EP325 - Turning a 40% ROAS Mistake into Opportunity ft Kate Luke

📍 📍 Hello and welcome to PPC Live, The Podcast, formerly known as PPC Chat Roundup. My name is Anu, the founder of PPC Live, and if you're used to hearing advice from PPC experts about how to ensure that we are keeping up with the ever changing landscape. Don't worry, you are still in the right place. But instead of relaying what the PPC experts are saying, I'm bringing the PPC experts to you.

Every week I'm gonna be speaking to a different PPC expert about their biggest f-up, but also how they triumphed from it.

So yeah, thus the name of the podcast. Today we're gonna be speaking to the fantastic Kate Luke. She's spoken on the PPC Live stage, and I'm so excited to have her share one of her, early mistakes in her career and one thing that I really loved about this story was not just about the mistake itself, but what she learned from it in terms of timing of when you implement something, adds a new thing and create a new strategy, or implement a new tactic.

'cause yeah, I'll be belaboring that point, so apologies for that already. So yeah, I hope we, we really learn about when to implement strategies and how to, help us out, prepare ourselves for success even. Yeah, let's go speak to Kate.

Hello everyone. I am so delighted to have a very good friend with me on our podcast today. We've got Kate Luke on the podcast, on PPC Live The Podcast today. Welcome Kate. Hi. Nice to be here. Oh, lovely. So happy to have you here. Kate is very much a seasoned head of digital with a deep rooted love of technology and a profound passion for e-commerce, especially.

She's got a track record of driving digital transformation and pioneering innovative online strategies. She's been in the industry since 2015 but very much been passionately delving into e-comm for seven years. In terms of fun facts about Kate, she loves sailing and I threw this term at her and I'm glad that she took it on.

I was like, Kate, you're a passenger princess, aren't you? You have that vibe. She's yes I am. I feel so seen. I know, right? I love it. And I wish I was a passenger princess for anything. But yeah your parents live on a sailboat, is that right? Yeah, that's right. How did that come about?

Like day to day, they don't care for living on that on the grid anymore. They want off the grid kind of living now, right? Yeah. They're just crazy. I love it. Oh, bless. And how often do you go and become a, go to be a passenger princess where they're on their sailboat? They're Scotland based, so as frequently as I can, but about three times a year.

Oh, that's nice. Oh, Scotland is beautiful. I always go there and it's so quiet. I love it. And we don't always get the sunshine for the sunbathing on deck. Ah, but no, it's really tranquil. Oh, amazing. I love that. Thank you so much Kate for joining us today. Like with, we're trying to get guests on this show, thankfully I have been very fortunate that people are, awesome enough and vulnerable enough to share

things that have gone wrong in the past, because that is where we learn the most. I think for the first time in the last couple of weeks, I asked somebody and I told them the premise of the podcast and they were like, no, I'm still early in my career. I do not wanna be sharing my mistakes. And, I get it.

I get it. It's a scary thing. So for those who have been so gracious to, to join the podcast. Thank you. Thank you so much, Kate, for joining us today. No worries. I think we've gotta normalize it like you say. Yeah. Yeah, let normalize it. And that is where the best learnings come out of, and that is where I feel like you, you can even build a, trust with a client even better.

Because if a mistake happens and you deal with it, this the right way you communicate with the client the right way, communicate with your manager the right way. They know that you're the kind of person who's not gonna hide stuff, who's not gonna be pretending that everything is okay when it isn't.

And that's not what you want. You want to trust the good results that you're putting. Oh, it starts with trust, for sure. It starts with trust. So let's go through the story of where you've built trust with her, with, whether it's a client or brand in the past. Kate, tell us the ef-up you wanna share with us today.

Okay. The amount of shame I feel just telling you through this story, but it's gonna be fine. Circle of trust. Circle of trust and love. This is back in standard shopping days. Yeah. So cast your mind back. Yep. And at the time I was setting up product categories at ad group level. And I was doing it that way so that I could set target ROAS for each category.

Yeah. And. I was making quick changes. It was like at the end of the day and instead of setting their target ROAS of 400%, I set it at 40% for one of their ad groups, just like completely random, whichever one it was like quick typo, came in the next day and was like, what the blooming hell? Why has that one spent so much money?

To see, retrace my steps and realize what I'd done. Yeah. And. Yeah, it was it was a bit of a shock. It was a bit of a shock. Okay. And that seemed like a very nice turnaround time. So it was like within a day, you came in on, let's say the Monday the change happened on the Monday. On the Tuesday?

Was it like that or was it like a few days later? No, it was over the weekend. Wow. And the other thing, I have a rule now, never make big changes on a Friday. Like why do we try and mess up our own weekends? Yes. Like just say no. Yes. Yes. That is even a point that has come up from a previous episode.

Yes. That thing, it's it's underrated the whole making changes over the weekend, try your best not to. Unless you're gonna have, unless you're planning on working over the weekend and checking stuff for the weekend, if you've got eyes on. Yeah. Like ultimately it doesn't make any difference.

But if, you're not gonna have eyes on if you're traveling somewhere don't do it. Yeah. Absolutely. So you found the issue, you had the first eyes on it when you came in on the Monday, right? Yeah. How did you feel? You just get that stress response. Yeah. Your heart's going, and you are wondering, what do I do next?

Can I, is there anything I can do to undo, I just start panicking, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And do who did you speak to about it? So this was really early on in my career, and I knew instantly I would never make that mistake again. But it was. Then you've got the fallout of trying to work out what you do next.

So at the time, I'm really lucky 'cause I had these set meetings in on the morning, so I knew I was due to have a call to go through ad account performance. Yeah. So actually it was the perfect time, just like really early doors, talk it through and yeah, I just spoke straight to the to the client about it.

Okay. So it was even the client. How about a manager in your company, there wasn't even like that internal conversation with the manager? It was straight to the client. Wow. And how did the client take it? Actually, at the time, I'm really lucky because they took it really well. Because what had happened, and I think this is pure luck, is I'd opened up the ad group so much that it had gone out for the first time and found new places to find sales.

Okay. So the return wasn't actually, the return was good. Okay. And the other sort of takeaway I think I took from that mistake was, thank goodness, actually sometimes when you expect less, you get more. Okay. Okay. And so I was really lucky. They were very much, I think it took us down a bit of a trajectory with their ad account of oh, just lower all the target ROAS is there.

Like almost the lesson was wrong. Oh, okay. So because even though that was a mistake because it actually generated some positive results. Yeah. We then let's imitate that with other campaigns. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Back in standard shopping days, everything was really controlled. Yeah.

And you had to decide, with manual bidding if you were gonna go in one direction or the other. Absolutely. And so it had to be proactive and you had to decide that was right for your account. And I think with this particular mistake, it, I think it's an important lesson that sometimes we can strangle an account and say, I want too much, and therefore it doesn't give you anything.

Yeah. So this was the opposite of that I was saying. Fine. 40% ROAS. No worries. Yeah. But actually what ended up happening was it yielded more sales because essentially it was the first time it had been opened up to that level. Yeah. And yeah, the takeaway from that particular client was let's just set all the target

ROAS really low as well. Look at that. Look at that. I think now I've been through that journey. We know that relationship between setting what you actually need it to return. That's a really important. Thing. And then the opposite of that, of using target ROAS as a tool Yeah to work around the system.

Yeah. So yeah. So I think that's great. I think several lessons there. Number one, yeah. Don't make changes on a Friday for your mental health. A thumbs up. Thank you for the reaction video that I don. I never know when it's gonna come up, but anyway. Don't, yeah, don't make reactions. Be careful about strangling targets.

You never know that actually, if you're actually loose things up. And I think it's actually also in our era of Ai, we're like, oh, we, God, we are under control. We don't want everything. And you're like, actually, you never know. Maybe more like testing a safer environment. Don't do it in in a, as a mistake, but you never know what you're going to get out of it.

Kind of thing. So I'd say, yeah. Would that, would you say the client's response surprised you? 'cause I was gonna ask what I ask like what surprised you the most about the, talking about that mistake? Definitely. I think, that all goes back to building trust. So hopefully, you've built enough of a trust with your client to be able to say

- one I cocked up, this has gone wrong. Yeah. And also to work with them on a resolution that you both feel is gonna work. So having an open space to discuss that. Yeah. And if you haven't got trust with your client, that conversation is gonna be much more one-sided on their side of We'll just do this.

Just do that. Yeah. I'm, I don't like working in that way. I like to have that back and forth. I think it's really important. So yeah, I think the thing that really surprised me was that, that even post the mistake that was open to collaboration. . So it, you didn't feel like even after that you were like micromanaged and it could be that management kept being worse they still trusted you to just keep testing stuff.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely amazing. And yeah, that's another thing to take away from this mistakes doesn't mean it's the end of the world. Mistakes doesn't mean you get fired. Mistakes doesn't mean all of a sudden your clients, don't trust you. In few instances it will happen, but I think it very much depends and I know that I actually feel like the previous guests who have said that, the clients have decided, oh no, we don't wanna work here with you anymore.

Have regretted it. Like one of the guys, one of our, my guests, Peter Guba, he was like, yeah, we, I made the mistake. I came back, I rectified it and everything. But it's like the client was looking for an excuse and was like, oh yeah, we found someone else. But what it actually transpired was that the other person, other else was cheaper.

They wanted it cheaper. They wanted so cheaper. They were like, they used this a you've made a mistake and so you know, we don't like you. And then, and obviously classic, he still had access to the accounts even after they took him off and he saw the performance tank and you're like as old as time.

And I think when you have a client that wants to operate in that way I'm a big believer and it's just not worth it because they're not. Valuing your work. They're not valuing how important paid advertising is for their business, so they're not in tune with their business. And that can be a really difficult client relationship to manage.

So actually maybe they did him a favor. Yes, absolutely. So everybody. Listeners, do not be panicked. When a client starts thinking, oh yeah, you made a mistake, I'm gonna walk away. They may be doing you a favor because honestly, if you're bringing more sales, like this mistake did actually brought in more sales, actually opened you guys your eyes.

So the fact that maybe we actually need to be lowering the targets for the other campaigns, a client should be willing to accept that if they're not, yeah, you should think you should be, you'd be wary of working with that kind of client. It should be about the sales, whether it came through a mistake or not.

And if I was working within really strict budgets, that mistake might have been a lot more serious. I think at the time I, I was working in a, I was working for a client that was looking to grow. So that was beneficial for sure. But I think if you had strict budgets and you made a similar mistake, I could would totally understand that fear of fessing up.

Yeah. But there's no avoiding it. Ultimately, I think these things come out in the wash and owning it empowers you to then Yeah, solve it. It's much better to, yeah, to own it up. So someone is going through this kind of issue they've messed up, they've come in on the Monday morning seeing that they made the target like way off from what it should be.

What's your advice to them? Go make a coffee. Yeah. Take a breath. For sure. Yeah. I think we, we're throwing out a screen and this thing has happened and it just feels like the world is ending. Yeah. Just take, get some perspective. Go make a coffee. Maybe not a coffee. If you're feeling stressed, maybe decaf.

And yeah, just take a breath because there is a solution. And it's not gonna end the world. It's all gonna be fine. Yeah, no, absolutely. Take a coffee, take a deep breath, find the solution, and don't hide away from the client, is what I'd add to It. Don't become elusive and the person that can't be contacted, so yeah, for sure.

No. Oh gosh, no. Yeah. Yeah. So what's the, I think you've mentioned it, but maybe if you have another one in the bag in terms of what's, how did it teach you in terms of a change, in process of how to do things, so for sure don't make changes on a Friday, but anything else? That's a big one.

No, I would definitely say the minute I made the mistake and realized I'd made the mistake, I knew I was never gonna make it again because Sure. It's such, it's such an obvious mistake, yeah. And I was embarrassed at how simplistic it was. Yeah. Fair enough. If I was doing something really complicated and I made one little mistake here, but it's something that's really simple and you start out in PPC and you learn very quickly how to change

targets. Yeah. So I was, I think I was embarrassed at the level of the mistake and even the simple things, when we get into that routine and we are doing things quickly, go back and check them. Yeah. Because, none of us are immune to, a little mess up here and there. So I definitely say that lack of concentration should, yeah.

Could really mess you up. Definitely go back and check even the simplest of things if you're not sure. Amazing. Double check everything, have a process, don't make changes on the

Friday. Oh great. I should say that I'll say that a million times because I am passionate about that. People that, clients that have come in and been like, on a Friday, we wanna do this, I'm like, no, wait till Monday.

That is not our job today. Wait until Monday back. So good. You say no wish back. Yes. Yeah. And I've really gotten into a habit. Feed changes. My cutoff is maybe like Thursday, because Yeah, yeah. Thursday morning. You never know, but you do. You need to be having that conversation.

Just, I think if it also is a way of teaching them what the repercussions of doing it later could be. So yeah, if you are aware, if you make this change, x could happen. And I may not have eyes on it for 48 hours, so it could be an expensive mistake. And explaining the YI think is really important.

So you're not just being, like I said, no. Yeah. You're being like, it's a no, but it's a no for a really good reason. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Guys say no, learn to say no. I think especially with agencies and when you're a junior, it can be hard and maybe work with that with your manager or make it as part of the discussion as soon as the relationship starts that look, we'll be working our best, we'll do our best to do, do good by you.

But there's some things we wouldn't do on a Friday. Some things it's not like we are not working on a Friday. But there are just some things like new activations, new things, setting your life. Those are like first you like where it's important to understand what's happening in the first few days.

Let's not do that on a Friday. Let's use Friday to review, make sure everything is ready for the weekend so that we can all be at peace for the weekend kind of thing. So yeah, make those conversations, in my opinion, as early as possible for sure. So that's a fantastic, great story and thank you that so much Kate for that.

But yeah. Now going into our wider industry and the kind of mistakes that we make as a wider industry why do you think it's important for us to talk about these kind of things, like mistakes and errors? Do you see anyone talking about them? No. No, I really don't. And I think, we get into an echo chamber on social media.

So LinkedIn is a really good example of here's a loss, but it's really a win. Or everything on there is branding. We know we're trying to position ourselves as the best or like success. It's very successful. Yeah, exactly. So I think be careful, be mindful of consuming content on it off those mediums.

Yeah. What I would say is. It's really important to work with people who make mistakes and own up because you learn that behavior from them. Yes, and it's actually one, it's really empowering. You learn loads about yourself, you learn loads about your client and your industry. But I also think we need to be set in an example, don't we?

Because otherwise, if everyone's so afraid of making a mistake. They're never gonna, they're never gonna sign on in the morning. No. 'cause there's that risk and the more

technical you get and the more pronounced you get in your abilities, the more pronounced the mistakes might be.

So we need to be able to exist within a safe enough space that we can cock up. Yeah. And how can managers help with that? 'Cause I imagine yeah, for juniors coming into this industry, especially now, there's a lot that's changing. There's so many, so much fragmentation about the right way of doing things.

Like what's your advice to managers to encourage their juniors coming in to be comfortable with or to not be stressed in case that they might f up? How? 'cause I know, like I've had that example of. Of where I used to work in an agency. I wouldn't name the name because I think this was a bit embarrassing, where literally I heard an account director tell, a junior staff going, yeah, you can't make any mistakes.

That literally we was like, guys have no mistakes allowed. We are here to do the best for our client. And you're like, this is so unrealistic. It's so unrealistic. Yeah. I definitely think as a manager you can, right off the bat, like you would manage with a client right off the bat, have the conversations to say you are a human being.

Mistakes are gonna happen. We're expecting that. If it happens, actually the way that you resolve it is gonna be what I'm gonna be impressed by, or I'm gonna be measuring you on and make it about how they react after the mistake rather than the mistake itself. And I think you can set that example because realistically, there might be little bits here and there that you're like, oh, that formula wasn't quite right, or, the script didn't do what I wanted it to do.

Here's how I'm gonna change it. Here's how I'm gonna deal with it. And you can set that example straight away. Amazing. That's, I love that set, that example. It's not even just about talking about it, it's about setting the example. Okay. Now doing a little bit of a tangent into the world of AI and how we use all the automation you talked about, your mistake went way back, to a very wistful time.

Pre P max, before P max and all those kind of things. And where we started dropping and where things seemed a be bit more, more sane. What are the biggest mistakes would you say? On a more, a very, as, as tactical as possible as you can get. And a specific thing, whether it's smart shopping or in terms of bidding or ad copy, that there's a big mistake that people make that you've experienced in ai, whether it's you or something that you've audited.

I would say trying to control like too many changes. Okay. 100%. Like changing your mind, chopping and changing, like looking at the data and saying the thing I just said an hour ago and now I'm gonna undo and I'm gonna redo it. I think we are in a, we are in a time where we need to allow the algorithm to, to learn and to optimize.

And if you've come from my background with stand shopping or SEO, not being able to hack your way around things is actually a really hard lesson to learn. But being able to just take your hand off and go, I've set it, I know what I need to it to return, I now need to just give it the space to do it.

Hold your nerve. I would say definitely I, I'm not seeing enough of that, and that's not to say if there isn't, a massive mistake we're targeting or something that isn't quite right. Go in and make the change, but if you are not quite sure and you're just pressing buttons, I think people just tie themselves in knots.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think that whole learning period, Google have been talking about it, Microsoft talking about it, and if you make a change, it can take two weeks. And I don't think it really sits in people's heads that they're like, that learning period is important. I think they weren't talking about it before and they probably saw that people were just making so much changes, so they made it part of the system that like, and made it like just

obvious. They made it so clear to us that yeah, if you make changes too quickly, it resets. Yeah. And it's learning from a different point of view and what you can't really take this as, as statistically significant as a result Exactly. For what to do. So you've got to be really careful with how you're approaching things.

Yeah. And I think people still mess that up. They see that landing period. Yeah. There's so many questions about it. They're like. Oh, if I do this again, does it hit the learning bit? Yes. Leave the thing alone. Leave it alone. I think to your point as well, if you're making tons of changes, you can't isolate the change that hopefully, did

made the improvement. Improvement, yeah. In the data. So ultimately, you wanna be able to isolate that and look at the cause and effect. And if you've gone in and made three, four massive changes to the strategy. Strategy, yeah. You're not gonna be able to do that. Commit, I would say commit to the thing you wanna change and go in and do that and let it do its thing.

And then take your learnings and then do the next one. Yeah. Do you have any timelines that you'd, that you say tell people to wait for at least, or does depend on the data? It depends how much data is going through, for sure. Because, although we get given that. Best practice two week marker on pax.

We've all seen it come out of learning much quicker than that if you've got tons of data going through it. Yeah. So it very much depends on the client. But yeah, on the whole, I would try, if I haven't seen, even if it's come out of its learning period, like it hasn't got that label on it anymore.

Yeah. If I'm not seeing the results I want, and I'm still in that initial two weeks, I'll still say it's gathering data because it probably is. And that op, that optimizing doesn't just stop when you know that label comes off the campaign. Yeah. Yeah. I think for me it very much depends on how much data's gone through it.

Yeah, absolutely. Very much depends on the data. Kate, we're gonna leave that there for now. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode. Really enjoyed that conversation. Like I'm so much in agreement with you with all those lessons and feedback that you've given us today, we should definitely remember.

Remember that and take that and keep it in our hand. That's a Nigerian proverb. Keep it in your right hand and take it away and hold it with you. These kind of lessons are really important. Whether it was when we're doing things years ago, there were, there's some things that have never changed.

Yeah when it comes in our industry. So I love even the lessons that we hear from people early on in the career that I'm literally like, yes remember that for right now as well. Remember that for our world of AI and data privacy and everything, remember that for right now. So thank you for those great lessons.

Now a last final question that has nothing to do with PPC, nothing to do with bidding or ai - if your PPC career were a movie what would be the title? Oh my gosh, that's such a good question.. Like, why haven't we made PPC the movie yet? Because, that's gonna be banging. It's gonna be great. Will it? It will. It. There'll be too much infighting. Oh God. Do you know, I would probably call it. Set yourself up to succeed. Yeah.

Nice. Because it's something that I keep with me wherever I go, wherever I do. If I haven't set myself up to succeed, given myself enough time, done enough learning read the pre-interview questions for a podcast, these things are so important and we can't always follow them.

But I think if you can Yeah, absolutely. Set yourself up to, to do well. Yeah. Yeah. Set yourself up to succeed. You definitely have all these years, and that is how I know that I'm I'm you meet some people and you're like, you've got a long career ahead of you. You clearly, you'll only leave if you want to thing.

And you may, maybe you might decide that you do wanna get behind the wheel of a sailboat permanently one day. Who knows? Passenger Princess. I love that idea. You or upgrade from Passenger princess to, a captain why not? Why not? But yeah, apart from that, I'm sure that yeah your

your career in in paid search will be long and fruitful and excited to see . Thank you, Anu. Honestly, you've been the most welcoming person within this community, and PPC Live has been such an important resource for me to be able to do this back and forth, and learn through other people's mistakes as well.

Yeah, I'm so grateful. Oh, I'm, I, it's a delight to do. I learn a lot from it as well. If each episode, I'm literally like, I'm glad I did that 'cause oh my God, I learned something new too as well. Yeah, it's such a delight. Anyway, on that note, Kate, thank you so much for joining us today and yeah, hopefully we'll catch you later.

Thank you. Oh, no, before we catch you later, where will we catch you later? Look at me trying to preemptively, are you on LinkedIn, on Twitter? Where, what platforms can people hear some of the fantastic ideas that you put out there? LinkedIn and I promise I will try not to put out content that's like shiny, happy, everything's perfect, more honest content is what we want.

Absolutely Amazing. Fantastic. Thank you for that, Kate.

Thank you so much, Kate, for sharing that very honest and transparent advice with us. Remember? Yes. Say it with me again. Do not set any new campaigns or implement any new strategies live on a Friday, really save yourself the headache. So yeah please take that on, take down seriously. For all the information and the full transcript of that fantastic conversation.

Go to podcast.ppc.live and yeah, you'll get the full transcript and show notes and whatever level details of that podcast that you want to see, hear. Or listen to. Yeah. And of course for our update, I'm so excited that by the time you'll be listening to this, it'll be probably less than three weeks to our fantastic PPC Live barbecue that we're gonna have.

It's gonna be like the, it's gonna be very similar to the events that you've come to know and love, where we're gonna have three fantastic speakers. Paul Salame, we've got Jérémy Courty and Ayisha Yousef. We're gonna be talking about e-comm, P max, ensuring you're making the most out of your Google Ads campaigns.

And yeah, we are even gonna be preparing you for Q4 already. Already, you say. Yes already, because if you're preparing for Q4 in Q4, it's too late already, so make sure that you prepare well and come and join our conversations. And it's going to be hosted by the fantastic Tug agency that's gonna be around the Shoreditch area.

So it's going to be a very lovely rooftop event. We are gonna have a barbecue up there and we are just gonna have the best time having our iconic PPC team meeting that we're gonna have. It was, we took it to the US in about June, early June for SMX advanced and they loved it there, so I'm sure you will love it when we have it in the next few weeks.

So yeah, please join us for that. Go to ppc.live for your tickets. Now all our sales or our early bird sales are done with its general admission sales, but that's still only at a mere £44 for such a fantastic event. So please join us there and before I leave you, I'm also delighted to share that I'm taking on coaching clients.

So yeah, for one hour, one to one session, you can book me, just go to themarketinganu.com so that we can help each other so I can help you. Even just help not helping each other. If you're gonna gimme money, I'm helping you to ensure you're making the most of your ad spend. I'm ensuring that you have confidence in your career and really just trying to mentor you in this journey of doing digital marketing.

So yeah, go to themarketinganu.com to book some of my time. So yeah, I hope you've enjoyed the show today, and I look forward to bringing more PPC f-ups and triumphs next week. Bye.