r/adwords

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.

I have a client running 4 Google Search campaigns that are all optimized for max conversions. My agency runs the Google Ads for only one division of their company, so sometimes soemthing will change with their website/GA4/GTM that messes things up for us and we have no control over it. Recently, something happened and every single one of their conversions is "misconfigured", even the ones that we don't use but other teams do. I tried what I could to troubleshoot, but my account only has so many permissions and I don't really know what broke or how long it'll take to fix.

I notified the client but their web team can sometimes take a long time to fix something and other times be very quick, so I have no idea how long our campaigns will be affected. In order to keep the campaigns running well and optimized, how should I proceed? I don't feel like I can keep them on Max Conversions since we know they won't record conversions, but if this gets fixed in the next day or two, changing the campaign goals multiple times would trigger multiple learning periods which also seems like a bad idea. Max Clicks seems like a good way to get trash traffic, especially because their in a niche B2B space.

Hello all!

For the past four years, we’ve been working on a tool that detects bot traffic. We’re seeing a lot happening, especially now with AI. But as we’re still building and developing it, we’d like to know the following.

What’s your number one reason for not giving this a go?

Because, to be honest, when we look at our figures, we don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t sign up. And perhaps you’ve already given it a go once or have other reasons, if so, please let us know. I’m really, really curious. Just comment here or send me a DM.

To be clear: I really don't want to sell anything. Only want to learn from you guys why you didn't sign-up so we can learn from that.

I’m currently considering a Google Ads campaign for a real estate agency whose goal is to generate people looking to buy or sell a property.

They already have a marketplace-style website with lots of property listings, but I’m wondering if sending paid traffic directly there is actually the best approach.

In Google Keyword Planner, I can already see search demand around terms like “buy a property” and “sell a property.”

My initial thought would be to create two dedicated landing pages:

→ One for people looking to buy
→ One for people looking to sell

And in both cases, the main conversion would be a lead form, so the prospect can be contacted directly by the sales team.

My concern is: if I simply send traffic to a marketplace with dozens of listings and links, how do I actually define whether the Google Ads campaign is successful?

Would love to hear from people who have managed Google Ads for real estate agencies:

How do you structure these campaigns?

Do you send traffic to the marketplace, or do you prefer dedicated landing pages focused on lead generation?

Curious to hear how you approach this.

Hi! What is your most functional configuration for Performance Max campaigns with store goals?

Do you use Maximize conversions or Maximize conversion value?

Do you set a radius in Km around the business or leave freedom to the Google Ads algorithm? (Google also discourages setting a manual radius in PMAX campaigns with store goals).

Furthermore, I noticed that by removing directions as a conversion goal and keeping only "Store Visits" and "Click To Call", the quality of clicks and impressions increases significantly.

By also keeping directions, the sponsored ads are seen and clicked even in cities very far from where the restaurant is located.

By keeping only "Store Visits", they are seen around the business and in nearby cities, obviously also increasing the cost per single click, despite this the cost per single store visit is significantly lower.

In my opinion, you start with Maximize conversions and keeping all conversion goals active for at least a month.

When the "Store Visits" conversion is activated (usually within 2 months), you switch to the configuration with only Store Visits.

Obviously this is if the business goal is to bring as many people as possible inside the business, a restaurant in my case.

Hi everyone,

I’m managing Google Ads for a company that manufactures and sells industrial printers. Our products range from around $10,000 to $400,000 per machine, so this is a high-ticket B2B business with a relatively long sales cycle.

Our campaigns are currently divided into 8 campaigns by market/product:
US & Canada
Southeast Asia
Central Asia
UK & Turkey
Northeastern Europe
Southern Europe
South America
Corrugated printers

Our main problem is with bidding strategy and conversion volume.

We originally used Maximize Clicks, but after switching to Maximize Conversions, the campaigns tend to stall and receive very little traffic.

The problem is that our account currently has very little conversion data — only around 1–2 inquiries per month. Conversion tracking has been checked and appears to be working correctly, but there simply isn’t enough conversion data for Google’s algorithm to learn from.

So we seem to be stuck in a loop:

Not enough conversions → not enough data for Maximize Conversions → campaigns lose traffic → still not enough conversions.

Our total Google Ads budget is only around $2,800/month, and because of the low conversion volume, I don’t feel comfortable increasing the budget blindly.
For those experienced with Google Ads for high-ticket B2B / industrial equipment, what would you recommend in this situation?

1）Should I stay with Maximize Clicks until we generate more conversion data?

2）Would Manual CPC, Maximize Clicks with a CPC cap, or another bidding strategy make more sense?

3）Should I consolidate the 8 campaigns to concentrate the limited conversion data instead of splitting it by country/market?

4）Are there other conversion actions I should be tracking (e.g. qualified leads, contact forms, calls, WhatsApp inquiries) to give Google more data?

5）With a budget of only $2,800/month, how would you structure the campaigns and bidding strategy?

I’m relatively new to Google Ads optimization, so I’d really appreciate any practical advice or examples of how you would approach this account.

Thanks in advance!

Looking for someone who can teach me Google Ads through real hands-on experience.
I know Bing Ads and currently work on it, but opportunities are quite limited, so I want to expand into Google Ads. I’m happy to pay for practical mentorship. Please DM me if you can help!

New update

Key Changes Coming in Late September 2026:

• For Search Campaigns: The campaign-level language setting is being removed. Instead, ads will automatically match based on the language of your ad content (such as your headlines, descriptions, and landing pages).
• For Performance Max Campaigns:
  • On Google Search & Shopping: Functionality will match Search campaigns, with ads automatically matching your asset language.
  • On Other Channels (YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail): Your campaign-level language setting will still be used to guide who sees your ads.
• For Multiple Campaigns: If you have multiple eligible campaigns, Google's AI will prioritize and select the most relevant ad language.

No Action Required This change is automatic, so you don't need to adjust your existing campaigns. You'll still be able to view language settings in the Google Ads interface as these updates roll out.

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for someone with solid hands-on experience in Google Ads and GA4 who can help us with a few issues we're currently dealing with.

I'd especially like to hear from people who have actually handled similar cases:

• Website redirects & Google Ads: What would you check if a website suddenly starts redirecting to another domain and Google Ads campaigns get blocked/suspended after about a week? How would you identify the actual cause and fix it?
• Auction Insights: How do you normally analyze the Auction Insights report? If a competitor has a significantly higher impression share and is outselling our brand, what would you look at first and what actions would you take?
• tCPA vs. tROAS: How do you decide which bidding strategy is more appropriate? What conditions or data do you need before switching from one to the other?
• GA4 attribution: What is your approach to setting up attribution correctly in GA4 and making sure conversions aren't lost or duplicated when moving from Universal Analytics?

If you've worked on similar problems, I'd really appreciate hearing about real cases.

If possible, please share an anonymized dashboard, screenshot, or case study showing actual numbers (CPA, ROAS, conversion volume, impression share, etc.). Sensitive/client information can obviously be removed.

Thanks in advance!

So the tldr is my account of 10 years $1M spent got compromised but ultimately un-suspended albeit on READ FUCKING ONLY & Google support is so inept to re-add my admin access.

Only 1 campaign was left running and my card expires on 11/27 so it’s an essentially a ticking time bomb.

Can I create a new account to recreate my campaigns in the interim in hope of recovering my main? (I hope little hope given the current state of “support”)

Unfortunately my business relies on Google ads for 95% of our leads so being locked out for over 2 months has had a huge financial impact on us.

I checked google my business and the location asset they all defined well, I even contact Google and they didn’t have an answer 😏😏

I have many years experience running Google Ads for clients through agency settings. I am starting to do some contract work for small business owners, I don’t have much experience managing Google My Business. Are the two products vastly different? What should I expect navigating from traditional paid search via Google Ads to managing Google my business?

This is a repost as I failed to find someone, since I took the initiative and swapped to max conversions I’ve had great success however I still lack time to fix issues and adapt to the forever changing algorithms. I’ve also started meta ads and TikTok ads so experience here would be good as I have none and to know if it’s even worth it for my industry… I’m currently experiencing a dip of 40% give or take so I’m looking for someone urgently and I’d like to know if there is any reason for this dip in work and if it can be fixed or if it’s just seasonal.

Hi, my name is Joseph. I own a windscreen company (similar to Autoglass, but smaller). I’ve been running my own Google Ads for the past 6 years, learning a lot along the way and seeing great success. However, I’ve reached a point where I no longer have the time or energy to manage them myself, so I’m looking to hire a professional who can tidy things up, save me money, and achieve a better CPA.

A bit of background: I’ve worked with a few Google Ads “specialists” before—both high-end and low-end—but unfortunately none of them were worth the money. What matters most to me is finding someone who will actually listen to my opinions and work with me. I’ve got 6 years of hands-on experience running Ads and, more importantly, I know my own business inside out, so I can provide valuable insights to help drive better results.

For most of the time I’ve been running on Max Clicks, which brought great success but also proved unreliable. I’ve recently switched to Max Conversions, which has worked well but comes with its own challenges. I want to stick with Max Conversions, as I believe it’s the best option for scaling (my goal is simple: more work)—but I know the campaigns need refining.

Currently, I’m spending around £8,000 per month across two campaigns (one is max conversions for Essex and the other is a performance max for Essex).

The perfect candidate: • Has previous experience in the industry • Is a small business like me (not big corporate) • Is VAT-registered

If this sounds like a challenge you’d like to take on, please comment below with your company name and why you think you’re the right fit.

Thanks for taking the time to read, Joseph

We need roughly 60 HTML5 units a month and I’m comparing Creatopy, Bannerflow, and Viewst. Bannerflow looks strongest if we want publishing and approvals in one place, but it may be more system than our 4-person team needs. Viewst’s HTML5 export is straightforward, though a crowded project can slow down. Creatopy has the deeper starting library, but the editor has been fussy for us on heavier builds.  
  
For mostly GDN production, what mattered after the first 30 days: templates, export reliability, or direct publishing?

Google is moving Local Services Ads into Google Ads as Performance Max pay-per-lead campaigns, with bidding, reporting, and management changes beginning August 2026.

The billing model will also stay the same. Advertisers will continue paying for valid leads, including calls, messages, and bookings, rather than clicks.

Hope this time local services ads are not the worst like befor.