Why Optimizing Google Ads Wasn’t Fixing Revenue ft Craig Graham

Anu Adegbola (00:03.45)
Craig, welcome to P P C Live the podcast.

Craig (00:06.592)
Hi New, thanks for having me.

Anu Adegbola (00:08.247)
My absolute pleasure. I'm so so delighted that, you know, this is that this for me what I I call Craig is a great example of, you know, s ke keep being consistent. Cause I think I messaged you maybe years ago, Craig. And I know I wanted I didn't tell you I was gonna do this, but Craig ignored me for a while, can I say? But no, no, he didn't. Well, like, you know, it was really great. Like, you know, you didn't reply, you're like, I knew long time comment and yeah, I joined the group, and then even I looked more into

Craig (00:22.702)
Yeah, a couple of years ago.

Anu Adegbola (00:37.902)
What Craig is about. And I was like, he would be a great, great guest for our podcast. So yeah, I, you know, I'm really glad we were able to book him in. So let me introduce you to Craig. Craig is a paid media and attribution expert with 15 years of experience managing more than a hundred million dollars in ad spends across Google, Meta, Microsoft, and ChatGPT ads. We know that is a like a new, like, you know.

Or the what what will I call it? Like a new infinity stone for for the for the Thanos thingy. Yeah, we now have Chat TV to join joining the crew. So yeah, today he now manages over $30 million in annual media spend, helping brands move beyond surface level metrics to understand which advertising investments are actually driving revenue and real business outcomes. His experience spans e-commerce, lead gen, legal, and multi-location.

Healthcare, including helping build an attribution system for small doctors that contributed to significant growth in paid media investment and production. And actually, Craig, can I ask you about that attribution thing? Because I know speaking to so many people, people are like, attribution is such a nightmare. And it really just is just a matter of just making sure that you're doing the right channels. Like which ideal channel deserves deserves which budget can just be so confusing.

So like if it I mean and this is not going to be like the key key main of our topic. So just like a few like a few a few senses of like how are you able to create a solution for a healthcare system, an attribution solution?

Craig (02:00.706)
Yeah.

Craig (02:11.637)
Yeah, it was it's a really good question. And it it is complicated because there's so many, I mean, disconnected platforms that all need to talk to each other, basically. Like the the whole idea is that you want to take whatever you're doing in paid media, if you're using Google and Meta, you want to take whatever's happening there, your clicks and your ad spend, and then there's a whole bunch of things that happen, and then at the end there's like money that transacts somewhere, right?

Anu Adegbola (02:21.529)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (02:33.783)
Mm.

Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (02:40.257)
Yeah. Yeah.

Craig (02:41.569)
So it's in my mind all about connecting as many of those dots as is possible and within compliance regulations and things like that, if we're talking like US healthcare. but ultimately it's yeah, connecting the start to the finish as best you can, but within like attribution and and trying to decide where do I spend the next dollar and things like that.

Anu Adegbola (02:51.587)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (03:08.131)
Yeah, yeah.

Craig (03:09.931)
I think the way that I think about it is it's not necessarily about a particular attribution model you should should be using. It's more about understanding all of the different marketing channels you're running and how each of those can be defined by different attribution models. So you use them in different ways. So like if you're using Google Ads, search and shopping, you know, those are primarily

Click-based typically kind of mid to low funnel channels, and you can use click-based attribution models to understand directional contribution of those channels. Whereas, you know, Meta, YouTube, TV, other higher funnel channels, you're gonna be using more like view based and impression based attribution models.

Anu Adegbola (03:44.407)
Mm, mm.

Anu Adegbola (03:53.124)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (04:05.197)
Yeah, yeah.

Craig (04:08.295)
Help give you a directional understanding of the contribution of those. And you have to kind of look at all of them, in my opinion, individually and collectively, to get sort of a picture of what's happening. And then the end, the end result moving up or down is kind of your, you know, that's that's the the goal you're trying to achieve and and and the the thing you're measuring against, if that makes sense.

Anu Adegbola (04:12.226)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (04:29.271)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (04:35.627)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And this that does sound quite a bit of like a nice complicated process and it just makes me think about everybody thinking at what AI is gonna take over. And I feel like just throwing that into an AI system is gonna be really hard. There's there's definitely going to be need to be some, if not a lot, of human intervention, just making sure that, you know, 'cause I imagine in AI would be like, same attribution model for, you know, all the system and that kind of thing, but you need to look at all the channels differently, right?

Craig (05:05.067)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think and I think that's a great let's like that's AI is a tool and you can train that tool based on your knowledge. So if you know somebody like myself who has quite a bit of experience in marketing comes in and and helps tell the AI tool what I know, it can help with the reasoning side of getting to like better answers faster in some cases. that's

Anu Adegbola (05:24.963)
Mm.

Anu Adegbola (05:32.697)
Mm-hmm.

Craig (05:34.465)
helped with all the context of the knowledge that I have. And whereas if you just go into an AI tool blank and you go, Hey, help me build an attribution system without any context, you're gonna get no

Anu Adegbola (05:37.698)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (05:44.152)
Yeah. Mmm. Yeah. No, no worries at all. No worries all. that's that's gonna be a very great snapshot for like different clips for the for from this show. But let's let's get all back on track to to this conversation. I have I also like to get it to I get my guests to give like a fun fact about themselves. So yeah, great, Craig, what's your fun fact?

Craig (05:55.501)
Nice.

Craig (06:07.704)
fun fact. yeah, I'm what can I say? I'm I've got two kids and a wife and they are where I spend all my time when I'm not working.

Anu Adegbola (06:20.299)
Yeah. How old are the kids?

Craig (06:23.036)
there are six and nine.

Anu Adegbola (06:25.42)
bless. That's that's a nice that's a nice age. So you guys did them close. Yeah, sorry.

Craig (06:27.691)
Yeah, two two

no, sorry, I was just gonna say two little boys, yeah, pretty pretty close in age, like two and a half years apart. so yeah, I I used to have a life and then I had and and then I had kids. Yeah, and now I work and I take care of my family.

Anu Adegbola (06:33.163)
Okay. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (06:41.069)
Like you had kids, they become the life.

Anu Adegbola (06:47.267)
Well that's that's an honorable thing. I mean, I'm not gonna go down the the pathway of like where the where have all the good men gone 'cause that's like I'm glad like, you know, some guys I still get it. And it's really great to hear that.

Craig (06:58.732)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (07:01.709)
Yeah, my life is my wife and kids provision providing for my wife and you know, being being the man of the house and not just being like, the woman's house is in the the you know, job is in the home. Like I love that even like when we were chatting like yesterday, you were like, yeah, I'm working, just taking the kids out for something. I was like, That's so that's actually quite cool. That's what

Craig (07:05.367)
Yeah.

Craig (07:19.757)
Yeah, I I mean I'm not gonna pretend like I'm some kind of great person or anything, but I I mean I definitely have a a blended life work balance if that makes sense. It's like my work and my life are kind of all intermixed. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (07:31.009)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (07:36.824)
Yeah, winter mixed, yeah. And did you were you believe did did did like let's say, you know, was there like a pre post COVID kind of lifestyle, like where before you used to go into an office and then you started working from home and did that mean you really had to do a lot more balancing because you are in the same vicinity as your kids, especially during the holidays?

Craig (07:59.636)
Yeah. So I mean I was fortunate enough to already be working remotely back in like 2016. So I've been working remotely since 2016. So I've had a bit of a you know, had some experience before COVID even started. And then when COVID occurred, started in 2020 ish, I I already had one.

Anu Adegbola (08:07.727)
Okay. Right. Okay.

Anu Adegbola (08:18.447)
Right.

Anu Adegbola (08:23.437)
Mm.

Craig (08:27.437)
child, my first son, and my wife was pregnant with our second son. she had him in 2020, just kind of at peak COVID time. So although I did have, you know, a bit of experience in working remotely, I didn't have any experience in having two kids and and having to work at home kind of experience. But and to do it like in a lockdown. And I was in

Anu Adegbola (08:28.974)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (08:32.536)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (08:36.963)
Yes.

Anu Adegbola (08:47.075)
Yeah. Yeah. Sounds yeah.

Anu Adegbola (08:54.955)
Yes.

Craig (08:56.511)
Ontario, Canada at the time. I don't know what it was like in the UK so much, but at least where I was, the lockdowns were intense. They were heavy. We couldn't like go outside a lot of the time because well, most of the time it was like ten feet of snow outside for one thing. But for another thing, you know, even going to the park, I remember it was like it was like a seven hundred and fifty dollar fine in the city of Ottawa if you were like caught in a park or something. It was it was wild stuff. It was crazy.

Anu Adegbola (08:58.136)
Okay.

Anu Adegbola (09:04.557)
Hmm. Yes. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (09:12.193)
Okay.

Anu Adegbola (09:22.214)
god, wow, yeah. Wow. Wow. Okay.

Craig (09:26.209)
So I mean the adaptation was more to just the environment of being in that crazy pandemic as opposed to having to like learn to be remote. so I was at least fortunate in that. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (09:41.4)
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. That's gonna gonna get our listeners reminiscent about their time as well and just thinking, yeah, what's all the adaptation that w that we needed to do. But anyway, let's let let's get into the the you know the crux of the chat that we have for today. Again, a big huge thank you for Craig being on the, you know, the latest on the long line of list of, you know, fantastic, brave, you know, pH such experts, no doubt, as you know, sharing the mistakes. We always share the

Craig (09:51.661)
Totally.

Anu Adegbola (10:11.469)
The wins. We've already done, you know, I introduced you, and you know, Craig has has has managed 30 million, 100 million dollars of of of accounts. So this is not a story of like, you know, we made a mistake and that's it was done. You know, that the path to success is littered with mistakes. And my God, I can't believe I did that. So really, really grateful that Craig that you're joining us to share.

One of the interesting stuff. I'm hearing from the giggles that he's he's already eager to to to share what he's gonna do. So w what he did. So yeah, Craig, please, without further ado, what is the F up you'd like to share with us today?

Craig (10:40.928)
Craig (10:47.241)
thank you so thank you so much, Anu Pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. yeah, no, like I was saying when we were talking earlier, like the the mistakes are numerous and abundant, unfortunately. Or or fortunately. I mean, I guess that's kind of how that's how I learned to learn, right? ultimately when you when you make mistakes, you adapt and you get better. So I think what

Anu Adegbola (11:04.867)
Yeah, yeah.

Anu Adegbola (11:09.017)
Yeah. Mm, exactly.

Craig (11:13.793)
What I wanted to cover was about how early in my career I was working with a client, and this this happened numerous times with numerous clients. But this particular client, I was primarily working on Google Ads side for them. And every week, you know, my boss would come in and say, Revenue's down. He would just kind of leave with, Hey, revenue's down. And then I

Anu Adegbola (11:30.063)
Mm-hmm.

Anu Adegbola (11:39.215)
Mm.

Craig (11:42.858)
I was kind of left to to figure that out. we were a relatively small team, it was an e-commerce brand. And, you know, this person had a lot of their own ideas and insights about what could be happening. And it was all usually very marketing focused, usually Google Ads, which was which is where I was spending most of my time. And so then I would, you know.

Anu Adegbola (11:45.379)
Figure it out. Yeah.

Yeah. Right.

Anu Adegbola (12:01.396)
Mm, mm, mm. Yeah.

Craig (12:11.445)
Audit the account and I would change the budgets and I would change the bids and I would restructure the account. And then you know things would start looking good in Google Ads. our metrics looked good, you know, conversion rates better, the CPAs are looking better, etc. etc. All the things you tend to look for in a Google Ads account. And we would fill check all the boxes, and then my boss would.

Come in and tell me again the following week, like, hey, revenue's still down. Like, what's going on? and this would happen over and over and over and over again, where you know, maybe we would make some adjustments in Google Ads and things lined up for a little bit. revenue's doing better. So we tell ourselves, hey, I think we did the right thing. And then soon enough, it just wouldn't stick. It would just

Anu Adegbola (12:52.443)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (13:04.483)
Yeah, yeah.

Craig (13:09.877)
you know, peter out and and they'd come back and be like, hey, revenue's down again. What's going on? Run, you know, so we're in this constant loop of chasing our tail, or I was chasing my tail, just trying to figure out what was happening. And eventually, once I had done everything I think humanly possible within a Google Ads account to try and op optimize it, I started asking about

Anu Adegbola (13:09.999)
Mm. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (13:16.644)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (13:34.798)
Yeah.

Craig (13:38.979)
Financial metrics. I was like, hey, you know, like if if revenues down, I'm not finding out the reasons in Google ads. I'm not, I'm not seeing a lot of the even even looking in Google Analytics where I can see some like a cross channel metrics wasn't giving me the insights that kind of helped me understand anything. so it was when I started asking about the business level metrics, like, hey, what are your find

Anu Adegbola (13:47.981)
No, no, no.

Anu Adegbola (13:55.543)
Mm.

Anu Adegbola (14:02.126)
Yeah.

Craig (14:08.824)
Can I see some of your financial statements and and like just get some insight into your product level margins? which was all which was all new to me back then. and so I was, you know, grasping at straws a little bit this early in my career. and it turned out that my boss didn't really have those answers either. So so then

Anu Adegbola (14:15.629)
Yeah, yeah.

Anu Adegbola (14:29.711)
Love it.

Craig (14:36.174)
and they were also a little bit apprehensive to give away that kind of information too, I think. I think which which is common and some people keep those cards pretty close to their chest and and that's really understandable. but I think for yeah.

Anu Adegbola (14:40.077)
Yeah, yeah.

Anu Adegbola (14:46.647)
Yeah.

So sorry, just quite clear, just when you say like so where these a client, you're an agency and there was a client or you are in house.

Craig (14:58.646)
Yeah, so I say that so technically they're they're my clients still. So I've had them this client for like 12 years, but they were a job. So I was working at like for a brand in house at this time. Yeah. But eventually when I started my own company, I ended up converting them to a client. Yeah, etc. So I so if I'm using the words interchangeably, so I'm speaking all over.

Anu Adegbola (15:04.271)
Okay. Okay.

Anu Adegbola (15:11.735)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anu Adegbola (15:21.763)
Right. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (15:26.767)
No, no, it you know, it may cause I just wanted to cause you you said at some point your boss came in and I'm just confused. Why I then turned into like, you know, they didn't want to give you the data was you know, I was like, Well, if you work for them, you because you I I can't I feel like my brain put it you know, one plus one together and I was like, Okay, yeah, if it's his boss that you know is telling him revenue, so that means you work for the brand. But then they don't want to give you the data. But I'm like, wait, if you work for them.

Craig (15:27.692)
The map here, but

Anu Adegbola (15:55.798)
You know, you'd assign NDAs and all that in your contract. And so why wouldn't they want to give you a an employee the data that will help him do his job better? Yeah. I'm glad. I'm glad we're on the same page. Good. We got it. Yeah.

Craig (16:05.846)
was my exact question. Yeah, you know, a hundred percent. And I mean, I can't speak for them, but you know, I'm I'm sure there were reasons. and and it could have been just that they didn't really know like how to get that information to me in such a way that I could digest it or I'm not I'm not really sure. But what what what ended up happening was, you know, over time

Anu Adegbola (16:25.632)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (16:31.011)
Right. Mm.

Craig (16:35.114)
And meeting with finance and like I would meet with their their finance team and try to understand things. And they they weren't very in tune with marketing. So I would have to teach them a few things. and they would teach me a few things. And over time, what ended up happening is I would, you know, working with my colleagues, collect all of the data or as much of the data as I could possibly get, started building financial models and kind of connecting the financial side.

Anu Adegbola (16:37.122)
Okay.

Right.

Anu Adegbola (16:44.771)
Okay, good.

Craig (17:05.344)
the operations side, marketing side, and things started to get a little bit clearer over time as to you know why revenue's up, why revenue's down, why revenue might be up, but profits down, why you know we're not making enough revenue to support underlying specific costs. Like there are just so many components that

Anu Adegbola (17:06.999)
Mm.

Anu Adegbola (17:30.284)
Yeah.

Craig (17:32.121)
go into operating a successful business that I was trying to solve by purely looking within a Google Ads account. That just I was just set up for failure right from the beginning. It was just not po it was just not possible. So I think what my my realization there was is that Google Ads or any channel is is a component, often an important component, but a component nonetheless of a larger machine.

Anu Adegbola (17:41.391)
That's yeah.

Anu Adegbola (17:45.197)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (18:01.345)
Absolutely.

Craig (18:02.082)
And that machine includes all of the other channels that are being run to generate any kind of marketing success from like SEO organic search. Today it's like, you know, all kinds of things on the organic side with AI and AEO and all that kind of stuff. And then you got your social, meta ads accounts, your organic social, your email, your SMS, all the channels. And then

Anu Adegbola (18:16.685)
Yeah. Yeah.

Craig (18:28.258)
You also have operations and what are people doing in the sales team? Like, how are they talking to customers? And then you have product level margin. And like maybe your Google Ads account is really pushing a lot of a particular product to people that doesn't have a very high margin for the business owner. and those are things that you would have no idea of if you did not connect those dots and speak to people who have that information and then.

Anu Adegbola (18:32.013)
Yeah. Hmm.

Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (18:43.485)
Mm, mm, mm.

Anu Adegbola (18:50.7)
No.

Craig (18:55.874)
you know, supply your side of the story to them. all of us within that company all had different sides of the same big story. And none of us were really communicating that with each other. And, you know, eventually that's kind of like where a lot of my thinking today comes from when it comes to thinking about systems, because it the business is a system and

It's can it contains many different components. And that's how I try to approach any kind of marketing these days is from a systems level and understanding the health of each of the components within that system. So it was it was it was an incredibly, incredibly helpful lesson, frustrating for a couple of years, but

Anu Adegbola (19:37.774)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (19:42.158)
Yeah. I w I was j going to come to that, like, you know, we don't want to just hear about the, you know, the good lesson journey. At what point where the thing was was it just so frustrating? Like, you know, you do the hard work of optimizing, and these guys are coming back saying the revenue is down. Like, like, did you kind of did it and I don't want to like I hope this doesn't sound like a bad question. I'm not like kind of trying to put you down in anywhere. I apologize, but like.

Did it take you two years for you to realize or like that that it was not a Google problem? Or were you like, okay, let me just keep trying? I don't think it is, but I'll try one more thing. How did that journey for you really in terms of realization that, you know, you're not the problem? There's a bigger problem. I w when did that really start to kick in?

Craig (20:27.852)
Yeah, well, it was tricky because I wasn't getting access to a lot of the financial data. So I wasn't able to like get the answers that I was seeking. And so I didn't know if though that's where the answers were. I just didn't know. I didn't know what I didn't know. And so it it it took me like I was working across at at various times, I would start working like not at just in Google Ads, but then I would start.

Anu Adegbola (20:35.149)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (20:39.96)
Yeah.

Right. Well Yeah.

Craig (20:57.378)
you know, talking to the other members of the other marketing teams and like slowly connected the dots over time that this is like not a problem with me or what I'm doing. which, you know, that was after some time of beating myself up and being like, Am I just stupid? Like, can I just not am I just not good at this? and

Anu Adegbola (21:08.813)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (21:18.287)
Yeah. No we ugh got yeah.

Craig (21:26.348)
You know, and and instead of just throwing the towel in and giving up, I just kept grinding away and and asking questions and trying to sort out because I knew there was an underlying answer somewhere. and and and I'm talking like this is like man, this is like thirteen, fourteen years ago or something, right? So there wasn't there wasn't a lot.

Anu Adegbola (21:35.427)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (21:44.354)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (21:51.39)
Mm mm.

Craig (21:55.689)
online at the time that spoke to this specific problem. Even today I feel like there isn't significant amount of information out there that speaks to the like the holistic marketing problem and as it relates to business.

Anu Adegbola (22:00.085)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (22:07.723)
Yeah, yes, I agree. I think the only w the only you know, even when you were talking, I was like, should I bring it now? Is is that s something that, you know, doesn't even need to be brought up. But I will bring up the fact that Kirk Williams, you must you know, you might have heard of him. He's also he like writes a lot on on X or and on LinkedIn now and he came out with this book called, you know, ponderance of a PPC professional and I would say one of the biggest takeaway he pointed to loads of things, but one of the biggest takeaways was about the holistic

Craig (22:26.254)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (22:37.423)
Of how you know, even if you work in Google ads, being very holistic about this. And like if a client comes and they go, we want to do pay search, and they tell you and you're like, okay, what else are you doing? They're nothing. We just we like pay search. Run, run, run your life because pay search can't work on its itself because it needs an ecosystem and it needs, you know, like yeah, upper funnel. Like pay search, you usually, especially with e-commerce usually works best.

Craig (22:58.03)
Yes.

Anu Adegbola (23:06.743)
with lower funnel, but we need to attract the demand kind of thing and do something in terms of like, you know, the yeah, the branding, making that your your brand area aware unless you're gonna be competing in a very, very like huge, large space. with your Google Ads campaign, you'll only ever see high CPCs, re revenue will not be good. and but yeah the holistic so he's he's someone definitely I'll I'll I'll tell folks to check out if they also feel that no one's talking about holistic.

Check out Kirk Williams' work. He's definitely done stuff around that. Yeah.

Craig (23:37.561)
That's awesome. I'm gonna have to read the book because yeah, that Kirk's speaking my language for sure. Yeah, one hundred percent. I I th and I think that yeah, that that nails a huge point that it it doesn't work on its own. Nothing works on its own. it's it's not it just doesn't work that way. There's there's so many other pieces that come in that help make things successful. And I'll and I'll add briefly that I worked with a

Anu Adegbola (23:42.125)
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (23:54.506)
No.

Anu Adegbola (24:00.409)
Mm.

Craig (24:06.658)
Paid media agency for for years as well, doing like freelance contracts entirely within Google Ads. And the the business model was that that's all they did was Google Ads, didn't manage any other component of the marketing stack. And holy moly was it ever frustrating to be able to, you know, it was it was the same situation I'd experienced with my other, you know, client / job years ago on repeat.

Anu Adegbola (24:10.968)
Hm.

Anu Adegbola (24:32.899)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Craig (24:37.164)
with a whole bunch of different clients where you'd make a change, you'd have no visibility into what they're doing with meta ads, for example, which in e-commerce drives often, in my experience, a ton of the upper funnel awareness. Yeah. And so it's like, I don't know what you're doing with meta ads. And if we're not gonna have any insight into that, how can I give any kind of reasonable explanation for why what is what in Google Ads?

Anu Adegbola (24:39.309)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (24:44.495)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Anu Adegbola (24:49.187)
Yeah. Yes.

Anu Adegbola (24:56.612)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (25:04.023)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Cause that's the thing, like, you know, the the customer every customer is multi-channel. There's not a time where someone has seen one Google ad, never heard of your brand, never heard of the product, maybe, and gone

I like it. I'll buy it. I'll click through all that. No. They would have seen a TV ad. They would have seen an outdoor ad. Someone, you know, they would have been overheard someone in the office even talk about it. And yes, it's hard to attribute to word of mouth. But even that is part of the journey that I used to think of. They would have seen something or organic whilst they were searching for something else. Then all of a sudden that all comes together when they see your paid ad, they're like, okay, yeah, that brand I keep seeing. Okay, let me check it out. And I I just don't people

Craig (25:21.133)
Yeah.

Craig (25:35.39)
Really?

Craig (25:45.656)
Mm-hmm.

Anu Adegbola (25:48.398)
We we always say that, you know, in our paid search world, sometimes we get lost in this whole whole of like, yeah, Google Ads clicks. It's a customer you need to think of. It's a customer thinking how, trying to figure out how the a customer gets to a product decides to buy. That's what you need to really feed into. And you know, what your language needs to be. Actually, even like the text.

That the TV ad should be mirrored in that Google ad, right? So if you don't know what the TV ad looks like or the meta ads, and you're saying something totally contradictory to what has been said on Meta, you're losing. You're throwing money down the drain. Sorry, this should be your stage. I do not know why. I'm passionate about this kind of stuff.

Craig (26:28.672)
No, you're I could I preach No for but like that's that's exactly it. I mean I you nailed it. I I think that the cohesion across all of your marketing, none of your marketing should be siloed, in such a way that it is like, you know, doing something differently than what the brand should be doing.

Anu Adegbola (26:39.417)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (26:53.23)
Yeah.

Craig (26:57.312)
It needs a brand cohesion. Yeah. Messaging. Messaging, imagery, visuals, all of that needs to have continuity across all of your channel. Mm-hmm. Okay. Love it.

Anu Adegbola (26:59.319)
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Mm-hmm.

Anu Adegbola (27:06.743)
Yes, that's the word continuity. Brilliant, brilliant word there. I'd also ask, like, you know, because some piece sometimes, you know, you know, you you said this was about, you know, like about 12, 13 years ago, early in your career, have even been able to be bold enough to be like, okay, let me ask for the financials. And you must have tried a few things of you know, pathways to getting that that whole picture.

that didn't work as well and then we know at some point something worked. So if someone right now is listening, going, okay, how do I make sure I'm not wasting my time, but I still get the information I need, what's your advice for making sure that you get to the right right person as quickly as possible?

Craig (27:33.326)
Mm-hmm.

Craig (27:50.499)
Yeah, I I think I think your best friend there is gonna be the CFO, probably. if there is one, or accounting, however depending on how large the organization is that you're working with. but you want to speak to the people who are running the numbers, doing payroll, all of those things where they see all of the

Anu Adegbola (28:03.768)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (28:10.509)
Yeah.

Craig (28:17.4)
Profit and loss, all of the money coming in and all of the money going out. And if you can start speaking to them, and ask them questions about margin and understand that it's probably gonna be multiple different conversations and try to make a little bit of progress during each conversation and accumulate knowledge from each of those conversations, then you're on the right path, I think.

Anu Adegbola (28:36.301)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (28:39.695)
Mm.

Craig (28:47.758)
And you know, it's it's not something that I think comes together quickly. Like businesses tend not to operate super quickly like that, especially small business, small and medium businesses. so I mean, I would be persistent in in in in that

Anu Adegbola (28:54.368)
No. Okay.

Anu Adegbola (28:58.634)
Yeah.

Craig (29:10.774)
you know, helping to educate other members of the team and people within that business that, you know, paid search or or Google Ads or or whatever you're calling the platform or channel that you're working within does not operate on its own. It requires a whole bunch of other inputs and and knowledge. It's so to be able to do the role of a paid search

Anu Adegbola (29:14.574)
Mm-hmm.

Anu Adegbola (29:32.835)
Yes. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (29:39.161)
Yeah.

Craig (29:40.247)
analyst, manager, you're gonna need certain financial data to be able to help paint the whole picture.

Anu Adegbola (29:48.046)
Yeah, absolutely. I even think that this is even something I'd encourage folks like, especially you know, like yourself, you've you started have your own agency or you're a freelancer and you're you're pitching for this. That should be part of a pitch. That should be like

Craig (30:01.902)
Yep, exactly.

Anu Adegbola (30:02.755)
We will need this data and even in those meetings, that in in that initial meeting, be like, who's who who are we gonna who are we pitching to? Can we please have the CFO in the room as well? So that we can explain to them that, you know, paid search is gonna be a part of something and we're gonna need to see data and financials so that this will all this will all work well. That that'd make things a bit easier, wouldn't it, for people?

Craig (30:14.542)
Wow.

Craig (30:25.278)
Great a hundred percent great point. And that's something that we usually do as well when we engage. usually as part of an audit, you know, Google Ads is just one piece of of an audit. We we audit their entire marketing infrastructure, all of their conversion tracking and everything, and then understand all of their margins within their knowledge because like that's always in my experience the trickiest thing is that I tend when you tend to speak to

Anu Adegbola (30:34.551)
Mm.

Anu Adegbola (30:41.144)
Right.

Craig (30:56.062)
or when I tend to sp speak to people who come in as leads or or prospects, they're not often the people who have access to that direct knowledge of your cost of goods sold and your PLs and and things like that. So it's a bit of a process, but it's such it like it it's so worth your time and their time.

Anu Adegbola (31:02.222)
Mm-hmm.

Anu Adegbola (31:08.045)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (31:20.333)
Yeah. Yeah.

Craig (31:22.056)
be able to get some kind of an understanding there before you really start to engage because it helps again paint a picture that you're either gonna be like you're either more likely to be successful or less likely to be successful depending on what the those financial statements and and all of those pieces are kind of telling you. yeah.

Anu Adegbola (31:28.783)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (31:37.015)
Mm.

Anu Adegbola (31:43.177)
Yeah, fantastic. So you you kind of touched on it and you know, and maybe that was the answer, or maybe there's more to it in terms of like what's what did that experience now make you do differently in terms of with other clients to ensure that you are seeing that holistic view. So you touched on the fact that you make sure you're not just auditing a new lead, you're not just auditing the the Google, you're auditing

the the full marketing journey that they have. Is is that pretty much the crux of it or is there is there any other thing else that you guys do now?

Craig (32:14.936)
I mean that's that's the crux of it is that yeah, we market like or we we investigate the entire marketing infrastructure, the the whole ecosystem. We look at it. I mean, that's the primary lens is like we come in like, okay, great, your Google Ads account, you know, obviously it needs to check some boxes, do some best practices, align with various components of your business. but you know, that's whatever percentage of the entire

Anu Adegbola (32:38.743)
Mm.

Craig (32:43.672)
problem that we're investigating. there's always more. Always. 100% of the time. It's never just your Google Ads account. in my experience. There's always other things going on. And if there isn't, there probably will be at some point because you know, like I we keep saying, it's like it doesn't operate on its own.

Anu Adegbola (32:44.483)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (33:03.819)
No, no, no, it doesn't. okay, and just like one last question and we will talk about, yeah, some of the interesting mistakes you found in when auditing some of these accounts. But before we get into that, like if someone is literally just going through this, let's say six months a year in, and nearly every month that we have the monthly meeting, the report is always, yeah, revenue is down, but they feel like they've been doing best practices that is relevant for their account.

What's your advice to that person?

Craig (33:37.191)
don't be too hard on yourself, first of all. Don't beat yourself up. there's probably other things going on. And I would ask questions that the answers to which fall outside of Google Ads. if if you feel really confident that you've done everything you can there. Cause, you know, ultimately there's only so many levers you can pull within Google Ads. It's finite in terms of that.

Anu Adegbola (33:54.532)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (34:03.959)
Yeah. Mm.

Craig (34:07.124)
So what other channels are are they running? Are they like my next usual area that I'm looking at is if we're talking about e-commerce, is Meta. What what's going on in Meta? Like, are they did they spend a whole bunch and now they're spending less? That's a really common, you know, phenomenon I see is that when people's Google ads, Google ads revenue looks down or revenues down at the business as a whole.

Anu Adegbola (34:18.785)
Hmm. Yeah, okay.

Anu Adegbola (34:26.552)
Yeah.

Mm yeah.

Craig (34:37.048)
Well let's take a look at Meta. What are you doing over there? Are you spending a lot? Did you stop spending a lot? so looking at various channels, and I think w what makes it so complex is that there are often so many different channels and like email and SMS and various social and organic and all those things have their own or all those channels have their own means of of optimization and and doing things that kind of

Anu Adegbola (34:38.167)
But yeah, yeah.

Craig (35:03.276)
help the whole machinery operate kind of in sync to get to the end goal that you want. So yeah, I would talk to other team members who are running other channels and see what's going on with them.

Anu Adegbola (35:04.033)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Anu Adegbola (35:15.299)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now that's great. Okay. Thank you so much for that, Craig. We let's let's let's put that, you know, PTSD story back back in its box. I know that that's what I need to like tell my guests. So like, don't worry. All right, we can take put that back into the whole, like, my God, I can't believe I used to think of that. Yeah, right. Amazing. So now, as you said, you've audited many accounts, especially since the since that kind. What is the

Craig (35:31.214)
Yeah, never want to think about that again, thank you.

Anu Adegbola (35:43.885)
What are the mistakes that you see that really get under your skin that you're like, my god, I c I hate that these alerts and people are still doing this, making this kind of mistakes? yeah, give us give us a few examples.

Craig (35:55.859)
conversion tracking, I'd say, is like number one. yeah. Okay. It's shock it's it's it's both shocking and and yet like it's it's an opportunity too, right? Like because if you can identify that, I mean it it keeps it gives you work that you can that you can help somebody with and and provide value. So

Anu Adegbola (35:58.146)
Number one. Fra everybody, number one. Yes.

Anu Adegbola (36:11.055)
Right.

Anu Adegbola (36:18.669)
Yeah. Yeah.

Craig (36:21.196)
Yeah, a lot of the times I still don't see conversion tracking implemented in a way that represents what gets you closest to business outcomes. And ultimately that's what we're all trying to do. If we're in marketing, we're trying to generate return on investment for the investment spent by your client, by your maybe it's your own business. I don't know. But that's our job. And

Anu Adegbola (36:34.861)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Anu Adegbola (36:44.136)
Mm. Yeah.

Craig (36:50.178)
The conversion tracking is like it it is what guides that whole system, that whole process. It is so if you don't have you know an end goal set up properly, like if we're talking e-commerce, a purchase with conversion value or revenue it attached to that purchase that's coming back.

Anu Adegbola (36:57.795)
Yeah.

Craig (37:15.488)
into Google and meta ads and you're not able to see that in all the areas across all of your different channels in such a way that you know shows you what's actually generating revenue, then you have no idea what's going on. You'll have no visibility whatsoever. so and

Anu Adegbola (37:27.311)
Mm.

Anu Adegbola (37:31.054)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But in terms of like how how like what what do you what do you think is like the even like the biggest thing that's causing that for people? Is it because it's being done by amateurs who like maybe like the like a brand that has done it or people who you're like they should have known better and it's something else that they've missed? Or is it like a Google thing that you know that makes it so hard?

to do. Why where would you say would you say is the biggest like where why people are getting it wrong?

Craig (37:59.919)
Question.

Craig (38:04.334)
Good that's a really good question. I I think it's probably a couple of different things. I think in some cases it's probably a little bit of lack of experience, perhaps. you know, sometimes I'll see like really well structured accounts, and then the conversion tracking is just kind of like forgotten about. and so I I almost wonder if there is a little bit of a knowledge gap as in terms of

Anu Adegbola (38:14.436)
Mm.

Anu Adegbola (38:31.693)
Yeah.

Craig (38:33.132)
the importance of the conversion tracking and what a healthy conversion tracking setup actually looks like, and then how to implement it. Like those can all be really complicated things too. depending on what the business tech stack looks like. Sometimes it's like, I need a developer to help me with this. I can't do this as a paid search person kind of thing. And you know, if that's what you if that's what the business needs

Anu Adegbola (38:42.147)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (38:51.959)
Hmm.

Anu Adegbola (38:55.823)
You're right.

Craig (39:03.88)
like at least in my experience, I went ahead and tried to solve that problem. so maybe you don't feel that way in the paid search role, but maybe you can speak to another team member who can help you to solve that problem. So it's it's just it's kind of a of critical importance. And and sometimes I'll see like let's say in Google Ads, and I think every you know, and and Google Ads can be a

Anu Adegbola (39:04.025)
Do that.

Anu Adegbola (39:09.881)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (39:27.832)
Hm.

Craig (39:31.21)
subjective experience, I'll say everybody has their own ways of doing things and their own methodologies and whatnot. And that's totally cool. one thing that I don't necessarily agree with is having multiple primary conversion actions that that are for different things. For example, if you have an add-to-cart conversion action and a purchase conversion action, both as primary conversion actions in your Google Ads account.

Anu Adegbola (39:32.985)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (39:55.3)
Hmm.

Craig (39:59.801)
And you're running all your campaigns to both of those conversion actions. I don't think that's how the the goal-based bidding algorithm actually functions. it it needs an end goal like the one you're trying to actually achieve. Otherwise, it's getting mixed signals about well, am I getting more people who are adding the card or am I getting more people who are actually purchasing? And I think you really want to fill that account with as much.

Anu Adegbola (40:13.623)
Okay. Hmm.

Anu Adegbola (40:27.255)
Yeah.

Craig (40:29.868)
like end goal level data as to what you're trying to achieve as possible, or you're gonna be sending mixed signals and maybe not getting the best possible results. And that's just kind of one example that I've seen a number of times.

Anu Adegbola (40:32.92)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (40:42.635)
Yeah, absolutely. I think like my the favorite one that that people say is that that I was auditing auditing an account and someone put page views as a goal. And I'm like, What? In God's good name even your your reflex response to that was like

Craig (40:51.284)
I'm seeing that too.

Yeah, yeah. yeah, no.

Anu Adegbola (41:04.387)
Do you think? Who taught that? The person who ever told anybody else you should put pages as a gold, that person should be fired and lynched. Like, what the heck were you thinking? god, yeah.

Craig (41:10.38)
Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that probably comes down to an experience thing, would be my guess, because it's like you spend a few years in in marketing and you'll probably understand there's kind of like steps that people often take. so yeah. Anyway. I've seen that before too. Unfortunately.

Anu Adegbola (41:20.141)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (41:30.659)
Huh. Yeah.

Yeah. Any other like so we know we yeah, you right? Yeah. God. We know so conversion tracking is one mistake, but apart from conversion tracking, what what's next on the list in terms of like mistakes that you're surprised that people still still make?

Craig (41:47.507)
Mm mm. Surprised at. okay, for sure. So I'll I'll say that in the US healthcare space and primarily in like let's say dental dental and orthodontics, we've done a lot of audits of different accounts. And I mean there there's a few things going on, but one is like

Anu Adegbola (41:59.651)
Okay.

Anu Adegbola (42:07.043)
Hmm.

Craig (42:16.008)
when agencies don't give access to their clients of of the accounts that they're running for them. And it's in those accounts that we often see the most horrendous things going on. Yeah, and so like I mean that's probably almost another story about like giving access to to clients and stuff, but we're we're strong believers in transparency.

Anu Adegbola (42:30.359)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (42:43.864)
Yes.

Craig (42:44.506)
and I think we can all do our jobs better i through that lens. But it's it's in some of these accounts, particularly in the US healthcare space, where there are pretty egregious errors going on, conversion tracking being one of many, but also you know, targeting irrelevant keywords, mismatches in like

Anu Adegbola (42:47.533)
Ha yeah.

Anu Adegbola (43:05.188)
Yeah.

Craig (43:13.538)
brand messaging between ads and landing pages and and what the brand is supposed to be talking about. And then pointing to 404 pages sometimes or spending money in areas where like area I mean like location areas where they're not supposed to be and maybe where the particular location of this business is not.

Anu Adegbola (43:17.514)
Mm. Mm.

Anu Adegbola (43:34.594)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (43:43.117)
Yeah.

Craig (43:43.419)
so I mean, if there's an error that can be done, I've probably seen it in a US healthcare account. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (43:50.012)
Mm. Mm. Yes. wow. Okay. Interesting. Maybe like well now you're part of our Slack. We're gonna call all the people in healthcare to give their like worst case stories of like what? Guys, so let's have a chat about what's going wrong. god.

Craig (44:00.079)
Yeah.

It's pretty shocking. And sometimes and sometimes it's like big agencies that you've probably heard of and will go in and look and be like, what in the heck is yeah. Yeah, it's shocking. And I think what ends up happening in those situations is like they'll hire or they'll get really junior people to work on some of these accounts, and I assume not give much direction and or add a

Anu Adegbola (44:12.941)
Yeah. Really?

that's true.

Anu Adegbola (44:26.319)
Mm. Mmm. Yeah.

Craig (44:32.238)
ton of automation via like scripts and stuff like that that just turns out nonsense and like but just does nothing. And then if especially if the client has no access to seeing any of it, they have no idea what's going on.

Anu Adegbola (44:39.211)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (44:47.181)
Yeah, yeah. Yep, exactly. And just like yeah, they'll just report numbers and then what numbers actually are they are they actually properly reporting on if they wanna make what they're seeing to be what's going wrong to actually make it look like, you know, it's actually going doing the right thing. That's that's then what the biggest worry is. Yeah.

Craig (44:52.27)
Mm-hmm.

Craig (45:04.726)
Yes.

Yeah. Yep, totally.

Anu Adegbola (45:09.473)
Interesting. Now, another let's let's go into a different direction. We cannot, you know, finish a podcast episode in 2026 and not talk about AI and the impact of AI and how people are reacting to it, how people are using it, and you know, and even people's responses to all the AI Google updates that that have have have come out, you know, and and you know, I won't even talk into like the use of it. I've asked loads of guests about this, but like.

You know, we we very much more in the several years now, I'd actually consider it like more post-COVID times is terms of like people are a lot more verbal and you know and vocal as to what they're testing, what they're doing, what they trust, what they don't trust. The August seventeenth you know, thing came out and I made a joke post today going, Google, don't get too pissed off. We just know it's a great LinkedIn strategy to talk and moan about something you guys have changed again. We're probably not with that bothered.

Craig (45:53.193)
Mm-hmm.

Anu Adegbola (46:05.881)
But we're like, this is gonna get me views. but so like right but like let's let's be honest for a second. Like let's really be honest. Like the you know, and and just before we started recording, you were like, actually it didn't it it didn't sh yeah, shake your feathers too much in terms of this this latest update. Well how how do you feel that you you've seen people reacting?

Craig (46:09.922)
It's fair. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (46:33.037)
to all the AI updates that you think is a this is a wrong way to approach this and what's your advice into actually what people should be, how people should be approaching these updates?

Craig (46:44.278)
Yeah, I understand I have no control over what Google does. I think as my core understanding. So I, as a marketer of many years now, understand I have to constantly adapt. And it's wasted energy just complaining about things that are probably not gonna change. In that's just my opinion. But something like obviously there's been

Anu Adegbola (46:50.424)
Yeah.

Craig (47:14.444)
Like over the years in in this industry, like I dealt with like mobile first updates and like Google search and man, smart bidding. Like there was no smart bidding when I started. like that was like a whole relearning of Google Ads for me at the time. Like I had to completely re understand how to do it. And I feel like this is just kind of the next big

Anu Adegbola (47:19.917)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (47:27.84)
Yeah. Right.

Craig (47:44.385)
Iteration or cycle of change that we as marketers just need to continue to adapt to. Like fighting it. I mean, it's like one thing to make your objections clear, and it's totally okay to do so, but to think that you're going to affect change, perhaps, or that you're gonna actually make like some kind of

Anu Adegbola (47:52.994)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (48:00.718)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Craig (48:13.516)
A difference, like, well, what is Google gonna not roll this out now? Like, of course they are. Of course they're gonna roll it out. And and ultimately, like the the August 17th update specifically, you know, this was kind of a nuance inside of Google Ads that people who have been practicing within it for years had some understanding of. and it going away just kind of like

Anu Adegbola (48:16.749)
Yeah, yeah, because you're upset. Yeah.

Craig (48:43.658)
shakes up that you know same thing they've been doing for so long, but it like kind of changes like if somebody was coming into Google Ads brand new, I think it's better. Like having it aligned to the actual like it's kind of sounds dumb when I say it like now now they're actually good you're gonna try and get the target that you set. it's like shouldn't it have always worked that way?

Anu Adegbola (48:48.281)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (48:52.407)
Hmm. Yeah, okay.

Anu Adegbola (48:58.816)
No, yeah.

Anu Adegbola (49:05.507)
Great. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Shouldn't it have always have been done this way? That that's the kind of thing where like, change, what's Google trying to do? Like nice. That that should actually be helpful if you've been doing your job well all this time.

Craig (49:09.944)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Craig (49:19.04)
Yeah, yeah, that's just it. And and honestly, like the biggest, like, and don't get me wrong, like there have been times in my career when I've been like, my god, like not again, like, this is gonna kill me, or blah, blah, blah. Like, and I think I kind of surrendered at some point in my career and was just like, I think things are just gonna always change on me. And I have no control over that. And so the best thing that I can do is to

Anu Adegbola (49:31.597)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (49:36.483)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (49:42.819)
Yeah, yeah.

Craig (49:49.369)
keep learning the new systems and and and adapt to whatever I need to adapt to. And that has become one of the biggest components of my job, kind of it's just like constantly adapting.

Anu Adegbola (49:50.413)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Anu Adegbola (49:55.129)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (50:02.711)
Let's adapt. Let's just adapt to it. And actually, it going back to the spirit of like mistakes though, like I know you've adapted, you've adapted well, and that's how you're, you know, you're still making money for your clients. But has has there been any update that even till today, even though you adapted, you can be like, that was a mistake that Google made. That that that that update, it was a mistake. It's it's not you like you don't even feel it's working out for them.

Craig (50:33.03)
I see. It wasn't even working out for them. Well, I'll tell I'll tell you the one time I ever got a substantial credit back from Google. Man, did I ever have to fight for this with evidence? But it was it was this particular case where I don't know if you remember, but I'm trying to recall. It was like it was a Google Analytics update where they

Anu Adegbola (50:34.283)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (50:44.393)
Mm. Right.

Anu Adegbola (50:58.03)
Yeah.

Craig (51:02.892)
I think they made a Google. yeah, this was it. It was a Google Analytics conversion tag that was in one a few of my client accounts that suddenly got switched to primary instead of secondary in in the in the account. So instead of you know, we've been trucking along with a single primary conversion action, all of a sudden, like

Anu Adegbola (51:12.76)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (51:16.503)
Okay. Right.

Anu Adegbola (51:28.686)
Yeah.

Craig (51:31.518)
revenue was doubling and conversions were doubling and and things like that. And it was a it was a pretty big catastrophe. And I think it was a mistake, if I'm not mis if I'm not mistaken, on Google side where where they had made this update with Google Analytics and inadvertently changed some accounts conversion action to primary during this whatever they were doing. And I would I would say I was able to like

Anu Adegbola (51:36.023)
Anu Adegbola (51:42.543)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (51:56.205)
Yeah.

Craig (52:02.081)
Catch that within I think a few days of it occurring because I started noticing like, whoa, these conversion numbers look pretty wild. so one of the things I went and checked was the conversion actions and or and the goals. And noticed that there was this primary conversion action all of a sudden. and I was able to actually

Anu Adegbola (52:06.412)
Hm.

Anu Adegbola (52:10.071)
Well, yeah.

Craig (52:25.858)
figure out r I came up with like a rough money estimate in terms of what I think that ended up costing the client. And Google actually agreed eventually was like, yeah, you're right. That was that was not cool

Anu Adegbola (52:36.739)
Refunded. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. my gosh. I know. Because that's the thing. I think you know, we we there's there's one thing to roll out an update that you're like, guys, you guys, you guys are just complaining and then rolling out something I was like, shit, they definitely messed up on that one. And because yeah, I people are just looking for that day that they can do that because it's always like, yeah, you see.

Craig (52:58.381)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (53:03.929)
Google has just wasted our money and I don't think people have been able to really. Not a lot of people well n well unless they just don't talk about it, they've not really said the times where it's actually they feel Google has has made that mistake that stopped them from doing their jobs better if they try.

Craig (53:18.104)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think it's I think it's rare. I think they make decisions, you know, pretty precisely often, and in a controlled manner. and you know, and I also like to remember like before I start waving my fists in the air and complaining to everybody that they're like legitimately real people that are working in these jobs that are doing these things, everybody

Anu Adegbola (53:30.349)
Mm.

Anu Adegbola (53:44.931)
Yeah.

Craig (53:48.355)
you know, either makes mistakes or they make hard choices sometimes too. And to direct anger at individual people in these job roles is I don't find that particularly cool either, to be honest. Yeah. Thank you. I'm just being ki I'm just being Canadian here.

Anu Adegbola (53:55.46)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (54:02.345)
No, I think that's stupid. I think it's outrightly stupid. I'd say it. I know you I know you'll try to not insult anybody. I yeah, I know, right? It's just being kind. Being the nice Canadian that you are. Flavin Hell. god, this is that has been plenty. We're closing in on co coming to almost close on our talking because you've just given us so many, so many great insights there. Thank you so much, Craig. And you're giving your insights about this. pleasure.

Craig (54:22.296)
yeah. That's been great.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Anu.

Anu Adegbola (54:30.295)
Actually, like I I I I enjoy this. So for me, it's just like, yeah, let's just let's really talk about the real things going on in our industry. It's my favorite thing. but yeah, but before we leave you, just like a nice, fun, more relaxed question that's not about mistakes or anything like that. If your PPC career were a movie, what would the title be? It can be a movie that already exists. You can come up with a brand new title, whatever makes sense to you in this moment.

Craig (54:32.909)
Mature.

Craig (54:36.604)
I love it.

Craig (54:58.208)
man, I sheesh, that is a great one. what would the movie be? Pardon me? I I am, yeah, yeah. I don't know. man. jeeze. What what could it be? I feel like

Anu Adegbola (55:03.215)
Are you a movie buff? Are you a movie buff? Yeah.

Craig (55:21.826)
Ooh, this might take a few minutes.

Anu Adegbola (55:22.605)
Which which main which main character do you feel like you rel you you know you relate mostly to?

Craig (55:29.846)
Mm.

Anu Adegbola (55:34.159)
Craig, how many movies have you watched? It's like you're going through the whole roller deck for your life.

Craig (55:37.952)
I I'm like I just don't wanna be honest to be interpreted in the wrong way or anything like that. I don't know. I'd I'd say like I'd say like this is this is gonna sound stupid, but like I'd say gladiator maybe.

Anu Adegbola (55:44.815)
No

Anu Adegbola (55:49.744)
Say it, say it, say it. I want it, whatever was in your head. Don't be bold. Don't worry, be bold. Okay.

Craig (55:54.531)
But how gladiator? You're just like you're just like fighting off like adversity left, right, and center. And then you just I don't know. I was gonna say you just die in the end, but like

Anu Adegbola (56:04.727)
mean I mean gladiator was more about life or death and I think that is what we're just trying to say that paid search is not about life or death guys but yeah we're gladiators fighting for the revenue of our clients in a in a kind of let's say let's let's put it that way in as heroic a way as we can yeah we got there we got there in the end my pleasure my absolute pleasure

Craig (56:13.377)
No.

Craig (56:18.862)
There you go.

Craig (56:23.022)
I love that. Thank you. Yeah. There you go. Perfect. Thanks for helping me with that one.

Anu Adegbola (56:34.455)
I was like, I was like, dude, it does not hard a question. let's see. So, Craig, I know you're on LinkedIn. but where else, where else can people find you if they want to you know, have a longer chat with you, maybe about, yeah, all the mistakes that can be made about healthcare or conversion tracking and you know what they should stay away from. yeah, what platforms are you on?

Craig (56:35.16)
Yeah.

okay.

Yeah.

Craig (56:56.654)
Totally. Yeah, I'm primarily on LinkedIn. but you can also connect with me on my website, grey vaultconsulting.com.

Anu Adegbola (57:04.183)
Nice. Okay. Amazing. Awesome. Well, thank you, Craig. That's been a fantastic, great chat. thank you for joining our Slack. We'll continue conversations in there and sure you'll make a very useful part of the community. and actually another night question that asked, because PPC Live is about events. What's what's the next event that, you know, people might be able to find you at?

Craig (57:24.258)
Yeah.

Craig (57:29.598)
so I'm planning to attend the the event that Jill Saskin Gales is putting on in Toronto in October. So I'm excited to go to that, which I think is like the first Canadian event that I'll be attending, which I'm super excited about.

Anu Adegbola (57:35.779)
Yes. Amazing. Yeah, so that's inside in

It's the first yeah, digital marketing Canadian event. I you know, and then so delighted for you guys. I'm so it's such a shame I wouldn't be able to make it 'cause she's actually doing it on the day of my birthday. So I'm not like no, I can't be thinking about digital marketing on my birthday. So I'm gonna be flying up somewhere nice and hot and relaxing and drinking cocktails on that day.

Craig (57:54.284)
okay.

No, you gotta give yourself a break.

Craig (58:04.014)
Sounds fantastic. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (58:07.727)
Yeah, but yeah, anyone around in you know in Canada around October 29th, go to Inside Google Ads Live and just yeah, just search for that. It will be a fantastic event to be had had. She's got fantastic speaker lineup on there. So yeah, I really, really advise anyone who can to check that out. And yeah, you will also meet Craig in person, which is, you know, the cherry on top for that. So yeah, hope you hope you can if you're in the area. but so yeah.

Thank you so much for that fantastic chat, Craig. Craig. so yeah, I'm sure we'll catch up again soon, but for now, thanks. Bye. Bye bye.

Craig (58:40.962)
Thank you.

Sounds great and new. Thanks so much.