The Day a QVC Takeover Blew the PPC Budget ft. Chris Kostecki

Anu Adegbola (00:01.56)
Hello Chris, welcome to PPC Live the podcast.

Chris Kostecki (00:04.971)
Hi, thanks for having me.

Anu Adegbola (00:06.804)
I'm so delighted. As I was you telling Chris before, Chris just has one of those very lovely, welcoming faces, very like nice and jolly that I'm like, having a conversation with you was just gonna feel nice and warm. So I hope that's what our listeners, you know, really get from this. Like nice, warm, but also very knowledgeable discussion about, yeah, as as we know now, PPC mistakes and how we turn things around. But

Before we get into that, who is Chris? Chris is a paid search marketing expert with over 20 years of experience. In fact, when he started digital marketing, I was just coming into the UK. My life was just really beginning in the world. So he's proper like a veteran in our field. So I love that. We need those voices talking to us about all the changes and updates that we have in present time. But like, yeah, Chris is very much, you know.

About executing online advertising strategies for popular brands, passionate about supporting digital goals with campaigns, incorporating different marketing tactics beyond search to scale reach. So it's not just about Google, it's about the different channels. Because yeah, I always say don't get stuck in a silo. he's data-obsessed, having led side pixel strategies and tag management systems implementations to optimize performance.

And he's proficient in on-site lead gen technologies. He's got an analyst mindset, comfortable with sifting through data and teasing out a story that emerges to present to audiences at all levels. And another area that I've really loved Chris taking part in is in our Slack channels. So for those who don't know, there's a PPC chat Slack community where loads of folks like Chris just come, like specifically every like Tuesday.

There'll be a conversation at twelve PM Eastern time. And so pretty much like at this time on Tuesdays. yeah, then yeah, there's like a few c like six, seven convers questions that Julie Piccini will pose. And yeah, the whole community joins in. And Chris has been very great at giving some very great insights into that c conversation. Before we get onto the big stories of like, yeah, mistakes and and and things that I feel like

Anu Adegbola (02:25.034)
I need to apologize to our guests, like we're gonna have to drag out some PTSD but before we get into that. I also like our guest sharing a fun fact. So, Chris, what's your fun fact for us?

Chris Kostecki (02:36.581)
yes. So thank you for having me. it's great it's great to be on here. my fun fact is that for past nearly fifteen years I've been collecting concert posters and art and so I've built up quite a large collection and in in doing so I've realized I can't maintain this entire collection. I'm not gonna start a museum. So last year I started selling it. I put up a quick site. It's kind of it's it's kind of scary to put a site out there into the community, but no.

Anu Adegbola (02:38.871)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (02:46.527)
Okay.

Anu Adegbola (02:55.0)
Okay.

Anu Adegbola (03:03.906)
Yes.

Chris Kostecki (03:05.853)
buycoolart dot shop is where I've started listing my concert posters and bunch of art that's available and that's been something that has been a passion for me and I I really like the community that comes out of that, similar to what we have in the paid search space.

Anu Adegbola (03:19.958)
Amazing, amazing. And are you making like good profits out of like the selling of the posters? Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (03:24.725)
It it's steady. I I mean I'm making a profit on each each one and then it's you know, in terms of the volume coming in, it's it's steady. It's not I'm not quitting my day job.

Anu Adegbola (03:31.939)
Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, no. And there is like is like are you planning on collecting even more concepts to sell or is there like a limited like a very specific stock that you're just trying to get at?

Chris Kostecki (03:43.999)
I've I've had some other collectors yeah, I've had some other collectors ask me, like, Hey, you wanna take care of my I wanna take care of my collection and and get that into good hands and good homes first before I think about anything else.

Anu Adegbola (03:49.484)
Right.

Right. Well, you could be the kind of person who helps other collectors. That would be another revenue stream to help other collectors get rid of their own stuff. Yeah, you never know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Who knows? Maybe one day. Fantastic. Fantastic. Okay, Chris, let's get into the crux of the story. I'm sure even the the folks who are great poster collectors and concerts, you know, collectors are like, Yeah, that's not what I want to hear about today. We want to hear

Chris Kostecki (04:05.047)
Thoughts cross my mind. Yes. Yep. Yep.

Anu Adegbola (04:22.186)
about F ups and how things have turned around. so yeah, Chris, take it away. What is the F up you'd like to share with us today?

Chris Kostecki (04:30.765)
Absolutely. Thank you. and yeah, thank you for letting me share my mistakes. No. the one I wanted to really highlight today happened kind of mid career. I was working for a large CPG in-house, managing the paid search and social efforts and kind of building up a team in there. And the CPG got the opportunity for QVC takeover. And so QVC is a home shopping network here in the US. They had a takeover for the day, a lot of attention, a lot of eyeballs. We were all excited about it.

We were all watching it and we were all watching when they started telling everybody to go to Google, search for the n search for the brand name, go to the website, compare the price, and come back and buy it through them. And that's what everybody did. Lots of people, up into the five figures. And in terms of search spend on our brand campaign, went to that traffic that was coming to our site with no intention to buy. And so, you know, we chalked that up as a research and and learning tool. We never

Anu Adegbola (05:13.878)
Nice.

Anu Adegbola (05:26.71)
All right.

Chris Kostecki (05:27.147)
ran our brand campaigns during any other large marketing events in the future. And so there was definitely some lessons to pull from there. But it was an expensive mistake. It was a definitely a costly mistake we had.

Anu Adegbola (05:31.147)
Yes.

Anu Adegbola (05:37.623)
ouch, ouch. So what's what's the biggest lesson for you from that from that mistake?

Chris Kostecki (05:43.424)
Always ask what's happening, what's going on within the business and the organization, because you never if you're if you're dealing with on the front lines, whether it's in social network or a search network, you are dealing with the community and you are dealing with the customer base. And so you're gonna hear about it. And so knowing what's happening there can help you position your ads, maybe block out some ads during some times when you don't want to be part of those conversations.

Anu Adegbola (06:06.85)
Wow, yeah, absolutely. I think like what the not one thing, the lesson that has been mentioned by several guests, it's all about knowing the business better. Yeah, you know, I know like, you know, people want to be like, Yeah, I I I'm the paid such person. I know paid such well in and out. I know the tools and I know all the updates and everything and the testing that we need to be done, you know, get that get that out there. But knowing what's what is important for the business, knowing how that strategy is going to work.

Is actually really important because I definitely have had the experience of working for a pay set brand that outdoor like TV ads, really their TV programming, scheduling, programming really affected our campaigns. And for us, because we wanted to drive people to the site and purchase on the site, it was good for us to have brand on. But it's actually quite interesting to know that there are cases where you don't want brand on when yeah.

Chris Kostecki (07:02.091)
Yeah. Well or or the brand is prioritizing other channels. You know, so th in that case they're prioritr prioritizing that channel through T V. And so we had to turn off our more direct e commerce channels to allow for that. So yeah. And part of it too was went into it kind of it was a big event for our brand, for the company I was working with. we had rose colored glasses on as we were looking at it and saying, Okay, let's go, you know, we're all excited, not looking at

Anu Adegbola (07:05.164)
Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (07:26.069)
What could the downside be? You know, what what where can we just, you know, take a step back and see what are the consequences of what we're doing?

Anu Adegbola (07:27.565)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (07:32.898)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And how long did it take from it turning on? Was it like a few few days of running it or was it literally immediately you saw that performance being really bad and turned that off?

Chris Kostecki (07:45.933)
Yeah, it was one day. I mean it i it was within that day, was probably probably started around nine or ten AM and probably about three or four we paused campaigns realizing what had happened in terms of the spend and stuff.

Anu Adegbola (07:55.0)
Sure.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. and this was like but were you in house and you always does it an agency? You're an in-house. So okay. So so you're like in charge of like the yeah, the like the pay channels. It was your Lord, what and so like what was what's the effect of that about? Like 'cause sometimes when you is you've been seen to be wasting budget, it kinda can then mean that you're not allowed as much money next time. Was that an effect?

Chris Kostecki (08:03.391)
I was in house. I was in house. Yeah. Yeah.

It was my budget. It was my budget that was being spent.

Chris Kostecki (08:25.645)
It wasn't an effect in this case, but yeah, that's definitely you have to kind of prove your case in terms of what you're doing and and and like you said, what you're doing is impacting the whole business, not just driving your own personal metrics. but yeah, no, it it was a big lesson. It was something, but I think one of the other things was the accountability. You know, we addressed it right away, we didn't try to sweep it under the rug. And that has been something that has always been true throughout my career.

Anu Adegbola (08:29.228)
Okay.

Anu Adegbola (08:36.46)
Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (08:53.519)
i and where I've seen the difference between when you do have a major f up is that accountability. Do you try to pass it along to someone else, pass it to the client, or do you take it on for yourself and kind of own up to it and move on from there? so that's really kind of one of the big things that I've pulled from my career in the many, many F ups I've made. So

Anu Adegbola (08:59.223)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (09:06.595)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (09:11.862)
Yeah. Yeah. And like and I know you touched on this, but it would also be good to like, you know, let's let's give full highlight on the whole what should have been done differently in those days up to that campaign going live, who should have been in the room with different meetings to ensure that, you know, then the light bulb moments you guys you know, so that light bulb moment can go in your heads going, we don't want brand on. We need to make sure.

that goes off. What are the conversations that should have happened that didn't?

Chris Kostecki (09:43.306)
Yeah, and I mean getting into the organizational structure, if we have different teams that have different budgets that are then going into the market with those budgets, and so there was a different team that was kind of doing this effort through this other channel that and we were kinda I was on the e commerce team, so we kinda handled the more direct to consumer e commerce demand generation budget, whereas other, you know, brand teams would go do activation events or they would go do other events and so

Anu Adegbola (10:03.277)
Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (10:09.067)
Just knowing what the other team is doing and then also knowing the impact of the market, like we're gonna take over a T V channel for, you know, a period of the day, that's going to take a lot of eyeballs. And so knowing that it's not the same as doing a pop up event in, you know, Albuquerque or something, you know, i i it it is something that is going to bring attention and it's going to have a share of voice that we need to contend with.

Anu Adegbola (10:17.452)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (10:25.196)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (10:33.43)
Yeah, absolutely. And so did you you knew the campaign, that TV campaign was going live. You knew that was that was happening beforehand. And the aim of it the aim of you guys leaving the brand campaign was to support it. And so was it that the information of the fact that we it was trying to get Q is it QVC or QBC?

Chris Kostecki (10:40.258)
Yes.

Chris Kostecki (10:55.061)
Yeah, Q V C. Yep.

Anu Adegbola (10:56.16)
QVC, yeah, I I I was like, I feel like I know that brand. Like, you know, so it i QVC was supposed to like they was they were trying to redirect purchases to QVC. That was the aim of it. Did you know that bit beforehand?

Chris Kostecki (11:09.613)
Y yes, it was through another channel. So it wasn't necessarily coming out of the online inventory that we're managing. We have our own warehouse of of inventory that we're selling through. And then this product is sold through a number of different retailers. And so, you know, there was pallets that go to, you know, Walmart, pallets that go to Target, you know, those type of things. So and and it it's also a system fulfillment type of don't go too far, my LinkedIn.

Anu Adegbola (11:15.202)
So

Anu Adegbola (11:24.033)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (11:30.573)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (11:35.532)
Right.

Chris Kostecki (11:37.099)
No, system fulfillment type of product in in terms of you know, we were trying to sell the system and then the the the the real profit was made on the fulfillment. So we sold a lot of systems that day. It was a successful day overall. It was just in my marketing world, we spent a lot of money with little return in my piece of it.

Anu Adegbola (11:45.846)
Riley.

Anu Adegbola (11:49.464)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (11:54.168)
Sure. Sure. And that time for that time it just it didn't need to it should have been turned off. And what time did at how many days later did you then restart brand campaign? Like what's what was then the process of actually okay, this is the stage where we can actually put brand back on.

Chris Kostecki (12:11.467)
Yeah, so it happened on a Thursday and we turned everything back on on Monday. So we kinda let it run for the we turned it off Thursday evening. We kinda said, Okay, let's and we measured the results you know, over the weekend, most of the weekend. And then on Monday we kinda got things back going, reset our budgets and and we're sailing again until the next takeover.

Anu Adegbola (12:22.316)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (12:29.718)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that takeover was just happening for that few days or just that one day. So it was

Chris Kostecki (12:34.955)
Yeah, it was a one day it was a one day event. So there was a little bit of a ripple afterwards, but not nearly the same impact as just being on TV saying, Go search for this

Anu Adegbola (12:39.148)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (12:43.906)
First day. Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. Absolutely. And so, like, if someone has gone through that, what's your advice to them? Someone has realized that brand came on, you know, they it's been on for like, you know, seven hours and they're not, you're not gonna see the return. What's your advice to them?

Chris Kostecki (12:58.72)
Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (13:02.795)
my my thing, like I mentioned, is accountability. you know, it's and I I feel as a campaign manager, the most important thing I do is budget budget stewardship. You know, a company, a client, an organization, the business owner gives me responsibility with that budget, you know, it's my it's my job to spend it wisely, spend it prudently, and make sure that it that they're aware of what is happening, that there is some transparency behind how their money is being spent.

Anu Adegbola (13:05.58)
Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (13:31.99)
So even when it's within an organization, you know, it's always easier to face it. You know, at some point finance is gonna find out about it. You always wanna get ahead of that. So, you know, it it it's always good to make sure any error you're making, whether it's misspelling on an ad copy that you don't think anyone saw, it's still putting it out there that hey, I saw this, I corrected it. I don't think it had a lot of exposure, but you know, it was corrected. It was something that that was out there and we might care from in the future.

Anu Adegbola (13:41.197)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (13:50.147)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (13:59.532)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And like is there now a process? 'Cause I sh as I'm sure you know you're you're you do a lot of in terms of digital marketing and setting up a campaign, doing anything or something's about to like there's a process you go through there, like let's say checklists. what so what was like a particular checklist sorry that was out added based on that mistake that you made?

Chris Kostecki (14:20.845)
Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (14:24.309)
It was a calibration meeting, really, in terms of knowing where dollars were going across the organization. So I had to report out where I was spending money and i and what type of keywords we're going after or what audiences we were going after in meta or Facebook at the time. And then and then, you know, what dollars they had planned for either that month or that quarter, I I believe so.

Anu Adegbola (14:25.899)
Okay.

Anu Adegbola (14:43.468)
Yeah. Okay, fantastic. So yeah, just adding just adding, just making sure there's that extra meeting that we so that everybody's on the same page of knowing what's what's gonna happen with that campaign.

Chris Kostecki (14:54.729)
Incorporate, when in doubt, more meetings.

Anu Adegbola (14:56.778)
Absolutely. I mean, yeah, yeah. I mean a lot of us in agencies we're like, Do we need that extra meeting? Do I need why is twenty people being on this one meeting? I I mean I'm not sure. But yeah, when it's a lot of money coming, yeah, that's gonna be flowing through this campaign, definitely, definitely important for

Chris Kostecki (15:14.017)
And what I've learned what I've learned on the agency side too is that every meeting that you know an agency has with a client, that client is probably having five or ten meetings around that same meeting too. So there there's just a lot happening under the surface.

Anu Adegbola (15:24.014)
Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So we are going to now in a moment go and do yeah, do face out talking about the mistakes you've seen other advertisers make. But if there's just one big lesson that you want to like, you know, leave people with about that story, one big takeaway, what is it for our listeners?

Chris Kostecki (15:48.14)
Well, I think communication is key and and communication up front. The earlier the communication, the better. the more people that are involved, the more people that are informed, is always is always better to know and get more input and and to to have more voices. And then communication is also even more key after the mistake has happened or after the F up. And you know, making sure that, you know

Anu Adegbola (15:54.115)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (16:07.171)
Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (16:11.541)
It's not trying to be hidden because it always is exposed eventually. And then it looks a lot worse. What's the old saying? It's never the cover up or it's never the crime, it's the cover up. You know, and that's the same thing with PPC mistakes. You know, you don't want to be caught covering it up. You wanna own it and move on from it.

Anu Adegbola (16:14.53)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (16:19.242)
Yes, yes.

No. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. No, amazing. Well, thank you for so much for that, Chris. We'll put that story back into its box into into that that that area, that PTSD a bit box of like, God, how did that happen? But yeah, we know these kind of things happen and we just need to learn from it. Now moving on to maybe like, yeah, no, maybe the mistakes that you would have seen when taking on a new account of seeing how.

Chris Kostecki (16:31.437)
Absolutely. Yes, please.

Chris Kostecki (16:38.466)
Mm-hmm.

Anu Adegbola (16:51.874)
You know, even like we're a lot more vocal. Industry is a lot more vocal about what they're doing and how they're approaching certain things. Are there just some strategies that you're like, guys, that is not that's a mistake, how you're approaching that? Any any of your favorite

Chris Kostecki (17:04.855)
Th there's there's a long list. There's a long list to begin with. And I think, you know, where to begin. I think I think so I think part of it is that like I said, the budget stewardship is really the most important thing that I see that is our role as paid search marketers or or or digital marketers. The second thing is is the strategy and really understanding the particulars of our business that we're we're representing, knowing, you know

Anu Adegbola (17:22.062)
Sure.

Anu Adegbola (17:29.08)
Mm.

Chris Kostecki (17:32.664)
the particulars about their audience, their targeting, their keywords, what makes them different, and then including that in the messaging and the landing page and kind of all the fundamentals. And and not forgetting those when the networks start to push more automation on us, you know, you know, and not lose that val you know, the value the networks have is bringing us qualified traffic that drives our drives our clients' business. And so to not lose that sight of that by

Anu Adegbola (17:40.547)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (17:47.938)
Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (18:01.399)
flipping a switch for some automation or flipping a switch to let, you know, a certain network choose which landing page they send traffic to. you know, I think, you know, in some cases, every use case has its place, but in a lot of cases, the default should be not to turn over audience control, turn over messaging control. Really still try to control those with a budget holder. and that's probably kind of the overarching mistake I'm seeing the most is that just turning over some of those vital decisions that should be hand in the

Anu Adegbola (18:08.27)
Mm.

Anu Adegbola (18:20.15)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (18:30.551)
be in the hand of the budget owners.

Anu Adegbola (18:33.27)
Absolutely. Am I we talking like handing them over over to what, my more junior folks? Am I handing over to AI like who like yeah.

Chris Kostecki (18:41.107)
A I I would trust a junior folk over in AI. I have. I've had interns and stuff that have tried to, you know, create content through AI and I said, listen, I know you're a sophomore in college, but I care more about your perspective, you know, than than what you can pull out of an AI engine, an AI agent. I can work with your perspective and kind of say, no, you got this wrong, or you might want to think about this more.

Anu Adegbola (18:44.279)
Right.

Chris Kostecki (19:03.499)
With an AI agent, you know, it's like go prompt it again, you know, or so you know, so it's it it it it's just hit refresh, you know, you might get a different answer. Who knows? You know. You know, I I got a BS and PR, you know, so I got my degree, you know, and so I take the art of BS very seriously. You know, I take audience messaging, knowing who your audience is, what you're saying very seriously. And the big problem I have with AI is that it doesn't have any agenda behind its BS. You know, it's just putting out content.

Anu Adegbola (19:10.136)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (19:20.835)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (19:30.797)
No.

Chris Kostecki (19:33.293)
And hoping it gets it right, but it doesn't really have a reason to say it. So that's kind of where I definitely lean on to junior resources, developing content, putting it in the hands of seniors to refine it and put it out there. And just making sure, again, you control the message, you control the targeting, and that way you can be responsible for the performance that comes out of it.

Anu Adegbola (19:34.978)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (19:44.098)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (19:52.427)
Absolutely. No, that's fantastic. And this is a little bit of a tangent of us, not necessarily talking about mistakes, but 'cause when you mentioned juniors there and I'm I'm very always intrigued as to like 'cause I I I did a degree. I had had university degree and then went into the job markets. I didn't necessarily particularly think that my degree was

Right, but I just marketing and marketing masters at some point, there was nothing about PPC when I was doing that. So it was all like, okay, well, I know the basics of marketing, so let's try and implement it here. But like what are the what are like the skill sets that would be really benefit like, you know, people who are and universities are about to go into the market, especially in our very much AI driven, AI excited industry at the moment.

Chris Kostecki (20:39.593)
I think it's still the data anal data analysis piece of it. It's still really being able to read the numbers. I think you've mentioned in my in my bio in terms of teasing out the story from the numbers, that is really a skill that I think we possess and you know I don't wanna turn this into just a conversation about against AI, but you know, AI doesn't necessarily develop much that's new. It's really kind of going through what's already been created and pulling forward what is the best solution based on all this information that it knows.

Anu Adegbola (20:43.138)
Nice.

Anu Adegbola (20:46.851)
Yeah.

Story, yes.

Anu Adegbola (20:57.55)
Yeah, I don't know.

Anu Adegbola (21:01.293)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (21:09.239)
But to actually create a new thought or a new idea, I I would rather talk to a college intern for that.

Anu Adegbola (21:14.412)
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. We we need to be aware that our thought processes are are very important. Innovation is not gonna come from AI. Like and that's a lot of companies love that. They love that someone's like, yeah, we need some innovative ideas and if you're just using AI to you to help you do your job, you're not gonna be the innovation department.

Chris Kostecki (21:36.29)
Yeah, the process is the work and and I really believe that. And you know, whether it's you do budget pacing on a regular basis, it gives you a chance to go into the account and kind of see what's performing and wait, you know, what where the changes are happening, or you do your monthly reporting, you go in there and, you know, start pulling out the story and you start it's a process. You don't know what the narrative is gonna be that you're gonna present to the client until you go into the data and see what's happening.

Anu Adegbola (21:56.131)
Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (22:01.811)
And so I think, yeah, that's a very big piece of it is i is leaving room for that process.

Anu Adegbola (22:01.9)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (22:06.914)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm sorry, you've frozen and I don't know whether I've frozen as well. I think it's I I think it's my n internet network that is not too great. But can you see me? You can hear me properly? Okay, fantastic. I'm we'll we'll just continue with it even though that Okay, you're back. Okay, great.

Chris Kostecki (22:12.169)
no, no.

Chris Kostecki (22:19.713)
Yeah, yeah, I'm good.

Chris Kostecki (22:25.249)
Yeah, let me know if we need to Okay, good, good, good. Yeah, let me know if we need to redo something or yeah.

Anu Adegbola (22:30.71)
No, no, this fine. And yeah, Riverside is very good with editing. So that's that was a good place for us to have a pause and then yeah, yeah, get back on things. So getting back on track. so with with let's getting back to like errors, mistakes that people are making. If you want to actually if you want to actually get a bit bit tactical in terms of how people are doing things, in terms of how they create their campaigns, you know, do budget management, that kind of stuff. What are our ways that you're seeing people are doing things?

Chris Kostecki (22:34.551)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (23:00.418)
that you generally con you know, consider that's the wrong way of doing that.

Chris Kostecki (23:05.101)
I think first off first off is depending solely on one engine for all of your traffic. Your audience isn't just using one engine. Now, maybe there's a enough demand there for your budgets that you can build off of it, but you know, to know that your audience is much larger than one network, I think, is is probably one of the first things that I've noticed a l in a lot of campaigns that I've seen. I've also

Anu Adegbola (23:10.102)
Okay.

Anu Adegbola (23:15.629)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (23:20.428)
Why the Google?

Chris Kostecki (23:30.741)
I've tried to avoid going after one industry specifically or working with one industry specifically. And a lot of times I do see that when there is industry specific providers that they get really into the process. And sometimes that process doesn't update or doesn't stay as current. And so as you as we've discussed, you know, the chain the rate of change is happening much quicker now nowadays. And we're seeing that. So when you're putting a model in place and you're trying to scale it,

Anu Adegbola (23:41.293)
Mm.

Okay.

Anu Adegbola (23:49.014)
Right.

Anu Adegbola (23:54.144)
Yes. Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (23:59.404)
that model can get outdated much more quickly. And so like making sure, always looking at campaign settings, understanding that following, you know, not following the network direction necessarily, you know, and giving it some time to make sure it is something that makes sense for your clients. I think it's always easier sometimes to just, you know, Google rolled this out. Let's try it out. Let's test it. Let's be the first one there. But a lot of times

Anu Adegbola (24:01.815)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (24:22.156)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (24:25.899)
You're learning on their or they're they're learning on your dime. And so I think it it's a good idea to let other people learn personally. And and then once you see what works and how it works, then apply it to our accounts. And so that's that's how we conduct business a lot is we're not trying to be the first ones out there. We're trying to do wherever we put the dollars, they're gonna work the hardest.

Anu Adegbola (24:28.984)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (24:32.885)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (24:42.094)
Showing.

Yeah, absolutely. and even now going into that, 'cause yeah, you know, we chatted about this just before recording about the the the the rate at which we've seen updates happen so so much. There's been, you know, P Max and then AI Max and the different, you know, different resources that have come out from like, you know, different P Max and P AMI Max is now going to DSA and the August seventeenth update that everybody was in a whole bit of a of a hurrah about. What's how do you feel the

industry response to this updates that is not healthy? Like what are the the ways that, yeah, do you think that this is not how to approach this? Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (25:22.145)
I I I live this every weekend. I have a seven year old son, he plays soccer and watching him watching him on the pitch, you know, playing soccer there, chasing the ball, with everybody else on his team chasing the ball really reminds me a lot of how I see some of the industry reacting to these. There everyone's chasing after it, swarming after it, and and and it's not necessarily the most strategic approach to actually get the get the job done. So, you know, I I kinda see that.

Anu Adegbola (25:27.243)
Okay.

Anu Adegbola (25:33.997)
Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (25:49.804)
those little kids playing soccer, chasing the ball, you know, a as as when it something new comes out, everyone's gravitating towards that. I really want to see the dust settle. I want to hold my position, wait for the ball to come to me and take my shot whenever the time is right.

Anu Adegbola (25:57.827)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (26:04.8)
Okay. I feel like that could be a great analogy, but I also feel that do you f d do you ever fear that you might then become a bit too late in terms of testing things and you know, 'cause y it it always feels like yeah. Sorry, yeah, go ahead. What what do you think about that? Like how about do you ever fear being too late in terms of like, yeah, testing something that's come out?

Chris Kostecki (26:18.471)
I mean.

Chris Kostecki (26:28.097)
Not really. I mean, I did jump into Chat GPT beta earlier this year and you know, went into Reddit a little while ago and now going into it more heavily this year and stuff like that. So I'm not afraid of something new if it's proven out. And I do need you do need to test sometimes, but you don't want to put your whole budgets there. You you do want to make sure what you are testing, you can lose if it doesn't work out or you know, or give it a goal that's maybe more upper funnel and you know, so the a so it doesn't have to work as hard as some of your more mature channels.

Anu Adegbola (26:45.046)
No.

Anu Adegbola (26:53.335)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (26:57.675)
You know, so that's a lot of times where I might dip my toe just to see what the response is, see how it's performing. But a lot of times I'm not pitching my agency as we are going to be the first everywhere and get your brand to the first latest advertising technology that gets developed. You know, because a lot of times too, I mean, YouTube is exciting. I still like that because it reaches all segments at all times. And so, you know, that's something where I would rather put my dollars as opposed to, you know, the latest video sharing network that comes out.

Anu Adegbola (26:57.74)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (27:13.057)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (27:20.236)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (27:26.818)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (27:27.637)
You know, so I think I I'm not positioning myself as I'm gonna be bleeding edge, we're a bleeding edge agency. It's quite the opposite of we're gonna be tried and true, we're not gonna spend dollars until we know they're gonna work for you. You know, that type of thing.

Anu Adegbola (27:36.322)
Mm-hmm.

Anu Adegbola (27:41.078)
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So it's not necessarily just don't do anything. It's like test it with a small amount of budget, but like don't go full hog until you know if it's proven that it's a good channel for you. Yeah, that that makes perfect sense. That makes perfect sense. And now taking the spotlight to our like a lovely big company, a monopolistic monopolistic companies of Google and Meta and

Those guys, you know, and we've been really all these updates that they've come out with, have there have there been instances that you've gone they didn't do that right. They didn't they didn't release that properly or or they didn't maybe communicate with advertisers properly? What have been your big issues with terms of how you feel Google and Meta are approaching all these releases of updates?

Chris Kostecki (28:24.897)
Well, I think there are different ways that they can release the updates in a way that is more upfront with their communication. The same way we were talking about earlier is just communicate what's happening, why it's happening and how it serves the advertisers' interest, not their not the network's interest. You know. I think you know, I the August seventeenth update is something that has been rattling around for a little bit now, a few weeks. And and I think that was really a missed opportunity for for Google to kind of

Anu Adegbola (28:32.907)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (28:52.172)
Okay.

Chris Kostecki (28:53.483)
Talk about a situation they were trying to correct. You know, I think, you know, I have never been a big fan of rate bidding because demand is so v volatile. And so I never wanted to and I know that the rate bidding as it was designed before was lack of a better word, lazy, where if it found more efficient demand, it would take that and it wouldn't necessarily wouldn't work as hard as you wanted to actually go find new business. Like if I'm putting on something on Target CPA or Target ROAS.

Anu Adegbola (28:56.394)
Right.

Anu Adegbola (29:03.99)
Mm.

Anu Adegbola (29:11.338)
Okay.

Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (29:19.18)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (29:22.525)
I wanted to go find efficient new business and not just go hit all my brand traffic and get me all these efficient activities happening. So I think the ch the change that happened was to make the target, the rate bidding more accurate and to be more specific. And I think that that was exciting for me now. I've heard all the backlash, I've read everything and stuff, and I know it does change and it does seem kind of like a money grab. I think they've done much more overt money grabs.

Anu Adegbola (29:29.838)
Mm.

Anu Adegbola (29:36.771)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (29:42.86)
Hmm, okay. Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (29:52.49)
you know, including Nair Exact and all that stuff, you know, all the bidding or the matching. Like I said, targeting and messaging I think are are paramount in terms of being in the advertisers' control. So when exact match is no longer exact match or, you know, messaging starts to change and get truncated or they automatically create videos for P Max if you don't have a video. You know, that's th those are things that, you know, I have problems with because I don't want to put my dollars behind video I'm not creating or

Anu Adegbola (29:55.68)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (30:04.472)
Hundred percent.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (30:21.459)
Mm. Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (30:21.953)
it not serving my goals. But neither here nor there. I think the the August seventeenth was something that is gonna in the long run be beneficial, especially as we're trying to set rate advertising that is more accurate to the demand that's out there as opposed to just trying to take advantage of what it what what w what Google can get.

Anu Adegbola (30:33.134)
Nice.

Anu Adegbola (30:36.942)
Mm.

Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (30:46.51)
Absolutely. Okay, wow. Okay. So they could have just commun communicated that better. It's you actually feel that that is not a bad update. They've made mo worse ones, like the whole targeting, you know, stuff, things that have affected targeting. But this is actually something that will work well for your clients in the long run.

Chris Kostecki (30:48.855)
So I let

Chris Kostecki (30:57.847)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Kostecki (31:04.223)
Well, yeah, and I think the problem was that they were pushing target CPA so much in the past. You know, it was always like that's the and so people that's where everybody went to. They start to see the efficiencies that came from it. And and I just always had a problem with the the demand fluctuations. And, you know, most clients I have have a seasonality, have some type of cycles to their business. And so I don't I wanna make sure my target CPA is meeting the demand that's out there, even as that demand might be

Anu Adegbola (31:08.492)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (31:12.982)
Mm.

Anu Adegbola (31:19.672)
Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (31:33.131)
waning or waxing, you know, throughout the cycle.

Anu Adegbola (31:34.518)
Yeah. Absolutely. Interesting. and so yeah, you mentioned that, you know, yeah, there were several there've been several things that they've deprecated that they've not, you know, allow us to do properly. If there was one thing that you could get them to bring back. One thing I I Okay.

Chris Kostecki (31:49.998)
I mean long tail keywords, long tail keywords, you know, is I'm going old school. I I've been doing this a long time, but I miss long tail keywords. the low search volume on a keyword, I don't believe it most of the time. And so I think that, you know, that there should be different thresholds for for search demand that's out there. And the accuracy of the targeting is more important than creating artificial auctions to around demand levels.

Anu Adegbola (31:57.546)
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Mm.

Anu Adegbola (32:10.595)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (32:17.516)
Yeah. That's interesting because that's I I wouldn't have expected that that would be the the one that you'd ask them because I feel like you can still bid like a long tail key with that. Actually we'll even I'd I'd even assume that especially with the push of AI and how like AI is involved in terms of you know, creating like sh showing the ads and and and matching the the query to the term, you might want to include some long tail.

keywords. Is it just not good to actually be bidding on them because of the conversion thresholds that you need?

Chris Kostecki (32:50.967)
Well i well the the you're creating long tail broad match terms. So what you're doing with the AI Macs is they're taking a long tail term that you can match any word and switch it, remove and stuff. I was more long tail exact, long tail phrase phrase. When you want to include specific conditions, I always used a sneaker, you know, where you want a sneaker of a certain color, style and size, and Google only lets you pick two or pick one.

Anu Adegbola (33:01.975)
Yeah, yeah.

Anu Adegbola (33:06.647)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (33:13.975)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (33:16.745)
you know, to to advertise off of. And and you know, you have to then compete with everybody else with the same color shoe across all sizes or the same size shoe across all colors. And so I think, you know, it it's being able to have those more specific searches that can allow you to reach, you know, the demand that you wanted to reach and more efficiently, it allows you to scale and grow because you're building more businesses off of it. It's just bringing that business in more efficiently.

Anu Adegbola (33:24.674)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (33:31.181)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (33:35.66)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (33:43.722)
Absolutely. No, that absolutely makes sense. I don't want to move to actually talking about like, you know, you've given us so many lovely insights, you know, from your story about the mistakes you've made, mistakes our advertising making, you know, mistakes at Google and and our the big companies are making. Why is it important for us to feel? I mean, I have my own personal reasons that I believe as to why it's important for us to talk about mistakes. But like you were so willing, you know, so so delighted to join on this call, which you know.

Chris Kostecki (34:08.493)
Mm. Yes.

Anu Adegbola (34:11.65)
At the beginning of me when I was that was rerouting what the podcast was gonna be about, I was like, I'm gonna talk about mistakes, but will anyone come on? Cause who likes talking about mistakes? Why is it important that we talk about mistakes?

Chris Kostecki (34:17.365)
Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (34:22.999)
I think the most important reason why we that it is that we talk about mistakes is because they happen. And they're part of life, they're part of the job, they're part of the career. So again, that is a whole accountability theme. We don't want to forget about We don't want to sweep under the rugs. We want to kind of bring them forward so we don't make again and we become better marketers as a result of it. So hopefully some of the mistakes I've made, you know, some of the lessons I've learned help somebody else not to repeat them in the future.

Anu Adegbola (34:28.12)
Sure. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (34:40.44)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (34:47.638)
Yeah. Yeah. Another also key aspect that I think is sometimes important I feel is important and I hope these level of these are the levels of our listeners, listening are like managers who have teams and managers who are trying to kind of give guide guide their team to be not scared about mistakes happening.

You know, and because I feel like I've had the experience where managers are like, no, we don't make mistakes here. You know, you have to get it right or not at all. And it can bring a bit of fear for your job. And and so right now I'd love you to talk to like managers. What's what do they need to do more of to encourage their their team to so that they're not afraid that a mistake will lead to being fired? And how to balance it so that they're not literally alike, we they don't care to make mistakes. Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (35:32.769)
Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (35:37.004)
Well, some mistakes are firable, you know, you gotta say you know, I mean th the you gotta lay it out there. If you make some mistakes, it's a job. You might lose it. You know, the job has a responsibility. But for the most part, I see mistakes are the responsibility of the manager, the wins are the responsibility of the team. And so the manager really should take responsibility of those mistakes for their team. you know, a and I think that because there's something breaking down in the process.

Anu Adegbola (35:39.702)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anu Adegbola (35:53.528)
Sure.

Anu Adegbola (36:03.254)
Mm.

Chris Kostecki (36:03.337)
I think, you know, whether people are being overworked, they have too many accounts, they can't get take the time, maybe there's a lack of communication between teams, as was the case with my example, and you know, and so that the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing, at least to the degree it was doing it. And so I think that, you know, those are all things that have fallen management. Those are those are process issues. And so I think a lot of times the mistakes are the result of process issues or at least process gaps that need to be addressed.

Anu Adegbola (36:11.608)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (36:17.187)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (36:24.494)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (36:30.06)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (36:33.145)
And and then the wins are the result of hard work and people working together and coming together. So I think, you know, give the wins to the team, take the mistakes as the management. Unless, again, someone puts an extra zero and ignores it or something, or someone ignores a process, then then it's harder to work with that person. But you know, if someone is doing everything right, they're they're a and mistake just happened because of other circumstances, process communication or something, then that really falls on management.

Anu Adegbola (36:49.26)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (36:59.614)
Hmm. Yeah, absolutely. I also remember like, you know, when working agencies where people being, you know, and c feeling encumbered level of like, this process is so so toxic and so long. Why do I need to do these processes? And actually it can be very important. Very important. And you know, yeah, it really helps. Yeah. It really saves you from in within the mistakes.

Chris Kostecki (37:18.615)
CYA. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (37:24.504)
Chris, this has been such a fantastic conversation. You've given us so many insights. I, you know, we've we've we've touched on so many different topics that you know that I I don't necessarily get to with, you know, previous guests and you've just given us so many great great insights to, you know, to chew on for on all those different aspects. So really grateful that you're also willing to share a mistake. I'm not sure how many more guests. I it's always like a like a like a you know, like I hope, I hope someone else, like maybe this is the last episode because I don't know who else is gonna come.

So thank you for helping me keeping on this fantastic like conversations about mistakes going. Really appreciate that. Before we go, and another just one fun kind of PPC but not PPC at all question and I asking everybody, if your PPC career were a movie, what would the title be?

Chris Kostecki (38:12.427)
Yeah, that's a great question. I that's that's that's I think I would have to fall on a movie I watch every year. It's a little bit cheesy, but you know, it i reflecting on it, I think it it does hold up. It it's a wonderful life. You know. The classic, you know, where where there's all the conflict of trying to do more or be something else, and then at a certain point you realize you've created a pretty strong career on its own.

Anu Adegbola (38:28.777)
Yay!

Anu Adegbola (38:34.883)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (38:40.557)
Yeah.

Chris Kostecki (38:41.101)
you know, something we didn't really get to talk about, but you know, I work a mile from where I live. I have created a life that is really about raising my family as opposed to chasing my career, which was not always the case in the past. And so, you know, when I look back on my career, I'm really valuing the things that are important to me and putting those on the front burner. And that that's really might have been at the expense of some other things, but you know, when all is said and done, I can't ask for anything better.

Anu Adegbola (38:43.81)
Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (38:48.204)
Lates.

Yes, yes, yes.

Anu Adegbola (39:00.344)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (39:09.162)
Amazing. No, I love that. I feel that there's a few people in my head right now that I'm thinking I need to send this episode to. Like I need to be like, guys, even if you listen, even if it's just the last five minutes of this episode, please listen to it. Cause we can do we can get into this whole like comparing ourselves. We need to work so hard. We need to do so much. And then sometimes it's just stepping back and actually for me, I call it just count the blessings, count be stop and actually look back at how much you've achieved.

Chris Kostecki (39:20.813)
Mm-hmm.

Anu Adegbola (39:36.778)
On this journey of like trying to be like, I need to do more. I'm not doing enough. I'm not doing this. This was like, guys, stop. Look back how much you've done. It's amazing. so yeah, it's a wonderful life. I need to, I feel like I need to rewatch that one. That's pro that'll be a yeah, we go, here we go. In a few months, it'll be perfect time for that. I'll see, I'll see what streaming channel is is is playing that one to catch that one. Chris, thank you so much for joining this conversation. I know you're on LinkedIn, I know you're on.

Chris Kostecki (39:49.911)
Holidays are right around the corner.

Anu Adegbola (40:03.832)
P P C chat, Slack as well, any other the platforms that people can find you on or are those two main ones.

Chris Kostecki (40:11.111)
those are the major ones. Those are the major ones. you know, I also have my will my website, diligent dmc dot com. Anybody can reach out to me through there if they have any questions, you know, and and I do provide consulting in the industry as well as working with clients. So yeah, always happy to have a conversation.

Anu Adegbola (40:27.554)
Fantastic, fantastic. It's been a great conversation that I've really enjoyed. So yeah, and and you guys, yeah, please get get in touch with Chris. He'll be a great one to to have a chat with, you know, what's going on in our industry. but yeah, on that note, thank you so much, Chris. And actually no, before I go, another question that I do like to also leave on. I d P P C Live is about events. Do you do you do events where might people see you in person? you know next

Chris Kostecki (40:31.159)
Same.

Chris Kostecki (40:53.011)
I do I I don't have anything tasked I don't have anything on the on on the horizon yet for any events to go to. I've been building my agency. So again, didn't have a chance to get into it. I made the swap last year from sole proprietor to an S Corp and kind of building an agency. So I've just got new space and new employees, new staffing. So that's my focus now. and then we'll hit the circuit and start selling diligent.

Anu Adegbola (40:59.265)
Okay.

Anu Adegbola (41:12.344)
Sure.

Sure. Okay. All right. Well hopefully next year we'll do events will still be going on. So when you're ready to to hit the road with us, we'll be happy to to see you in person, which will be great, I'm sure. Awesome. Awesome. Thanks, Chris.

Chris Kostecki (41:29.997)
Looking forward to

Take care.