I Wish I Had Known This Google Secret Before Implementing My Growth Strategy

In a cautionary tale for digital marketers, a seasoned professional shares a story of over-optimization gone wrong. With over 30 years of experience in the field, the marketer had always relied on data-driven decisions to maximize return on ad spend. However, a recent experience with one of his businesses, Restaurant Furniture Plus, took a turn for the worse when the campaign was over-optimized.

The growth strategy for the e-commerce business had been focused on Google Ads, with a steady increase in advertising budget over the years. Things were going well until a decision was made to switch the optimization focus from Cost Per Lead (CPL) to Cost of Customer Acquisition (CAC) based on advice from a marketing agency. The agency recommended connecting CRM data directly with Google Ads to track actual buying customers, with the expectation of improving ROAS and decreasing CAC.

However, the results were disastrous. CAC doubled, and ROAS was cut in half, leaving everyone puzzled. It was later discovered that the change in data optimization strategy had actually starved Google’s algorithm of necessary data, leading to ineffective campaign performance.

After reverting to the old optimization strategy, the campaign returned to historical levels of success. The lessons learned from this experience include the importance of providing Google with sufficient data to work with, the potential pitfalls of blindly following industry trends, and the dangers of over-optimization in marketing campaigns.

Ultimately, the story serves as a reminder to marketers to tread carefully when making changes to their campaigns and to avoid falling into the trap of over-optimization.