What's up everyone, welcome to the Surfside PPC Newsletter!

Two of last week's changes will move your numbers without anything in your account looking different. Google is about to start charging you for calls nobody answered, and organic clicks are sliding on queries where your rankings never moved.

That is what makes a week like this one frustrating. Nobody sends you an alert. You find it in the bill, or in Search Console a month later when you are trying to explain a traffic drop to somebody.

Here is what changed, starting with the one that has a deadline attached.

Google Local Services Ads Will Charge For Missed Calls On October 1​
Starting October 1, a missed call that rings longer than 20 seconds during your business hours can be charged as a valid lead, even when nobody picks up. Follow-up calls can be charged too if the first call did not qualify. Calls under 20 seconds and calls that never complete key-press routing are not charged.
​Read the full breakdown​

Google Merged Google Tag Into Tag Manager And Added No-Code Conversion Tracking​
Google tags are now full Tag Manager containers, and visual tagging lets you build a conversion event by clicking the element on your own site instead of writing selectors. Container optimization is optional and prompted by a banner, so nothing changes until you accept it. The new data flow map is the fastest way to see whether your conversion data is actually reaching Google Ads.
​Read the full breakdown​

Google Is Auto-Expanding AI Overviews And Dropping The Show More Button​
On some queries the AI Overview now loads fully expanded with no button to click, which pushes organic results further down the page. Your rankings can hold perfectly steady while your clicks fall. If you only watch average position, this change is invisible to you.
​Read the full breakdown​

Google's Site Reputation Abuse Policy Now Works Differently In The EEA​
Google rewrote the parasite SEO policy effective August 30. Outside the EEA, manual actions still hit rankings for the affected section. Inside the EEA, Google separates that section so it ranks independently instead, and prior EEA manual actions are being removed. Google also named four factors it evaluates, which finally gives you a real checklist.
​Read the full breakdown​

Google Expands Demand Gen With Messaging Ads, Travel Tools, And AI Video​
Three updates landed on August 27 at different stages. The AI video workflow in Asset Studio and the personalized travel inventory are live now. Messaging ads on YouTube are still in testing, so do not build a plan around them yet.
​Read the full breakdown​

If you only do one thing this week, open your Local Services Ads settings and tighten your business hours to the hours you can genuinely answer the phone. Starting October 1, the gap between your posted hours and your actual coverage is something you pay for.

If you ever have any questions, please feel free to reply directly to this email. Thanks for subscribing!

-Corey Frankosky

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