If you manage a Google Ads account you have probably received a ‘support’ call from a Google Ads representative in recent months. If you manage an agency with multiple accounts, these calls may be numerous across many accounts and persistently repetitive, often with limited value. These calls have become increasingly common in the past year and appear to be more aimed at sales and increasing Google Ads spend, than providing genuine help for advertisers.
As a Google Ads Premier Partner, we have received some excellent support from Google specialists in previous years, with constructive and helpful suggestions for our clients. However, in the past year or so – during the pandemic – we have been receiving regular calls for many of the accounts we manage from Google reps who are based in India. These calls now occur daily and can even be received overnight on some occasions, to an extent that they are now time-consuming, intrusive and tiresome, with limited value being provided for these accounts.
If calls aren’t answered there is no message left, and then we may occasionally receive an email from the representative for an account, saying they have been unable to speak to us and asking us to request a scheduled time to connect. In the footer of the email is the tell-tale line that the person is calling from ‘Regalix Supporting Google’.
On further investigation, Regalix appears to be a telesales company, primarily based in India. This explains the fact that many of the suggestions made by these callers follows a prescribed pattern and, once we question some suggestions in more detail, the callers are not that knowledgeable about the intricacies of Google Ads and why they are suggesting certain changes.
So what is Google doing here? The calls may appear to be supportive and trying to help our clients achieve their objectives, but the reps allocated to a client change every quarter and we are asked to explain the business and objectives each time, so that there is apparently no real interest in the client or notes held on a central system. However, some of the suggestions being made could be detrimental to the client accounts and since there is always the suggestion of spending more money, ultimately these calls are made to generate more revenue for Google from the Ads system.
And how genuine are these calls as a supportive approach for advertisers? You’d think that for the long-term, Google wants to retain customers and increase their spend through better results. But often the recommendations being given need to be handled carefully as they could easily worsen the core metrics for the account. Common suggestions are to make changes to the automated budding strategy or adding new keywords, or at the worst, applying auto updates without considering which are best suited to an advertiser’s campaigns.
Many suggestions are also no different to the automated recommendations that a client can see within their Google Ads account, but these still need to be considered and possibly tested carefully, without accepting them without question. If these calls are not answered, they seem to become more repetitive and reflect high pressure sales calls. When we have asked these representatives to email suggestions instead, they don’t, which implies they are being primarily measured on completed calls. But how else are they being rewarded – we would have to assume by generating increased revenue from advertisers, which is one of the main ways that Regalix say they achieve results for their clients.
Interestingly, Regalix seems to have removed all references to Google on their website – a search for the brand within their indexed pages currently shows 198 pages which are mostly ‘Insight’ articles about Google, which was presumably to help demonstrate their knowledge of the products. However, all the pages we have tried to view are now showing as 404 error pages since a month ago, so why have these been removed – is the contract coming to an end, or is Regalix trying to distance themselves from Google (or vice versa)?
We’re concerned, and somewhat disappointed, with this current approach from Google and the time-wasting repetitive nature of the calls, the low level of real knowledge of the callers, and the ‘cookie cutter’ suggestions we receive that appear to have Google’s revenue more in mind than any long term benefit for our clients. Hopefully this situation will change soon and advertisers will have the chance to call real experts if they want help with their account, rather than receiving the hard sell persistence from this third party sales company.
In the meantime, whether you answer or ignore the calls, you should certainly treat the suggestions being given with some degree of cynicism and think about the real value this may provide to your Google Ads advertising spend!
If you do make changes, then test and review, and revert back if you see trends get worse. And if you want a second opinion, please contact us for help.