Are you being pestered by "Google Accounts Strategists"

I get calls by Google daily, and I bet you’ve had a call or two from them too. Lots of times if you don’t answer, they will continuously call over and over till you do answer. Yet, we have become suspicious about the quality of the advice given by our Google Strategists recently. I wanted to make you aware of what is going on in the market. 

Google's revenues are declining and they have outsourced customer support to an Indian sales company that is hired to improve Google’s revenue, not your results.

RJS Media Consulting is a Google Partner, so we get the high-end support level, yet recently the Google reps don’t seem to know the basics of Google Ads. They appear more concerned with our clients switching to smart campaigns and automated bidding, which can cause real problems on limousine accounts. As I’m sure you are aware, the limo market demand can shift dramatically based on the season, week or the event going on. What works today may not work during a big event such as Super Bowl, Coachella, Memphis in May, Emmy’s, Grammy’s etc as the competition doubles or triples for a short period and then go away. The automated bidding they suggest cannot accommodate for big market shifts. Which means the newcomers/out of town limo companies that come into the market for these events will be doing the work. 

I began to ask the reps questions and then asked: “Do you actually work at Google?” The answer was no! Though lately they are saying they are google employees.

So what is going on?

Google is under huge financial pressure to deliver results for shareholders. With increasing volumes of advertisers recognizing the potential of Google Ads, the platform’s customer base continues to grow. Customer support, therefore, has become increasingly expensive. In a cost-cutting measure, Google has outsourced part of its customer support to a third party. Yes, they outsourced their Google reps.

Who is Google’s Third Party?

Regalix, a global telesales company, working on behalf of Google, describes itself as a “Customer Acquisition and Customer Success” company.

Often ‘Google’s’ customer support comes not from Google, but from this third party. When asked on a recent phone call, one of the ‘Google reps’ explained to us that they had been selling loan services only a short time ago. Think about it, can you feel confident that the individuals giving advice are entirely conversant in every intricacy of Google’s advertising platform? Are they experienced enough to offer advice and is this advice definitely to your benefit, not Google’s?

Regalix count a number of tech giants among their customers. In their discussion of their partnership with Google, they claim to have “[increased] ad revenue for Google” and state a significant 50% reduction in support costs. It appears that Regalix has benefited Google, but has this cost-cutting been detrimental to customers?

To increase efficiency, Regalix predicted when customers were likely to need to reduce spend or stop advertising, and contacted them at the relevant time. To make their predictions, the third party agency undertook a “thorough investigation”, accessing information including but not limited to “login history, spend trend and conversions”.

You used to be able to look at Regalix’s case study for the work they are undertaking, but they’ve taken it down. Notice the title – ‘Account management at global scale increases ad revenue for Google’

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If you’re skeptical about this, take a look at Regalix’s Trust Pilot reviews, as well as their Better business bureau reviews 

Google Ads forums have been alight with this news. Recently, Regalix has been emailing advertisers about a “missing update”. This includes advertisers who have chosen to entrust an agency with their online advertising. When the advertiser’s agencies, acting in their client’s best interests, have declined Regalix’s suggestions, they have contacted the client directly. The update in question is actually an entirely optional update that switches accounts to automated bidding. The decision not to use automated bidding may well have been taken strategically, because the agency believed it could be damaging to the client’s results. The email, however, fails to mention this.