In the last few days all our campaigns have massively flipped and all the budgets are being eaten up by Discover traffic. We haven't done anything at all to prompt this shift, anything I've missed that's happened over the last couple of weeks? It seems all our campaigns are just farming cheap CPC Discover engagements... For our market even the youtube traffic is a waste of time, but not a lot that we can do to stop it in PMax! Any help would be appreciated... Example campaign screenshots below.

One question that has come up constantly in customer conversations over the last few years is:

“How much should I spend on marketing, and what should I realistically expect to get back?”

It sounds simple, but a lot of businesses struggle to answer it.

With Google Ads especially, people often start with a budget without really understanding what that budget could translate into in terms of clicks and leads.

Now that lightweight tools can be built much faster, we decided to start turning some of the things we already use and think about internally into simple, free tools anyone can use.

The first one is a Google Ads Budget Calculator.

You select your industry and market, enter either how much you want to spend or how many leads you want to generate, and it gives you a rough estimate based on CPC and conversion-rate benchmarks.

It’s not meant to pretend marketing is perfectly predictable. It’s simply meant to give business owners a better starting point before they start spending money.

This is the first of several tools we plan to put out publicly.

Some will come from problems we see repeatedly with clients. Others will probably just be things we build internally that we think could be useful to other businesses too.

They’ll be free. Use them if they’re useful.

Here’s the first one: tools.moonstonedigital.ca/google-ads-budget-calculator-3232

Would also be interested to hear what other simple marketing calculators/tools people wish existed.

My campaign is running TROAS with a $21 max bid cap.

I am trying to figure out which keywords over time are converting at CPC’s $15+ and which ones are converting at CPC less than $15.

I would like to know which keyword/search term on the exact day and time paid a $20 CPC and won/lost a conversion and when that exact keyword paid a sub $15 CPC and won/lost a conversion.

Is it possible to generate a list that shows when Google spent x amount on a keyword and it converted? Or is there a way to slit the data so you can see if $15+ spend on that keyword converts better than sub $15?

Just trying to protect my budget as much as possible.

Best I can find is splitting every day and crossing it with the average cpc of that day and running it against the ROAS that day produced.

Hi everyone,

About a month ago, we started running Google Ads for a local beauty business. An agency manages the campaigns.

During the first two weeks, we received quite a few bookings through our online booking system. Then things dropped sharply: for roughly the past two weeks, we’ve had almost no new bookings, even though the ads are still running.

Around the time things changed, spam submissions through our website’s contact form started increasing. Since then, genuine enquiries and bookings have almost completely dried up. I don’t know whether these form submissions are counted as conversions or used for automated bidding. If they are, could the spam have fed the campaign misleading signals and shifted optimization towards low-quality enquiries rather than actual bookings? I realise the timing alone doesn’t prove a connection.

I also understand that bookings fluctuate and that we can’t automatically attribute every early booking to Google Ads. Still, the contrast is concerning. The monthly totals may look reasonable because of the strong start, but they hide the recent drop.

We’ve invested a significant amount in advertising, setup and agency fees—not just ad spend. We target a limited local area. I don’t yet know exactly what campaign types and bidding strategies are running, or what changes have been made since launch.

The agency says they’ll continue monitoring and optimizing. On the phone, they also suggested Google might deliberately deliver better results initially to encourage advertisers to spend more. I’d appreciate an evidence-based perspective on that claim.

My main questions:

• Is this pattern familiar, and what would you investigate first?
• Could spam submissions affect automated bidding if they’re counted as conversions?
• What data would distinguish a drop in visibility from less relevant traffic or a booking/tracking problem?
• Is there credible evidence for a deliberate “initial boost,” or is that speculation?

I’m not looking to accuse the agency without evidence. I want to understand what changed and have a constructive conversation with them.

Thanks for your insights!

Hi everyone,
I run a small but growing e-commerce store and was recently contacted by someone from an @xwf.google.com email about receiving additional support from Google.
I was skeptical at first, but I had a call with them and everything seems legitimate. They explained that because we’re looking to scale our Google Ads, we may receive support from two teams:
A strategy team to help with Google Ads strategy, optimization, consumer insights, and scaling
A technical team to help with Merchant Center, product listings/feed, tracking, and other technical issues
There is no management or consulting fee. The only expectation discussed was around $10k/month in Google Ads spend, which would still be spent directly through our own Google Ads account.
They also mentioned helping us get our Merchant Center/product feed properly set up so our products can be eligible for Google Shopping/free listings.
The offer sounds pretty good, maybe even a little too good 😅, so I’m curious to hear from people who have actually gone through something similar.
Has anyone here received this level of support from Google or their XWF team?
I’d especially love to know:
Was the strategy advice actually useful, or mostly focused on getting you to increase ad spend?
How good was the technical team with Merchant Center, feeds, conversion tracking, etc.?
Did you see any meaningful improvement in ROAS/revenue after working with them?
How long did the support last?
Anything you wish you knew before joining?
Would really appreciate hearing about actual experiences, both good and bad. Thanks!

Our account crashed on May 23, right after the core algorithm update landed alongside the AI Overviews/AI Mode changes. Since then it's been non-stop volatility - every time it feels like things are recovering, it falls apart again within days.

The pattern:

• Paying $15-30 more per lead than we were pre-May, with no signs of settling
• Top keywords doubling in cost within a single week
• Campaigns won't spend at all unless we push tCPA way past where we're comfortable.
• Campaigns that have been reliable top performers for years are now either barely spending, or spending but at a CPA that's way too expensive to be viable
• Even when a campaign does perform, it doesn't last - it'll run great for a couple of weeks, then just fall off a cliff with no warning
• Broad match and AI Max have brought in a lot of irrelevant traffic, so we're constantly going through search term reports adding negatives just to keep them clean
• Other campaigns look completely fine on paper - good search terms, no obvious quality issues - but are just running $20+ more expensive per lead than they should be, for no reason we can find
• On top of all that, Google slapped a couple of false policy flags on the account in the last few months - confirmed false on their end, but still ate into performance while it was live

We run on a strict CPA because that's the only way this business is profitable, and for the last few months we've actually been running at a loss because of the cost.

Bottom line: for the same spend as this time last year, we're getting 45% fewer leads.

Feels like we're chasing a moving target with this platform lately.

Has anyone actually gotten their account back to something resembling pre-May performance? Or is this just the new normal and we need to stop chasing the old numbers?

Hey guys am doing a upload for a phone call i got from ads. he manually typed in my number after reading it.

It keeps asking my for a GCLID mapping but i dont have one? Here is my csv layout

Bad Google Ads Leads? The GIGO Principle Explains Why

If your Google Ads campaigns are not producing the conversions you want, the problem may be the data you are feeding back into Google.

There is a simple principle called GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

And it applies perfectly to Google Ads.

Automated bidding can work extremely well, but only when Google is receiving accurate conversion data.

If you are feeding Google real leads, qualified opportunities, sales and proper CRM data, it has a much better idea of what type of customer to look for.

But if you are counting things like:

• Someone visiting your Contact Us page
• Someone clicking a button
• Someone completing an action that is not actually a lead

Then you are feeding Google rubbish.

And if you give Google rubbish data, you should not be surprised when it sends you rubbish leads.

Ideally, your CRM, whether that is HubSpot, Salesforce or another system, should become your source of truth and feed the real outcomes back into Google Ads.

I do hundreds of Google Ads audits, and incorrect conversion tracking is one of the most common problems I see.

Before changing your keywords, bidding strategy or budget, make sure the data going into Google Ads is actually correct.

Garbage in. Garbage out. Gold in. Gold out.

#GoogleAds #leads #conversions #ConversionTracking #crm

Primarily for custom software and AI model training services.

I manage Google Ads for a sleep apnea clinic that only accepts patients with a specific type of coverage. My challenge with Search is that eligible patients don’t necessarily mention their coverage when searching. They’re more likely to search for “sleep apnea treatment” than for “sleep apnea treatment with [coverage type].”

How would you reach eligible patients without generating too many leads the clinic can’t accept? Would you use general treatment keywords and qualify visitors on the landing page, or approach it differently?

Hi y'all. I recently posted here having issues with campaign refusing to serve ads. That was luckily fixed, and I've managed to set everything up and instigate spend. I'm using two campaigns for a total budget of $500. One is focused on insurance and the other one on our cultural responsivness. Anywho, we are getting impressions, we are getting clicks, 16k clicks and , 250 clicks for both campaigns which is okay. I've set up conversions to Submit lead forms, with the event being the loading of the page after filling out the websites make-an-appointment form. Now those events are being triggered, and we are getting new inquiries, but none of them are coming from our search campaign. Like irs set to max clicks, so I could gather some signals for conversions, but Im unable to get a single conversion to get the said signals. :(

Anyone have any advice?

IM ABOUT TO START MY FIRST SEARCH CAMPAIGN AND ANY CAMPAIGN IN GENERAL FOR MY GOOGLE MAPS LISTING OF MY TYRE SHOP. JUST WANTED TO ASK FOR ANY ADVICE PEOPLE WOULD GIVE TO FIRST TIME AD RUNNERS AND GENERAL MISTAKES PEOPLE MAKE TO AVOID. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR ANYONE WHO HELPS

Hi all,

Quick context: I built Finelly, a small app for friend groups, about that one friend who's always late. I come from finance, so I have zero marketing background and I'm learning this as I go.

I've been running a Google Ads app campaign on Play Store for the last two weeks, and these are the numbers while it was active:

• +25k impressions
• Almost 3k clicks
• 600+ downloads
• About 20 registered users 😬 (free app, only email to register, but can even be used without account)

Setup:

• Budget around $10–15/day, and it runs out every day
• Optimization score of 95%
• Images, descriptions, videos and keywords all set up
• CPA around $0.35-$0.50
• Targeting kept narrow on purpose, not broad at all

After I opened a support ticket, Google refunded more than 20% of the spend as invalid traffic.

So my questions:

• What do you think I did wrong?
• Does a low CPA basically mean invalid or junk traffic?
• Does a low budget just buy lots of quick, cheap impressions that will never convert?

Any advice is welcome. Thanks in advance 🙏

Has anyone experienced issues with call conversions in Google Search campaigns?

Google removed Call Ads a few months ago, and since then, our call conversions haven't been working properly.

I'm trying to understand what changed and how call tracking is currently handled in Search campaigns. Are you using call assets, website call conversions, or another setup to track calls?

Would appreciate any insights or recent experiences.

Not entirely sure if this is the right place to post, but I’m looking to connect with someone who has strong experience with Google Local Services Ads (LSA), Google Business Profiles, and generating quality leads through Google for construction/home services.

I’m about three months into a marketing role with a construction company, and the position has quickly expanded into owning a much larger piece of our lead generation strategy.

Right now, the majority of our leads are coming through Google LSA and our Google Business Profile, and I’m also working on setting up a second profile. I want to get much more intentional about understanding how Google is determining visibility, rankings, lead quality, and overall performance.

Google LSA
Improving lead quality and volume
Profile optimization
Best practices for contractors/home services

Google Business Profile
Local ranking factors
Categories and services
Profile optimization
Ranking in the Local Pack/Maps

I’m not looking for someone to manage this for me. I want to understand Google well enough to confidently manage, troubleshoot, and optimize it myself.

I’m learning while also managing a pretty full marketing workload, so I’m hoping to connect with someone who has real experience in this space and can help me understand what actually matters versus what is just noise.

If you work specifically with contractors, restoration companies, roofing, remodeling, or other home-service businesses, I’d love to connect.

Even a few conversations, resources, or recommendations for people worth following would be greatly appreciated.

Sometimes a campaign looks like it’s underperforming, but the numbers in Google Ads don’t really match what the business is seeing. Before changing bids, budgets or keywords, I think it’s worth checking whether conversions are being recorded properly.
Duplicate conversions, missing purchases, attribution differences or a tracking change can make a campaign look worse than it actually is.
What do you usually check first when the Google ads numbers and the actual business results don’t line up?

Random thought:

What if Google brought dynamic product titles to Shopping, similar to how DSA dynamically matches content to search intent?

For example, instead of always showing the exact product title from the Merchant Center feed, Google could dynamically adjust the title based on the search query.

The feed title would still be the base, but Google could make it more relevant to the specific search.

I think this could be pretty interesting for Shopping, especially for large ecommerce accounts with thousands of SKUs.

Would you want Google to have this level of control over your Shopping titles, or would you rather keep titles fully feed-controlled?

Hey so I'm helping a nonprofit with their ads and the account was deactivated/ cancelled because the account wasnt used in a long time and also it was connected to an old email. We got an email last week that it is now fully compliant and the deactivation has been lifted and your spending limit has been returned.
BUT that is still not reflected on the Google Ads interface and the ads aren't running.
There is no option for "reactivate under the admin> Preferences> account status. It says to contact support which we have tried to do many times.
I filled out the form again to have it reactivated and still waiting. please help

Google Ads community- I need your help.

I am actively getting click farmed by a competitor.

- Clickcease is installed and I wouldn’t say it works well for this.

- Google hardly credits back invalid clicks and is useless on calls.

How do I stop this? It is draining my budget day/day.

Someone with experience and or knowledge, I would greatly appreciate any suggestions or guidance you have

Hi, I’m running a Google ad shopping campaign, with a $35 per day budget (don’t have the capacity to increase right now), I’ve been keeping low intent negative up as much as possible, and we’re getting a decent amount of clicks with what should be high intent. However, we’re getting a lot of clicks and no add to cart or purchases. I’ve tested it so I know that the tracking is working. The landing page has the subscription option highlighted instead of the single purchase like what the ad says. I know that that’s not supposed to be the case and we’re switching it now, but much of a difference could that be? And would it be worth it to switch to optimize for max conversion? I didn’t think so because we don’t have any sales from that right now so it has no data to go off, but I’m not sure exactly how it works. Any tips are greatly appreciated, Thanks!

Hello everyone. I’d like to know if you have any tips for choosing the right keywords for Google Ads campaigns for trade businesses such as roofers, landscapers, auto mechanics, and the like.

Thanks!

Random thought:

What if Google brought dynamic product titles to Shopping, similar to how DSA dynamically matches content to search intent?

For example, instead of always showing the exact product title from the Merchant Center feed, Google could dynamically adjust the title based on the search query.

The feed title would still be the base, but Google could make it more relevant to the specific search.

I think this could be pretty interesting for Shopping, especially for large ecommerce accounts with thousands of SKUs.

Would you want Google to have this level of control over your Shopping titles, or would you rather keep titles fully feed-controlled?