Hello everybody, welcome back to the MaxWeb YouTube channel. My name is Joey, and I'm joined today by a familiar guest, Uzair. Uzair and his wife founded SF Digital over 22 years ago, and we're having him on the webinar today to discuss his wealth of knowledge around Google Ads and YouTube ads. With that being said, we wanted to go right to the source and ask all of the hard-hitting questions about Google and give you guys some insights. Uzair, welcome back.
Hi Joey, how are you? Good to have you, good to have you. Thank you, thank you, looking forward to this one. Um, we've had a lot of questions about Google lately and, uh, you're the man with the answers. Hopefully. I'll try to add as much value as I can and give everyone a few tips and techniques as to how to take their, uh, Google Ads and YouTube ads for the affiliate marketing to that next level. That's all we can do, and I'm sure it'll be well received, so thanks again for joining.
Um, let's start with a big one, uh, probably the biggest question of the day. Uh, what has changed about Google and YouTube ads in 2024? Well, as you know, Google, Facebook and all these, uh, traffic channels, they keep changing a, a, a lot on a very regular basis, and the biggest change, obviously, has been the AI, um, which is being implemented into Google Ads at a very hectic pace.
Um, the automated biddings has been in Google Ads for a long time. It has been evolving quite a bit, and now it is gathering pace, and the results which we have seeing is, is tremendous. So let me give you a little example as to what it means by smart bidding, automated bidding and so on.
Imagine you're driving a car and you're going from your office to home. You know the place where to go, right, the roads and everything. And let's say you put on your satnav, but it's taking you from a different route, and you're shouting at the satnav, why the hell are you going left instead of going right? Because I always go right. Because the satnav knows that there's an accident in front and there's a lot of traffic, so the quicker and the faster way would be to take a different route.
And this is what the smart bidding and the AI and the automations is all about. If we are just running campaigns on manual CPC, we don't see what Google sees, and that's the easiest analogy I can give you. So you don't have to trust, um, the Google Maps and, um, the satnav, but if you look deeper into it and say, ah, there is traffic jam if I were to go this route. So that's the biggest change, I would say, um, Google has, um, that has happened in Google Ads, especially in 2024.
Very, that is actually a great analogy, uh, so thank you for sharing that, that makes a lot of sense. Um, the automated bidding, you know, it knows where there's a lot of traffic, where there's a lot of demand for clicks, and where you may not get the best results. That actually makes a ton of sense, so thank you for sharing that. Um, have you seen any turbulence on Google ad campaigns or YouTube ad campaigns this year, based on, you know, the automated bidding or any updates that, uh, have been pushed forward?
Yeah, it can go wild and spend a lot of money, um, and then people, uh, shouting and screaming at the screen, the, uh, computer, laptops, computers or laptops: uh, Google is a scam, it's taking up all the money, spending all the budgets, and so on. But if you have a certain amount of control as to how you have set up your campaigns and the targeting, the AI can take you to places which you cannot imagine.
By that I mean, by scaling your campaigns at a very rapid pace, and is going to be effortless, because you don't need to do much about it. You don't need to, uh, keep track of the reins, you just let it do its job, and is going to do to get everything to get you the results you, uh, you want. You know, I'm not saying that give total control to Google and let it run wild, but you need to know what you're doing, especially with your targeting, your ads and the messaging.
And if you got these, uh, things dialed in, you are going to get some really good results, which you, we find, um, in, in, especially in YouTube ads. So with, you know, we don't want turbulence, um, in our ad campaigns, but if you know what you're doing to a certain extent, then you won't have these turbulences at all.
Okay, so you're saying definitely lean into the AI, but you need to know what you're doing on the targeting, um, the ads and the campaigns, uh, beforehand, before letting the AI take, uh, take over, the algorithm take over. Absolutely, yeah. So you have a test budget, test your, um, ads, your messaging, your audiences, and once you've done and you're testing and come out of the testing phase, stop ads which are not working and scale ads which are working.
So you just can't give total control to Google and say, hey, you go, you know, here's my credit card and take my money, which they will for sure. You got to, we know, we know they will. Yeah, yeah. So you, you got to have certain control. Um, let AI do its job, but then you keep a very close eye on it.
Okay, so lean into the algorithm. Um, so let's help people out then. Uh, before they lean into the algorithm, what are some of, like, the most cutting edge, uh, audience targeting strategies that they can use and set up? What kind of ads are working? Um, what, what should affiliates be doing before, uh, you know, relinquishing control to the algorithm?
Okay, so when you are setting up a campaign, you need to know your target audience, and what I would recommend you do is, if you, you got a database of emails of your past customers or leads, you upload it to Google and then run remarketing campaigns to it. That's one of the most powerful ways to, um, get a really profitable campaigns running in a very short space of time.
So let's say if I'm in digital marketing niche and I've got a, um, offer for an app which creates landing pages, but then I can use the same audience for, uh, another offer which is about CRM or click fraud or, um, email marketing like Mailchimp or something like that, because it's the same audience. So you can upload your customer list, uh, to Google.
One of the best ways to target audiences and grow a huge amount of audience, um, is have a good YouTube channel. So the way we do it is, as you know, we upload a lot of videos to YouTube on a regular basis. We've got over 1,800 videos, so every time somebody, uh, views or watches my, one of my videos, they are, uh, put in our customer audience list.
So then when I'm starting a new campaign, I can say to Google, show my ad, this ad or ads, to anyone who has viewed my video in the last 60 days, 90 days, 360 days or 540 days, or so on. Because I know you have come to my, uh, to my YouTube channel and viewed one of my videos, or video or videos, you're interested in my message, so I can target to you.
Very few people do that, because they don't upload videos to YouTube. So then when I hear people saying, oh, it takes too much time, effort, um, I don't know what to upload to YouTube, uh, you can upload a lot of content to YouTube and it will pay, um, a rich, uh, dividends in the long run by remarketing. So you can spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars per day just by targeting this audience, and forget going to cold audiences, because this is where you have got your warm audiences, as your customer list as well as your view, you, YouTube, um, viewers.
Awesome. Subscribers. Very nice. I have a follow-up question for you about retargeting audiences, actually. Um, would you ever build a retargeting audience based off of a pre-lander, um, a page that is shown, you know, right after the ad but before the offer and before a customer purchases?
Yes, absolutely, and there's two types of audiences, uh, you can, uh, filter or create. So somebody sees my ad, whether it's a display ad, search ad or video ad, doesn't matter, they click on my ad, they come to my pre-lander. Now, they are, they going to be interested in my message, or they are going to bounce off after 5 seconds, right?
So what we do is, I tend to put in a video on my pre-lander of about 5 to 10 minutes long. You don't need to have a mega long video, because these pre-landers are very short, short form landing pages, right? You have a heading, subhead, uh, hero photo and three bullet points, and then the call to action button, buy now, visit now, sign up now or whatever, which will take. Watch video. Yeah, a watch video, yeah, and then it will take them to the, uh, landing page, the offer page or the VSL.
If, I cannot judge just by somebody coming to my website and staying for 10 seconds whether they're interested or not. What I can track is if somebody stays on that website pre-lander page for three minutes or more, or two minutes or more, that means, and I can also track if somebody clicks on that video button on my pre-lander and watches my video. Now, even if you watch a video for very little time, 30, 40 seconds go by.
So I can create an audience list of those people who are warmer than somebody who has just jumped off, because there'll be lots of junk clicks or irrelevant clicks coming through to the pre-lander. I want to take them off and then just remarket to those people who stayed on my pre-lander for two or more minutes and, or, also click that call to action button. Mm.
So now I am targeting or remarketing to those who are further down the funnel. So from the top of the funnel, I'm now in the middle of the funnel, where I'm remarket to, remarketing to them, and you'll find that you're going to get a lot better results like this if you organize and segment your, uh, remarketing audience like that.
I like that, thank you. Uh, I specifically ask because, you know, not all vendors will be comfortable placing a Google targeting pixel on their checkout page, or even on their thank you page or anything like that, so there's not always that opportunity, um, specifically within VSLs, to, you know, retarget customers who have purchased, um, I mean, on Facebook maybe, via a lookalike audience. But I wanted to get your thoughts on, you know, retargeting users before the purchase.
And, uh, I think that's, that's honestly the best way to do it, what you explain. Just anybody who spent, you know, more than 30 seconds or a minute on your page, if they click the call to action, if they watched, uh, the video that's on your pre-lander, those are all things that will signify that that user is engaged and interested and therefore worthy of retargeting. So thank you for that explanation.
One more thing I would like to add is, you can, uh, optimize your campaigns using a third-party app, which I would highly recommend, which is called ClickMagick. Oh yeah, yeah, we're familiar with ClickMagick. Yeah, yeah. It will link your Google Ads account to your MaxWeb account and via your lander. So if somebody from Google Ads comes through to your pre-lander, clicks on it, goes to the VSL which MaxWeb is promoting, or it has got one of them offers, somebody goes there, buys, it is going to show up in ClickMagick that John Smith made a purchase of $100 or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, of course, via, via the postbacks. Um, maybe we are able to do it, uh, via postback into the Google tag for retargeting, I'll have to confirm that. But yeah, exactly, so appreciate you giving those insights on retargeting, um, you know, a little bit more specific to the VSL space. But obviously with these videos, I'm happy to provide value for all affiliates, no matter what vertical or where they run offers. Um, so thank you for all of that.
I've got another heavy one for you, another big one, if you're ready. Um, how do you combat competitiveness within Google Ads and YouTube ads? Competition is good, keeps you on your toes. I agree. If there's no competition, it means two things: that there is a product or a service which nobody knows of, then it's going to be really difficult to promote that offer, because people are not aware of the solution or the product or the service, right?
And the second thing is, a lot of the advertisers have tried it and burned their, um, cash, and they've stopped advertising. Those are the only two things which I can think of, that is either brand new, or something like when the selfie stick came out few years back. Nobody knew what a selfie stick was, and this is a really good example, right? Then the next, um, the brand new stuff, which was those little fidgets, uh, for the kids. Yeah, the fidget spinners. Yeah, spinners, right.
So there's always something new which is, uh, coming out, and the best way to know of a new trend is through Google Trends, that if you keep an eye on it, you will find, ah, this is a new trend. So you be one of the first ones to get on that wave, so that you are not left behind. So I'm not scared of competition at all, in fact it's, it's good.
Um, the other unfortunate thing, especially with, with, you as VSLs, is people will copy your videos, your video ads and your lander and so on. Um, you can't stop them.
Um, but if you get copied, that means you're doing something good and you got a following, so you'll always be two steps ahead of, uh, uh, your competition. Um, I can think of the same analogy for myself. Uh, four or five years ago I started, well, I've been doing video marketing for a long time, but we started our YouTube channel, uploading videos regularly, about four years ago, and I kept preaching this to all my customers and followers: look, you got to do video, you got to do video. Um, some listen, some didn't, and they still don't do the videos.
But now you will find, especially when you go to places like LinkedIn, every other post has got a video on it. So I'm four years ahead of that curve. I've got 1,800 videos on my YouTube channel, which get, a lot of them get ranked on Google page one as well. So if somebody wants to compete with me, well, they have a, you know, a tough competition, because they are way behind me now, and to reach, um, to compete with me, uh, they will need to do a lot of work very, very quickly.
So yeah, I'm not scared of the, of the competition. Um, the more the merrier, and then a lot of my competitors and affiliate marketers, we all work together and we collaborate, and that is the thing, is a lot of people I meet at all these, um, like, we were in Dubai earlier this year, Joey, uh, we met with so many affiliate market, marketers. We collaborate, just like you, MaxWeb collaborates with ClickBank, even though they are competitors to each other, when you collaborate.
They're just, they're just our best friends, not competitors. Yeah, that's what I'm saying, you know, but technically speaking, you are different networks, but you collaborate a lot, they, they are your friends. And same with, with us, a lot of our, lot of the other affiliate marketers are my friends, and we exchange ideas, uh, we exchange, uh, what's working, what's not working, and it benefits everybody.
I agree, uh, I agree heavily that, you know, competition is good. I believe success leaves clues, so, yeah, if, if you have competition, it's likely in a successful vertical. Yeah. I also agree. Who are insecure, they, they are scared of competition. Exactly, they want to carve out a niche for themselves, and, uh, usually that's the toughest way to go about a successful campaign. Um, not always, but it, uh, you're, you're up against, uh, it's, it's an upward battle, it's an uphill battle.
Um, how can affiliates stand out against their competition? What can they do differently on their ads, their copy, um, their targeting? What, what can they do differently to stand out and, and, uh, you know, win against their competition?
Everybody is making, um, these AI generated video ads now. They'll go and sign up to an app like InVideo, and there are lots of apps like these. It's got the same B-roll, it has got the same voiceover, it has got the same music and so on, and this is where you can really stand out, by humanizing the ads with a human face on it. If you don't want to be on camera, get a actor to do it. You can go to Fiverr and get some actors to shoot a video for you with a green screen, and do something different.
Yes, you're spending a bit more money, but your ads will look a lot different, and that's the first thing which I would say to you, is to just don't make AI video, videos. If it's within your niche, so if I want to promote an app which is about digital marketing, or a service about digital marketing, I'll put myself on camera and say, hello, I'm Uzair, and are you struggling with sorting out your, uh, leads or your, sales funnel and so on? I would, I rec, I recommend that this is the app, and this is what we use for our business. Give them some little tips as to how it can help them using this app, and then have an offer.
So what we do is, we, I always approach, um, the vendor or the company and say, look, can you offer me something which is different to others? Quite often they'll come back to me and said, well, how about 20% off for three months for your audience? I said, yeah, I'll take that. And then I can say to my audiences that I've got this offer, 20% off, which you will not get from anywhere on the internet or on the, uh, company's website. So they're more likely to come through my link and sign up, so it's a win-win situation.
The other thing is, especially for lead generation campaigns, um, when, especially it's like a recurring campaign or an app, we may offer a, a mini course, that if you sign up through my affiliate link, I'm going to give you a mini course on how to use ClickMagick or postback URLs or how to it all up, so that when you are using MaxWeb, it's all plugged and, plug and play, and all the tracking is 100%, because a lot of people don't know how to set this up properly.
So always give extra value, that's what I'm trying to say to you. Um, everybody else wants to, to do a shortcut, you know, quick wins, easy money, they want to make 100 grand a day. Um, it just doesn't happen overnight, just, just like that. So be unique, be original, um, yeah, be different.
Love it, love it, thank you for that. Um, I, I think it's super important, yeah, not to be using the same audio, the same AI voiceover, the same, you know, Storyblocks videos and audio that everybody else is using. Um, I think it's very true in the VSL space as well. I've seen, um, a lot lately, it's, uh, the industry is shifting more and more towards, you know, doctor, spokesperson, um, authority figure and just overall trustworthiness, and away from, you know, whiteboards and the same B-roll footage that has been shown over and over again.
So, um, I think it scales up and down. It's important not only on, you know, in our case of VSL, the offer itself, but also on the video ad, uh, that leads to the VSL. You have to be unique and original and stand out, uh, the whole way through. And, um, I think something else that's important, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, it's just being, um, congruent, having confluence between the ad and the actual offer you're running.
Um, a lot of people may take old ads and relaunch them and see if this new offer works on them, and, um, not have accurate results, because, you know, if, if your ad, if your headline, if everything is, uh, in line with the, the offer you're running, you're gonna have much more, um, engaged users, interested users that are more likely to convert and purchase.
So, um, I think all of those things are very important, and obviously, thank you, Uzair, for sharing. Uh, got one more question for you, if you, you got time. Oh yeah, no problem at all. So what are your practices for, uh, campaign hygiene? How do you keep your campaigns healthy? How do you keep them spending? How do you optimize? How do you decide what to optimize, what to trim? Um, just lay all that out for us.
Yeah, so obviously it's, it's a very broad question, and without going and showing you the interface as to how we do this, um, the few things. There's 1,800 videos on your channel that go over. The few things, um, tips I can, uh, give you is, first of all, start with the, keep things very simple, right? So if you got, let's say, 10 audiences you want to test, I would have one campaign, one ad group and one audience in it.
Because in Google Ads, as you know, the budget is set at the campaign level and not at the ad group level or the ad set level like in, uh, Facebook. Google is different to Facebook. So if I've got 10 audiences, I will have 10 campaigns. We tend to, um, split test three different ads at a time, so I've got 30 ads running at the same time. Yeah, 10 campaigns, three ads in each campaign, so 10 times 3 is 30.
Those, and then let it run for at least four, five days, because Google will take a lot longer than Facebook to come out of the learning stage. So you will find that it is learning for four, five days, and that's where a lot of people just stop it. No, let it run. So don't have a, a big budget in the first four to five days. Let them all run at whatever your testing budget is. I can't give you a number.
Do you have, um, a protocol for testing budget? Um, like, for VSLs, I've heard, you know, three to four times the CPA is a good daily test budget. Um, in general, is, is that similar on Google? Um, similar, but again, how aggressive you want to be. So some people say, well, if a campaign has spent twice my target CPA and not given me a conversion, I'm going to pause it. Some people say, if, if my target CPA is $10, um, and it has spent $10 and not got a conversion, I'm going to pause it.
So it depends on how aggressive or not you need, want to be on, uh, on your testing budget. And again, once you know, okay, my testing budget is 3,000 or 5,000 or whatever, then you, um, set up your parameters or your metrics accordingly. So it's not like one size fits all. Uh, I do a lot of coaching for other marketeers, and they said, well, I only got thousand bucks. Then I would say, okay, you have got to be very aggressive. If it's not working, then we just keep pausing them and, you know, killing off that, uh, ad.
But if there's a bit of a hint, like, what's the next best thing to track if they haven't got the conversions yet, then we look at click-through rate. Is that enough click-throughs coming through from the ad? Um, then the time on site, on the, and the view rate, um, the CPC, with, is it within our metric or not? If they're not, and they're completely out of skew, then you start pausing them.
So having this structure enables us, first of all, all the campaigns getting equal budget. If you have set up, let's say, for argument's, like, 20 bucks a day, they're all running each. If you have 10 audiences in one campaign, then one of the audiences is going to eat up all the budget and the others won't get a look in. So then you don't know: oh, I'm spending money but not getting much results. So you have to keep stopping them.
Um, having these, this one, um, set up of one campaign, one ad group and three ads or five ads or whatever, but one audience, allows us to scale. If starts to run, you just keep on increasing the budget, you don't have to make any changes. Yes, there is 10 times more work in the beginning, because you're sorting out all the campaigns in differently, but once it's done, it's all a case of either turning it up or switching it off.
Yeah, and you'll actually get accurate results seeing all the different campaigns, and you'll know which ones are working, which audiences are. Yeah, all your data, you can see it at campaign level. Yeah, no, it's important to know, um, you know, if you add 10 different audience, audiences to one campaign, you know, one's going to get the majority of spend. I don't think that's surprising, but it is good to note, um, when split testing different audiences.
Or, so, Uzair, I think I've thanked you 15 times on this, but here's another one: thank you for all those insights. Um, I think we can close it there. If you have any final insights, uh, for our affiliates, for our viewers, uh, for your viewers who come here, please, uh, let them know.
So my one big final tip is, don't give up too quickly and easily. It does take time. Don't fall for those quick wins where people are saying, oh, you can make 10,000 a day in 20 days and all that. Yes, they may be able to do it, but they've been doing it for, like, years and years and years. So I can produce results right now within a matter of days, because I've been doing it for many years, but if somebody starts new, it will take them a long, uh, period of time.
So yeah, start small, learn from your mistakes. You will make mistakes. Um, giving up is not an option, because if you give up, you lose, and that's what I'm going to, uh, end up with. That's great advice, not even just for Google Ads, but for life, so thank you. Absolutely.
Well, thank you so much for joining us, Uzair. Um, if anybody wants to check out more content and more info from him, please check out his YouTube channel, SF Digital. Um, like he said, tons of videos, tons of insights over there, way more than we could pack into, uh, this one video today. Um, check out his channel, don't forget to like and subscribe to us, and, uh, thank you all for, for joining. Thank you, thank you, Joey, and thanks for everyone for being here. Thank you, bye guys.
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