How to Keep Your Google Ads Performing Through Summer

Summer ad slump? Here’s how to thrive while everyone else panics. 

In this episode of Google Ads Unleashed, host Jeremy breaks down why Google Ads performance often dips in summer and what to actually do about it—no panic tweaks, no desperate measures. 

Learn how to audit your account, refresh your assets, optimise your feed, and set the stage for a powerful Q4. Packed with actionable advice for Ecom and lead gen brands, this is your survival guide for summer slowdowns.

Get your free 30 minute strategy session with Jeremy here: https://www.younganddigital.marketing/

Scale your store with 1:1 coaching: https://www.younganddigital.marketing/1-2-1-coaching

Transcript

Hello and welcome back to Google Ads unleashed. Guys. Hope everyone is doing fabulously this Monday and is not falling apart in this weather, because it is absolutely roasting. Not so much in the UK, but is warmer than usual. Europe is absolutely succumbing to a huge heat wave. I'm sure it's very similar in parts of the United States. Maybe it's not so much on the other side of the world, but it definitely is here, and usually that means one thing in E commerce, it is dead, but not just an E commerce. Obviously, it's the same in lead gen, right? A lot of people who have lead gen accounts will generate their leads, usually Monday to Friday. I'm saying as a general rule of thumb, for a simple reason, because that's when people are working at their desk. That is when they need B to B services. That's when they Google, and that is when they leave an inquiry with you and what, guess what? In summer, a lot of people are off, simple as that, a lot of people are not in the office. People are deferring decisions to corners and maybe q4 or q3 end of q3 etc, etc. It is just not so much going on. And on, and it's completely normal. It's the same every year, right? So for most sort of shops that we do sort of look after, there's, of course, a lull in summer because demand just goes down. People are on holiday. People use their disposable income to do other stuff. People are more outside in the real life, not on the internet and they're not being marketed to as a result, all channels simply just don't work as well. That's just the reality of the situation. So which is why I wanted to record this episode, because it is, of course, still crucial that you do something about it. Okay? So the first thing that I see a lot of brands doing wrong is they're trying to fight it. They're trying to fight it with any desperate measure in order to make or overcome summer. And the truth is, if you're struggling outside of summer, and then it's going really worse in summer, you got a fundamental problem, right? And I know this is maybe an uncomfortable truth to hear, but that is just the matter of the fact, like you have to just lean in and let it happen if there's less search volume. Well, so be it. That's just the time then to focus on other tasks and to take a run up in order to really attack in the other parts of the year. So my suggestion is lean in, right? So establish what is going on. You can even go in Keyword Planner for your top let's say five search terms which you would normally sort of rank for, and just see what's going on. What is going on in that time period? Are people actually searching us? And if that is normal, well, relax, you know, it's you're not doing anything wrong. Because what I see a lot of people is they flap in that time, right? They start flapping, they start panicking. They change 1,000,001 things that I've actually worked before, instead of just realizing there's less demand and being chill about it. The only thing I would say in that time that you can do is maybe try and plan a sale, try and squeeze out the absolute last thing out of the last at the moment, and just run a Summer Sale, right? Or have a look. If it's your brand's birthday, is it your dog's birthday? I don't give a fuck, quite frankly, right? Any kind of excuse to run a sale and just get the demand going a little bit. So that's what I would do. Just lean in and in that time, just accept that it's going to be a little quieter as a result. It means pulling the budgets back. It means potentially, if you have to pop up and ROAs targets slight bit. I'm not a big fan of changing ROAs targets, but too often, or at all, or CPA targets, but it is maybe just the time to turn back the dial a little bit and just go into survival mode and just focus on profit a little bit. And it's also then the time where you can actually start focusing on just doing the hygiene work in your ad accounts, okay, and in your business. So what does that mean? So first of all, I would recommend, in these sort of times when there's less going on, to just cut the fat right, go into your Google Ads account and see what is going on, and focus on the basics. Look at your conversion tracking. Is everything absolutely fine going on there, right? Have a look if there's no duplicate track in that, there's no repeat rate going on. Have a look that you're tracking. The Right Stuff, maybe this is the time to finally focus on fancy tracking solution that you know, test something like profit metrics. Or maybe it's the time to, if you have a certain unique challenge right to start building something where you can sort of bridge some form of attribution gap, just audit your tracking first second, refresh your Customer Match lists, hygiene, work again, go into your audiences. See is everything working? Have I actually defined all audiences as what they are like? You know, all purchases properly, all churners. Are there any audiences I can add, right? Just have a look at your data and see what you can do. Next thing, look into your feed. Look if your feed is alright, or product titles good. Can I work on the feed? You know? Can I take some time and just do that? Dive into your Merchant Center. See if there's any improvements that you can make on there. Next, open up your Merchant Center. Is there something I haven't checked in a long time? You know our settings correct is, do you have a returns policy? Maybe I can work on my shop quality, right? Shop quality is a big part of actually having a profitable Google Ads account, because it's been taken into consideration for your shopping listings, if you have that, okay. Next thing you can do is dive into your assets. Maybe they need a refresh, right? Maybe there's some which, over time, simply haven't really worked that well. I would dive into my assets. I would have a look. Is there anything that I can do in order to, you know, refresh, maybe a little bit of copy, a little bit of creative, that sort of stuff. It's just a good time to really do all of this sort of hygiene work. Maybe you can also look at other things, such as, you know, locations, time of day, because oftentimes what happens is that when things are going well, we like to overlook those which are still adding wasted ad spend to your account. But when times are tough, all those sort of things matter, and if you just get one little percent out of every sort of area. In the end, you've improved your efficiency by 10% you can go through your search term reports, your placement reports, your search partner reports, etc, etc. You can work on your quality scores. You can clean up potential or build better, you know, ad groups for your for your for your keywords, and just write better ads, etc, etc. So I would just focus on really cutting the fat and using that time for hygiene. The next thing that I would do, which is the big lever, is ask myself, in those periods, what else can I do to either prevent this in future, or what else can I do in order to generate a bigger sort of constant buzz for my brand, so that we are just, you know, not only, better than not One horse during those sort of times of famine. And what else can I do in order to just, you know, have a bit of a broader setup for next time, and those are my absolute,
how should I say my favorite parts, right? So what you could do is, for instance, look at your inventory, right? This is a good time to sort of have a look at your entire inventory. If you use something like profit metrics for a good while, you can dive into your unprofitable products category and think, what the fuck am I gonna do with all of that? Is this really in the shop making money? Or are these all products I can get rid of and can just find new products. You can do keyword research, find new products that people might want to have for for for the next half year, and just restock on other stuff, and just sell off your unprofitable products and just swap out your existing inventory. Again, this is part of hygiene, but this is a big lever in your business, right? If you have quarter of your stock is just lying around or has been advertised unprofitably, get the fuck rid of it. Get rid of it. It's pointless having it, right? So just, just get rid of it, and you you'll be saving yourself a lot of costs in storage, and fulfillment, logistics, etc, and you will, of course, become a lot more profitable overall, also if you do your keyword research on your product research, not only look what people will buy further down the year, but potentially have a look what people might want next year. Little example. One of our coaching clients sells candles. It's dead, right? Now, no one buys candles. Why would they? It's summer, right? You don't really need candles in summer. However, what they have now already prepped for next year is that they're going to buy candles, or make candles, rather, which get rid of flies, because that's been looked for, right? People want to have sort of lemon candles to repel mosquitoes. But also they want candles for, for instance, christenens and stuff like that. Yeah. So they're going to put that into their portfolio, ready for next year to go for search demand, which appears over summer, which is not as strong before and, for instance, wedding candles as well. So they're going to put that into their portfolio, and that really helps them prepare for the next year. You can also use this time for internationalization, right? Use this time to create your second store in French, for instance, in German, whatever, whichever country you want to target and invest in your logistics. It doesn't have to be necessarily a lot of money, but at least into setting all of the sort of foundations in order to just have a big of a bit of a broader setup. Because okay, if you only advertise in the UK, and it's not really going so great because it's summer and demand is down, well, you won't feel the sting as much if you have another country, in another country, in another country, because overall, the revenue is still going to be coming in. This is also the time where you can really sort of think about fundamentally, how to position your products better. Okay, so what do I mean by that? This is a time where, if you feel in the sting right now, so you can really assess your site. What is going on? What my competitors doing? What am I doing to really speak to my to my audience? Am I, you know, using, am I actually having a good offer on my products, right? Am I having a good new customer offer that people want to take, despite a downswing in demand? Really ask yourself that, because arguably, this is potentially one of the most important parts of of the business and off the funnel. You can also use this time to focus on your product pages right. Take your top 10 products, look what can be improved on all of those and focus on brushing them up. Right. Are there any sort of things on the product page which are obviously missing, which are not speaking to, let's say any sort of hesitation someone could have. Who is buying it? What are your competitors doing better than you on their product pages, which you are not doing and which you should be offering, etc, etc. So I reckon the this, this is the time to focus on the big levers. I also would recommend that this is a time you use then to look ahead. So although a lot of people are trying to fire fight and are panicking, my recommendation would be to look ahead. Start preparing for q4 and what you want to be doing there in order to ramp up for them. Okay, lots of people are leaving this much too late until August, September, October, and arguably, it's already much too late then, okay, they're not thinking about what the offer is going to be. They don't know what their strategy is going to be. Now is the time to do all of that and prep ahead. I think that's pretty much it to be honest. This is what I would do in summer. This is what we are doing in summer. We lean into it. Just accept that it's a lower time. Maybe organize a couple of sales in order to counteract the situation and do a bit of more retention marketing. We use this time for hygiene. We audit our accounts. We optimize everything there is to optimize, from all sorts of placements, from campaign settings, we cut the budgets. We optimize all assets and make them new. We refresh our customer, our first party data, we make sure our feeds are banging. We make sure our conversion tracking is great, and we are setting now the foundations to focus on the large levers, which will not only help us in the good times, but also set us up for the next year. And that is more products that are being bought around this time of year. Do research in order to buy in that kind of stock. Work on our offer. Our new customer offer needs to be 100% Good, otherwise you wouldn't be in a situation where summer is a more difficult time and we are cutting the fat. Also within the shop, we're getting rid of products that are not working. We're getting rid of every like even campaigns, potentially, and stuff that is not working. In and we are working on internationalization and product page optimization in order to come back stronger than ever. Yeah, and if you're feeling the sting right now as well, I would absolutely love to chat to you and see if we can turn it around for you. You just have to message me at Jeremy, at younger digital dot marketing. You can also reach me on LinkedIn, Jeremy and Google ads. You'll find me there, or you can hop on the website and book a 30 minute consultation with me. If you are a media buyer. And listening to this, I want you to basically listen up right now, because I've got some big news. We have a new position at the agency. We're looking for a senior media buyer who knows Google ads in and out. And I would love to chat to you. If this is you send your CV to to me at the addresses I just mentioned. I'd love to have a chat with you a couple of requirements. You have to be based in the UK, please, right? No one from abroad, please, because it's going to be wasting everyone's time, and you have to have at least three years of experience, if that is you chat to me, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you. This has been Jeremy Young, your personal Google Ads expert, and I wish you a happy and productive week ahead. You.