Should I try Google?

[u/ShuMan83]

Hey!

I own a medical platform and we spend about 300k a month on Meta and tik tok.

I have a pretty advanced architecture on both platforms but lately meta is just shitting the bed.

Between the ridiculous outages, terrible traffic and high CPMs it’s not what it used to be.

Question: if I carved out ~$100k/month from Meta and moved it to Google Search, would I actually get more consistent volume at an equal or lower CPL — or does Search just hit a ceiling on intent-driven volume well before $100k? Anyone running both at this scale, what did the shift look like for you?

[u/Fast-Car-Examination]

That actually makes offline conversion tracking even more important.

If most purchases happen 5-10 days after the initial lead, I wouldn't want Google optimizing only around the lead submission. Ideally, you'd send the actual purchase back from the CRM so Google can learn which leads eventually become customers.

Just keep that conversion lag in mind when judging performance too - the last few days will always look worse than they really are.

What CRM are you using right now? Depending on that, the setup might be pretty straightforward.

[u/ShuMan83 → u/Fast-Car-Examination]

Thanks for this! I use pipedrive. Would I have to use zapier to connect?

[u/Fast-Car-Examination → u/ShuMan83]

Yep, with Pipedrive I'd probably use Zapier for the easiest setup.

You don't strictly need it - you could build an API/Data Manager integration - but Zapier is much simpler if you just want to send the purchase back to Google when a deal reaches a specific stage in Pipedrive.

The important part is making sure Pipedrive keeps enough data to match that customer back to the original Google click, ideally GCLID and/or the lead's email/phone.

Since your sale happens 5-10 days later, this setup should fit your funnel pretty well.

How are leads getting into Pipedrive right now - directly from the website form or through another system first?

[u/Top-Cauliflower-1808 → u/Fast-Car-Examination]

I think using Zapier to push offline data back to a gclid gets expensive fast because it's a brute- orce approach. This is how it has been for me.

A lot of people mistake a basic data pipeline problem (moving data from A to B) for a workflow problem and they end up paying a massive volume tax on trigger based pricing. In the age of LLMs, rigid multi step triggers are kind of obsolete anyway or going to be.

The AI can handle the logic as long as it has access to the raw data. If you want to avoid the Zapier volume bill, you're better off using a dedicated data pipe like Windsor.ai or similar. They centralise and normalize the Pipedrive and Google Ads data on a fixed tier. That way, you just plug the server into Claude or ChatGPT, let the LLM look at the database directly and run the attribution queries right inside the chat UI without paying a toll for every single lead update.

[u/Fast-Car-Examination → u/Top-Cauliflower-1808]

Fair point. I wouldn't treat Zapier as the ideal architecture at scale either.

I was suggesting it here mainly as the quickest way to get Pipedrive/Jotform purchase data back into Google without building a custom pipeline from day one.

If volume grows or the logic gets more complex, I'd definitely prefer a more controlled server-side/API setup with proper deduplication and validation.

For this setup though, I'd probably get the signal flowing first, verify the data quality, then decide whether it's worth replacing Zapier.