, things I liked, where I see this going, and things I didn't like. We're going to break it all down in today's episode. Before I talk about this new change in the marketing strategy. I want to tell you about how you can get your marketing strategy performing best of all. And that is with Optio. So Optio is a online software that you log into and it pulls information from your Google ads and other marketing networks like LinkedIn, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok.

1:17And you can gather that data and work with that data

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2:05Chris Schaeffer: Be sure to use that URL because you get a free 28-day free trial exclusively because you've listened here on this podcast. That's Optio.com slash PSP. All right, so I tried ChatGPT ads, otherwise known as OpenAI. That is the platform that ChatGPT runs from, the company that owns it. And they recently released ads to the public, so anyone can try it. So I set up an account, and I ran ads for my own PPC business, right? People that might be looking for PPC management, Google Ads management. My ad showed up for thousands of people all over the United States. And people were clicking on the ads. And I want to talk about what I experienced and what my first impressions are of this.

3:07So to tell you what you probably really want to know, I didn't get any results. nobody actually contacted me um as far as i could tell directly from my ads had plenty of people click on them no actual conversions no actual people saying hey i saw your ad on chat gbt uh nothing like that so not a big deal i'm certainly not going to judge the performance of this new marketing network based on the fact that i didn't get any leads for the little bit of money that I put into it, that's not what I'm here to talk about. What I want to discuss is my really disappointment in, you know, what I saw, but it also brought a revelation to what I now see Google in a new light, because the fact is, ChatGPT gave me so little information.

4:05Now, Now, what I'm about to tell you may not be a surprise to many of you because maybe you work in other networks. You know, you work outside of Google Ads, but I only work in Google Ads. I don't advertise anywhere else. I don't manage ads anywhere else. I've always done Google Ads.

4:19Chris Schaeffer: So I've come to certain expectations about what my money should bring me whenever I advertise. It should bring me a lot of data, a lot of information that I can use to derive answers and optimize and tweak and adjust. But the fact of it is, ads on ChatGPT showed me click-through rate. It showed me cost per click. It showed me some clicks. It showed me some impressions. you know I mean it showed me very little if I would have gotten a conversion it would have shown me conversions um but there's really nothing to dig into I mean there was nothing to analyze which is a big part of you know what Google Ads is all about is you run some some ads you can meet even if you get no conversions you can immediately tell if you're on the right path or not you know are you making some good investments can you at least tell that the right kind of people are showing are seeing your ads perhaps the right kind of people are clicking on your ads you can actually analyze that data from day one in google ads from day one day two day three day four at no point could i confirm the kind of people i was showing ads to i couldn't go in and tell you know what they were looking for what what kind of context their queries were about which I understand you know they certainly can't show me private queries you know to an advertiser of individuals I mean I totally understand that and it made me realize just how how much of a value it is in Google ads to see that information.

6:18Chris Schaeffer: I can't do anything. I can't, I can't make any kind of assessment other than say, well, this ad group got a certain click through rate and it did or didn't get a conversion. And it got We're looking at a very immature marketing platform right now, a marketing platform that is just getting started. Guess what one of the bidding strategies is in this marketing platform? That's right, a manual. Because whether it's an advertising platform that's been around for 25 years or something that's been around for two weeks, manual bidding where someone can just place a bid on an ad whether it's on ai or google or whatever that's still the most primary basic standard way of bidding and it's really you know confirmation this whole ai system this whole ai thing i mean it's still just you still can you can still just say, I want to bid this much per click.

7:32And you just bid on an ad that you create, you know, so very simplistic, you know, I appreciate that manual bid is in place, because if I'm bidding on AI, and you know, I'm really, I'm forced to use automation around every corner, yet I can still pick my budget, and I can still pick my bids. That's reassuring, that's nice to see.

7:55Chris Schaeffer: but other than that i can't compare i can't go in and see who searched it i can't look at anything beyond just how much money i spent how many impressions clicks if or if not i got a conversion um there's not much to dig into so the fact is um you know it really makes me realize a lot about Google by learning about this competitive advertising platform. And I want to talk about where Google really shines. And when you look at Google, you know, and you don't know what you're getting out of it, you don't know what the value of it is. And you consider advertising on other platforms. Let me tell you, number one, the reason Google wins is because the audience size is vastly superior.

8:51Chris Schaeffer: The number of people you can reach on Google is incredible. Everybody has heard about ChatGPT, AI, Claude, all these other AI systems. Sure. But that doesn't mean that they have nearly the volume of what Google has. so immediately there's a draw and a huge win for google just by the volume that it draws the number of searches the absolute saturation of the market when it comes to looking for immediate answers right the low end of the decision making process is very much represented by someone just going to google and looking for something they already know what they want they're already educated on it they just need to find what it is they're looking for and that is very often represented by google they just need a a list of the options and they're going to make a decision so vastly superior for size and the second thing that really makes google just an absolute winner is, and this is a process that everybody goes through.

10:09Chris Schaeffer: When you spend your first dollar on Google, you always ask, did it work? Is it working? Right? Did I get anything for this? And most of the time when you're first getting started, no, it doesn't work. And then your second question you ask is, okay, what are we getting? What did we get? and when it comes to Google, you can see that. I can actually see clicks on keywords. I can actually see where the volume resides. I can actually see which ad, which headline, all of these different areas. I can actually see what I got and what's drawing attention and what isn't. It's very segmented in its ability to see that data.

10:59Chris Schaeffer: but with chat gpt uh chat gpt ads um i cannot i cannot i cannot see what i got i can just see that supposedly there were 100 clicks 300 clicks 500 clicks and that's all i see i see absolutely no reference to who the people were, what their desires were, what their interest was, nothing. Now, I mean, if this changes, it would, I feel like it would be a massive improvement to be able to see some kind of context for, you know, what I'm paying for. But right now it's just a, put your money in the machine and maybe you'll get a treat when you pull the lever. but if you don't just keep putting money in you absolutely the machine does not give you any indication whether you're doing it right you're doing it wrong you just keep putting money into the machine and it just says yeah we can see you put you put a quarter in there it is look we got you three clicks okay who who were they where were they what were they searching for what was their need?

12:15Chris Schaeffer: Does it fit with what I'm looking for? Is it a good match for what I'm selling? Oh, no, no, no, we can't. We can't tell you that. We have absolutely no data about that. That is, that's a problem. I mean, that's a really big problem. So I don't like that. I feel like that is an absolute reassurance that for a long time, Google is absolutely going to be vastly superior because of what it provides advertisers because your first question is did it work your second question is what did i get for it right what did we get and neither google nor chat gpt guarantees results but at least google guarantees it can show you what you got what you paid for the vending machine isn't just blacked out on google you can actually see what's happening behind the system you can actually see what you're paying for and you know i can the list goes on i mean you can see location time of day device type you can see their actual search terms you can see what competitors are showing next to you you can see your position metrics you can see um your of course your conversions the flexibility of how you can adjust and um and be very nimble with your marketing is very much so what makes Google superior to ChatGPT ads.

13:45Chris Schaeffer: The complexity that frustrates people so much about Google is what makes it vastly superior to ChatGPT ads. Now, it's not all bad. I do think there's some areas that ChatGPT could possibly win at. I want to go through that. So what I think it could potentially do a good job is when what you're selling, when what you're offering people is not very well described by a keyword or a singular thought, chat gpt absolutely could win this now i could easily give an example there are plenty of clients that i work with now and have worked with in the past that sell something that is industry specific i'm thinking of a client i recently got where they are a moving company they move things but they're only interested in moving technology equipment like IT equipment right and and this is really difficult because there's not very many searches for that kind of service.

15:19Chris Schaeffer: And it's very difficult to isolate that, you know, people might do a search for movers near me moving companies, or maybe something like technical moving companies, or IT moving companies, or they might even do something specific like server room moving companies or CPU rack moving companies. I mean, they can do all kinds of different things and you can throw all these keywords in and in the end, you may only get a couple clicks and you don't know, are you missing them or is there other searches that, you know, this could represent that, you know, I just don't have. have I not found the right keywords yet?

16:07Situations like that, where you can't really define the service in just a succinct keyword or keyword phrase, ChatGPT could absolutely be superior to this. But the problem is there's just not much volume. You know, and that's what I talked about earlier. When it comes to ChatGPT, you know, it just doesn't pull the volume that Google does. There are so many more users, so many more searches on Google that it makes it largely inefficient to try and, you know, do something on ChatGPT and expect it to move the needle very much. Google, you absolutely can move the needle. If you find the right thing, you can get a large amount of volume very quickly.

16:53Chris Schaeffer: um there's another thing however that chat gpt really shines on and that's simply because it's newer and it doesn't feel like you're being sold to quite as heavily when you go to google you're surrounded not only by paid ads but you're also surrounded by people that are ranking high on Google because they've put a lot of time into SEO, right? They've done organic optimization on their website, and you're going to be taken to all kinds of different results simply because the company has done years and years of SEO work and content work and linking and all that kind of stuff. So it doesn't ever feel like this is fully authentic, right?

17:42Chris Schaeffer: I mean, Google's a great place to find things, but in the end, it is a battleground of businesses. Anyone who ever wanted to show up for anything knows that you will have to fight just to get your name to show up. And then it's like on page eight. And it took you three months to just show up on page eight. You know, so this is incredibly frustrating and for the user it feels a bit more contrived but when it comes to chat gbt i mean my goodness it feels like every search result you're getting is just for you every answer that you get from chat gbt is is a very personalized intimate information dump that is customized just for you, which it is.

18:40At least we're led to believe that to a degree. So I think JackGPT wins on a bit more of a trust factor right now because it's not as manipulated. So if volume comes through,

18:59Chris Schaeffer: if there's more volume that comes through

19:05and they provide you know chat gpt provides more data i think it could be an absolute win i think there could be a massive amount of opportunity for uh chat chat gpt to be a

19:22Chris Schaeffer: wonderful marketing platform but time will tell you know the fact is is there's something hurting google right now and they're doing it to themselves over the past few years we've lost a lot of data in google ads we used to have a lot more information we used to have more search terms you used to have certain key data points certain metrics that are just gone now. It's not that there's just less of them. They're literally gone. There are some metrics that have been taken away. Every time they do a UI update, they use that opportunity to just disappear several things that might have been important to many businesses.

20:17So this data leakage that Google has continued to dabble in is something that

20:28Chris Schaeffer: really dulls the competitive advantage that it has right now over AI. And give AI more years and maybe it'll have the user expansion, the user growth that Google enjoys. add to that potentially chat gbt getting metrics adding more metrics adding more competitive aspects to you know giving you what you got for your money and rather rather than just saying hey you got some clicks you got some impressions that's all we're going to tell you imagine a situation where you actually get to see a bit more of context of what you paid for in that situation um i think it could be revolutionary to where chat gpt could be in the future but right now it doesn't have the volume it's too opaque it doesn't have enough transparency to really provide the context and for you to learn and test to the degree that google does but if google continues down the path that it has for the past you know five six years who knows where we're going to end up with Google Ads, how much control we're going to actually have with our ads, how much transparency we're going to have with our data, and it could be a flip.

21:53But I welcome the competition because I think that this kind of situation could make everyone get a better service out of their advertising dollars.

22:05Chris Schaeffer: And I think that's important. So I appreciate you listening to my podcast here, a little shorter this week. And I just wanted to go through my experience. If you would like to chat with me about Google Ads, well, that's really what I specialize in. If you want to talk about ChatGBT, can't help you there. But I do have over 20 years of experience in Google Ads. I am truly an expert in the platform. Reach out to me for coaching or management, or otherwise you'll catch me here every Monday. for the paid search podcast. I'll talk to you now.