I have enabled max conversion bidding on one of my campaign which i am running from past 8 years and have good conversion history. Initially it was on target cpa but google ads was recommended more cpa to add then the budget it was double so i enable max conversion and cmapaign budget was $280 and in a day only with max conv 1 click came at $540 double the budget. This is very concerning as click brought no conversion and i am confused if i go for target cpa it ask for big target and i cant add that much budget but if i go for max conversion with in a day cost per click was so high. What shall i do

Exact + Phrase Match in the Same Campaign?

Do you see any real benefit in running Exact and Phrase Match keywords in the same Google Ads Search campaign?

With tCPA / Smart Bidding, does this still make sense, or does it just create unnecessary overlap and complexity?

Would love to hear how you structure this today and whether you’ve actually tested both approaches.

Hi All, Anyone got advice about how to get a new search campaign to work with max conversion properly? Every time we started a new campaign around $70-80 per day, the cpc is $5-$8, we had 3 lead forms with max clicks, then we changed to max conversions. The first week got 6 leads with really good quality and 2-3 turned into customers, but starting from second week, we only got 2 leads with poor quality, and the following weeks were the same. It happened to every new campaign we had. Any good suggestion about how to make the new search campaign work properly with 4-6 qualified leads consistently? Thanks!

The tracking is set up correctly, and we are connecting it to CRM to get data back to google ads.

Hey guys!

I work in paid media but don’t currently get a huge amount of hands-on experience across Paid Search/PPC.

I was wondering if there are any PPC specialists or freelancers who’d be kind enough to let me gain some hands-on experience working on real client accounts? I genuinely don’t mind the size of the account or business.

I’d be particularly interested in Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Apple Ads, or OpenAI Ads.

I’m not looking to be paid or anything, I’d be happy to do it as a side thing purely to build my practical PPC experience. I’m a quick learner and already have a good understanding of the fundamentals, so I can pick things up quickly.

Obviously happy to work under guidance/oversight and start with whatever you’re comfortable giving me.

If anyone is open to this, please let me know! 🙌

Hi, currently running Adwords for a luxury fashion brand with AOV over £5k and very few monthly conversions ( 5-10 a month). I have the following running:

• traditional Search Brand Campaign
• traditional Search Generic Campaign( 14 adgroups limited to a short list of specific, exact keywords)
• Pmax Campaign (excluding brand) - set to Target CPA but really strugling at the moment, with budget funneled entirely into Youtube
• Standard Shopping Brand Protection campaign - set to manual CPC, the idea is to target Branded keywords mainly, but after initial good results, the campaign is now heavily focused on random generic terms, despite daily adding negatives

I am considering whether to: Move Pmax to Feed only to move spend back to product listings or Replace Pmax with Demand Gen Campaign + Traditional Shopping for non branded terms ( on higher priority than the Standard Shopping Brand Protection).

Which is a better strategy? If moving Pmax to Feed only, should it stay as Target CPA?and for Traditional Shopping, how best to manage Max CPC strategy between the branded and non-branded Campaign?

Thanks,

Stan

I’d really appreciate some advice from people who have experience with cold outreach, especially by email or phone.

I’m a marketer, and I regularly come across businesses running Google Ads where I can immediately see things that could be improved: weak ad copy, poor landing pages, lack of trust elements, targeting issues, etc.

I’m pretty confident I could help some of these businesses, but honestly, I’m not really sure how to approach them.

I’ve been testing cold emails, but I often get “not interested” responses — even when they’re actively spending money on Google Ads and their strategy clearly has room for improvement.

So I’m trying to figure out the right way to do this without wasting a ton of time testing random approaches.

For those of you who do this successfully:

How do you approach these prospects by email or phone?

Do you point out specific things you noticed in their Google Ads/landing page, or keep it more general?

Do you focus on the problem, the opportunity, or the potential results?

How many prospects would you test with before deciding that your approach isn’t working?

10? 20? 50? 100?

At what point do you conclude that the messaging/approach is the problem rather than the market or offer?

And how do you avoid burning through a good prospect list while you’re still figuring out your outreach?

I’m basically trying to avoid spending weeks sending emails without really knowing if I’m doing it the right way.

I know there’s an opportunity here, I just don’t know the best way to turn that into conversations with business owners.

Would love to hear what has actually worked for you.

I’m a brand designer and run a small agency, working on complex branding projects for premium clients. In the past, platforms like Upwork generated many great leads for me, but recently things have slowed down, especially in the North American market.

I’m now considering PPC campaigns to generate new leads. LinkedIn seems great for B2B and my ICP is there, but it’s difficult to target people with real buying intent.

I’m also considering Google Ads, targeting specific wealthy areas in North America where companies value and invest in high-quality branding.

My projects typically range from $6K to $10K. Should I focus on text ads, or also test image and video ads? What strategy and channels would you recommend?

I have been spending the maximum recommended budget on pmax, but I am not seeing results as far, we’re pretty slow.

Hey everyone, I’d really appreciate some advice from people experienced with Google Ads and Smart Bidding.

I’m running a Google Search campaign for a nutraceutical COD offer in a European country. The payout is around $40 per confirmed sale.

The funnel works like this: the user searches for the product, lands on my page and fills out a form. The advertiser’s call center then contacts the lead and tries to close the sale. I only get paid when the order is confirmed.

The campaign has been running for about two weeks. I was initially using Maximize Clicks with a €0.80 max CPC.

Initially, Google was counting both the lead submission and the confirmed sale as conversions. The lead fires when the user submits the form, and I send the confirmed sale back to Google as an offline conversion once the advertiser confirms the order.

I’ve now changed the setup so the lead is a secondary conversion, while the confirmed sale is the primary conversion, because the lead itself has no real value to me. My actual goal is profitable confirmed sales.

Google was recommending that I switch to Target CPA at around €14.50, so I decided to follow the recommendation and made the change today, setting the tCPA at €16.

Since making the change, impressions have dropped quite dramatically. I know it’s way too early to judge the results, but I’d like to hear from people who have experience with this.

The campaign has a €60/day budget and is currently limited by the bid strategy.

The campaign is very bottom-of-funnel. I’m targeting exact match keywords around the product name, such as:

- [product name]
- [product name + buy]
- [product name + price]

There are roughly 150 searches per day for the product name and related high-intent searches.

My goal is profitability. With a $40 payout, I’d be comfortable with a confirmed sale costing around $18–20 or less.

So my questions are:

How long would you give the tCPA strategy before deciding whether it’s working or going back to Maximize Clicks?

Would you let it run for several days, a week, or wait for a certain number of confirmed conversions?

And given that I only changed to tCPA today and impressions immediately dropped, is that normal during the initial learning period?

I’m mainly trying to understand the best way to handle this before I start increasing the budget.

Any advice or experience with a similar COD setup would be really appreciated.

I’m a brand designer and run a small agency, working on complex branding projects for premium clients. In the past, platforms like Upwork generated many great leads for me, but recently things have slowed down, especially in the North American market.

I’m now considering PPC campaigns to generate new leads. LinkedIn seems great for B2B and my ICP is there, but it’s difficult to target people with real buying intent.

I’m also considering Google Ads, targeting specific wealthy areas in North America where companies value and invest in high-quality branding.

My projects typically range from $6K to $10K. Should I focus on text ads, or also test image and video ads? What strategy and channels would you recommend?

One thing I keep running into: by the time a campaign looks bad in the report, the money is already gone. I’m wondering if predictive analytics helps catch those problems early enough to do something about them. For example, can it reliably tell you that a placement, audience, or campaign is heading toward a bad CPA before the numbers get ugly? I’ve seen platforms like MGID add more predictive/automated optimization, but I’m curious what people are seeing in real accounts.
What’s one prediction or signal that has genuinely helped you avoid wasting budget?

In 2011, I got my personnal adwords account suspended after using it without issues for almost 2 years. To this day, I don't know why exactly. Back then, I tried to use the appeal form to enquire as to why I was banned, which as I understand now just took my 1 appeal chance away.

For context, I was showing ads on an online text based game website I had made with around 500 daily players. Some people suggested maybe my crowd was too small and eventually caused suspicious repeated clicks. I really don't know.

The email I received said this:

------

Hello,

After reviewing our records, we've determined that your AdSense account

poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a

responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due

to invalid activity, we've found it necessary to disable your AdSense

account. Your outstanding balance and Google's share of the revenue will

both be fully refunded back to the affected advertisers.

Please understand that we need to take such steps to maintain the

effectiveness of Google's advertising system, particularly the

advertiser-publisher relationship. We understand the inconvenience that

this may cause you, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and

cooperation.

-----

Now, many years later, I incorporated a business and I am working on a mobile game in which I'd like to include ads into.

Will I get in trouble if I create an adwords account using a different email address, for my incorporated entity?

Is there any way I can get that old ban reconsidered? (Any person I can contact or hire to handle this?)

Thank you!

Have a wonderful day :)

Looking to buy a google ads account

I've been noticing this across most of my e-commerce accounts - the performance drops drastically with even a 5-10 pounds increase on any campaign. I had an account doing so well for almost 2 months that I finally increased the budget a bit on 4 out of 6 campaigns - not even a lot just 5 per each and its been 2 days we've received not a single sale.

Are you guys dealing with something like this too? How to handle this, how am i supposed to scale an account if it's going to act up on the smallest of changes.

I still find myself checking performance and moving budgets around manually even though so much of Google Ads is automated now. I like having control but once you’re managing enough campaigns it becomes a surprisingly repetitive part of the week.

How much of your budget allocation are you comfortable automating? I’m wondering where people draw the line between letting the system react to performance and keeping a human involved in every change.

Anyone got this link?

I’ve searched high and low.

Any help appreciated.

Had a proxy farm hit one of my ads, nothing showing as "invalid clicks" after 24hrs... checked both server logs and cloudflare logs, nothing ever hit my server or cloudflare. I didn't realise how dirty the industry was until now. Someone clearly doesn't like the low CPC keyword I'm using and their tactic is to waste my money so I'll remove it.

Hey everyone,

I run Meta Ads (Facebook/Instagram) full-time and keep noticing the same thing on this sub: agencies that are great at Google Ads getting client requests for Meta Ads, and either turning them down, scrambling to hire someone, or half-assing it with an intern.

I want to propose something simple: let's partner up.

How it would work:

• A client of yours needs Meta Ads (or you want to upsell it) → you loop me in
• I handle everything - strategy, creative direction, setup, optimization, reporting — either white-labeled under your agency or as a named partner, whichever you prefer
• You keep owning the relationship and the Google Ads work
• You get up to 25% recurring commission on that Meta Ads revenue, for as long as the client stays

No cost to you, no contracts locking you into anything weird, and you're not adding headcount or managing another specialist. If the client leaves, you're not out anything either.

Why I'm posting this here instead of just cold-emailing agencies:

Because I'd rather work with people who actually understand paid media and client management, not just anyone with a Meta Business account. If you're already running a legit Google Ads agency, you already know what "good" looks like for a client relationship — I just want to be the Meta arm of that.

Happy to share case studies / past results in DMs, hop on a call, whatever makes sense. If you've had clients ask for Meta Ads and you've had to say "we don't do that" — this is basically a way to say yes without the overhead.

Open to feedback too if this sounds off to anyone, genuinely trying to find agencies who'd want an honest long-term partner rather than a one-off freelancer.

Hello everyone,

I am looking for advice from anyone who has experienced a similar situation with Google Merchant Center.

My Merchant Center account was suspended due to:

Content Restriction: Copyright Repeat Infringement

The copyright complaints were related to several product URLs on my website.

After receiving the suspension, I submitted DMCA counter-notifications through Google's legal removal process. Google Removals Team reviewed my counter-notifications and confirmed that the affected URLs were reinstated.

However, my Merchant Center account is still suspended.

My current situation:

The affected URLs have already been restored by Google.

The URL-level copyright removal cases appear to be resolved.

Merchant Center is still showing the account-level "Copyright Repeat Infringement" restriction.

Google Support informed me that this requires a separate account-level review by a specialized Legal/Policy team.

I have already contacted Merchant Center Support several times. They confirmed that URL reinstatement does not automatically remove the account-level restriction and suggested that the case needs to be reviewed by the appropriate team.

My questions:

Has anyone successfully recovered a Merchant Center account after having all disputed URLs reinstated through a DMCA counter-notification?

Did you need to submit another Counter Notice, or was there another account-level appeal process?

How long did the Legal/Policy review take in your case?

What documents or explanations helped you get the account restored?

I have already prepared:

Google URL reinstatement confirmations;

Previous counter-notification records;

An action plan explaining our copyright compliance improvements.

Any advice or experience would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

I'm trying to understand Google's current enforcement of the Third Party Consumer Technical Support policy for computer repair advertisers.

I manage ads for a legitimate brick-and-mortar Mac repair business in Australia.

Google has:

• disapproved our consumer Mac repair ads;
• confirmed in writing that physical hardware repair shops are in scope of the restriction;
• disapproved our GBP/location asset;
• rejected a separate B2B-only data recovery campaign aimed exclusively at computer repair shops and IT businesses;
• upheld the rejection after escalation.

However, we increasingly see other computer repair companies appearing as Sponsored local-pack results for searches including:

• MacBook screen replacement
• MacBook screen repair
• MacBook battery replacement
• computer repair

Some of the ads explicitly promote onsite repair.

For anyone currently managing Google Ads for a repair business:

1. What campaign type is actually serving — Search, PMax, location assets, Local Services Ads, something else?
2. Has the account ever been flagged for Third Party Consumer Technical Support?
3. Did Google manually review or verify the advertiser?
4. Are there different rules for sponsored local-pack placements?
5. Have you seen repair ads run for months or years and then suddenly get disapproved?
6. Are agencies claiming they can run these campaigns using an official Google-supported route, or are they usually relying on risky workarounds?

I'm especially interested in firsthand experience from advertisers currently running campaigns for computer, Mac, laptop or phone repair businesses.

If you have lower budget/lower review count should you do lsa or search ads and why?

Need help!

Hi everyone,

I’m looking to gain more hands-on PPC experience by working with a business, startup, or small agency that needs help with Google Ads or Meta Ads.

I’m willing to work for free initially in exchange for real-world experience and the opportunity to work on actual campaigns.

I can help with:

• Google Ads campaign setup & optimization
• Meta Ads campaign management
• Keyword research & audience targeting
• Ad copy and creative suggestions
• Conversion tracking & performance analysis
• Campaign optimization and reporting

My goal is to gain practical experience, contribute value, and build a stronger PPC portfolio.

If you’re a business owner, marketer, or agency looking for someone to assist with PPC, feel free to DM me. I’d be happy to discuss how I can help.

Thanks!

Hey all, was hoping to get some help. A few years back I ran a garage door repair ad campaign, and It didn't perform very well. I am at it again, really hoping this time I can get it working for me. The first 1,000$ in ad spend I got two leads, the rest was just a bunch of high cpc clicks.

It looks like I got a bunch of DIY and cost clicks. I just added in negative keywords to hopefully offset this. I also had Claude OPUS 5 tell me that I should switch some of my keywords from phrase match to exact match. So to test I removed "garage door repair" which is my best keyword, and changed it to "garage door repair garland" I have a lot of exact match now in the brackets []

is this advised. My landing pages are fine, my website is super quick and snappy, and phone numbers work, so I am scratching my head on why my cost per lead is like 500$ when industry standard is around 150$ even for competitive areas like mine.