r/googleads

Running search campaigns for about 6 weeks now for a small ecommerce store selling handmade home decor. Budget has been modest but consistent, and the CTR looks decent around 45%. Getting clicks every day, people are landing on the product pages, some even add to cart, but actual completed purchases are basically zero.

I have conversion tracking set up through Google Tag Manager and it appears to be firing correctly, at least from what I can tell in the preview tool. Using Max Clicks right now while trying to gather data before switching to a smarter bidding strategy.

I'm trying to figure out where the dropoff is actually happening. Is this typically a landing page problem, a traffic quality issue, or something wrong with how the campaign is structured? My keywords are mostly phrase match with a decent negative keyword list, but maybe I went too broad somewhere.

Attribution and tracking issues are common culprits, but I genuinely cannot tell if people are just not buying or if my tracking is broken and sales are happening without being recorded.

Has anyone been through this exact situation and figured out what the real issue was? What steps did you take to diagnose it, rather than just throwing more budget at the problem and hoping something sticks?

Hey everyone. I am a SaaS founder and we recently launched our tool. We are exploring google ads as a channel to run ads to target our customers. However we are getting impressions but a very low CTR. I wanted to understand what are the best practices that people are following in the industry to analyse where we are missing out.

Thanks in advance. Would really appreciate some help.

I just noticed this, when googling my name, someone is running branded ads to my website. I'm a freelancer. It looks like the ads have been appearing for a few days.

I don't have a Google Ads account set up running ads to my domain. I've double checked and my website doesn't have any malicious code.

I've reported to Google, but don't expect a prompt response or any kind of response at all.

Why would somebody want to run ads to my website? I'm assuming it's some kind of scam??

My main focus right now is getting retention first rather than profit. How to target the audience that won't rage quit in the first minute itself? I would really appreciate any tips.

Also, I noticed that the number of new users on firebase analytics is much lower than the number of installs on Google ads (Around 30%)

I've currently set the campaign to install volume (all users) and set a low target CPI. Although, my CPI is even lower than my target (0.05$, Indian users only).

Hey, quick questions, since i had before some struggles cause of misrepresentation suspension - which i could fix.
But my fix included to remove anything what might be triggering it.

My questions are:
-Is a strike-through-price a misrepresentation? Or can I easily make a 20% higher strike-through-price on all my products? Since i believe this increase conversion a lot

-Review apps: Is Bulk Upload of Reviews from Aliexpress or Alibaba or Amazon ok inside Vitals App? Or is this a misrepresentation, if this is not made by an actual client of myself but from Upload from somewhere else?

I currently dont have both, which is hurting my conversion rate, but I do believe both is usefull, I am just scared to be flagged for misrepresentation again.

I’ve been testing GPL-1 offer as an affiliate and need insight b/c the economics to collect data seem like it can run you 30k just for enough data to optimize towards . The bids are $10-$38 and want know anyone has success and does the economics worth it with small budget of 3k.

feels like theres endless SEM tips onlineand I dont really trust our google rep but is there anything that helped. I feel like weve reached a ceiling to scale

could be ad copy, bidding, feed, AI max, anything?? Curious what made a real difference for you guys

Context for this, my small cleaning business started a Search campaign end of April with Manual CPC on $25 daily budget. Targeted to a single medium metro area. About 60 keywords, all phrase and exact match and strong list of negatives. Booking Completed was primary conversion action and Generate Lead (basically submit contact info for quote) was secondary action. In one month I generated 3 booking conversions and 11 lead conversions. Most keywords were bid at $6 to $7 max CPC. CTR was 4.66% and Conv rate 2.17%. There are three services (regular/recurring cleaning, deep cleaning, move-in/out cleaning) and ad groups for each service. Ads final URLs are landing pages tailored to service.

And then I switched to Max Conversions. At the time, I wasn't realizing that some of this stuff takes some time. I had booked three jobs in week 2 and then was getting disappointed that they weren't continuing in following weeks. I read that 30 conversions ideal before switching to max conversions, but didn't look at it hard and figured it was time to move up. When I switched to max conversions, I also swapped primary and secondary so primary was now generate lead and secondary was booking. Based on volume it seemed that was going to be the path most wanted.

And the next four weeks were good numbers. CTR 7.62% and Conv rate 25%. But no bookings.

But since then the CTR has gone down to 5% and conv rate dropped to 17% with one booking.

Last week I created new landing pages with much better performance, mobile-first, and good message match to RSAs. I'm reviewing terms and adding negatives leaky terms every week.

I guess my question is... I was excited with my initial three bookings under relatively cheap clicks when I was on Manual CPC. Going to Max Conversions has improved my CTR and Conv rate, but the bidding on the clicks is so high (one day google bid $90 for three clicks that didn't convert and then I had no impressions for like two days while the budget averaged out) I'm wondering if I switched to Max Conversions too early and was getting more ROAS in Manual CPC mode.

Go back? Stay the course? Love to hear your advice. Can't find a lot of resources for small fry/low volume campaigns like me.

I am running Google Ads for a Taxi App in Germany. I know that competitors pay around 1€ per Conversion here, I am bidding twice that and am still being shown at the very bottom of the page. my daily budget is around 200€, My quality Score is at basically 100% and Ive set up Keywords properly.

Any idea what else I can take a look at?

Edit: its a local app, basically only usable in one smaller region. Thats why I used keywords like "taxi (cityname here)" etc.

Edit2: boys I believe everyone's comments arw being autodeleted lol. Please dm me with ideas. thanks :)

We have implemented a thorough negative keywords list, we have used both audience signals and search themes, and have all types of assets.

The quality of leads is still very low. How can we improve that?

Recently a client has told me that we need to push a particular variation of product in google ads. This is in a campaign that had 4 ad groups, 1 for each product variation.

Now we're reducing the ad groups down to just one of those product variations (1 ad group).

Before hand, this product which, we've now honed in on now, had a few conversions but the majority came from the other variations. Now because of supply chain issues, we can't do that anymore (have the other products).

Reluctantly, I turned off the campaigns for the other products and wouldn't you know we stopping getting impressions.

Keep in mind the budget is $20 a day and are average CPC is between $1-5.

From here I switched to max clicks and boom, traffic coming in but no conversions which was very irritating.

The campaign was prompting me to switch back to max conversions saying there was enough conversion data for the campaign to work but I tried again (switching to max conversions with no target CPA) and... nothing. No impressions.

I'm so confused and worried because we're essentially paying for empty clicks even though our keywords + ads + landing page are all very closely aligned. (using phrase match, no broad or exact)
And because previously we've had conversions in the campaign.

For reference we're targeting the entire US, no policy violations, there's plenty of search volume, and there's no cap on the target CPA (unchecked).

I don't know how else I could nurture this campaign to get impression and therefore conversions at this point. Targeting is broad and there's no chains on what google can get a conversion at.

What are your guy's thoughts?

Support says it's a system-level error they can't fix. Anyone dealt with this?

Sharing the full story because this is documented and other dog walkers and pet care businesses need to know what they're walking into.

The business: Deez Muttz Pet Care, Baltimore, MD. Worker-owned dog walking cooperative. Services: solo walks, pack walks, cat drop-ins. No boarding. No kennel. Verified Google Business Profile, category: Dog Walker. Maryland LLC. Full pet care liability insurance. CPR certified. 7 five-star reviews. Clean Google Ads account.

The problem: When I attempted to set up Local Services Ads, I was immediately flagged as ineligible. The system required one of the following to proceed:

• MD Kennel License from the Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation
• Baltimore City Health Dept. Commercial Boarding Permit

I do not operate a kennel. I do not offer boarding. Neither of these licenses applies to my business.

Why this is impossible: Maryland does not issue a dog walking license. Baltimore City does not issue one either. No such credential exists at the state or municipal level. It is structurally impossible to provide documentation for a license that no government agency in my jurisdiction issues.

What I did:

1. Called LSA support multiple times. Was cut off during transfers repeatedly. Phone tree would not escalate — literally loops back to "enter your CID" and hangs up if you don't have one in the right format.
2. Opened support tickets. Received scripted responses requiring kennel documentation. Pushed back explicitly and in writing.
3. Escalated within the same thread, explicitly refusing ticket closure and demanding a specialist with authority to adjust licensing requirements.
4. Received a second scripted response. Pushed again.
5. Finally received confirmation of the following — in writing, from Google support:

Google confirmed in writing:

• Dog walking is grouped under the "Pet Care/Pet Boarding" industry classification at the platform level
• Kennel licensing requirements apply to the entire category regardless of whether a business boards animals
• No formal appeal or reclassification process exists for individual businesses
• No one in support or specialist teams has the administrative authority to waive, modify, or adjust these requirements
• The only path forward is submitting the kennel license or commercial boarding permit

The pay-to-play context: A local pet care marketing firm called Dog Connectors offered to set me up with LSAs for $750/month on a 4-month minimum commitment — $3,000 total. The implication is that at that spend level they have access to actual Google account reps who can navigate compliance issues like this. Below that threshold you're in the self-serve tier with scripted support that by their own written admission cannot fix structural platform errors.

Where things stand: I have uploaded my pet care liability insurance certificate to the license verification slot as a good-faith attempt. I have posted to the Google Ads Help Community. I have sent a final reply to the support thread placing Google's position on record and stating I will share this documentation publicly.

What I'm looking for: Has anyone successfully gotten through this? Specific documentation that worked in place of a kennel license? A contact at Google with actual authority over LSA compliance categorization? Any path forward at all?

Does anyone else have the feeling lately broad match keywords convert better then exact or phrase?

When i use broad match in combination with phrase or exact. Broad just converts better against a lower CPA. Still getting the right people to convert. Anyone else?

I have been running a new Google Ads campaign for the past 7 days and every single day it spends almost my entire daily budget within the first 30 minutes of the morning.

By the time evening and late night come around, there is barely any budget left.

I always hear that Google Ads has one of the best algorithms, but why doesn't it use some basic common sense? In my experience, mornings are the worst time for my audience because people are rushing to work, getting ready and generally not in a buying mindset.

Evenings and late nights perform much better since people are relaxed, browsing on their phones and more likely to make purchases. Yet Google keeps spending most of my budget early in the day, leaving almost nothing for the hours that actually convert.

When does this stabilize and start spending the budget more evenly throughout the day?

I saw the following concerning alert in one of my accounts, which seems to mean that tCPA/tROAS campaigns that are currently limited by budget will become less efficient unless careful changes are made.

"Starting August 17, 2026, campaigns with bid targets (for example CPA, or ROAS target) will provide more consistent performance when limited by budget, even after budget adjustments. Review these campaigns to ensure targets align with your objectives; targets will not be updated automatically."

Google used to have you covered somewhat if your tCPA was too high or your tROAS was too low relative to your budget. If campaign budget was being reached, Google used to effectively bid down to improve volume. That might sound contradictory, but it used to be one of the fundamentals of PPC bidding and understanding. Reducing bids when campaign is limited by budget gets you higher volume on the same spend. Consider a campaign getting 10 clicks per day at $1 each. If the campaign is limited by budget and you reduce bids to $0.50, that means you're now getting 20 clicks per day on the same spend. A similar principle used to apply to campaigns running tCPA and tROAS (just replace clicks in prior example with conversions). However, with this change, Google will get you whatever tCPA / tROAS that you input and will no longer bid down to help you out if the campaign budget gets reached.

So long story short, any budget limited campaigns that have tCPA or tROAS inputs will become less efficient. This is a problem, for example on campaigns with precise tROAS requirements but temporarily limited spend due to budget constraints.

Curious to hear other advertisers' opinions!

Hi guys! I am totally new to PPC or anything similar. My current budget is $22/day and after optimizing the campaign, we have an 85% increase on conversions for a total of around 500+/week. Despite this, I am still not appearing on the top of page or abs top of page like I used to. I was wondering if this actually mattered, or if I should increase the budget for bidding? Sorry if this doesn't make sense.

I’ve been running Google Ads for years, and I’ve already learned the hard way what works and what doesn’t. I know exactly which strategies waste money. So long story short, when I created this campaign, Google already had some suggested keywords in there. I deleted them because they were way too broad, and I knew they’d bring in expensive, low-quality clicks. I’ve already been through that before.
I built my campaign the way I wanted it, and it actually started working. It had been running great for about three days, getting me calls and paying customers. I also check my keywords and billing constantly—literally every hour.
Then one day I unpaused my campaign and noticed I was getting a bunch of expensive clicks. I checked my keywords and saw that 24 broad match keywords had been added to my campaign. I know for a fact I didn’t add them. I even checked my settings, and all the AI features are turned off because I already know to disable those.
I contacted Google Support, and all they told me was those keywords had been there the whole time. That’s simply not true. I check my campaign every single day, and I know exactly what keywords were in it.
After spending years and thousands of dollars learning how to run profitable campaigns, it’s frustrating to see something like this happen. It feels like Google keeps pushing broad keywords that burn through advertisers’ budgets, and then refuses to acknowledge what happened.

I would advertise a ms teams plug-in app for carpooling in company .
And I would try to put a bigger amount ( 80/100 euro per day vs 20 euro before ).

Which platform you recommend to me ? Linkedin ads or google ads ?

I just want to make a shopping ad but when I try to set up my google ads account, it just forces me to create an SEO ad. I can't even access my dashboard on my account.

What do I do?