Has your PPC Agency raised concerns about Google’s use of your assets in Pmax or automated assets? 

If your agency hasn’t shown signs of exasperation and fatigue against this backdrop of never ending assets spamming by Google then it might be time you took a look yourself. 

Why are Google serving more automated assets? 

This is PPC agency conjecture (admittedly) but then that kind of forms the basis for most of our work as an agency. It’s a combination of hands-on experience and data which is fairly ropey these days. 

However we do know (and they have admitted) to be concerned about the new Digital Markets Act giving advertisers more transparency over how and and where their ads are being shown and on what platforms – allowing advertisers to make choices which will inevitably lead to some opting out of Google’s Pmax network. 

We know that the release of Pmax in 2020 saw Google’s ad revenue rise by 8.61bn. Why? Because they started showing ads on far more inventory placements than advertisers had opted into. 

Google needs assets to spend more of your money

Assets are an essential part of AI / Pmax advertising campaigns and without account level assets they can’t spaff more of your money off on placements you haven’t asked for. 

Are you running automated assets? The 7th of May saw a big change 

Chances are you will be. How do you find out? 

Navigate to Campaigns > Assets 

This will bring up a table of all of your assets which shows the asset type, status and source. 

Asset Source

Look in the asset source column and you’ll see where the asset originated from. 

What we’re seeing is that on the 7th of May this year advertisers who were previously opted out of automatically created assets have been magically opted in! 

We as a PPC agency opted ourselves out of automatically created assets and low and behold, we’re back on the bus. 

How to opt out (again)

In the search bar type ‘Account level automated asset settings’ 

This will  bring up a table of all the automation you’ve apparently ‘opted into’ 

Then you can disable the automated assets which will impact how your ads show on Google and Partner placements. 

PPC agency first world problems

Admittedly this isn’t a huge issue for us personally. We are a business, not a ‘brand’ 

But we represent businesses who are brands and this is where it becomes an issue. 

Google is creating unauthorised, off-brand text, images and even business logos – which may be out of date. 

Where brands have worked hard to unify their product proposition across their channels, Google is riding rough shod over these efforts. 

 

What has Google said about it? 

I raised 3 complaints this week about being opted back in without permission. In all 3 conversations Google has claimed we were ‘opted in’ and the case was closed. 

Our recommendations

As account-level settings do not show in the change history, you cannot prove that you have opted out and spend money on automated assets that were unauthorised. We have taken steps to record screenshots of the opted out settings and also recorded in our live logs of account work the date and time we opted out. 

Keeping manual records is the only way to have any kind of proof that an account was opted out. 

Even then I wouldn’t hold my breath for any kind of refund or admission. 

But at least as a PPC agency, you have a record of this activity. 

 

Besides that, you do need to check on a regular basis to see if your account level changes have been reverted. 

 

Another week playing in defence