Hey guys, Virginia here with Starter PPC. Someone posted a comment on another video that I made. The video was called Grow the Google Ads Algorithm Like a Muscle. And it has a picture of me going like this, showing my muscles. in that video, we talk about overpacing, underpacing of the budget and how that kind of helps the algorithm to, forces it to go out and find, basically it does prospecting. And then when we underpace, we're kind of focused on goal hitting someone posted comments saying, you know, this seems like a really bad design on Google's part, you know, the fact that we have to actually do this. kind of made me go down this spiral of thoughts. First of all, I forgot to mention in that video that the overpacing, underpacing workaround seems to really only be necessary when you're really, really small and your budget is small, under 5k, under 10k a month. Once you start getting into a bigger territory where more of your competitors are, it doesn't seem necessary. And I'm getting that information from John Moran over at Start over at Solutions 8. And I think the reason why is because when you're a little bit bigger the algorithm is probably doing some prospecting. All the time alongside kind of trying to hit your goals and get you conversions so that you don't quit Google apps. that's probably programmed into the algorithm. if it's not devoting a small percentage of your money to. prospecting. And what I mean by prospecting is, testing new products hasn't tested in a while or showing a product to a new pocket of the market. Maybe it's showing a new keyword that it hasn't tested in a while, or it's showing a keyword on a rainy day as opposed to a sunny day, right? Like sometimes the weather really affects your business. It just depends on what your business is. a new combination of ad copy on a new placement Testing new things so that it grows in power and it continues to stay relevant. When you have a bigger budget, the algorithm could devote a a small amount of budget to prospecting. and even though it has a small amount of budget on prospecting, it has enough budget every day to gather enough data to get a healthy average so that it can make decisions on that data. So it really comes down to a quantity of data versus time situation. I'm going to try to reframe what I'm saying. so it's less convoluted. When you have a bigger budget even if it's spending a small percentage of that, it's getting enough clicks, enough conversions on the prospecting, so that it gathers a body of data out of that. To get an accurate average before the weather changes, before the economy shifts, before a new season happens, before the competitive landscape changes. There's so many things that make the data irrelevant as time goes on that you have to have enough data in a short amount of time. The algorithm is going to see old data as less useful as it is. when you have a small budget, it's just very hard, right? It's this exponential lack of data, lack of power situation. even if the algorithm is doing some prospecting, and I'm not sure if it is or not when you're small, because with small businesses, if it's devoting even a small percentage of that budget to prospecting, Google ads is probably worried that you're going to. Give up on Google ads because you're not necessarily hitting your goals. So it might not actually be doing prospecting, but even if it is doing prospecting with your budget, it's probably not gleaning much from it. And even if it is gleaning something from it, the averages are probably not as accurate, right? Because it's maybe making decisions on two data points instead of on. 30 data points or it's making decisions on 30 data points, but those data points are spread out over six months instead of over one month. And so the data is old less accurate for whatever reason. in conclusion I'm torn. I do think that there's a logical aspect to it. And I think that the algorithm is probably doing the best that it can and to help small businesses, right? That being said, the algorithm. Is always gonna be looking out for itself, right? Google's always gonna be looking out for itself. It wants to make more money, and so the algorithm is gonna start to optimize itself to focus on bigger business because those businesses are gonna bring in, Google takes Google takes a cut of all of the money. it's very hard to be a small business because I do think that there is this like Undercurrent where the algorithm is going to say, Oh this bigger business, which has more data and more power is more important. And it might be prioritizing that bigger business over a small business, which makes it very, very difficult. You can't really fight that very easily. I am torn. don't know if Google cares about small business. I think that if, Google did want to care about small business, it would have to play unfairly and give the small businesses more of a leg up to start to get into the more competitive higher budget. Space and play with the bigger players, and I don't think that Google will do such a thing, right? Google's not going to unfairly say, Oh, for this small business we're going to make it really easy for them. We're going to actually let them win some bids, even though they're not paying as much per click as their competitors. Like, no, that wouldn't be fair. and it also wouldn't really be in Google's best interests. unless Google's doing that to try to stop small businesses from quitting on Google ads, like if, if, if they want, it's really, there's a lot of unknowns. Anyways, to combat all of this, what we're doing at starter PPC is we are keeping an eye out for when it makes sense to just push forward. What I mean by that is since it's so difficult when you're small, for whatever reason, for all these reasons combined, getting to a place where you're a little bit bigger is going to help you exponentially. We try to keep an eye out on the business's numbers as a whole. How is the business doing? Is it, hitting a profitable space over the past, profitable return over the past? 30 days on average, for example, if yes, we push for growth, We can't necessarily say, Oh, well, Google ads didn't do so well last month, but the business did well. So let's just not grow because Google ads didn't do well. I know it sounds illogical, but the problem is Google ads might never do well, depending on the industry you're in. Depending on Google's whims at any point in time, do they have shareholders to please? Is the algorithm learning and changing and, prioritizing big business right now? Is the tracking disappearing because of lawsuits that Google's involved in? Yes, it is. just because the Google ads look like they're not bringing in the same return that the business is getting. If the return for Google ads is here and the business's return is up here, it doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't grow your sales by adding budget in Google ads. Because when you grow your sales by adding budget in Google ads, it becomes exponentially easier for that algorithm to get you the the returns in Google ads and you know, I think on some level, you just have to have faith that playing in the Google ads pool. And investing in getting a really healthy algorithm going over a long period of time with a lot of data. is for the best that it's contributing to the business's overall return. So we keep a really close eye out on the overall business numbers. if it's an e commerce business, we'll be looking at media efficiency ratio, right? So all your marketing spend versus gross revenue. And you try to keep your eyes peeled on that like high level number. And if it was good in the last 30 days, then we say, it's time. Let's grow. If it wasn't good in the last 30 days, you can't afford to grow, right? You can't invest in the next level in Google ads because you've got to, test new things, right? Whether that means fixing up the website or testing a new campaign instead of the Google ads, tweaking a bidding strategy, whatever it is. going back to the overpacing underpacing concept, I'm going to link to that video in the description. the reason why we do that when the businesses are small, when the budgets are small and not when it's big is because. It seems to sort of force the algorithm to do that prospecting in a very condensed way. And the algorithm is not going to do that on its own, right? It's not going to go, well, for the next two weeks, I just want to do mostly prospecting. I'll just plan for the next two weeks to hit goals. Well, it's not going to make that decision for you. why is because, It's probably afraid you're going to quit if it's not getting a high return for those two weeks while it's doing 90 percent prospecting. So we forced it to do 90 percent prospecting for two weeks because we want it to have all that data in a condensed time period so that we can then reap the benefits for the next two weeks. we know that it's a data versus time situation and we're artificially creating this. Roller coaster of underpacing I encourage you to watch the video about this the one about growing the algorithm like a muscle, which is in the description. this has been a bit rambly, but these are my thoughts. This is what I was all going through my head when I was responding to this comment on that other video. And I just wanted to share it with you guys. If you have any thoughts, feel free to comment. I would love to hear them. A lot of this is speculative. We really can't know what Google's thinking. And I do think that things are changing at all times. But I would not trust Google to really be prioritizing small businesses and helping small businesses to succeed. So you have to really fight and push for growth, right? Sometimes it's hard to be profitable when you're in a very small space. just trying to get out of that small space without losing money is. Is the focus. that's it. If you like this video, don't forget to hit like and subscribe. I will talk to you guys in the comments.