Episode #119 – PPC Professional Rob Andolina on Google’s Latest Business Growth Tool… Click To Call Advertising

John McIntyre: It’s John McIntyre here, the auto responder guy. I’m here with Robandlena. Now, Rob is a pay-per-click expert specifically with Adwords and he came to me through a good friend of the other mutual friend Ed Stapleton. Ed was actually, I am going to credit Ed with one of the guys who really got me into marketing consulting and doing bigger deals and this was two years ago back when I was adjustment to time when he’s came, so normally just getting start up just sort of just learning the ropes, so having fun, making money, but you know Ed was there and you know we get on the phone, we chatting tips. Ed mostly have the …  he started his new pay-per-click agency and doing really well and Rob his business partner I think coming to the exact or having angle was anyways something … podcast, so I was like, I want let’s have a chat. So, here he is. I don’t know too much about him yet, so I’ll ask him in a minute to tell a story. Hey Rob! How are you doing man?

Rob: Good man! How are you doing?

John McIntyre: Good man! Good to have you on the show.

Rob: Yeah! Thanks man, thanks for having me and yeah it … he is unbelievable man, because the sale stuff like I’m sure you’ve got some gold luggage from.

John McIntyre: He’s … man. He is full.

Rob: He’s a wild man with sales, it’s crazy.

John McIntyre: I just realized, I don’t even know what … in a podcast. I don’t know if might have been like a wild … may be used him before I had the podcast we were actually chatting, I think it was crazy man he had time for us.

Rob: Yeah it does.

John McIntyre: He has never been on the podcast; yeah he needs to get on that. So, before you into the concept talk about in a minute which is this click to call ads that people are doing? A call only campaign in Adwords which sounds pretty interesting. Let’s give the listeners a bit of a background you know who are you and what do you do?

Rob: Absolutely so as you introduced me former name Robin the … doing pay-per-click for Google bank, Facebook, everything under the … they are part of seven years full time for a long time for five years, eight hours a day all day, so this is all I do and kind of met up with our mutual friend Ed. Ed real nasty with sales, nasty with pay per click and we just teamed up and started our agency and then rock and roll in every sense.

John McIntyre: Nice man, nice, nice, nice, okay there is a quick interest or sometimes I ask people that we go for the first 10 minutes in a good … sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s been like time in a … quick, quick. Anyway good job, so tell me about this thing like pay-per-click I mean lot of people know about what pay-per-click is. We get Adwords, we get Bing, and we get face book, whole bunch of different stuff and it’s all good but so you specifically specialize in Adwords and bing and wow that’s pretty straightforward the actual logistics practicalities you know log in setup that.  You mentioned was this colony campaign which is where someone can search and make a phone call. So, tell me about that.

Rob: Yeah, absolutely, so basically colony is something Google they use to dabble on it like 4-5 years ago … stop completely and turned it off and they just brought it back this February. So, essentially you can now run ads to only people who search on cell phones and the ads have a little apartments says cause. You are essentially just … ads and then people can click and call you rate out the ad, which is cool because on search I mean you have to go to a landing page and you have to converse into a lead. With this, I mean you just hit call on the collier right from the search engine. I mean if you’re any kind of tradesmen, like Plumbers Dennis you know electricians whatever it doesn’t matter contractors, I mean this is really great man and you can join the ton of phone calls.

John McIntyre: Right okay, so I mean suppose this is all about the search, but you know let’s say I am a plumber in Sydney and I get some phone calls, so what should I really expect like to pay, what should going to cost me and how many calls?

Rob: Here’s the thing about the pay per call to which they Goggle or you know they look to hype themselves up a lot. I think a lot of people got a little confused with it when it first came out because they thought it is just the same as search and it’s something that it is but huge difference is that like say you are a plumber in Sydney will search term like you know plumbing contractors Sydney. My cost is 412 a click in regular search but if you during that call only it’s going to cost you 8 bucks.

John McIntyre: Eight bucks!

Rob: Yeah, so now they really jack the prices on the calls because I mean obviously calls are worth a lot more than just somebody visiting your website.

John McIntyre: Call mostly worth I mean like repeat your clicks to assign, trying get a phone call, getting a call like conversion rate from my visitor to call like 20 percent if it was high so double of price that’s pretty good.

Rob: Yeah, and specially like a lot of guys and some of the SEO and pay-per-click group,  they do a lot of PPL deals which are pay per lead, so got something like a homer in the like hey! listen XYZ plumbing, I’ll send you phone calls of people who want to talk to you then will … your service and they’re in your location and I’m going to charge you $100 per phone call or sound like that. I mean some of these guys you wouldn’t believe that they get like several hundred dollars for phone calls. It’s ridiculous but on a lower end like hardbacks you know 60 bucks whatever I mean you can drive a call for 20 bucks, 15 bucks where ever it is. I mean you have a nice profit and the call just keeps coming too. The convert are higher.

John McIntyre: Okay so this brings another question. Are you making to sound really easy? So, if I am a plumber in Sydney and you know I have been this in the first 5 minutes is am I going to screwed, I can give you this myself. Obviously, it’s not as simple as that, so why would you hire an expert for this?

Rob: I think this is what happened at the gate. These people find ok we’ll sustain research, so I’m just going to do this myself. I don’t need a professional; I don’t need an expert in anything and then they got killed because most people don’t understand like this is a lot like search query and the fact you have to have a negative keywords on point and I mean that in the aspect of like ABCD negative keywords.

John McIntyre: What sort of keywords?

Rob: Okay, so negative keywords are let’s say the keywords were going after plumber in Sydney Australia whatever. A negative keyword would be something like plumbing career training, so that’s a keyword that has nothing to do with generally lift your businesses just to somebody, but Google will show your ad to who searches that. So, that’s what we do is we grab that keyword and we negative it. So, we’re saying Google we’re going to negative this keyword so you know everyone show for this keyword, essentially when negative keyword is and a lot of people overlook this and get killed of clicks for relevant terms and stuff like that. Now, the differences between regular search and the colony is that the call only is way worse and what I mean by that is they will throw everything at you to try and get you the spend net  $8 a click or $10 a click or whatever it is.

John McIntyre: But if you I mean if you are going on, if you are advertising like I am a plumber and then someone search for plumbing training services, they wouldn’t call me with that.

Rob: Oh! He will be surprised. They will call you and then no one ask you if you are a school or if you this or that people is, even if no matter what you say in the ad, doesn’t matter. They will still call you.

John McIntyre: Interesting, okay, okay and then some … try and throws many of those ads at me, for me because I want to make much money as possible.

Rob: tries to traffic that they don’t know we response to buy.

John McIntyre: So, the big risk is if you do this wrong you are going to lose lot of money.

Rob: Oh! Yeah! Big time, I mean I’ve seen I had clients who used to manage themselves and literally would spend thousands of dollars and have zero leads, nothing and will come in there in six days cleaning up and they are getting steady leads. I mean it’s all about negative keywords, your call to actions in your ads, I mean join your marketing guy … call to actions, but don’t even do that, it’s crazy.

John McIntyre: Interesting, interesting, okay. So, tell me some stories? Tell me about like what’s good stories, so like what have you seen like you mentioned some guys when you coming in they are not making any money at all and then changes, so talk to me about that.

Rob: Yeah, I am start to thinking where I can start, here are so many. Most of the clients we pick up they are actually come from market name any name is but like the four biggest pay-per-click agencies. I mean do a Google search and see those people and the problem is that those guys that the bigger agencies like that that have like 500- 700 thousand clients on Ad words … pretty much. So, they’re going to pick up like Joe XYZ landscaping and they’re not going to care. They’re going to throw you in the scheduler and they are going to have somebody looking your account, maybe once a week if you’re lucky and nothing ever gets done and they don’t optimize anything, they don’t look at your actual search query keywords, they don’t optimize your ad text, they don’t ad negative keywords. I mean they do, but not as often as small fish like we do in our campaigns all day, every day for every client. Every client being looked at every day and the biggest thing we learn into a lot is that people who do it themselves, I would say and they just still have one ad group with 150 keywords in it. There’s no match type for anything. Do you know what match types are?

John McIntyre: No!

Rob: It’s like exact match, phrase match, broad match. So, exact matches are like plumber, find a plumber in Sydney Australia. Only when someone searches that exact match, exact keywords and your ads going to be show. When you phrase match it can show for that keyword plus additional words after that and broad matches are like the … search for everything related to plumbing.

John McIntyre: Okay, so what should we use in?

Rob: A mix of all actually and there’s a technique to it but from the main part for people who are going to try it themselves I would stick with exacting phrase when you’re starting and just have your negative keywords really good.

John McIntyre: Okay, okay interesting.

Rob: Yeah, but a lot of people we deal with, they come from doing themselves and it’s just a mess and there’s one ad group of million keywords and nothing is optimized.

John McIntyre: So, give me an example of what was the recent client’s that you worked with and more was this … there it can’t when you first you know to give the name of the client, what was their account … when you first met them?

Rob: There was one guy who’s doing hard on now is killed man. We had a limo client based out in Colorado and he had some guy who was like a member of a church or something managing his campaign for him and in exchange he can take free limo rides with his friends. So, you can imagine how that went. I don’t know. It really is many and the guys are really nice guy and solid businessman and he does really need some help and he actually came through us and we clean them up and going into the account was just a mess.

John McIntyre: When you logged in what was wrong with that?

Rob: There was one Ad, there was one AD group. There was about 15 keywords and they all were like irrelevant broad match keywords, so the guy and there was no location settings setup. I mean the guys in Colorado the limo company is getting calls in California. California and New York, Austin Texas, I mean all over the place and he had two qualifying leads that were about it. The whole time he runs the campaign. Now, the guys getting I think like twenty seven days a week plus.

John McIntyre: Nice!

Rob: Oh! Yes, he is killing man. He’s doing so well.

John McIntyre: Say all may … in a if you do the previous guy, he just lost his Limo rides. How do you feel about that? Do you feel guilty?

Rob: I told you know I told Adam, like listen man next time we talk to … I may tell the guy out. I know this guy coming back … at all.

John McIntyre: When you go to Colorado you get some free Limo rides down town, right.

Rob: That’s what I am saying man. I am expecting it now.

John McIntyre: Okay, what’s the worst like I am curious about like there … some crazy stories where people like almost go out of business? I mean they actually do go out of business, because they screw out of pay-per-click.

Rob: This guy, the limo guy was I mean do we like to came from, we get once a while he was down like a couple grand marketing be under $10,000 a month and now he’s over 40, I mean he’s killing.

John McIntyre: He must be really happy now.

Rob: Yeah, he’s really happy and I mean he is one of a small bunch, but there is another guy was actually came here a while ago for a drug rehab center and it was like a big-time brand drug rehab center and they had some company who’s charging like $10,000 a month to do it and I popped in there just to take a look as he was friend of mine and it was a mess. I don’t know how he can justify charging so much money and they were getting like no leads and there were like couple of phone calls a week, like 2 or 3 phone calls  a week, but they end up phone calls cost like $180.

John McIntyre: Wow!

Rob: Yeah!

John McIntyre: Yeah I am here.

Rob: Sorry my internet is like kicking out of the arena.

John McIntyre: All good, all good, so the phone calls you’re saying spending ten grand a month with this company.

Rob: Yeah!

John McIntyre: And then how many phone calls they were getting?

Rob: They were getting like two or three phone calls a week, but there are the phone calls that I am costing like $100 for each phone call which is ridiculous. I mean the industry total costs me like 30 bucks, maybe, I mean that’s a problem with this industry is that there’s a lot of bad actors, I mean like any industry really, but they give us a bad name and then so every time we go closed and explain why we’re not going to do this or why we’re not going to do that. It’s a hassle.

John McIntyre: Yeah, interesting, interesting, okay. It sounds pretty cool.

Rob: Yeah, I’ve been doing it from a long time and last stage of the year I mean it used to be so easy, like five six years ago there wasn’t much competition as there is now and I am meeting the clicks for like 2-3 bucks for pretty much anything. I mean I have a client in the health insurance industry. All he does he just channelize health insurance leads and he gets like 2000-2100 some leads a week. They guys spend ton of money but the leads are like nine bucks a lead. I mean that’s like the most competitive industry and especially with all the health care stuff going on.

John McIntyre: Okay, so he’s buying leads with the click to call you mean?

Rob: No, he’s actually searched generating leads. He has got a whole crazy stuff and a funnel and everything and he just cranking out to leads research, but my point is like they used to be so much cheaper. I mean 5-6 years ago you can get those leads for like 3-4 bucks, like now like 9-10, sometimes 12 bucks.

John McIntyre: Yeah, but then now you can go through every … phone call which is even better.

Rob: Which is really cool, yeah so, I mean actually moving a lot of people over to the click to call stuff, especially they call local guys, because I mean that’s just great for local businesses, I mean they want the phone calls.

John McIntyre: Have you seen it work for anyone else?

Rob: Who do you mean?

John McIntyre: Like let’s say I’m selling pay-per-click services like you guys and I am based in New York, but I can be realistic, like I can take clients from anywhere.

Rob: Oh! Yeah! That work for anybody. It doesn’t really matter national, international. I mean I at least don’t like campaigns I start with like a small radius area and then I’ll tweak it holds running smooth and I’ll just keep experimenting the area like national  and international clients. But no personally myself I haven’t done any clients yet. I am really looking forward to it.

John McIntyre: That will be fun.

Rob: That will be really cool.

John McIntyre: Yeah! Okay, let’s say what else? Let’s say I am a plumber and I am doing my click to calls that mean I even need a pay-per-click campaign.

Rob: What do you mean? Do you mean the search campaign?

John McIntyre: Yeah, like other than the click to goal.

Rob: If your goal is to drive you the phone calls, so if we got your AdWords set up and we get your click to call campaign going, I mean we are driving your phone calls a weekly basis and you’re good to go slaughter on pretty much, all we can do is pop in there and clean it up when it’s needed pretty much. I mean once these things get the biggest hassle is optimizing the campaigns. Now, what I mean by that is tweaking the ad copy, tweaking the keywords and negative keywords you know all that stuff and then once you finally I say the first three to four weeks of doing that is really tune it up after that, I mean it’s pretty much smooth going.

John McIntyre: You just learn to run.

Rob: Yeah man, I mean it’s popping every other day pretty once for the ones that are running good and just clean it up and then move on.

John McIntyre: That’s pretty awesome. This is pretty hands off at least once after the first month its pretty hands off.

Rob: Yeah, I mean the hard part is the first month. I mean you can’t get it all working correctly because there is a lot work involved in that.

John McIntyre: Interesting, because it’s fine because this was original. I suppose this is still now the email marketing podcast. You know I find it interesting with the marketing guests and it’s fine to click to call, that removes the need for even a website. 

Rob: The only thing you need is a domain. I mean basically the phone number that you use in the ad for the click to call. It has to be domain that you list and ask you for verification, so as always the numbers same. You can even create like an unbalanced page and just a blank page with the phone number on it pretty much. Have you ever done a pay-per-click stuff before?

John McIntyre: I have done. I have actually got myself permanent … from Ad words a couple of years ago promoting some online service. So, how do I get back, because you are the pay-per-click expert, so how do I get back? How do I get through that man?

Rob: You got to call a man in and go after on the phone for a good hour, it happened with me before.

John McIntyre:  Oh! Really okay, so I can …  talking on the phone and bell, bell.

Rob: Pretty much yeah, little … little. The biggest thing with them is that they don’t want people to think that they’re spamming our users. Obsessed with their users and I mean you just call like listen man this is like Exxon years ago I didn’t know what I was doing, but like to do to fix this. How to make an array you know I mean unless there was like some serious violation which in some cases it’s just listen you’ve done forever like … unhappy.

John McIntyre: Okay it was online service CBRH. I just basically I had a landing page. I don’t read the Terms of Service which is my fault, but I mean you might have a cinematic content on the page, so it was not the … page.

Rob: Yeah!

John McIntyre: That was the mistake

Rob: And it’s crazy, I mean it’s not an example of why they dump people for the stupid of the reasons.

John McIntyre: Crazy, crazy

Rob: I am in a same situation. It was like four years ago and I had actually going to squeeze page and then I deleted the URL of the squeeze page I was using in mid of the new one, but I pause the ad and audio I always ended and never changed it and they banned my account over pause ad without warning and I was like are you guys kidding me? I was like freaking out on the phone an hour. I need this fixed right now. I was like freaking out.

John McIntyre: Interesting get on Google. I read story about Larry Page and one of the guys. He was like custom service, it doesn’t scale, so it’s bullshit.

Rob: Yeah!

John McIntyre: Oh Yeah! Funny mentality, one thing I adore of the minute we go is this means, because like right now small businesses around the world spending whole bunch of money. They are getting website bills thousands of dollars. You know hiring guys like me to set up some sort of automated marketing campaign and now literally all you need going by the main, put a one page website under the phone number on it and you can just drive Google Ads and hire someone like you.

Rob: That’s true!

John McIntyre: It means you need a website like you just totally, it’s great.

Rob: So, specially like that’s why I am saying about those guys and I’m friends with them in my group, so I … pay per lead guys. I mean it’s a sweet for them, because they fought all the cash if these guy leads. They just sell up a standard agreement and like listen you agree to pay 150 – 200, whatever per lead. Here is the term that you know making a qualified lead and my job is just to send you phone calls, that’s it. I do nothing else to send you phone calls. So, I mean this is just a sweet deal and it’s the profit margins are crazy and now even with Face book, actually my brother runs the social media marketing company called social manage and they do like ads for like facebook like high intends ads for like lead generation and next to just told me yesterday that Facebook will allocate call or call button for their ads which that will be sweet because you know I’m sure you’ve done some Facebook you’ll say cheap those clicks are?

John McIntyre: Yeah! That will be damn, how man, that’s crazy.

Rob: Wait we signed clicks and if you enjoy phone calls you know.

John McIntyre: You go on selling for 200 bucks.

Rob: $15 made in couple of hundred hours.

John McIntyre: You’re saying you have got friends that are going on there and basically doing like elegance. They go and set up a campaign. They buy these calls for 10 bucks. We returned to the client take $200 payment for that at lead.

Rob: That’s it!

John McIntyre: That’s it! What a great business model.

Rob: Oh my God incredible.

John McIntyre: Damn and that’s what we…

Rob: In the same aspect or kind of stuffs because for guys like us your agency’s the stuffer SEOs.  SEO’s specially you kind of like put them out because they are like listen why would I pay you X amount of money per month and that drama crazy results for three months. When this guy saying hey man I enjoyed your phone calls like this week you guys sign any budget.

John McIntyre: If I was going to go on the pay-per-click route, I have been thinking right. That sounds like I kill a business especially I got lead generation model Facebook comes out buying for like 50 cents selling it to $200 that’s insane.

Rob: It’s not insane especially you know Facebook too. They are only going to perfect even further. It’s like pretty wrong right now, but they’re going to tune it up for sure.

John McIntyre: My God man, if anyone listening to this I want some business idea. I think that’s a great idea. Lead generation with oh! Man that’s awesome. That’s like a 20 times … all you really need is just some sort of software scripts to … those calls.

Rob: That’s it and I mean even do stuff like what is it call fire or call … or one of those like numbers you can track you know user for a client is quite a … you need  a number. That forwards our business, you can track all the calls I mean some of these guys are real killing me. I mean like six figure months, like it’s pretty crazy.

John McIntyre: Easy man, because all you do I mean it just scales another…

Rob: Yeah!

John McIntyre: All you do you want some software setup. You just kick back and just double down your budgets on the Ad words.

Rob: That’s valid

John McIntyre: This is really cool. I just want to know how the trick could be finding those deals.

Rob: Yeah I mean you surprise to a lot of them you know just put this way you go to any business owner you throw the pitch like listen there is no risk on your part. You’re not putting money, you are not doing anything, and all you’re doing is taking phone calls from somebody who wants to talk to you by your servers. I mean who’s going to say oh no screw you man. I don’t want to talk to you and you know I mean I imagine I haven’t done any pay per lead deals yet, but we are actually got a few bro and they were trying to go with. I mean I feel the sale for that is just so much easier to clause.

John McIntyre: Totally like you’re seeing set of a whole system. You might get too lazy; you might get … when you’re paying the email. You’re paying my fees or it’s just that there is a risk you need to identify, like you probably need to have some idea. Ah! We do this because you have a different campaign for a client you are offering to do. Basically doing what you’re doing for your clients right now, instead of challenging them upfront their management fee you just charge in per lead.

Rob: Yup same thing, so there’s risk on my part and that’s something that you know they love to hear when you’re pitching them.

John McIntyre: That’s the irresistible often. Many clients do with copyright, like this is risk. It’s like I will pay you 200 bucks a call if you know that you don’t want to have 3 phone calls on close and making five grand every time like the sale. I’ll spend two grand every time to make that you know.

Rob: Absolutely man and then this isn’t such an easy sale and the best part is like once we do a few of them, I mean we know what to look for, we know what industries began killing in, so now got to do is the sticky attack dogs on line a people up.

John McIntyre: That’s a cool idea.

Rob: And I’m telling you man that if your listeners like that business model with even the Facebook Ads if calls are too expensive you in starting, do the Facebook ads news feed ads with the call features.

John McIntyre: Is the call feature released on Facebook?

Rob: It’s on Facebook right now.

John McIntyre: Damn!

Rob: I think it’s something we are at right now. It’s like with local ads or something, but you can pop in and look at it, but you can play around with it, but they’re going to make it for everything eventually prior next few weeks. I mean doing Facebook is so cheap

John McIntyre: This is nuts man. What are you doing you go and enhance your business. You just go and buy leads from Next Mark one of those leads you know lead brokers. This is about saying a million bucks a year or stuff like that in the certain industry. Just got pass like it’s such an easy offer … leads done.

Rob: It’s crazy!

John McIntyre: There we go, we … business right there man. I mean I love this, you buy you know it’s kind of like the … you know cool like people. It’s crazy and it came from Necker Island actually. By the time this podcast real live in couple of months you just be backed up, but the time of this recording which is what May right now. I just came to Necker Island with Richard Branson and so hanging out with 30 other people there and anyone got this like some of these guys building like… they do … stuff, are just crazy, crazy stuff right and the cool ideas like he is another one and he is coming like ah man this is so much cool stuff to do in life or business, have enough time for it.

Rob: Wait you and Richard Branson.

John McIntyre: Yeah!

Rob: That’s amazing, that guy’s a freaking legend.

John McIntyre: He is a cool guy. He is a bro and we were like so there for a week and every night there was party, a custom theme party whatever. He was dressing up. One night he dressed up as, he did a stunt you know year ago some of the … where his dad was the CEO. You heard about this?

Rob: No, no, no

John McIntyre: So, he had a bet with the CEO of air asia which is a budget airline in Asia and Africa and he lost the bet and had to dress up in an air Asia girls uniform, wear makeup and serve customers on the first flight. He did it, he lost the bet. He did that and then he wore that costume. He dressed up with makeup on you know more than the girls thing at to one of the parties when you know the … from the islands.

Rob: That is insane. He seems like one of those guys who just like real down to earth like real humble you know.

John McIntyre: Like he wakes up and plays tennis, car surfing. He goes out for car surfing at afternoon. He is like down for chat, he’s pretty … man. I don’t think it’s doesn’t seem like he works … Obviously he does work but he is not hustling. I never saw him play with his phone. He was hanging out with us like just do these things you know. He got to a point where they have to. He has got a team. His whole thing is you know hype your ways smarter than you and you know look them for the jobs. I measure he is making decisions only couple of hours a day or something but you know he has hundreds staff on the island and what we do we booked out with thirty people, so three staff per guest is pretty insane.

Rob: What are you guys were you doing on there, just hanging out.

John McIntyre: Yes hanging out, the … so I went just to meet people to be honest. I went just a network in to see what other people are doing was really inspiring, so yeah man anyway we are coming on.. time before we finish though, if someone wants to learn more about  you or business or hire you for either a deal whatever. They want to hire what should they do?

Rob: My company is called clickskeek.com and we do white label 2 for guys who own agencies or stuff like that, if you’ve got clients you want to toss them in to our system will get them cranking leads and get them going in under your brand or if you just, if you’re a small business owner you need to have some pay per click or you want pay per call or whatever you need just you know this is our site and you can check this out and will get account for it.

John McIntyre: Perfect! Thanks for coming on the show man.

Rob: Thanks John, I really appreciate it.