Unlock the Secrets of Digital Media with Anna Covert

Technology has made our world closer. But when AI and search results can’t solve a problem, technology seems less like a bridge and more like a barrier to the future.

The problems that keep me up at night are often those that add up to overspending or significant and crippling loss of business for my clients:

1. Issues registering, changing, or updating a client’s Google My Business profile.
2. Unfavorable outcomes from accepting Google Ads optimization help (increased cost without increasing conversions and overall lower impression share).
3. Untraceable and mismatched results reporting in Google Ads when trying to verify that clicks were tracked in G4 (Google Analytics) or a connected call tracking service.

It wasn’t long ago that support and accountability mattered. Refunding or crediting a client’s hard-earned investment should be straightforward when the data doesn’t add up. Over the past decade, I’ve had over $150,000 in reported bugs, errors, and the like refunded in reported bugs, errors, and the like refunded to clients. This is a victory but also a waste of the time and resources needed to organize and present our case before being escalated to the appropriate channels.

But here’s the point: No one should have to beg to get what they pay for. Think about visiting a hotel, paying for a view of Central Park, and being surprised by a brick wall. Can you imagine picking up the phone in your suite and trying to call the front desk, only to be told that “Your room doesn’t qualify” or “There’s a $50 fee to speak to the front desk”?

That’s precisely what’s happening today for far too many businesses’ Google accounts.

Come in, Houston?

I receive multiple calls every day from Google. It’s not a surprise since my agency manages 40+ Google Ads accounts, but no matter how many numbers I block or how often I ask to be removed from the list, the calls keep coming.

Part of the problem is a rotating series of account managers. Every quarter, a new “optimization strategist” is assigned to your account, allowing them to contact you and “help” a business owner increase their ad performance.

While the description sounds fantastic at the start, these new reps haven’t had the opportunity to learn anything about your business or the historical progression of your account. They’re reading a script with the goal of getting you to spend more.

For a tech company specializing in data, this inability to use that historical context to create better, more efficient, and effective services just doesn’t make sense. From your local barista to your massage therapist, ChatGPT to Gemini, the more experiential data collected between parties, the better the results. So why doesn’t Google dedicate more focus to cultivating connections with customers?

The Google Ads “preview tool” doesn’t help when determining why the platform isn’t working or why an ad isn’t appearing in the promised spot at the top of the page. Sadly, the Google employees who’ve been empowered to help often can’t and are just as confused as I am when it comes to why the clicks to a landing page reported inside the platform are widely different than what is seen in G4 when all the right boxes are checked and systems linked.

So, Google, we have a real problem. If your own system doesn’t know why your data isn’t accurate, how can a business owner be expected to succeed? Has all this big data just created another layer of confusion and isolation?

We deserve better from our media landscape. And we shouldn’t have to pay more when we don’t get what we paid for in the first place. My plea to Google is to remember where you came from and course correct.

Earth to Google— are you there?