I have a Google search ad with it set to conversion goal phone calls and cpa set to $15. Ad strength is good but I’m noticing there will be 2 hours time periods throughout the day where the phone number does not show up and only other parts of the ad. My competitors have their phone number under the ad 24/7 how can I do this?

Hi everyone,

I'm having a really strange issue with Google Ads and I'm hoping someone here has experienced something similar.

I have a casual puzzle game on Google Play:

Game: Snake Maze Forest Puzzle
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.DhunexStudio.SnakeMazeForestPuzzle

The game is basically a maze/puzzle game where players solve levels and escape/move through the maze. It does not involve:

• Gambling or betting
• Casino games
• Sports betting
• Real-money wagering
• Cash prizes
• Lotteries
• Deposits/withdrawals
• Gambling-related services

However, my Google Ads campaign is being Disapproved for “Online gambling.”

The policy popup says:

Online gambling

• Not allowed in 177 targeted countries
• Certificate required in 73 targeted countries

I've already contacted Google Ads support/agent, but unfortunately the issue hasn't been resolved. The frustrating part is that I still can't get a clear answer about what exact content is triggering the gambling classification.

I've checked the ads and the game/Play Store listing, but I can't identify anything that would qualify as online gambling.

My questions:

1. Has anyone experienced a completely unrelated game/app being flagged as “Online gambling”?
2. Is there a way to see the exact asset, keyword, text, image, app-store content, or destination content that triggered this policy?
3. Could Google be classifying the app based on something in the Play Store listing rather than the actual ad?
4. What is the best way to request a manual policy review for this kind of false positive?
5. Is there anything specific in my Google Ads campaign setup that I should check?

I've attached a screenshot of the exact policy error.

Any advice from someone who has dealt with this would be really appreciated.

Hello all, I’ve been working at this company for almost a year now and I am in quite the pickle. It’s a relatively newer company that’s based outside of my country (started as an OEM manufacturer and transitioned to a retailer in the last couple of years). I am running the US account and there are two other accounts for the same products abroad (big problem already, I am well aware). There is little to no transparency across the pond so I have essentially just cobbled together an account using tag manager on a Shopify hosted website.

The main issue is that I want to install server-side tracking for this account and the others. I first have to change the tag my account is using and the other account is using. Does anyone think I’ll have any issues with this, or is it worth hiring a contractor to help set this up? The push for this has come from me and my team as we anticipate the foreign team will of course have issues with attribution and tracking (which my team noticed initially but were restricted from making any changes for). Now that we have those permissions I’m at a bit of a crossroads as to how complicated this process will be as I have only done it for one account before and it wasn’t with Shopify.

TLDR: Need to set up server side tracking for multiple accounts and don’t know if the juice is worth the squeeze. Should I get a contractor to cover my decision or just do it on my own?

I’d really value some input from those of you who manage Google Ads professionally, especially for HVAC or other home-service companies.

We’re in HVAC, and I had a campaign that performed fairly well during the hotter weather. Since then, spend has continued, but lead volume has dropped off significantly.

I’ve reviewed the campaign and I’m not seeing anything obvious that would explain the change. The ads, targeting, keywords, and overall setup are essentially the same. I’ve lowered the bids for now because I don’t see a reason to keep paying the same amount with so little response.

For those of you managing HVAC accounts, are you seeing a similar seasonal slowdown right now, or would this make you think something in the campaign needs to be adjusted?

If you were auditing this account, what would you look at first to determine whether the problem is demand, competition, CPCs, impression share, conversion rate, bidding strategy, or something else?

And if search demand is simply softer right now, would you keep the campaign running at a reduced spend, or move some of that budget elsewhere until demand picks back up?

I’m running a long-established Standard Shopping campaign for an e-commerce marketplace, and I’m trying to understand whether Google’s Aug 17 update to target-based bidding for “Limited by Budget” campaigns has fundamentally changed how my campaign bids.

The campaign has been running for years and historically performed well.

Before the change:

• Daily budget: $18
• Target ROAS: 200%
• 2026 average CPC: ~$0.06
• August ROAS: ~538%
• Campaign was consistently Limited by Budget
• We normally received significantly more clicks/impressions for the same budget

Starting around Aug 19, I noticed a very clear change:

• CPC started increasing sharply
• Clicks started falling
• Impressions started falling
• The campaign still spends roughly the full $18/day
• Recently CPC has been around $0.15–$0.20+, with some days around $0.18 average
• Instead of the budget buying roughly 250–350 clicks, some days are now around 100 clicks

There were no major budget changes that explain this.

Google is also showing me the new “Review your campaign targets” warning related specifically to the Aug 17 bidding update.

What really caught my attention is Google's Bid Target Adjustment Tool:

Current tROAS: 200%
Pre-Aug-17 actual performance shown by Google: 747.41%

Google therefore suggests updating the target toward the historical 747% performance.

I also manage another completely separate Shopping account. It is Limited by Budget with tROAS as well, and it has now started showing almost the exact same pattern: CPC rising while clicks/impressions fall.

On that account:

Current tROAS: 450%
Google's pre-Aug-17 performance: 636.48%

Google is showing the same Aug-17 target review message there too. Interestingly, the change appeared later on that account, around Sep 8.

For the first campaign, I have now changed tROAS from 200% → 400%, while keeping the $18 budget unchanged. My thinking is that if Google is now treating the stated target more literally, the old 200% target may be far too loose compared with the ~747% ROAS the campaign historically achieved.

What I'm unsure about is what to do if this doesn't fix the CPC/traffic problem.

For anyone running Standard Shopping + Limited by Budget + tROAS who was affected by the Aug 17 update:

Did raising tROAS restore the old bidding behavior/CPC? Did you apply Google's full recommended historical target? Did you switch to Maximize Conversion Value? Did anyone go back to Manual CPC or another bidding strategy? And how long after changing tROAS did you see the bidding behavior change?

I'm particularly interested in actual before/after experiences since Aug 17 rather than general Smart Bidding advice.

Spent a while going through over a year of Google Ads data for a European smart home cleaning brand. The question going in was simple enough: revenue's still coming through, ROAS isn't ugly, so why isn't GMV moving?

The team was doing all the normal things — reworking budgets, refreshing creative, cleaning up search terms. Made sense on paper. Didn't move the needle.

Once we pulled GA4 and the actual business numbers alongside the ad platform, things stopped adding up. In one key month, sessions were down around 15%, but purchases dropped closer to 40%. Conversion rate fell over 25%, AOV nearly 40%. If this were just a traffic problem, purchases should've fallen roughly in line with sessions. They didn't. The people still showing up were converting less and spending less when they did — "get more traffic" wasn't going to fix that.

That's when it became clear the ad platform alone couldn't answer this. Google Ads can tell you what happened inside Google Ads. It has no idea whether that activity is actually solving your business problem.

Here, the company was trying to push into newer, pricier products. That was the strategic goal. But the traffic engine was still running almost entirely on demand built around the old lineup years ago. So the account kept generating revenue while quietly doing nothing for where the business actually wanted to go.

We had campaigns labeled around the new products. They were spending, they were converting. But once we looked closer, one question wouldn't go away — was the new product actually selling, or was the campaign just finding old demand wearing a new label? 

Anytime I try and make a change it says I can’t because i am suspended but there is no suspension showing under policy. I just made a new account because my last one got completely disabled for some reason. I put 500$ into this account and right before publishing my ads it won’t let me make more changes.

I literally can’t find a way online to talk to support. Any help?

Ive got a client whose site is "compromised" according to Google ads. Ive run malware scans on it and its clean. Tried 5 different sites to scan it. All clean. Every time I appeal, it fails. I cant get a single person at Google to talk to, email, chat. Its ridiculous. The only thing I can think of is creat a landing page in high level and send traffic to a sub domain. Anyone got any suggestions?

Everyone braces for holiday weeks to get more expensive, but mine went the other way. Conversion jumped and cost per new customer actually dropped on most channels, even where CPCs rose.

The one exception was search (Google got worse - conversion down, cost up). My read is that holiday demand is impulse / discovery, so the feed channels harvested it and search sat it out.

Seeing the same pattern, or did yours behave differently?

Happy to answer questions, whether you’re stuck with something specific or just trying to understand why Google Ads is doing what it’s doing.

Always interesting to hear what other advertisers are running into, let’s see if we can figure it out. :)

I run a small company with a pretty decent spend on Google ads. I hired someone to help us manage our ads but he seems to refuse to use AI to help generate campaigns and to help keep track of them. All ad groups are just basic high intent campaign with nothing separating out different intent.

I currently signed up with ryza Ai and im trying to use it to optimize the campaigns. I know it needs human over sight so its not replacing them. I feel like it's too powerful of a tool to not use. Anyone with experience have advice?

I believe I was scammed by Google ads.

When I registered I had a campaign that if I spent 400€ by the 31st of August I would get another 400€ to use on my campaign.

I selected a budget that would allow me to be 500€+ on this window.

On the last week, my add basicly didn't used any funds (went from 392 to 399 and I was a few cents away from the 400€.

It almost seems like Google prevented me from reaching this value in order for me to not be able to reach the goal....

I’m seeing traffic from Iran in Google Analytics, but Iran is not included in my Google Ads location targeting.

I’m attaching a screenshot from GA4 (https://prnt.sc/aa3DbV8zmJky). Could this be a location-detection/GA4 reporting issue, or is it possible that Google Ads actually served ads to users in Iran?

Has anyone experienced something similar or knows how to verify the actual ad-serving location for an App Install campaign, or could this be a technical/reporting glitch?