Surfside PPC Podcast

Google Ads smart bidding changed on August 17, 2026, and it changed how I bid. Google used to try to beat the target you set. Now it tries to hit it. A $10 target CPA that used to come in at $5 will land closer to $10. This episode covers all four smart bidding strategies, how to set them up, and what that update means going into 2027.The upside is that your target now works as a constraint. You are telling Google not to spend unless it can hit your number, and to maximize spend inside it.You cannot talk about smart bidding without conversion tracking, so that comes first. I pull up my own account and show conversion actions that stopped firing months ago, which is the kind of thing that quietly wrecks a bid strategy. If every conversion is not worth the same, set values on them. For me a 60 second call from an ad is worth $200, a lead form I close 30 percent of the time is $100, and mobile click to call sits at $25 to $50.For a new campaign, start with maximize conversions and let it run for a few weeks. Once you have real data, switch to Target CPA using the number you actually hit. If you ran $200 a day and came in at $125 per conversion, set $125 as your target, then raise the budget. That sounds backwards, but with a target in place you can scale budget as long as you are happy paying that price. For efficiency instead, keep the budget high and walk the target down. I have gone $40 to $37 to $33 to $29, watched volume drop, and settled back at $33.Maximize conversion value and Target ROAS are the other side, and only work if you are actually valuing conversions. Google comes close to realistic targets, but set 1500 percent and you will not spend your budget, because Google only spends when it is confident it can hit the number. I use the last 30 days to pick a target, same as Google.I also cover portfolio bid strategies, which apply one strategy across multiple search and shopping campaigns, not Performance Max. The maximum bid limit matters there, and my rule of thumb is about half your target CPA.The questions to ask: is every conversion worth the same? Are you tracking real sales and leads, not button clicks? Would you pay for every primary conversion in your account? Set your target, then leave it alone.If you need help with Google Ads, reach out to Surfside PPC.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WORK WITH SURFSIDE PPC ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ *My Google Ads Course is Updated and $49/Year: https://surfsideppc.com/products/google-ads-course **Join Surfside PPC Premium For $5/Month: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEzSSbs3Wfe5p4dBzzjrjvw/join ***Get 2 Free Google Ads Training Videos: https://surfsideppc.com/pages/training ****Hire Me For Consulting: https://surfsideppc.com/products/google-ads-consultingAccess premium content on: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/surfsideinbound YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Surfsideppc SKOOL: https://www.skool.com/surfsideppc━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT WE GO OVER IN THIS EPISODE: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━The four smart bidding strategies and when each fitsThe August 17 update and why Google now hits targets instead of beating themSetting a dollar value on each conversion actionSwitching to Target CPA using the number you actually hitRaising budget after you set a target, and walking it downWhy unrealistic ROAS targets stop your spendPortfolio bid strategies and the maximum bid limit━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ RELEVANT URLS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▸ Google Ads Bidding Strategies Explained → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/google-ads-bidding-strategies-explained▸ Google Ads Conversion Tracking for Local Sites → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/google-ads-conversion-tracking-local-websites▸ Google Ads KPIs: The Metrics That Matter → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/google-ads-kpis-guide━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TIMESTAMPS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━0:00 Google Ads Smart Bidding 0:27 The August 17 Bidding Update 1:10 Using Your Target As a Constraint 1:47 How Smart Bidding Replaced Manual Bids 2:39 Why Conversion Tracking Comes First 3:53 Picking Your Primary Lead Conversions 4:36 Setting Values For Each Conversion Action 5:37 Performance Max Forces Smart Bidding 6:40 Start With Maximize Conversions 7:17 When To Use Maximize Conversion Value 8:40 Switching To Target CPA From Your Real Data 9:38 Raising Budget After You Set a Target CPA 10:34 Walking Your Target CPA Down 11:09 Target ROAS and Realistic Targets 12:58 Spending a Full Budget With Target ROAS 13:45 A Lead Generation Starting Point 15:51 Portfolio Bid Strategies and Max Bid Limit 17:06 Matching the Strategy To Your Goal 18:26 What Changed in 2026━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT SURFSIDE PPC ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Surfside PPC helps businesses grow with Google Ads, Meta Ads, and SEO. Questions? Leave them in the comments.#SmartBidding #GoogleAds #TargetCPA #TargetROAS #PPC #GoogleAdsTutorial

Limited by budget in Google Ads is not the problem most people think it is. When you see it in your status column, Google is telling you that you are leaving conversions on the table at your current cost per conversion. In episode 32 I cover the two very different situations that trigger it, and exactly which levers to pull in each one.Click the status and Google shows you a forecast. Go from $15 a day to $51 a day and here are the extra weekly conversions, here is the added weekly cost, and the change to your cost per conversion is negligible. That forecast is the whole point. If the extra conversions come in at a price you are happy with, the limitation is costing you money.There are two ways to read it. The first is a campaign that is already performing. Good conversion volume on a small budget, phone calls coming in, appointments getting booked, and Google saying there is more available. The second is a budget that simply cannot compete. An HVAC company comes to me with $2,000 a month in a market where competitors spend tens of thousands. In that case you are not entering most of the auctions at all, and you are not bidding high enough for Google to deliver conversions.I show a campaign running $25 a day where the average cost per click is $11 to $14 and the first page bid is $26. You cannot manual bid your way around that. Google has moved away from manual bidding, and you are competing on budget whether you like it or not.On a campaign that is working, you have two moves. If you are happy with your cost per conversion, switch to Target CPA and give it room based on your last 30 days. Then keep your budget where it is and walk your target CPA down. At $30 a conversion on a $25 a day budget, try $25, then $20, and see if you can pull more leads out of the same spend.Once you are at scale and hitting a cost per conversion you are happy with, set your budget to the moon. If leads are profitable at that number, there is no reason to cap yourself.The simple version: increasing your bid and your budget is a volume play. Decreasing them is an efficiency play. Finding the right numbers for your business is the actual job you pay a Google Ads manager for.Limited by budget on a campaign that is not performing is different. There you need a real test budget, enough to drive at least five clicks a day and ideally ten or more, run for a couple of weeks on maximize conversions, and you watch your search terms to make sure what is coming in is relevant.If you need help with Google Ads, reach out to Surfside PPC.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WORK WITH SURFSIDE PPC━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━*My Google Ads Course is Updated and $49/Year: https://surfsideppc.com/products/google-ads-course**Join Surfside PPC Premium For $5/Month: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEzSSbs3Wfe5p4dBzzjrjvw/join***Get 2 Free Google Ads Training Videos: https://surfsideppc.com/pages/training****Hire Me For Consulting: https://surfsideppc.com/products/google-ads-consultingAccess premium content on:Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/surfsideinboundYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SurfsideppcSKOOL: https://www.skool.com/surfsideppc━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WHAT WE GO OVER IN THIS EPISODE:━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━- What limited by budget actually means in your status column- Reading the forecast Google shows when you click it- The difference between a capped winner and a budget that cannot compete- Why $2,000 a month does not compete in some markets- A $25 a day campaign against $26 first page bids- Switching to Target CPA and giving it room- Walking your target CPA down inside the same budget- When to uncap your budget entirely- Volume play vs efficiency play- Running a real test budget on a campaign that is not working━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━RELEVANT URLS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━▸ Google Ads Bidding Strategies Explained → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/google-ads-bidding-strategies-explained▸ Google Ads Budget Pacing Explained (The 30.4 Rule) → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/google-ads-budget-pacing-explained▸ Google Ads KPIs: The Metrics That Actually Matter → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/google-ads-kpis-guide━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━TIMESTAMPS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━0:00 Limited By Budget, Episode 320:34 The Forecast Google Shows You1:01 Two Ways To Read Limited By Budget2:52 A $25 a Day Campaign vs $26 First Page Bids3:52 Switching To Target CPA On a Good Campaign4:33 Lowering Target CPA Inside Your Budget5:20 When To Set Your Budget To the Moon6:41 Volume Play vs Efficiency Play7:22 Limited By Budget On a Bad Campaign━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT SURFSIDE PPC━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Surfside PPC helps businesses grow with Google Ads, Meta Ads, and SEO. Questions? Leave them in the comments. See you next episode.#GoogleAds #LimitedByBudget #PPC #TargetCPA #GoogleAdsTutorial #BiddingStrategies

Google Ads conversion tracking for phone calls and lead forms, start to finish. In episode 31 I build all four conversion actions on a WordPress site using Google Tag Manager: a lead form, calls from ads, calls from your website, and mobile click to call. This is the technical one, so pause where you need to.Start with Google Tag Manager. Create the account and container, then put the two snippets in the header and footer of your site. On WordPress I use the WP Code plugin under Code Snippets, Header and Footer. Confirm it with Tag Assistant before you go further.In Google Ads your conversion actions live under Goals. Categories matter because you pick which ones a campaign optimizes for. Before building anything, go to edit data sources and make sure your Google tag is the source, not just Google Analytics 4.For the lead form, create the conversion manually with code so you can build it in Tag Manager. Primary means it is used for bidding, secondary means it is not. On values I set $1 for leads unless a client says one type is worth more. Your conversion ID is your AW tag without the AW part. Trigger it on a page view where the URL contains your thank you page.Then add the conversion linker tag on all pages. It is step two in Google's own instructions and people skip it constantly.Phone calls take three conversion actions. Calls from ads is the easy one. Calls from website visits needs your display number exactly as it appears on your site plus the destination number people reach, and it only fires on calls of 60 seconds or longer. Mobile click to call fires on a button click, which is why it overcounts, badly in Performance Max, so use it in search campaigns only. A linked Google Business Profile brings those calls in automatically as a fourth source.Google removed the easy Tag Manager setup for the call conversions, so I show how to pull your conversion ID and label out of the event snippet instead. You also need the built in click variables turned on, and the trigger is link clicks where the click URL contains tel.Publish the container, run preview mode, and check each tag fires. Then set your default calls from ads action and pick your conversion goals at the campaign level so the campaign optimizes for what you built.If you get stuck, reach out. We do Google Ads management and consulting at Surfside PPC.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WORK WITH SURFSIDE PPC━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━*My Google Ads Course is Updated and $49/Year: https://surfsideppc.com/products/google-ads-course**Join Surfside PPC Premium For $5/Month: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEzSSbs3Wfe5p4dBzzjrjvw/join***Get 2 Free Google Ads Training Videos: https://surfsideppc.com/pages/training****Hire Me For Consulting: https://surfsideppc.com/products/google-ads-consultingAccess premium content on:Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/surfsideinboundYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SurfsideppcSKOOL: https://www.skool.com/surfsideppc━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WHAT WE GO OVER IN THIS EPISODE:━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━- Installing Google Tag Manager with the WP Code plugin- Building a lead form conversion with a thank you page trigger- Why the conversion linker tag is not optional- The three phone call conversions you need- Display number vs destination number- Why mobile click to call overcounts in Performance Max- Pulling your ID and label out of the event snippet- Testing every tag in preview mode before you trust it━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━RELEVANT URLS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━▸ Google Ads Phone Call Tracking With GTM → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/google-ads-phone-call-tracking-with-google-tag-manager▸ Google Ads Lead Form Tracking With GTM → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/google-ads-lead-form-tracking-with-google-tag-manager▸ Google Ads Conversion Tracking for Local Websites → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/google-ads-conversion-tracking-local-websites━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━TIMESTAMPS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━0:00 Conversion Tracking, Episode 310:53 Installing Google Tag Manager1:47 Adding the GTM Code With WP Code2:37 Checking Tags With Tag Assistant3:08 Conversion Actions and Goal Categories5:20 Creating the Google Ads Tag in GTM6:23 Creating a Lead Form Conversion7:50 Conversion ID, Label, and the GTM Tag8:49 Thank You Page Trigger9:40 Adding the Conversion Linker Tag10:19 Three Phone Call Conversions11:31 Display Number vs Destination Number12:40 Linking Google Business Profile Calls13:24 Why Click To Call Overcounts14:43 Building the Calls From Website Tag16:28 Building the Mobile Click To Call Tag18:00 Publishing and Testing in Preview Mode20:51 Campaign Goals and Bidding━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT SURFSIDE PPC━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Surfside PPC helps businesses grow with Google Ads, Meta Ads, and SEO. Questions? Leave them in the comments. See you next episode.#ConversionTracking #GoogleAds #GoogleTagManager #CallTracking #PPC #GoogleAdsTutorial

Negative keywords are the best way to optimize your Google Ads campaigns. In episode 30 I cover how to find negative keyword ideas, how to add them at the account, campaign, and ad group level, and the best practices I use in every account I manage. This is how you stop paying for searches that were never going to convert.Without negatives you pay for searches that were never going to book. Somebody searching plumber cost wants a quick answer, and a $15 click on that means they read it, leave, and come back later to search plumber near me. You want to be there for the second search. Same with discount searches like tree removal for seniors. If that is not the job you want, put it on a page on your site instead of paying for the click. Same with competitor names.I pull up my own account to show it. My Performance Max campaign served searches all over the place: ads, my ad center, Skillshop. Performance Max gives you much less control, so there is a better chance you see junk in your search terms report. My search campaign targeting dentists, med spas, plumbers, roofers, and HVAC looks better, but I still get dental marketing company USA when what I want is Google Ads agency for dentists.Create a negative keyword list at the account level and apply it to every campaign, since there are searches you never want to target anywhere. Keep in mind new campaigns do not pick that list up automatically, so you add it manually each time.Negative match types work differently than the keywords you target, and they behave exactly how they sound. One word as a broad match negative removes anything containing it, so seniors takes out every search with seniors in it. Two words removes any search containing both. Phrase match, like for beginners, removes marketing for beginners and Google Ads for beginners, but not beginners Google Ads. Exact only removes that one term.You can also add up to 1,000 negative keywords at the admin level under account settings, which apply across search, shopping, and Performance Max. That is a good place to use AI on your historic data to find what is wasting budget.The best practices are simple. Write down your do not block words first, things like install, replace, and repair, so you never cut them by accident. Build a starter list before launch with the obvious junk: free, DIY, how to, what is, jobs, salary, Reddit. Then mine your search terms report weekly, look at your most expensive and most irrelevant terms, and keep adding.If you need help with Google Ads, contact Surfside PPC.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WORK WITH SURFSIDE PPC━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━*My Google Ads Course is Updated and $34.99/Year: https://surfsideppc.com/products/google-ads-course**Join Surfside PPC Premium For $5/Month: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEzSSbs3Wfe5p4dBzzjrjvw/join***Get 2 Free Google Ads Training Videos: https://surfsideppc.com/pages/training****Hire Me For Consulting: https://surfsideppc.com/products/google-ads-consultingAccess premium content on:Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/surfsideinboundYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SurfsideppcSKOOL: https://www.skool.com/surfsideppc━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WHAT WE GO OVER IN THIS EPISODE:━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━- Cost, discount, and competitor searches you may not want- Why Performance Max puts more junk in your search terms- Building an account level negative keyword list- Adding 1,000 account level negatives in account settings- Mining your search terms report every week━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━RELEVANT URLS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━▸ Google Ads Negative Keywords: Best Practices → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/google-ads-negative-keywords▸ How to Use Search Terms Report for Negative Keywords → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/how-to-use-search-terms-report-negative-keywords▸ Google Ads Keyword Match Types: Ultimate 2026 Guide → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/google-ads-keyword-match-types-the-ultimate-2026-guide━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━TIMESTAMPS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━0:00 Negative Keywords, Episode 300:55 Negative Keyword Match Types Work Differently1:35 What Happens Without Negatives: Plumber Cost2:42 Searches Looking For Discounts3:34 Competitor Searches You May Not Want4:06 Junk in a Performance Max Search Terms Report6:08 Finding Wasted Clicks in Your Search Terms6:43 Creating an Account Level Negative Keyword List7:17 Broad Match Negative Keywords7:52 Phrase and Exact Match Negative Keywords9:07 Applying Lists in the Shared Library9:49 1,000 Account Level Negative Keywords10:25 Protect Your Targets and Pick the Match Type10:56 Do Not Block Words and a Starter List11:40 Mine Your Search Terms Report Weekly━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT SURFSIDE PPC━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Surfside PPC helps businesses grow with Google Ads, Meta Ads, and SEO. Questions? Leave them in the comments. Episode 31 is out next week.

Google Ads assets, formerly ad extensions, are the parts of your ad that show up around your headlines and descriptions. In episode 29 I go through every asset type one by one, what each does, which I recommend, and which I would skip. I also pull up a plumber near me search to show what they look like when they serve.Google renamed ad extensions to assets in 2022, and I still prefer the old name. Every asset gets its own performance report, so you can see which sitelink, headline, and long headline performs best. Google takes your assets, figures out what works from your conversion data, and builds what it believes is the best ad.Turn on every asset type that fits your business. That does not mean use every single one. Do not follow what I did with my newest campaign, which I launched with no assets at all.Business name should be your name or your URL. Business logo should be square, and think of it as an icon rather than a text heavy logo, since Google shrinks it to about the size of a favicon.Upload multiple images. For a medical office you often see a photo of the doctor, and for local service companies you see the team or somebody working outside the truck. Google serves what performs best.Sitelinks are one of the biggest ones. Run at least four, and really six or more. An HVAC company can run eight: AC repair, furnace installation, financing, service areas, contact us, reviews. Use them to sell your services and send people to pages built to convert.Callouts are 25 characters or less, just quick selling points. Financing available, five star rated, 500 plus reviews, in business 20 plus years. Do not repeat your headlines word for word. Structured snippets are a header with four values under it, like oil change, brake service, and tire rotation for an auto shop.Call assets replaced call only ads. If you are wondering how to run call ads now, this is the answer. Put call assets on your responsive search ads, and Google tracks the call.I would stay away from lead form assets. Get people to your website and have them call or fill out your form there. Location assets are the important one. Link your Google Business Profile so your address shows and you get a better map presence.Price assets let you list services with starting prices, like termite inspection $99 or yearly service $350. Make sure they match your real prices. Promotion assets are for Black Friday, Memorial Day, and other sales, and you set an end date so you never run an expired promotion.Last is automated assets at the campaign level, and I would turn those off. Google recently changed it so opting into automatically created assets also opts you into AI Max for search campaigns, which I do not recommend.If you need help with Google Ads, contact Surfside PPC.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WORK WITH SURFSIDE PPC━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━*My Google Ads Course is Updated and $34.99/Year: https://surfsideppc.com/products/google-ads-course**Join Surfside PPC Premium For $5/Month: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEzSSbs3Wfe5p4dBzzjrjvw/join***Get 2 Free Google Ads Training Videos: https://surfsideppc.com/pages/training****Hire Me For Consulting: https://surfsideppc.com/products/google-ads-consultingAccess premium content on:Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/surfsideinboundYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SurfsideppcSKOOL: https://www.skool.com/surfsideppc━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WHAT WE GO OVER IN THIS EPISODE:━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━- Asset performance reports and how Google picks combinations- Business name, business logo, and why it should be square- Sitelinks, how many to run, and where to send clicks- Callouts and structured snippet headers- Call assets replacing call only ads- Location assets and linking your Google Business Profile- Why I turn off automatically created assets━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━RELEVANT URLS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━▸ Google Ads Local Ad Extensions Guide → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/google-ads-local-ad-extensions▸ Responsive Search Ads: Specs and Best Practices → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/responsive-search-ads▸ How to Write Google Ads Copy That Gets Clicks → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/write-google-ads-copy-gets-clicks━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━TIMESTAMPS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━0:00 Google Ads Assets, Episode 291:18 Renamed To Assets and Asset Reports3:05 Every Asset Type, Business Name, and Logo5:23 Image Assets6:04 Sitelink Assets6:49 Callout Assets7:43 Structured Snippet Assets8:23 Call Assets Replaced Call Only Ads9:11 Lead Form and Location Assets10:25 Price Assets11:09 Promotion and App Assets11:45 Automated Assets and Why I Turn Them Off━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT SURFSIDE PPC━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Surfside PPC helps businesses grow with Google Ads, Meta Ads, and SEO. Questions? Leave them in the comments or reach out directly. See you on the next episode.#GoogleAds #GoogleAdsAssets #AdExtensions #PPC #Sitelinks #GoogleAdsTutorial

Responsive search ads are the only search ad type you can build in Google Ads now, so getting them right matters more than ever. In episode 28 I walk through a real responsive search ad inside a campaign I just turned on for my own business, a medical PPC campaign at $25 a day. You get my best practices for headlines, pinning, the insertion tools, description lines, and assets.Your headlines are the most important part of the ad. You get 15, and you can run three responsive search ads per ad group, so that is 45 total headlines Google can test in one ad group. Google mixes your headlines, descriptions, and assets over time to find the combinations that drive leads.You can pin headlines to position one, two, or three, and position one is the most important spot. Pinning is a preference, not a rule, and sometimes I run two ads in one ad group, pin one and leave the other unpinned to see which performs better. I write six or seven headlines per ad built to be that first headline, and I put calls to action in position two. The first headline should match the service somebody typed in. If I am targeting HVAC advertising agency, I want a headline that says HVAC advertising agency, not best advertising agency.Before any of that, get your final URL right. Mine points to my Google Ads for dentists page, with keywords like dentist advertising agency and dentist PPC agency. Sending people to a page that does not match what you target is the fastest way to waste budget.I also cover the insertion tools. Keyword insertion pulls the closest matching keyword from your ad group into the headline, with default text as your backup. Use title case. Location insertion drops the searcher's city into the ad, with a backdrop city for when Google is not sure, and countdown insertion counts down to when an offer ends.For description lines I like quick hitting copy over full sentences. Dentist Google Ads, contact us, five star rated, 10 plus years in business. Nobody is reading a long description, so answer their questions fast.On ad strength, good is fine and excellent is the target, but Google does not use it in the auction. Pinning can hold you at good, which is a fine trade.Then fill out your assets. Images, business name, logo, sitelinks pointed at pages built to convert, callouts, structured snippets, and a call asset, which replaced call only ads.If you want help writing responsive search ads or setting up campaigns that convert, reach out to Surfside PPC.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WORK WITH SURFSIDE PPC━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━*My Google Ads Course is Updated and $34.99/Year: https://surfsideppc.com/products/google-ads-course**Join Surfside PPC Premium For $5/Month: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEzSSbs3Wfe5p4dBzzjrjvw/join***Get 2 Free Google Ads Training Videos: https://surfsideppc.com/pages/training****Hire Me For Consulting: https://surfsideppc.com/products/google-ads-consultingAccess premium content on:Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/surfsideinboundYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SurfsideppcSKOOL: https://www.skool.com/surfsideppc━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WHAT WE GO OVER IN THIS EPISODE:━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━- Why responsive search ads are the only search ad type left- Why your 15 headlines matter more than anything else- Pinning headlines to position one, two, and three- Headline one matches the search, headline two is the CTA- Keyword insertion, title case, and default text- Location insertion and your backdrop city- Images, sitelinks, callouts, and structured snippets━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━RELEVANT URLS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━▸ Responsive Search Ads: Specs and Best Practices → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/responsive-search-ads▸ How to Run Google Ads for a Dental Practice → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/google-ads-for-dentists▸ 5 Ad Copy Metrics That Drive ROI → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/ad-copy-performance-metrics━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━TIMESTAMPS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━0:00 Responsive Search Ads, Episode 280:31 Running a $25 a Day Medical PPC Campaign0:56 Why Responsive Search Ads Are Your Only Option1:35 Ask Advisor and AI Generated Ad Copy2:05 Ad Strength: Good vs Excellent2:42 Your Final URL and Matching Landing Page4:06 Your 15 Headlines and Pinning Positions5:54 Headline 1 Matches the Search, Headline 2 Is the CTA7:02 Keyword Insertion and Default Text7:57 Location Insertion and Your Backdrop City9:05 Countdown Insertion and 45 Total Headlines10:13 Writing Quick Hitting Description Lines11:20 Images, Sitelinks, and Call Assets13:11 Callouts and Structured Snippets14:10 Best Practices Recap━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT SURFSIDE PPC━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Surfside PPC helps businesses grow with Google Ads, Meta Ads, and SEO. Questions? Leave them in the comments, and leave a review if you are up for it. See you on episode 29.#ResponsiveSearchAds #GoogleAds #PPC #GoogleAdsTutorial #AdCopy #SearchAds

Google Ads AI Max in 2026 is out of beta and living inside your standard search campaigns, and it's essentially a fusion of Dynamic Search Ads and broad match technology that uses your own website content to find new buyers. This is episode 27 of the Surfside PPC podcast, breaking down how it actually works and when you should (and definitely shouldn't) turn it on.The short version: AI Max only works if you're feeding it good conversion data. If you're an established account with clean data and around 30 or more monthly conversions, it can find you incremental volume beyond your existing targeting. If you have poor conversion data or none at all, avoid it entirely, because it will happily spend your budget on searches that have nothing to do with your business. I share a real example from a dog trainer client where turning it on pulled in cleaning and grooming searches instead of training leads.I walk through the two halves you need to understand: search term matching (which opens you up to longer conversational searches like "large oak leaning on my roof after storm") and asset optimization through text customization and final URL expansion, where Google writes headlines from your landing page copy and picks the pages most likely to convert. I also cover the guardrails that keep you in control, brand inclusions and exclusions so you don't cannibalize your branded traffic, URL exclusions so paid clicks never land on your careers or financing pages, locations of interest, and text disclaimers for compliance. Plus the honest take: this is largely a "paid SEO" play, where Google charges you to capture the long-tail traffic your content should already be earning.If you're trying to figure out whether AI Max makes sense for your account, reach out to Surfside PPC. We do Google Ads consulting and management.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WORK WITH SURFSIDE PPC━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Not sure if AI Max is right for your account? We help businesses with Google Ads, conversion tracking, campaign strategy, and the systems that turn clicks into real customers → https://surfsideppc.com▸ Join The Surfside PPC Marketing Academy! Get Access to My Updated Google Ads Course + ALL My Marketing Courses: https://surfsideppc.com/products/surfside-ppc-marketing-academy▸ Hire Surfside PPC As Your Marketing Agency or for Consulting: https://surfsideppc.com/pages/contact▸ Get My Free Marketing Training Videos: https://surfsideppc.com/pages/marketing-training━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WHAT WE GO OVER IN THIS VIDEO TUTORIAL:━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━- What AI Max is and why it's a setting, not a campaign type- Why it's essentially Dynamic Search Ads fused with broad match- Why clean conversion data is the whole ballgame- How search term matching opens you to conversational long-tail searches- Text customization: Google writing headlines from your landing pages- Final URL expansion and how it picks your best converting pages- Using brand exclusions so you don't cannibalize branded search- Adding URL exclusions for careers and financing pages- Why high-volume ecommerce wins and long sales cycles struggle- The dog trainer case study and how intent drift happens- Text disclaimers and brand guidelines for staying compliant━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━RELEVANT URLS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━▸ Performance Max Campaigns: Complete Setup & Strategy Guide → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/google-ads-performance-max▸ Google Ads Bidding Strategies Explained → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/google-ads-bidding-strategies-explained▸ Google Ads Optimization Strategies in 2026 → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/google-ads-optimization▸ All Google Ads Guides → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━TIMESTAMPS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━0:00 Google Ads AI Max: Episode 271:45 Beyond the Beta: AI Max as a Core Search Setting4:12 The Bidding Conflict and Why Manual CPC Still Has a Place7:30 The Volume Trap: Why AI Struggles With Long Sales Cycles11:15 The Paid SEO Play: Paying for Organic-Style Traffic15:40 The Dog Trainer Case Study: When Intent Drifts19:25 Guardrails: Text Disclaimers and Brand Guidelines━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT SURFSIDE PPC━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Surfside PPC helps local businesses grow with Google Ads, SEO, and content that actually converts. Subscribe for new marketing tutorials every week.#GoogleAds #AIMax #GoogleAdsAI #PPC #SearchCampaigns #GoogleAdsStrategy #DigitalMarketing

PPC competitive analysis tools in 2026 can tell you what your competitors are bidding on, spending, and running for ad copy, but the truth is you don't need an expensive paid tool to do most of it. This is episode 26 of the Surfside PPC podcast, walking through the free and paid tools I actually use and how to turn that data into a real strategy.I start with the free tools that do most of the work: the Google Ads Transparency Center to see a competitor's live ads and landing pages, the Google Keyword Planner to pull their most relevant keywords by entering their URL, and plain Google searches to study offers, assets, reviews, and Business Profiles. A big theme is studying the biggest players in your industry (what does Orkin or Terminix do if you're in pest control) because they hire the best agencies and set the standard.Then I get into the paid tools and where each actually fits: why SpyFu is my favorite and does almost everything I need (especially now that it got its paid data back this year), why SEMrush is really an SEO tool for large sites, and where Ahrefs, Similar Web, and Ad Clarity make sense for bigger competitive intelligence. Most importantly, I cover how to actually use the data, studying competitor landing pages and offers to make yours convert better, rather than just copying their budget. Competitive analysis only gets you so far. You still have to run your own ads and become the competitor everyone else is studying.If you want help running a full competitor analysis and building a Google Ads strategy from it, reach out to Surfside PPC.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WORK WITH SURFSIDE PPC━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Want to know exactly what your competitors are bidding on and spending? We help businesses with Google Ads, competitor research, SEO, and the systems that turn clicks into real customers → https://surfsideppc.com▸ Join The Surfside PPC Marketing Academy! Get Access to My Updated Google Ads Course + ALL My Marketing Courses: https://surfsideppc.com/products/surfside-ppc-marketing-academy▸ Hire Surfside PPC As Your Marketing Agency or for Consulting: https://surfsideppc.com/pages/contact▸ Get My Free Marketing Training Videos: https://surfsideppc.com/pages/marketing-training━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WHAT WE GO OVER IN THIS VIDEO TUTORIAL:━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━- Why you don't need a paid tool to do most competitive analysis- Studying the biggest players in your industry to set your standard- Using the Google Ads Transparency Center to see competitor ads and landing pages- Pulling competitor keywords with the Google Keyword Planner- Why SpyFu is my favorite paid tool and what it shows- Where SEMrush actually fits and why it leans SEO- Where Ahrefs, Similar Web, and Ad Clarity make sense- Reading estimated ad budgets without taking them at face value- Why competitor landing pages and offers matter more than their budget- Turning the data into a strategy instead of just copying competitors━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━RELEVANT URLS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━▸ How to Find Competitor Keywords in Google Ads → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/google-ads/find-competitor-keywords-google-ads▸ 5 Ways to Estimate Competitor Ad Budgets → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/ppc-advertising/estimate-competitor-ad-budgets-methods▸ Top 5 Tools for Competitor Ad Analysis → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/ppc-advertising/tools-competitor-ad-analysis▸ AI Competitor Analysis for Google Ads → https://surfsideppc.com/blogs/news/ai-competitor-analysis━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━TIMESTAMPS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━0:00 PPC Competitive Analysis Tools0:40 Why You Don't Always Need Paid Tools1:10 Studying the Biggest Players in Your Industry2:00 What to Look For: Landing Pages, Offers, and Ad Copy3:00 Free Tool: The Google Ads Transparency Center4:30 Free Tool: The Google Keyword Planner6:00 Moving Into the Paid Tools: SEMrush8:00 Why SpyFu Is My Favorite Tool11:00 Ahrefs, Similar Web, and Ad Clarity13:30 How to Actually Use the Data━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT SURFSIDE PPC━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Surfside PPC helps local businesses grow with Google Ads, SEO, and content that actually converts. Subscribe for new marketing tutorials every week.#PPCCompetitiveAnalysis #GoogleAds #CompetitorAnalysis #SpyFu #PPC #CompetitorResearch #DigitalMarketing

What's up everyone. This is episode 25 of the Surfside PPC podcast, and today it's a Performance Max tutorial. I walk through a real PMax campaign I was running as a test, show you exactly what it did (the good and the ugly), and then go through the whole process of building one from scratch.Here's the big takeaway: Performance Max takes your inputs literally, so if you don't give it good conversion signals and the right guardrails, it'll happily burn your budget chasing junk. In my own test, a campaign meant to target tree service companies spent $8 on "tree removal for seniors" clicks, just because I hadn't set any search themes to anchor it. That's the kind of thing I want you to avoid.I get into why search should always come first for lead gen, how to think about branded keywords inside PMax, the "Thermos strategy" for ecommerce product feeds, how asset groups actually work, and why the "$10 a day" approach quietly kills lead gen campaigns. Plus a full walkthrough of setting one up, from objective and bidding all the way to audience signals.This is part one of a few PMax tutorials I'm putting together. I'll be combining them into a longer Google Ads tutorial for the channel, so stick around for the rest.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WORK WITH SURFSIDE PPC━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━If you want help getting your Google Ads, Performance Max, or lead gen dialed in, reach out. We handle the ads, the SEO, the content, the whole thing → https://surfsideppc.com▸ Join Surfside PPC Premium (courses + community): https://surfsideppc.com/a/members/community/▸ Get 2 Free Google Ads Training Videos: https://surfsideppc.com/pages/training▸ Hire Me For Consulting: https://surfsideppc.com/products/google-ads-consulting━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WHAT WE GET INTO━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━- Why PMax takes your inputs literally and how that burns budget- The signal trap, why a low quality conversion trains the whole campaign to chase junk- Asset groups vs. ad groups and how to structure them- The $8 fail, why search themes are not keywords (think broad match on steroids)- The branded keyword debate and using brand traffic to train a new account faster- The "Thermos strategy" for ecommerce product feeds through Merchant Center- Running PMax for niche lead gen like doctors and medical practices- Why the "$10 a day" budget myth kills lead gen campaigns- Google's AI asset generation tools and where they fall short- Building audience signals as your targeting foundation━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━TIMESTAMPS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━0:00 The PMax Blueprint: Moving Beyond the "Black Box"2:15 The Signal Trap: Why Your Campaign Thinks Trash Is Gold5:40 Asset Groups vs. Ad Groups: Structuring for Creative Precision9:10 The $8 Fail: Why Search Themes Are Not Keywords12:45 The Branded Debate: Using Brand Traffic for Rapid Account Training18:30 The Thermos Strategy: Merchant Center Integration for High ROI24:00 Niche Dominance: PMax for Doctors and Medical Professionals29:15 The $10 Budget Myth: The Reality of Lead Gen Data Requirements34:20 AI vs. Reality: Navigating Google's New Asset Generation Tools39:00 Audience Signals: Building the Ultimate Targeting Foundation━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT SURFSIDE PPC━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Surfside PPC helps local businesses grow with Google Ads, SEO, and content that actually converts. Subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen, or catch the videos on the Surfside PPC YouTube channel.#PerformanceMax #GoogleAds #PMax #GoogleAdsTutorial #PPC #LeadGeneration #DigitalMarketing

*Join Surfside PPC Premium To Get Access To Our Marketing Courses & Community : https://surfsideppc.com/a/members/community/**Get 2 Free Google Ads Training Videos: https://surfsideppc.com/pages/training***Hire Me For Consulting: https://surfsideppc.com/products/google-ads-consultingJoin the Surfside PPC Community: Get your specific questions answered & access to premium marketing contentProfessional Help: Ready to stop the guesswork? Visit surfsideppc.com for a professional account audit or full management.---Google Ads News (June 2026) – The August 17th PivotThe August 17th update marks a definitive end to "ceiling-based" bidding. For years, Smart Bidding treated your Target CPA as a maximum threshold, often delivering conversions well below your limit. After August 17th, Google will treat your CPA as a mathematical mandate to hit, effectively turning your "ceilings" into "floors." Staying ahead of this pivot is the difference between scaling profit and absorbing intentional spend inflation.Google is turning your CPA "ceilings" into "floors" on August 17th. As the platform transitions to a model where your settings are treated as targets to be reached rather than limits to stay under, the risk of automated spend inflation is at an all-time high. This episode breaks down how to maintain control in the era of "Target Optimization."This technical deep dive analyzes the June/August 2026 transition. We dissect three major bidding updates—Smart Bidding Exploration, Promotion Mode, and Bidding Target Optimization—alongside the rollout of SERP-integrated Real Estate Local Services Ads and the Gemini-powered transition from "Ask Advisor" to "Ask Ad Manager."The following breakdown maps these technical shifts to your Q3 roadmap.Key Takeaways: In 2026, the primary competitive lever is the curation of "clean data" signals. As Google automates the "how," your role must shift to controlling the "what" and "when."* Deploy Smart Bidding Exploration for Search and Pmax (without feeds) so that you can capture untapped queries beyond core targeting, provided your account has high-quality conversion data to prevent an "AI spend sinkhole."* Implement Promotion Mode during peak sales windows so that you can schedule specific budget spikes and adjust "ROAS tolerance," allowing the algorithm to loosen restrictions exactly when conversion rates are highest.* Lower CPA targets manually leading up to August 17th so that Google’s new Bidding Target Optimization doesn't artificially inflate your costs to meet a target you previously used as a safety net.* Utilize Real Estate Local Services Ads so that you capture "no-friction" leads through direct messaging and calls within the SERP, bypassing external funnels like Zillow.* Finalize Business and Personal Verifications so that your account avoids the "unqualified" label, a policy specifically targeting third-party lead generators (e.g., insurance aggregators) to favor reputable, direct advertisers.This chronological roadmap provides the technical specifics discussed in the episode.Timestamped Chapters: * 00:00 The August 17th Deadline: Why Your CPA "Ceiling" is Disappearing* 01:15 Smart Bidding Exploration: Scaling Search and Pmax with Clean Data* 03:40 The ROAS Safety Net: Scheduling Spikes with Promotion Mode* 05:22 The "Real Target" Trap: Preventing Automated Spend Inflation* 08:50 Displacing Zillow? SERP-Integrated Local Service Ads for Real Estate* 11:30 Gemini in the Cockpit: Transitioning from Ask Advisor to Ask Ad Manager* 14:15 The Trust Tax: The Insurance Example and "Unqualified" LabelingStrategic alignment requires a mastery of the specific features and search intent driving the 2026 platform.