Is Google Out Of Touch With Small Advertisers?

Based on a recent “AdWords survey” conducted of pay-per-click (PPC) professionals and the ensuing conversations it has led to, I believe that Google is out of touch with small advertisers using their AdWords advertising platform. And here is why I think that.

But more importantly, this piece is not to complain – but to try to get action. At the end I have a concrete suggestion.

First let’s take a look at what the recent (admittedly informal) AdWords survey showed.

What PPC Professionals Think “Small” Means

I decided to ask my fellow PPC professionals what they considered a “small” PPC advertiser to be. I asked the question, “Which amount below would you say is the largest monthly budget you would consider a ‘small’ PPC advertiser?”

Here are the results:

If you do the math, you’ll see that the average “small” advertiser would be spending $6,783 per month on their PPC efforts. that’s according to the pay-per-click professionals who took this survey.

But what does Google think?

What Google Thinks “Small” Means

Obviously, this is a tough question since Google is a huge company with thousands of employees. However, I had the chance to hear from 2 Google representatives at a recent meeting of the Salt Lake City Search Engine Marketers group (SLC|SEM).

The first rep worked as a dedicated account manager for companies advertising with Google. During the Q&A she repeatedly referenced her “smaller clients,” so I asked her what kind of monthly budget these smaller clients have. She deferred to the other Google rep (who had been her boss before) and he proceeded to dance all around the question so as to not give any number. Not even a range.

So Google won’t tell you how much a “smaller client” would need to spend in order to merit a dedicated account manager.

How else might we get an idea?

What Justifies A Google Rep

Fortunately, I know a few advertisers with large enough budgets to merit an account rep. They all spend over $75,000 per month with AdWords and feel like they’re on the smaller end of the spectrum.

After posting the results, I did hear of some accounts at the $30,000 month level with account reps, but I also heard this:

@Mel66 @robert_brady @adwords Sadly, a large vendor of solutions in our space used the term “Mom & Pops” to describe <$50,000/mo. budgets.

— Andrew Goodman (@andrew_goodman) June 28, 2013

So what could Google do to help smaller advertisers?

Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Let’s acknowledge that Google is making a sizable effort already. Here are 3 things Google already is doing to connect with and support small business AdWords advertisers:

(1) They have the 866-2-GOOGLE number that is available to any advertiser.

(2) The online help is quite thorough (though it gets out-of-date at times with all the changes).

(3) The Google AdWords Forum has some very helpful people who are giving out great advice and solutions to the pressing questions of the day.

However, my primary suggestion for Google would be to put some of their best & brightest reps on these “micro” accounts around $5,000  per month or lower. Let them see how differently this size advertiser behaves to compete with such large competitors. Then have these top reps come back to the product team 6 months later and give input.

This first-hand experience will help the platform become more friendly to small advertisers. If you’re a small advertiser, do you think this would help you?

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