EP 31: How to Work With Google Ads Account Reps

If you have an ad account with either Google or Facebook, then you’ve most likely received calls or emails from your account reps. Today, we’re going to talk about how to best utilize those account representatives.

Hey, everybody. Jim Lastinger here. Hope everything’s going well for you. Today, we’re going to talk about account reps. If you’re listening to this podcast then you probably have at least some experience dealing with account reps. Either you’ve actively worked with one at some point in the past, or maybe you’ve been approached by one and sometimes repeatedly to an annoying degree. Today, I’m going to give you my thoughts on ad account reps, how to use them, when to ignore them and so on.

First, let’s talk about the biggest issue with account reps. The quality of the reps that you get for your account, it really just depends on how much money you’re spending. If you’re a small account, then you’re likely going to get a contractor from an outside company that Google is contracting and they’re going to be your account rep. Their job is essentially to get you to increase your spend.

If you’re spending a larger amount of money, say something at least 20 or $30,000 a month, then you might actually get a team at Google who can provide some real value and some real insight. If you are one of these low spending accounts, like the vast majority of people are, then I recommend pretty much ignoring the account rep unless you actually have a problem that you need some help with.

The suggestions they’re going to give you are mostly meant to increase your ad spend. They’re going to get you to try out new account features, increase the level of automation in your account, and if you’re not in a profitable account already, then these tests are probably just going to eat up more of your budget. If you do actually have an issue with something not getting approved, not getting delivered correctly, then feel free to reach out to your account reps. They can sometimes help expedite these processes.

If you have a larger account, then you’re probably already working with an account rep to some degree. There are some really good account reps out there. They can help you with big picture items like strategy, researching trends, volumes and a lot more than that. They also have access to a lot more data and features than you have and can provide that to you sometimes. If there’s a particular beta feature that you’re interested in trying for your account, account reps can sometimes get you into those. They can definitely help get you further up the list.

The key idea here though is the same underlying theme still applies even with the better account reps. They want you to spend more money. The difference is that they’re going to be more willing to listen to your concerns and probably work with you to address those concerns and figure out what’s going to actually make sense for your account.

Once you get to these larger monthly spends, you’re probably going to have some budget to experiment with anyway so feel free to use some of that to test out some of their suggestions. Another important thing to keep in mind about account reps is that they cycle out pretty frequently. For most accounts, you’re going to get a different account rep every quarter, so that doesn’t give you a whole lot of time to work with a particular rep and get acquainted with them. Be sure to keep that in mind. You’re going to be constantly cycling through account reps.

There seems to be a little bit more consistency when you get to the higher level rep. They tend to stick around with your accounts a little bit longer, which is a positive thing. But overall, that’s my approach for utilizing account reps. I would say ignore them until you get to the point where you can use their help and then lean on them as much as necessary, but you’ll always want to be wary about giving them too much control of what you’re doing. That’s all for this week’s episode. I’ll be back soon with another episode of Marketing Intent. Until then, take care. Have a great day, guys.