Why You Can't Speak to a Real Ads Expert Anymore (Episode 536)

0:19Chris Schaeffer: Hello and welcome to the Paid Search Podcast. My name is Chris Schaeffer and today I have two big news items to share, changes that are happening in Google Ads right now, things that are already taking place that you should be aware of. And I'm going to answer the topic of today's main episode, which is why can't you speak to a real ads expert anymore? Do they exist? Have they gone extinct? I have an answer for you. And it's going to be the main topic right after I share some news about what is happening in Google ads. So stay tuned right here. I do this episode every single Monday. Last week had Joey Bidner on the show.

1:05Chris Schaeffer: Appreciate him jumping in. And today you get me and I'm going to tell you about how I can be here and what makes me able to be here, which is my sponsor Optio. So if you want to know a secret to getting more done in Google ads, being more efficient in Google ads, well, look no further than Optio. Optio is the Google ads management software. It can do so many things. It can, it can not only give you information and help diagnose problems, but it can help get things done and create things for you in Google ads now. So this is a tool that has gone far and beyond what it used to be. They have leveled up in 2026.

1:52Chris Schaeffer: As you heard here many months ago, I told you about how this tool has expanded. Well, it continues to expand. You can do so many things to improve your Google ads campaigns. It works far beyond Google ads. There are multiple channels that you can work with, but this show is focused on Google ads. And let me tell you, being able to chat, being able to work with and have a power tool to be able to get more done quickly in your Google Ads account is phenomenal. So if you'd like to try this tool that I recommend for free, you can do it at optio.com slash PSP. The link is in the description. You get an extra amount of time.

2:34Chris Schaeffer: You get an exclusive offer if you listen here and go to optio.com slash PSP. You get a 28-day free trial to try their new expanded tool optio.com slash psp for a 28-day free trial okay now let's talk about the news some exciting things and and one other thing that i think is um confusing a lot of people so let's get with what i think is the exciting news i think a great development. I can't say there's a whole lot that I'm usually excited about when Google does something new or changes something in their Google ads system. But I can say this is a constructive improvement. There is now in your account something called channel priority.

3:30Chris Schaeffer: So it's channel prioritization. So what this is referring to is your ability to take your entire account or just individual campaigns and tell Google, my Google traffic is a priority or to tell Google, my search partner traffic is a priority. There's also an ability to prioritize the display network, but that's going away. So we won't talk about that so much, but here's why this is important. It wasn't too long ago. I did an entire episode about why I really distrust search partners and why I almost never use it. Very rarely do I ever use it with a client. And earlier this year, Google released the ability for us to have a little bit more transparency.

4:26Chris Schaeffer: We can now see who is a search partner and where that traffic is coming from, which is a great step forward. Now we get the ability to tell Google, hey, I want to deprioritize traffic. There's been plenty of times I've looked at accounts. I've done an audit on an account or one of my own accounts, and I go in and I realize, wow, 70%, 60%, maybe 50 % of my spend or traffic volume or whatever is coming from search partners. These are typically not great ways to spend your advertising dollars. If you're going to get the best quality leads and traffic, it comes from Google, period. If you really want people, real people, who can afford your product or actually are serious, most of the time that's going to be in google.com searches.

5:21Chris Schaeffer: But there is a way to turn on search partners. And the problem is it was just a toggle switch. You just hit the toggle switch to turn it on. You say, yep, turn it on. There was no way to lower or de-emphasize or, as it is, de-prioritize that traffic. And now you can. So not only do we get transparency, which is wonderful, you can actually exclude certain search partners out of your targeting. You can tell Google, hey, deprioritize this. This should be a lower percentage compared to my Google search. So this is great. And for those of you that say, oh my goodness, I need to go check my account right now.

6:04Chris Schaeffer: I haven't seen this. That means, I need to change it. Well, be aware. If you're not getting search partner traffic right now, then you're still going to get zero once this tool has rolled out which i believe it's rolled out to everyone at this point so if you're not using search partners if it's turned off as it is in almost every single one of my client accounts then you don't need to change anything this is only something that you would change in the settings of your campaign there is a settings now section that says channel top prioritization and you can now choose low priority okay so we now have three settings there is high priority low priority and off and if you want to turn it off you go to the the actual setting that did you turn that off on it's not in the same area but anyway I don't want to confuse you guys but the point is channel prioritization is for search partners is great.

7:07Chris Schaeffer: I think this is a great step forward. We're finally getting more transparency. There's other areas in Google where we are massively losing transparency, search terms, which is very upsetting. I don't feel like this is a fair trade. Google takes 60 % of our search terms and gives us the ability to slow down our search partner traffic. This is not a fair trade. So I don't like this at all. So there's plenty more that I could complain about, but at least we have some good news about some areas that are opening up until Google starts giving us 90, 95, 100 % of our search term traffic again, like it used to many years ago with absolutely no issues.

7:55this information was not abused there was no reason there was nobody calling for a a ban on this or how it was being abused in some way google just took it away so i will absolutely celebrate when that comes back but for now we'll have a smaller celebration which is all we get so let's change now to a second news topic that I want to make you aware of because this is a news topic that I think

8:31Chris Schaeffer: everyone needs to know. If you're running Google ads, if you're running accounts for other people, you're wanting to do it for yourself, you're still investigating Google ads, you're considering it, you need to know this. Everybody's talking about the AI overview. I want to show up in the AI results on Google search. That's very important. Obviously, this is something that is a growing area. And so as my clients ask me when I do consulting with people, they ask me, Chris, how can I make sure I show up in this AI results, this AI summary? Sometimes it shows up. Sometimes it's at the very top. Sometimes it's a little lower.

9:11Chris Schaeffer: Sometimes it doesn't show up at all. Chris, how can I make sure my ad shows up in that? because that would be a very lucrative spot to show up in some situations. Well, let me say ads do show up in this overview. I can tell you 100 % ads do show up, and it is not always, as Google implies, when there's an informational search being done. Sometimes it can just be a core word, just like a core industry, You know, like something that is related to, you know, like, let's say something like dentures, you know, denture cleaning, something like that. You know, something that is not a research thing. It implies a service or it implies the kind of thing you can do.

10:05Google may not know exactly what you mean by denture cleaning, but are you talking about a powder or you want it, you know, who knows?

10:12Chris Schaeffer: and an ad can show up there, which is not necessarily an informational, it could be a service search. So regardless of what Google says, there absolutely are ads that show up in non-informational searches, which could be your core keywords. And let me say, let me give you some free advice. You do not have to use AI Max to show up in the AI overview on Google. Let's say that again in case your ears are just now perking up. You just heard something about AI Max. You heard about the AI overview. I'm telling you, you do not need to turn on AI Max in order to be eligible to show in the AI summary on google.com.

11:06Chris Schaeffer: Any keyword match type, any campaign is eligible to show up there. So when you speak to someone, be it someone from Google or an independent manager or your employee who tells you this, that is not true. If they tell you, oh, well, you just turn on AI Max and you show up in the AI interface. No, that is not true. AIMax is a setting in Google Ads that is a misnomer. It is absolutely not a way to show up in AI. You don't maximize your AI results by turning on AIMax. It is a misleading title and people misunderstand it because it was designed to be misunderstood. So what you need to understand is you can show up there.

11:57If you want to show up there, what it takes is a high saturation rate of your searches, a strong budget, strong bids, and then you can show up there. There is not a way to exclusively target the AI overview.

12:14Chris Schaeffer: Right now, there is no campaign type that exists. I would make a prediction. Here we are at the end of 2026, and I'm going to make a prediction that at some point we will have a new campaign type but I'm betting this campaign type that we get that you can target AI results or Gemini or you know whatever is in Google's purview I'm betting that it will not have keywords you will have prompts it'll be much like performance max where you give it ideas and prompts and suggestions and then we get a campaign type so right now if you truly want to show up for something very specific and the AI overview shows up when, whenever your core keyword or certain important keywords within your arena are showing up, have high control, high command.

13:10In other words, high search impression share on your keywords. That's the best way to get it done. Don't turn on AI max. In fact, don't turn on AI max period. That's general advice for anyone. If you don't care about the AI overview at all, my advice to everyone is do not turn on AI Max.

13:34Chris Schaeffer: All right. So let's shift gears for the, for the last half of the show here. I'm going to go back to the title of the episode and tell you why you can't speak to a real ads expert anymore. This is a big tonal shift. I was talking about some exciting things and trying to disperse some wisdom about what you may not understand in Google ads. Now I'm going to, I'm going to pull back a curtain, um, because, and then this is something that I've considered doing a podcast on for a long time. Um, and I think I've finally been able to put it into words and made a decision about why I feel that this is true.

14:17Um, why I think you can't talk to a Google ads expert anymore i think the reason for it is the quality of work in google ads has declined perhaps more specifically i think the quality of agency work has declined so in order to answer

14:39Chris Schaeffer: the question why you can't talk to a google ads expert anymore um i think to best explain that we need to talk about why the general Google Ads agency, the PPC agency in general, the whole partner group that are partners in Google Ads and run campaigns for clients, why do I feel that it's declined? Well, I feel that it's declined because in speaking with clients, and speaking to people that I do consulting with, I get the same kind of answer about people who give them, let's say the runaround. They mostly suggest running junk campaign types like Performance Max. Their go-to answer for, let's just use the word agencies in general.

15:36Agencies in general mostly suggest junk campaign types to lead the force of your Google Ads campaigns. Performance Max, probably a very good example of this. Furthermore, agencies rarely give straight answers anymore about your account performance. You give them a specific question about why did this change,

16:01Chris Schaeffer: they cannot answer it. They cannot, well, you know, the moon and the stars, they're shifting and the tide came up and that's why the clicks, don't you know? I mean, that's basically the answer you got. I mean, it gave you absolutely no insight into why or expressed any level of experience or knowledge that they actually have about the Google Ads platform. They certainly can't answer questions about specific metrics or keywords. They can't make sure you show up for one particular keyword in command control. They don't know how that's done because they don't know how the system works. And so the reason why, right?

16:52Chris Schaeffer: The reason why I think this has happened is because many times you only are going to work with low level, low, poorly qualified managers. these experienced managers hire low-level cheap labor and you never get to speak to the real expert i do believe there are real experts out there i'm one of them i've been doing google ads for 24 years now almost in a couple months um and the the real expert will sell his or her knowledge and then have employees or low-level managers handle that. You never get to speak to the real expert. And what has brought this to a head, and the reason I'm talking about this now is because in the past 18 months or so, two years maybe, be AI has become so prevalent in doing Google ads.

18:02Keyword research now has, has died to the point that people just, you know, ask AI to create keyword lists, which are awful by the way, because Google is not a formula. There's, there's a very organic process to formulating plans of keywords and it it is not the kind of thing that can just be spit out i understand ai is very

18:25Chris Schaeffer: complex and you know but it's not ai is not experience ai is fake knowledge it's it's saccharine knowledge it's uh it doesn't actually know so it follows patterns and in the end this AI and automation explosion has brought people to the point that they don't actually know how the platform works. They don't actually know how Google ads works. Um, and it's very deceptive because as I'll talk about a little later, there's strategies that can be done to cover that up. but I think unfortunately one of the biggest drivers of this is two things that are really behind the curtain that you as a Google Ads payer you're the one who pays the bills I'm the manager you pay me but you're the one that funds the Google Ads campaign it's your advertising dollars that go out so let me pull back the curtain of what you don't know about the Google Ads world one crazy thing is that did you know that Google rewards agencies for increasing your ad spend and applying recommendations in your account

19:51there is a system called the partner rewards where agencies like me can get gift cards laptops e-bikes watches phones office chairs i'm talking thousands of dollars of like merch and this is not just google stuff i mean these are like um real products nice products gift cards and all kinds of stuff thousands and thousands of dollars depending on how much you you use this reward system. And we're not incentivized just because of the money you spend. It's additional money that you spend, increased spend, and also the recommendations that you apply in your account. So these recommendations that I've spoken about many times that are often very poor recommendations, things like add performance max, add a display campaign, turn on search partners, Turn on target ROAS.

20:52Sometimes these are absolute disasters. As I talked about a couple weeks ago in my Google Ads detective series, sometimes it can be an utter destructive force. You turn on this recommendation and it can destroy your whole account. And what's baffling is that agencies are rewarded for encouraging you to do that or just doing it. They don't even ask you. They just do it. They just apply recommendations. Boom, boom, boom. your account goes to crap, they get a new bike. They get a new office chair. I mean, I find this to be astounding. And furthermore, there are Google agents that will call and are very aggressive.

21:37There are very aggressive agents who want you to also do these same things. So you have this system that encourages spend, spend, encourages recommendations, all based on what Google considers to be your, how they think you should optimize your account.

21:58So this is why you can't talk to an expert anymore. This is why experts are a dying breed and why the quality of agency work, I feel, has fallen and fallen and will probably continue to fall until there's a more sound, honest system that encourages us to do the right thing for our clients and not just to up our spin percentages. And how all of this is covered up. Let me explain these last two items because this is how they make their reports look good and how you don't actually know that you're a victim. Before I tell you these, remind you about Optio. Please check out my sponsor, optio.com slash PSP for a 28-day free trial.

22:49It's a great tool, highly recommended.

22:54The ways that they cover up crappy campaigns, bad results, is one common thing is they create accounts that you as the advertiser cannot see. So you're advertising denture cleaning tools or service or whatever. Surely there's not a denture cleaning service. Okay. I can't imagine. That sounds gross. So you have tablets or something, and that's what you're selling.

23:28Chris Schaeffer: you're the client and they create a advertising account and you can't see it you don't have the login they pay for it and you just pay them obviously there's absolutely no transparency there's no way for you to know how much is being spent what they're doing nothing and you just you're on the hook and if you fire them you lose every bit of data that was acquired any any success that you may or may not have had is now still their own. They own it and only they own it. You have no access to it. And the second way that agencies hide failure is by mixing brand with non-brand, right? This denture cleaning tab that you sell, this tablet or whatever.

24:22Maybe it's called Chris's Denture Cleaning Tab. I should have thought about this before I made all this up. It's a really dumb product. Okay, I'm going to go with it. So Chris's Denture Cleaning Tab is your product. and you get, you know, searches around, you know, how to clean dentures and, you know, ways to clean dentures, stuff like that. But also a small percentage of the traffic is just Chris's denture cleaning tabs. And of course those people convert. They may be customers that you'd brought in in the past, repeat customers, but those are easy wins. And so they inflate the metrics. They make your entire account look better.

25:10So you don't know that 80 % of the stuff you're getting is really just a waste and too really bad because this other 10%, this other 20 % that is not brand, um, or that is brand. That's actually people who are looking for you. They drive conversions up. They drive success metrics way beyond what they would be otherwise. and I find this to be a very sad state and this is this is why you can't talk to an expert this is why experts are a dying breed and it becomes less and less um useful to actually build a skill in google ads to actually be skillful in the tool itself now I I I believe that

25:53Chris Schaeffer: and that's why I do this podcast 500 episodes later I feel like I've proven that there is a skill, there's a strategy, there's a real technical strategy to achieve success. And it's not something that can be automated or punched into AI or developed with no thought or a real complexity. I do believe there's skill.

26:24So, if you disagree with me,

26:26Chris Schaeffer: if you think I'm wrong, send me an email. paidsearchpodcast at gmail.com. If you would like to speak with me, I do consider myself to be an expert. You can reach out to me. ChrisSchafer.com is my website and speak with me there. Happy to help out if I can. Otherwise, the rest of you guys, I will see you here next week.