We were reviewing a lead gen account where Google Ads looked healthy enough. Conversions were coming through, CPL was fairly steady, but sales kept saying the lead quality had dropped.

We checked the campaigns first, but nothing really explained the gap.

It only started making sense when we compared the Google Ads conversions with the CRM.

Every form submission was being counted as the same primary conversion, whether it became a qualified lead, went nowhere, or was just poor quality.

At that point, Smart Bidding wasn’t really the issue. The signal was.

The harder question is what you do next.

If you have plenty of form submissions but only a small number of qualified leads, do you keep the higher volume signal, or switch to qualified and offline conversions even if Google has much less data to work with?

How are people here handling that trade-off in lead gen accounts?

Our current account has a problem: It's not measuring conversions per GA user interface. We have the event in GA4 and can see that events arrive in the debug view in GA4 and can be seen in the GTM debug container. Also, our GTM container (web > server side) connects perfectly with GA4 and Google Ads.

GA only wants us to connect via an Html script tag, which is not possible due to the GTM setup.

When setting up conversions (submit lead form), these are set as "Group 2 goals"; We do not have a "Group 1 goal" as a page view is not a conversion for us.

Now, two weeks into the campaign, we got an email by Google that "Your account is missing the most important step for Ads success". There they have a link: "Book a tag implementation appointment. Get expert support with implementing conversion measurement in your account."

When we click that account, we get the following message (spending close to €100 so far): "Account not eligible to create an appointment"

Question: What makes us eligible to receive support from their end?

Note that we have already searched the Ad and ran a conversion by ourself to trigger something that might got stuck inside Google Ads. That did not help. We can see "Primary conversion actions: 2" at the bottom of https://ads.google.com/aw/conversions.

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 logic board 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.

Does targeting products that appear on competitors' "best-seller" lists guarantee high purchase intent? If I could source them—finding products with search volume, negligible competition from other dropshippers, and massive profit margins—wouldn't that undoubtedly lead to a winning product? Or is my reasoning flawed?

I’m not entirely sure how to explain my situation, so I’m hoping someone with experience in Google Ads or affiliate marketing can give me some honest advice.

I recently discovered platforms like ClickBank and Digistore, where you can promote products as an affiliate. The idea caught my attention for two reasons: I’ve been using the internet for about 20 years, so I’m comfortable with the online world, and I’m currently looking for an additional source of income. If I can eventually make this work consistently, I’d like to turn it into my main occupation.

I decided to take it seriously and started learning about digital marketing, Google Ads, keyword research, audience targeting, bridge pages, tracking, and so on. I’ve used everything from YouTube and articles to AI tools, and I’ve also asked questions here on Reddit.

I’ve also spent a lot of time researching the audience before spending any money. I’ve worked on the buyer profile, demographics, cities, states, search behavior, keywords, audience segments, and other factors that could help me understand who the potential customer is and where I’m most likely to reach them.

So I’m not planning to simply launch a campaign and hope for the best. I’m trying to do as much research as possible beforehand to reduce the risk of wasting money.

However, there’s one issue that keeps worrying me: conversion data.

From almost everything I’ve read about Google Ads, it seems that data is extremely important for optimization.

If I were running a Shopify store, I could understand the process more easily. I could send traffic directly to my store, generate purchases, and collect data from those interactions.

As an affiliate, however, my situation is different. I would be using a bridge page, which sends potential customers to the vendor’s sales page where the actual purchase takes place.

So my question is: **how am I supposed to generate enough conversion data when I’m starting from zero?**

There’s another major constraint: my entire budget is $100.

That may not sound like much, but I’ve actually been saving that money for three years specifically for this purpose. I’m not expecting to get rich from it. I just want to generate enough profit to prove that the model can work and then reinvest what I earn.

What worries me is spending the entire $100 simply trying to give Google enough data to learn, only to discover that I made a mistake somewhere in the campaign.

I keep reading that new accounts have no historical data, that Smart Bidding works better with conversion history, and that you need enough conversions for the algorithm to optimize effectively.

I understand why that makes sense, but it leaves me wondering:

How does someone with a very limited budget realistically get past that initial stage?

I’m not looking for a guaranteed strategy or a shortcut. I just want to avoid making a costly beginner mistake with money that took me years to save.

I’d really appreciate any advice from people who have actually been in this situation.

Hi!

Anyone else has noticed that Cost/Store Visit increased tremendously in 2026?

For a client that was getting store visits for €0.3 to €2+?

Run a small ecommerce brand here in Australia. Back in early July I flagged obvious bot/invalid traffic on my account, one device model made up over 25% of all my google/cpc sessions with a flat 0% engagement rate, literally 0 seconds average engagement across every single session. Filed a click quality complaint and asked for a proper review.

Since then i've been given 9 different case numbers for what is literally the same one unresolved issue. Every single time it starts a new case from scratch, theres no continuity, no history carried across, i have to re-explain the whole thing from the start each time. I'm actually starting to lose my mind

Some of the "highlights":

* first two calls i got from them were at midnight and then 2:06am my time

* agreed a callback window with a rep (11am-2pm), got called instead at 6:53pm and then again at 8:26pm same day

asked to re-verify my account ownership more than once even though i'd already done it

* asked repeatedly for one single point of contact, never happens

* one rep actually apologised in writing for "the confusion caused by the multiple case numbers" and the late night calls, then proceeded to give me another new case number and said i'd get a proper update in 1-2 business days. that was 12 days ago, nothing since.

Every reply is basically the same copy paste template, "i understand your concern, i've forwarded this to the relevant team, please allow 2-3 business days, refer to case number xxxxx" then silence, then a new case number, then it just repeats again.

Has anyone actually managed to get through to an actual escalations or complaints team above the front line support? like an email or number that isnt just ads-support? At this point ACCC is looking like the only real option but wanted to check if theres an actual working escalation path first before i go there.

Hi Redittors

Is anyone else having this issue with Google Ads Passkeys when trying to create a new ad account or client campaign?

After I click 'I am not a robot', it normally popups up to verify myself by a Google Phone Prompt and selecting one of three matching numbers. However, after doing that it, this time it prompts me to create a passkey which I have already have many setup on multiple devices.

I did remove the windows hello fingerprint passkey I was successfully using for the last 12 months or so to see if a new windows hello fingerprint passkey would solve the issue, and every time it asks me to 'approve' the new passkey, which I do, but then takes me to a scan a QR code which never works on any device - just hangs trying to connect with another device.

I have tried other admin MCC logins with same result, and a 2nd computer also.

Any ideas?

After many attempts of reporting sexual ADs (which mostly were from children games) and 0 action taken from G00gle, I finally have a successful case of G00gle taking down an AD promoting drugs (t-shirt with drug name)

The sexual content is really infuriating me, especially that it's present in games aimed at children, and they keep existing regardless the countless reports

Google Ads lets you pass a new_customer (or customer_type) parameter on your purchase conversion, which tells Google exactly who is a first time buyer versus a returning one. Most accounts I look at still do not have this set up.

Officially, Google says it can auto detect new versus returning customers without the tag.

In practice it does not work well without it, this is not just my experience, a couple of other people running this goal have said the same, and our Google reps have confirmed it too.

Without it, your bidding ends up optimising for whoever converts, including people who would have bought anyway, rather than the new customers you are actually paying to acquire.

The fix is a bit of GTM work to pass that parameter properly, then your acquisition campaigns actually optimise for what you are trying to acquire.

Curious if others have seen the same gap in their accounts, or if some of you have gotten the auto-detect option working reliably without the tag?

How can I stop Google recommending deceptive intermediary booking websites ahead of legitimate websites...

Google AI tells us Google accepts highest bidder in exchange for promoting deception and ruining consumer confidence.

Pointless post. Just had to vent it

I’ve been studying Google Ads for quite a while now, mainly through blog posts, articles, and YouTube videos. They have helped me understand the fundamentals, but I’ve reached a point where I feel that many resources explain what a feature does, without really explaining when I should use it, why I should use it, and how it fits together with the other tools in a real campaign.

I’m currently working on an affiliate campaign and trying to build it in a more professional way. I have an offer, a bridge page designed to warm up the user before sending them to the affiliate landing page, I’m conducting keyword research, and I’m also trying to build a proper buyer profile.

As I work through this process, I’ve come across several questions that I haven’t been able to answer simply by watching tutorials.

I’d really like to understand how someone with actual Google Ads experience would approach these decisions.

1. Keyword Intent vs. Bridge Pages

We often classify search intent into four main categories:

• Informational
• Navigational
• Commercial
• Transactional

I’m building a bridge page for an affiliate offer. My understanding is that a bridge page can be used to prepare and educate the user before sending them to the actual offer, so I initially assumed that commercial keywords would be especially relevant because they are associated with the consideration stage of the funnel (MOFU).

However, I ran into something that confused me during my keyword research.

For the product I’m researching, I found a large number of keywords that appear to have informational intent, while there are far fewer that are clearly commercial or transactional.

For example, I may find many searches related to:

• Understanding the problem
• Causes of the problem
• Why am I experiencing this?
• How can I improve this naturally?

But far fewer searches that clearly indicate:

• Best product
• Best supplement
• Buy supplement
• Product comparison

So my question is:

What should I do when most of the relevant keywords for a product appear to be informational?

Should I:

• Ignore them and focus only on commercial/transactional keywords?
• Use some informational keywords anyway?
• Separate the keywords according to different funnel stages?
• Use informational keywords to attract traffic and then rely on the bridge page to move the user toward consideration?
• Or am I misunderstanding the relationship between keyword intent, funnel stages, and bridge pages?

I’m especially interested in how someone would approach this in a real campaign, rather than simply classifying keywords in a spreadsheet.

2. Custom Segments — What should actually go into them?

While exploring Audiences, I came across Custom Segments, where Google allows you to use signals such as keywords and URLs.

This raised another question for me because I’m not sure I fully understand the logic behind them.

For example, if I’m promoting a product related to a particular problem, I could potentially use:

• Problem-related keywords
• Product-related keywords
• Solution-related keywords
• Competitor URLs
• Websites related to the topic

But:

What is the correct way to build a Custom Segment?

Should I use the same keywords that I’m already using in my Search campaign?

Or are the keywords inside a Custom Segment intended to serve a completely different purpose?

And when I add competitor URLs:

What does Google actually infer from those URLs?

I’d like to understand how to build a Custom Segment strategically rather than simply adding a large number of keywords and websites because they seem relevant.

3. Combined Segments vs. standard audience targeting

I also came across Combined Segments, which allow you to combine multiple audience segments.

This caught my attention because I’m currently working on a buyer profile, and I wondered whether different audience signals could be combined to represent different aspects of that profile.

For example:

• Age
• Interests
• In-market behavior
• Custom Segments
• Other audience signals

My question is:

What does a Combined Segment actually do that I cannot accomplish simply by adding multiple audiences to a campaign?

For example, is the logic behind:

different when using a Combined Segment?

Does a Combined Segment essentially create an AND relationship between audiences, while adding multiple audiences to a campaign works differently?

I’m trying to understand this from a targeting and audience-logic perspective, rather than simply knowing where to find the feature in Google Ads.

4. How should I combine age, Custom Segments, and other targeting signals?

This is related to the previous question.

I want to use an age range together with other audience signals.

For example:

Age: 50–70

plus:

Custom Segment: People interested in a specific problem/product category

and potentially other audience signals as well.

But I’m not completely sure how I should structure this inside a campaign.

Should I think of these elements as:

?

Or does Google Ads actually handle these elements differently?

My account is also relatively new, and I’ve noticed that some audience-targeting options have changed with recent Google Ads updates, so many of the tutorials I find appear to be showing different interfaces or workflows.

What would be a logical way to combine these targeting elements without making the audience unnecessarily restrictive?

5. Brand Lists — What problem do they actually solve?

While exploring Shared Library, I came across Brand Lists, where you can add multiple brands.

However, I don’t fully understand the strategic purpose of this feature.

For example:

• Is it used to control which brands can trigger my ads?
• Is it mainly used to exclude certain brands?
• Is it related to targeting branded searches?
• Is it connected to Brand Restrictions?
• When would an advertiser actually want to use a Brand List in a normal campaign?

I’d like to understand what problem Brand Lists are designed to solve and in what situations an experienced advertiser would actually use them.

6. Bulk Actions, Automated Rules, Scripts, and Solutions

Google Ads also provides several automation tools, including:

• Automated Rules
• Bulk Uploads
• Scripts
• Solutions

I understand the basic purpose of each one, but I’m not sure when I should actually start using them.

For example, I understand that an Automated Rule could do something like:

And a Script could automate more complex tasks.

But I’d really like to see examples based on real-world situations.

For example:

Situation:
I have 20 campaigns, and checking each one manually every day is becoming inefficient.

→ Which automation tool would make the most sense?

Situation:
I want to pause keywords automatically when certain performance conditions are met.

→ Automated Rule or Script?

Situation:
I need to modify hundreds of bids at once.

→ Bulk Upload?

Situation:
I want Google to generate a report identifying broken URLs.

→ Solution?

Basically:

At what point does a Google Ads account become complex enough for these tools to become genuinely useful?

And what are some practical examples of how experienced advertisers use them?

7. Bidding Strategies — How do professionals actually decide which one to use?

This is probably the area I find the most confusing.

I understand the basic definitions of different bidding strategies, but once I try to apply them to a real campaign, some of them seem surprisingly similar.

I’m trying to understand the decision-making process, rather than simply memorizing definitions.

Maximize Clicks

My understanding is that Maximize Clicks tries to generate as many clicks as possible within the available budget.

For example, imagine I’m promoting a Christmas event and my goal is to get people to visit the website.

I could use Maximize Clicks to drive traffic.

But this raises another question:

How does Google distinguish between valuable traffic and low-quality traffic?

If Google gets me 100 cheap clicks but none of those users are genuinely interested in the event, I’ve still wasted my budget.

So:

What actually controls traffic quality when using Maximize Clicks?

Is it mainly determined by:

• Keyword selection?
• Match types?
• Negative keywords?
• Audience targeting?
• Location targeting?
• Ad relevance?
• Landing page relevance?
• Conversion tracking?

Or is there another major factor I’m overlooking?

Impression Share

I also see Impression Share as serving a completely different purpose:

But I’m struggling to understand the practical difference between this and Maximize Clicks.

For example:

Maximize Clicks:
“Get as many clicks as possible.”

Impression Share:
“Show my ads for a certain percentage of eligible searches.”

Both seem to be related to visibility and traffic.

So:

What is the actual strategic difference between them?

When would an experienced advertiser choose Impression Share instead of Maximize Clicks?

And what type of campaign objective is Impression Share particularly well suited for?

Target ROAS

This one is especially confusing to me.

Google gives an example where:

I understand the mathematical relationship, but I don’t fully understand where the conversion value comes from.

For example, if I spend $50 on advertising and Google generates $200 in conversion value, that would give me a 400% ROAS.

But:

Does that $200 represent revenue, profit, or something else?

And how does Google know that value?

I understand that a conversion can represent many different actions:

• A purchase
• A lead
• A phone call
• A newsletter signup
• A form submission

So if my conversion is something like a newsletter signup, how can ROAS meaningfully be applied?

This becomes even more confusing for me as an affiliate marketer, because I may send the user through my bridge page and then to another company’s sales page.

If the final purchase happens on another website:

How can Google Ads know the actual revenue generated by that user?

And therefore:

Can Target ROAS realistically be used for an affiliate campaign that relies on a bridge page?

If so, how would the conversion value normally be tracked?

Target CPA vs. Maximize Conversions

Finally, I’m confused about the difference between Maximize Conversions and Target CPA.

My current understanding is:

Maximize Conversions:
Get as many conversions as possible within the budget.

Target CPA:
Try to generate conversions while maintaining a specific average cost per acquisition.

But they still feel very similar to me.

For example, would the difference essentially be:

Maximize Conversions

versus:

Target CPA

If that is roughly correct:

What does Target CPA actually change in Google’s bidding behavior?

And why would I choose Target CPA instead of simply using Maximize Conversions and monitoring CPA myself?

I’ve also seen recommendations suggesting that Target CPA should only be used once a campaign has accumulated enough conversion data.

How much conversion data is realistically needed before Target CPA becomes useful, and why?

What I’m ultimately trying to understand

I realize that most of these questions probably have relatively straightforward definitions that I could find in Google’s documentation.

But what I’m really trying to learn is the decision-making process behind Google Ads.

For example, imagine I have:

• A specific product
• A defined buyer profile
• A keyword list
• Different types of search intent
• A bridge page
• A limited advertising budget
• Conversion tracking
• Audience segments
• A relatively new Google Ads account

How would an experienced advertiser decide:

1. Which keywords to use?
2. Which keywords to exclude?
3. Which audiences to create?
4. When to use Custom Segments?
5. When to use Combined Segments?
6. How to combine age and other audience signals?
7. When to use Brand Lists?
8. When to automate certain tasks?
9. Which bidding strategy to start with?
10. When to change the bidding strategy?

I feel like I’m learning all these individual features, but I’m missing the bigger picture of how they work together as one coherent campaign strategy.

That is the part I’d really like to understand.

New to Google Ads, and set it up to first use Keyword Planner to get ready to launch a campaign down the road. They asked for a credit card to access this tool- fine. But a few days later I saw a charge of $200 on this card- even though all I did was keyword research.

When I looked into it, obviously the platform (Google Aditself has created a campaign FOR ME with Performance Max, Maximize Conversions bidding, geo- targeting, opted into Search and Display Networks, with 47 separate creative assets (headlines, descriptions, images, logo, business name) auto-generated from my website and attached, plus 5 sitelink extensions.. all within 8 minutes.

I assume this must have been done by some kind of AI agent? But because it was all based on guesswork, the performance was way below industry average, not to mention potentially damaging my brand- I haven't even looked at the 47 creative assets they created on my behalf.

I went to dispute the charges, but as it turns out, Google isn't exactly receptive to that idea. The chat and phone options were both "offline," and the email option wasn't working either. I tried again on a Monday, and after several rounds of questioning from a customer service rep (a human, I think), I got a quick dismissal — just told to send an email — before the chat closed on me within a second. I didn't even get the chance to say the email option wasn't working.

I'm new to this, so I don't know whether this has always been standard practice, or if AI has made it worse. Surely it's against the law — or something — to create a campaign without telling me, run it, and charge me for it. All because you could. Because you hijacked my credit card info.

I've always thought Google — while not perfect — wasn't this shady. To me, this isn't that different from daylight robbery. I genuinely need to use this service, and would have used it when I was ready to run the right campaign — but I despise how they've turned this into a money-grabbing exercise, and it's left such a bad taste in my mouth about engaging with them further.

UPDATE (August 31): I finally got a response after sending my email. Google's team confirmed this was automatically generated by their platform — "as part of the sign-up process where a starter campaign is built using information from your website to help you get started quickly."

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how that "helps me get started" when it's not something I asked for or wanted to run in the first place. At this point I can't see it as anything other than a money-grab dressed up as a convenience feature.

How is this any different from a supermarket quietly putting random items in your basket, charging you for them, and calling it "helping you shop faster"?

To add insult to injury, Google is also standing firm that because the clicks were delivered — without my knowledge, let alone my consent — they won't offer a refund or credit.

Is this really how big tech gets to operate now? Am I delusional or are they?

Running a hot sauce brand with funny names but can’t figure out what is better for instance:

A. Smokin Aces (Jalapeño)

B. Jalapeño Flavored Hot Sauce

Background - I've built an investment app where people can invest in fixed return products. It's a new product hence the final conversions per day are almost negligible 1-2.

Issue - My ads are being served to people seeking loans. (The insights section showed this, also confirmed by user calling)

Irrespective of whatever in-app action I choose (final conversion or lower event), it gets me loan seekers as the final conversion event has almost no data.

Some fixes I did - Most of the budget was being spent on GDN (placements inside gaming apps etc), So I eventually removed all app placements Already added audience signal, negative keywords.

What can I do here?

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 beginner in google ads and created an account for the 1st time and started testing some ads and verified everything.

On the 1st day, it asked me to pay $20 and a day after that, it asked me to pay $40, i paid that, and again the account was paused and asked to pay $80.
i reached to their horrble support and all they said was to pay the $80. i did that, and now it is asking me to pay $160.

my ads didn't get any clicks, they're simply dead throughout this period.

what am i doing wrong?

EDIT: the account was old from 2018 and never ran ads. I paid the $160, and it got unpaused, and 12 hours later it got paused again!

i had to request a refund and create a new one. The new one is running fine so far.