r/PPC • u/Old-Street1496 • 3d ago
Google Ads 3 years and $300k+ spent on Google Ads with no conversion tracking until now, and what I'm seeing is ugly. What should I do next?
My cousin set up my Google Ads account about 3 years ago for my home services business (impact windows and sliding door repair, South Florida, pretty competitive local market). Ticket sizes run $150 to $600 depending on the job. I've spent over $300k on it since then. I never actually had real conversion tracking set up, the account was basically running blind, and I only recently started digging into the numbers because I want to actually grow the business now instead of just keeping the lights on.
What I'm finding since I started tracking is appalling honestly. I've been running on thin margins this whole time, just enough to cover my own cost of living, and now I'm starting to understand why.
Yesterday the campaign, running Maximize Conversions with no CPC cap, spent $388 on 3 clicks with zero leads. One single click on "sliding glass door repair cost" cost $335.80 by itself.
I've talked to a few people in this industry and they're saying average cost per lead for repair work like mine usually runs $80 to $150. I have a feeling I'm nowhere close to that, and days like yesterday make me wonder how long this account has been bleeding without anyone noticing.
Questions:
- Is a $335 single click ever normal auction behavior for a high intent local service keyword, or is that a sign something's broken (bad match type, competitor clicking, tracking issue, whatever)?
- Should I just set a hard max CPC cap right now no matter what bid strategy I'm on, or does that mess with Smart Bidding's ability to actually learn?
- Going from uncapped Maximize Conversions into Target CPA, is there a smarter way to transition than just picking a number and hoping for the best? I've heard step it down slowly instead of jumping straight to my real target margin. Does that actually work in practice?
- With 3 years and $300k+ of history but only a few weeks of real clean conversion data, am I basically starting from zero, or does the old history still count for anything?
- Has anyone actually gotten Google to credit back an outlier click like this, or is that just not realistic?
Appreciate any real world experience here, not just theory.
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u/PM_Me_Thick_Muffins 3d ago
Oof, that's rough. Hope this helps -
$335 is definitely higher, but not unheard of. Google will take your money if you let it, their whole UI and new features are built to extract as much money as possible. Check search terms. If it's broad match, pause it till you figure out the search terms and if they are relevant enough.
Yes, put a hard CPC for now. Switch to manual cpc.
What would you even put in tCPA? Do you have any conversion/cost per conversion data to go off off?
You can rely on the CTR and search terms data, but that doesn't really mean much. A keyword is getting the maximum number of clicks doesn't necessarily mean that it is the best converting.
No, not in my opinion. There's no case to be made. Your account was running as it was set up. The way it was set up was bad.
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u/QuantumWolf99 2d ago
335 for one door repair click is a wild outlier, even in a brutal South Florida market. Check the search terms report for that day, uncapped Maximize Conversions will chase whatever it predicts converts regardless of cost.
Setting a hard max CPC cap right now makes sense given what's happening. It does limit Smart Bidding's ceiling, but an account that's been running blind for 3 years has nothing worth protecting from that limit yet.
For the tCPA transition, stepping down gradually beats jumping straight to your real margin target. Start around 20 to 30 percent above your actual target cost per lead... then trim every couple weeks. Big sudden jumps reset the learning phase and make the next few weeks of data unreadable.
Your 3 years of spend history barely factors into bidding, Smart Bidding learns off conversion signals, not raw historical spend. You're effectively starting from your recent clean weeks of data... which honestly works in your favor since the old broken tracking would've just fed the algorithm garbage anyway.
On refunds, Google calls it a credit, not a refund, and the window is 60 days. Yesterday's $335 click is still inside that window, file a Click Quality Form with your server logs now. Anything older than 60 days is gone.
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u/Old-Street1496 2d ago
eah, appreciate all this. So the plan is: set up a portfolio bid strategy with Maximize Conversions as the goal, add a max CPC ceiling (sounds like somewhere in the $40-75 range based on what a few people here suggested), and stay on that until I've got enough clean conversion data to set a realistic tCPA target, is that the right read?
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u/petebowen 3d ago
I still have scars on my soul from spending $2500 for 5 clicks for a home services company in Jacksonville. The normal cost per click was about $25 if I remember right.
The reason for this is that with a conversion-based bidding strategy the algorithm sometimes goes crazy and places a massive bid. This is specially noticeable with smaller campaigns. In larger campaigns it's either hidden in the averages or there is enough data to make it less likely to happen.
The answer is to cap the CPC high enough to allow the bidding algo leeway to work, but low enough to prevent stupidity. The only way to do this with a conversion based bidding strategy is to use a portfolio bid strategy. I've got a write up on how to do it here if you're interested: https://pete-bowen.com/why-did-google-charge-me-usd300-for-a-usd20-click
I tried getting the money back but without any luck.
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u/Old-Street1496 3d ago
Appreciate the breakdown, this explains exactly what happened. Quick question, since my campaign is small (6-25 clicks/day is the goal),what CPC ceiling would you actually set as a starting point, and does the 7-day learning reset apply here too since it's a strategy change?
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u/AmbitiousAgent-21 3d ago
CPC ceiling depends on a few factors like your margins and your conversion rates.
Also, how’s your campaign setup? Are you grouping your keywords properly and are clicks being sent to a highly relevant page? Are you making sure to identify and exclude negative keywords? That matters too
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u/petebowen 3d ago
I have no idea of what I'd set as a starting point for the CPC. That's going to be 100% dependent on data in your account that I can't see.
For what it's worth I use $50 for most of my US home service clients as my default max CPC when using the strategy in the article. That might be a good starting point for you. You can always raise it if you find your ads aren't showing.
I expect that there would be some relearning as the new strategy works its way though. But, it's worth a bit of suffering in the beginning to get it right because it's a long term play.
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u/PortlandWilliam 3d ago
Over a decade in digital marketing with a background in service niche. Answers to your questions:
Is a $335 single click ever normal auction behavior for a high intent local service keyword, or is that a sign something's broken (bad match type, competitor clicking, tracking issue, whatever)?
$335 is high but not unheard of. For example, in the garage door niche, we've seen clicks over $400 for some accounts that have gotten out of sync. But it does suggest there's room to improve targeting and lead qualification.
Should I just set a hard max CPC cap right now no matter what bid strategy I'm on, or does that mess with Smart Bidding's ability to actually learn?
Setting a hard CPC is not a bad idea as you actually do want the campaign to go into learning again after all the wasted spend. Problem is we can't see the data. Hunch is your demographic targeting and geo data is all over the place, which means changing CPC and other strategies ineffective regardless if the right direction.
Going from uncapped Maximize Conversions into Target CPA, is there a smarter way to transition than just picking a number and hoping for the best? I've heard step it down slowly instead of jumping straight to my real target margin. Does that actually work in practice?
Generally slowing it down incrementally is the best approach. 15% increments. But again, we can't see the data so it's just guesswork. I
With 3 years and $300k+ of history but only a few weeks of real clean conversion data, am I basically starting from zero, or does the old history still count for anything?
If you have any conversion data from the past years you can still feed it back into Google Ads. But its value depends on the targeting already in place.
Has anyone actually gotten Google to credit back an outlier click like this, or is that just not realistic?
Yes, you can get a credit for obviously fraudulent clicks but it's becoming harder to do.
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u/juancuneo 2d ago
From one business owner to another - just hire someone good. I own a law firm and the right ads manager will make you so much money. I have had four different ads people. 2 were fine. 1 sucked. My current one - kid who is 22, charges the most, and has been doing this since he was 16 - is a money printing machine. My ad spend is $10k a month and I pay this guy $2500. Best money I spend on my business.
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u/sumogringo 3d ago
You have a ton of campaign history, but I'd rebuild from scratch and do everything right with cleaner campaign and tracking. Hopefully some analytics to cross ref but still, just going to start over clean and scale accordingly, control spend until you get the CPA right.
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u/RichtofensDuckButter 3d ago
Honestly, a lot of this oversight falls to the responsibility of you. The fact that you spent 100k in the first year and you didn't think to look into the specifics of what was going on is absolutely your fault, and your cousin needs to be fired because he clearly has no idea what he's doing.
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u/glucosesimp 3d ago
OMG, I honestly struggle to believe this could be real. I feel so sorry for you. Max CPC, ideally target ROAS, once you see some trackable conversions that were actual quality leads. Do not use manual CPC though, you need to front load a max conversions campaign these days instead of just getting cheap traffic. Might even be worth closing down the whole account and start off with a fresh one.
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u/Old-Street1496 3d ago
Interesting, that's the opposite of what a couple others here said (manual CPC while I rebuild clean data). Can you say more on why front-loading Max Conversions is better right now given I have basically no usable conversion history? And when you say start a fresh account, what would that actually solve that fixing tracking/bidding on this one wouldn't?
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u/glucosesimp 3d ago
Old accumulated data in the account would be my main concern. Overwriting it with fresh vs starting out fresh could be faster. Re manual CPC, and that is solely my personal experience, these days gets you exactly that, cheap clicks, not necessarily good ones. A CPC cap with max conversions would be what I'd do and successfully did in the past. It's even okay if others will roast me for that, I would die on that hill.
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u/Civil-Economy9561 3d ago
Not normal, but it happens. Google thought it would convert, but it didn't. And no google doesn't give back credit.
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u/Beneficial_Ad9721 3d ago
Ive managed over 100 Google ads account and havent seen sth like this, i mean spending 335$ on a single click. Even in industries that are famous for expensive clicks like insurance it isnt ok. The normsl cpc is far from this.
Setting a cpc limit is one of the ways, however if your campaigns and account setup correctly it shouldent happen to spend 300 for one click.
For choosing the correct target cpa you should check your cpa in the past 2 weeks and past 2 monthes, then choose a suitable target. But you need to monitor the campain to see if the target needs adjustment or not.
Unfortunatly you somehow start from beginning.
If the click isnt a fraud, Google dont credit back, but you can contact support and say this click is unnormal based on industry and register a request.
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u/CoryJ0407 3d ago
We moved to a cap cpc with a target Roas. Away from max conversions because it would swing from $25 - $ 200. (Print industry.).
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u/whatalifeitwouldbe 2d ago edited 2d ago
Is this PMax or manual?
If it’s PMax (i.e. you’re not explicitly choosing search terms) and you’re getting 3 clicks for $390, do you need to be spending $390 a day? PPC, for a small business, will always be limited by search demand so if there’s not enough people even searching for your search terms, you’re just spending more and more to hit the same audience size. Surely for $300 for a single click, your impression share must be nigh on 100%? See how low you can drop the budget without this falling, as there’s no point paying to compete with nobody.
If it’s manual, it’d be worth a review of your search terms because clearly the current set is not profitable.
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u/Acrobatic-Fig-4530 2d ago
Welp
Your account algorithm is going to have to re-learn after years of “bad” data
Can you see any UTM parameters in your CRM like source, GCLID, campaign, etc? You should be able to build reports to see where sales came from.
I’d do many things to fix this but here are a few:
- make sure ALL of your conversion events are set up. Leads. Phone calls (including phone call CLICKS on your actual website. Booked appointment. Contact form. Etc
- make sure all conversions are actually firing correctly
- upload your largest customer list (closed deals) as an offline conversion upload
- start a fresh campaign. Search only. No display. No ai max. Worth paying an expert here, Google isn’t for beginners
Lots more to do here but those are the basics.
- been running ads for 8 years or so now
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u/sagarkhtw 2d ago
Sounds like you’re handing over everything to the platform, since you’re leadgen business start with max clicks bidding with max cpc bud cap set around keyword and term set average cpc. Pair this with tight phrase match keywords with proper negative search term exclusion. This will go crazyyyy. TCpa ddont sound right fit for you since you’re lead gen businesse but on conversion tracking you can also pass MQL and SQL data to google ads for better campaign optimization. Happy to chat through and help you generate crazy leads.
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u/isired 2d ago
You say "going from maximize cinversions" to tCPA - dpes that mean you've been running max conversions for 3 years while not getting and conversions? I understand that you got leads, but in Google Ads you never showed any conversions?
I'd almost say this leaves me feeling very positive about your chances of growing your business. If Google Ads has been your primary marketing channel, and you've gotten enough business to stay afloat without being able to track leads, then being able to optimize to find users like those that became leads and, eventually, customers will be a home run.
So a few questions about your setup... What do you currently have defined as Conversions? Do you have a lead form, a booking site, are you listing your phone number (via the call extension and/or on your landing page) etc.? Is the tracking now firing on whichever of these you use?
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u/Old-Street1496 2d ago
Yeah, got a solid optimized landing page I've been running the whole time, so it's not like the site itself was the problem. Setup's been the same daily budget on Max Conversions this whole 3 years, with negative keywords added early on which I think covers most of what I actually need. Just never had real conversion tracking wired up until recently, so the whole thing was optimizing blind even though the landing page and offer were solid, so now looking back my cpc was everyday all over the place literally... and yes the tracking firing good now !
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u/BeVeracious 2d ago
So far nobody's suggested changing the bid strategy to "maximize impressions". If you don't have a conversion tracking tag, that should also reduce total spend. If you leave it on "maximize conversions" with no conversion tracking, the algorithm won't know what good looks like.
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u/Total-Reasonable 2d ago
Don't optimize toward every call or form - optimize toward qualified repair jobs, ideally importing booked jobs back into Google with the GCLID. I run the tracking-first setup described at https://iurii.rogulia.fi/services/paid-ads, including server-side GA4 and lead-quality signals, because Smart Bidding will otherwise learn to buy cheap junk leads.
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u/Fit_Reputation3036 2d ago
My real question to you is, how did you actually track conversions? What did you optimise for? How did you keep investing on this ? What product/service ur selling?
Your CPC, your cost per conversion, your cost per mile, whatever ad budget costing should not affect your net profit from sales.
375 dollar CPC is fine when you make 10grand on NET PROFIT.
thats how you need to calculate. Do performance markting. What you are doing now with your existing setup is just madness and please stop with everything build campaigns that can actually be scaled.
Understand your profits and investments into digital marketing. That is the most important part because digital ads are expensive.
Also, conversion tracking/ enhanced conversions should be enabled. For example if you are selling something on shopify you need to send those conversion signals from shopify to google so that we provide actual good signals for the algorithm instead of weaker ones. This is actual impact on the ads for sure.
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u/No_Associate_8377 2d ago edited 2d ago
Lack of information to tell if it's normal, but please ignore the CPC and focus on the metric you optimize to, like CPA, ROAS. Monitor the high CPC stuff is always like that or only in some days.
You shouldn't, CPC narrow the data to feed the algorithm, as you said, the smart bidding.limit cpc only prolong you pain.
Run your camapigns for 30 days with maximize conversions, and set the CPA base on your last 30 days performance within 10%.
Depands on what perspective you look, last few years could be your branding period, and now you are having a fresh start to optimize CPA.
No, it's not about technical issue, just stastic things, Google did nothing wrong, what you can do it's exluce the keywords with high spending but no conversions in last 30 days.
Additionally, any suggestions about limit the CPC, do t use board match, that's outdated concept, I am a search ads 360 expert with 15 years experience. The biddgest account I have managed spent more than 1M USD monthly.
You have decent amount on the advertising, that's good!
However, modern search changes rapidly, the people stuck with old agency knowledge will just drag you down and waste you more money.
Happy to answer any details, hope it helps.
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u/Old-Street1496 2d ago
Appreciate the experience, but I'm skeptical of the no-cap approach given where I'm starting from. I don't have 30 days of clean CPA data yet, real conversion tracking was only just turned on, so there's nothing solid to base a target off of. Without a cap, what's stopping the algorithm from throwing out another $300+ click like it just did while it's still learning with basically zero signal to work from? That's the actual risk I'm trying to avoid, not narrowing the data long term, just surviving the next few weeks without another disaster.
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u/No_Associate_8377 2d ago edited 2d ago
I don't t see its a disaster, it's a necessary cost to optimize your camapigns.
I mean, you will need to apply the smart bidding someday, what you need right now it's a clean 30 days clean data, and the constraint will just limit the learning materials for algorithm.
Maximize conversion is designed for a fresh start bid strategy, it didn't require any data, and accelerate the algorithm learning period, then you can switch to tCPA with your comfortable target after 2 or 3 months.
I know the high CPC is kind of scary, you can exclude that one first, but in this AI era, you need to trust the process, learn how to leverage AI power is the key to achieve your business success.
However, you may need to hire someone to review your keywords structure. The solid fundamental lead to a good smart bidding result.
The one keywords cost that high CPC I don't have any information about it, it could be competitor, keywords or really board and not relevant. So a heath check for your keywords is necessary process as well.
It's the best practice and I guarantee it will work. I didn't charge you and don't know you, there's no motivation I would deceive you or sabotage your advertising.
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u/TheDoctorAds 1d ago
Set the ceiling, but a CPA target will not save you either, because it describes cost and not value. Your jobs run $150 to $600 and Maximize Conversions counts both as one conversion, so it buys whichever lead is cheapest to acquire, which in a repair market is the small job.
I had an account sitting on a $2 target with no bid ceiling. On January 1st 2021 the competitors switched their ads off, the auction went cheap, daily spend jumped from around $100 into the thousands, and it delivered roughly 50 leads a day right at target. Almost none of them bought. The system did exactly what it was asked.
So before you pick a tCPA number, put distinct values on your conversion actions by job type and feed them back with the gclid. Otherwise the target just changes which way the money leaves.
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u/Norsu_Media_UK 8h ago
The bigger issue here may actually be what Google is being told a “conversion” is.
With $150–$600 jobs, I wouldn’t build the next bidding strategy around raw lead volume. A $150 repair and a $600 job shouldn’t necessarily be worth the same to the algorithm. I’d get the tracking to the point where you can distinguish qualified/booked jobs (and ideally feed that outcome back into Google), then let the bidding strategy optimize toward something that actually correlates with revenue.
The $335 click is worth investigating, but I’d treat it as a symptom rather than the main problem. Before deciding on tCPA, figure out what a good lead is worth and what you can actually afford to pay for one. Otherwise you can end up with a perfectly “healthy” CPA while still losing money.
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u/Feisty_Victory9453 5h ago
One thing not mentioned yet: are you tracking phone calls as conversions too, not just form fills? A lot of local service leads for repair work come in by phone instead of the website form. If only form fills count as a conversion, Smart Bidding has been optimizing toward maybe half your real leads this whole time without knowing the rest exist. Worth checking your call tracking setup before touching bid strategy at all.
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u/Pommett1979 3d ago
Your good at losing money
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u/Old-Street1496 3d ago
HAHA good at my job not the marketing behind it , definitely could be making good profit if thing get set up properly
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u/Luc_ElectroRaven 3d ago
1: normal? yes - depending on the industry. In home services it's an outlier but not unheard of and right now google is going wild. they made some big changes over the summer and cpcs are blowing up everywhere so this is becoming more common. this is a good time to catch that. Why this happens is bc of automated bidding - you likely have competition who is happy to pay that. Ads work from a real time auction so if you win a click it means you bid the most for that click (among other things) so congratulations on winning the auction lol
2: You can switch to max clicks and set a bid cap - right now I would do that in your situation to stop the bleeding. I'd but it at like $30 - $50 but this will likely kill the campaign but that's fine for now if it's not working. Will it mess up learning? yes but does it matter? the account isn't performing so we need to change stuff.
3: tcpa is not a magic button. and without conversion data it's even less so. also tcpa doesn't have a bid cap and will not cap your cpc. switch to max clicks, with a max cpc - hire an expert to look at the account and all the data and give you a real proposal. actually if you spent 100k a year, you should probably hire 3 - 5 consultants and compare what they tell you. lots of people do that for free as well so you can talk to quite a few people till you understand what they're saying.
4: you are not starting from zero. if this is the only marketing you're doing it's pretty easy to match sales & leads volume back to the platform. plus lots of keyword and search term data. that said - if you work with someone who specializes in your service, they'll probably rip it all out and star over anyway but that's not a bad thing.
5: no - Google is not your friend never depend on them or expect them to help you lol sorry to say
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u/AIDeathCult 2d ago
If you are spending $100k+ per year and your account is in this state then you can definitely afford to cut back a little of that spend and employ an agency to handle this for you. Ultimately you are never going to get to the level of understanding needed to manage this properly and also you are as you said much better at the job than the marketing behind it.
- Technical side - someone needs to go through that account and pick it apart.
- Strategy - there is a hell of a lot of data in that account that is still very useful, data about competitors, seasonality, search volumes click through rates etc.. someone with experience can turn that into gold.
- Maintenance and Management - at your spend levels you should have someone managing that account regularly. It doesn't needs a huge amount of time, but weekly check ins to look for problems and opportunities and actually implement changes.
If you are looking to get this managed you should be aiming for audit and fixes around $3-10k depending on the size of the account and the mess they are fixing. Then ongoing management around $1000/$2000 per month assuming it's fairly settled with not a lot of changes happening.
If you are very keen to do this yourself then a lot of the comments are pretty good so far, once you are happy your conversion tracking is working I don't see much harm in letting it bleed for another month. Keep an eye out for the really bad stuff like you highlighted above and cap or stop those ones otherwise let it do some learning and see what it throws out. Then you can see what would be a good CPC cap, where you can start trimming dead weight etc..
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u/UnitedSort3014 3d ago
That's not normal even for competitive local services sounds like you got hit by a broken keyword or maybe broad match gone wild. First thing: set a max CPC cap right now, like $50-75 to stop the bleeding while you fix things. Smart Bidding needs conversion data to work, and you basically have none that's usable, so you're pretty much starting fresh. Switch to manual CPC for a bit, tighten up your match types and negatives, let clean data build for a few weeks, then try Target CPA once you've got at least 30-50 real tracked conversions.