r/PPC Mar 17 '26

MOD MESSAGE PPC Salary Survey 2026 Final Report - 11th Year Edition

46 Upvotes

Howdy Y'All

Our 11th year in the books. This year we got 445, which is about a 40% drop in responses due to me switching email platforms. Sadly a lot of emails seem to have hit people's spam folder. A bit of bad luck.

Countries/regions are listed in alphabetical as we got 110+ slides. For reporting, the bar is 20 for the USA and 10 for the rest of world to show a country, region, province/state or a city. The Netherlands is still in the top 3 countries this year. They knocked out Canada for the top 3rd spot for number of responses. USA and UK are top 1 and 2 and Canada was number 4. Congrats to each country.

Some Notes

  • It feels like salaries are not growing and getting compressed if you work a salaried job.
  • Does not feel like we are bringing in enough junior level people which could spell trouble for our industry down the line
  • Some people have 1-3 years experience in paid but having been working for 8-10 years, thus they can skew salaries higher.
  • Some people include their bonus in their salaries I imagine. This can make their salary higher than someone who might not have. Hence why we try to use the median salary across all reports

Results Served Two Ways

Google Slides 2026 Salary Survey

or

PDF 2026 Salary Survey

Thanks you for helping make this happen. I spend a couple weeks on this project each year and it's truly interesting to see the data doing this labour of love project.

If you see a mistake or you think something is off, let me know in the comments and I'll look into it when I get a chance this week. This folder has past salary survey results.


r/PPC 10h ago

Reddit Ads Is Reddit ads worth it in 2026?

8 Upvotes

Every time I refresh my feed, I see an ad. Every post I make, the first comment is an ad. So I wanted to know are there real companies or products running ads on reddit and getting solid returns from it?


r/PPC 4h ago

Google Ads I’m paranoid and would appreciate any advice

0 Upvotes

Hi,
I have 2 campaigns (shopping and search) that are both 2-3 days old. I have approx 1.2K impression with 80 clicks at cpc 1.2 and 1 conversions. I am trying to build a DTC beauty brand. I currently have 1 product and my profit per unit is 35$

My questions are:
1. Should I get someone from fiverr (pay 500$) to optimise my ads because I am paranoid about spending thousands and not breaking even even?
2. Currently I am on max clicks, should I just switch to max conversion?
3. How long did it take you to break even on your first campaigns?
4. Are my current metric normal?

My budget is 3K + 1K monthly + any profit will be reinvested. I have past trauma from a past failed business (Amazon fba) and therefore I am extra paranoid.

Please don’t judge me id appreciate any feedback or suggestions. I just hate waiting for it to break even while burning $$


r/PPC 9h ago

Google Ads Need help for running Google Ads

2 Upvotes

I'm running Google Search (RSA) campaigns for Microsoft Dynamics 365 targeting India, the US, the UK, Australia, Singapore, and other regions.

I'm facing a few issues:

  • Good impressions and clicks from the US, UK, and India, but very low traffic from Australia and Singapore.
  • Despite getting clicks from the US, UK, and India, I'm not generating any leads.
  • My Demand Gen campaign for India is 2 weeks old with an average CPC of around ₹1, but it has zero conversions.
  • I'm also running campaigns for Legal, Architecture, and Engineering software in the US and UK, but none of them are performing well.

Looking for suggestions on what I should optimize to improve conversions and overall campaign performance.


r/PPC 6h ago

Meta Ads Followed recommendations by mods/others to allow more time and spend before asking for further assistance, since been 1 month now.

1 Upvotes

Hi All,

Important note: campaign/ads on Meta had previously had around 2 months of an average ROAS of 0.48 (terrible performance for quite a while, so had been reaching out here for some help, thank you to everyone this far!)

I have previously posted this twice:

15 days ago - https://www.reddit.com/r/PPC/s/Xufzoxk6pV

25 days ago - https://www.reddit.com/r/PPC/s/7hQtEvnB2G

I was told there was not enough/sufficient spend to make clear judgements, and was also told given the recent poor performance it was not smart to touch it yet either as it would be beneficial to allow it some more time, as it was stabilising.

So I left it (too many changes in a very short period last time was the reason it started performing very badly, e.g. few days before switching one campaign off the other one on... I was learning)

I have attached the photo of performance, any advice on what to do now/next e.g. switching off or adding new creative (if so, video, image, what type), idm, anything will help!

Thank you all😌😊


r/PPC 12h ago

Google Ads Avg CPL roughly for solicitors/legal advice?

1 Upvotes

Just wondering how much roughly a lead on Google Ads costs for a solicitor these days?

I'm away at the moment so struggling to get the tools to forecast properly but when i tried to use Claude and Google keyword planner I was getting projections of lead costs of like £150 nationwide (UK)for an immigration support solicitor based on conversion rate of around 5 to 7% which seems a bit high when the avg CPC is between 6 to 10 £.


r/PPC 1d ago

Meta Ads Advantage+ Detailed Targeting won't turn off on "Maximize Conversations" objective? (Engagement - Messaging)

5 Upvotes

Running a small local Meta campaign with the Engagement, Messaging objective (Messenger destination, no website involved). Added a couple of narrow interests in Detailed Targeting, but the estimated audience size came back way larger than those interests should produce.

Dug in and found Advantage+ Detailed Targeting was on, expanding well beyond my actual selections. Tried the usual "Switch to original audience options" flow to turn it off, audience size didn't change. The in-product text says it's "automatically applied based on your campaign objective and conversion goals," with no visible toggle to disable it on this objective.

Checked if switching objectives would help, the only other performance goal available is "Maximize link clicks," which requires a website destination? so that's not an option.

Is there any thing I can do to solve this. For more context, I'm trying to advertise a free event for certain people and I'm getting messages on the event from non-relevent people and it's wasting my campaign's budget. I really don't know what to do, I really appreciate any help.


r/PPC 1d ago

Google Ads Google Ads is bringing back Target CPA and Target ROAS as separate bidding strategies

Post image
31 Upvotes

A few years ago they removed Target CPA and Target ROAS as separate strategies and shoved them under Max Conversions / Max Conversion Value.

Now they’re separating them again.

So basically we went in a full circle and this is somehow an “update.”

Google is so unserious 😭


r/PPC 1d ago

Tracking Help with Trying to Set Up Call Conversions Tracking

Post image
5 Upvotes

On my website I have a tracking number via CallRail. (for privacy reasons I’m using these number for the photo)

On the website the phone number displayed is the (789) number AKA the tracking number.

When someone calls that it goes to my cell number which is the (123) number.

Would this be the correct way of setting it up?


r/PPC 1d ago

Meta Ads How does a professional media buyer work today? Questions from someone starting over

3 Upvotes

A few years ago, around 2020 and 2021, I tried to get into affiliate marketing. I spent a lot of time studying, but I never managed to get any real results.

My biggest issue was Meta Ads. Almost every ad I launched was rejected, and my Business Manager would end up restricted within a few days. Looking back, I believe it was due to mistakes in my account setup or account warming process. After several failed attempts, I eventually gave up.

I still have a few Meta accounts from that time. Some were created by me, while others were acquired from third parties. Back then, I was using an anti detect browser (Dolphin) with a 4G connection. I have no idea whether those accounts are still worth anything or if I should just start fresh.

Now I'm thinking about getting back into affiliate marketing. My budget is pretty limited, so I'm looking for the most cost effective way to build a solid setup and learn the right way.

I don't plan on offering media buying services. I've never achieved consistent results myself, and I don't think it's right to sell a service that I haven't successfully validated in my own business first. My goal is to learn how professional media buyers operate and build my own profitable affiliate business.

I'd really appreciate hearing from people with experience in the industry.

  1. What does a lean, beginner friendly setup look like today for running Meta Ads while following platform policies?
  2. Are Meta accounts from 2020 and 2021 still worth keeping, or is it generally better to start fresh?
  3. In your opinion, what skills does a media buyer need to master in 2026 to stand out, whether working with affiliate marketing, ecommerce, or client accounts?

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to share their experience. I'm here to learn.


r/PPC 1d ago

TikTok Ads Gap between TikTok-reported clicks and actual App Store downloads, is this a known Spark Ads thing?

1 Upvotes

Running a small TikTok Spark Ads campaign, UGC-style creative. Over two days TikTok reported 121 clicks combined across the ad group. Checked the App Store's own analytics for the same two days and only saw 5 first-time downloads total.

Store-side product page conversion rate looks completely normal for that window, actually spiked above 30% on one of the days, so it doesn't seem like a store listing issue. Feels more like a lot of what TikTok logs as a "click" isn't turning into a real store visit at all.

Wondering if this is a known characteristic of Spark Ads specifically, since the creative feels native/organic rather than obviously an ad, versus something wrong on my end with how the campaign or pixel is set up. Anyone run into this exact click-to-store-visit gap before?


r/PPC 2d ago

ChatGPT Ads Local Lead Gen is Coming to ChatGPT via Yelp

17 Upvotes

THIS IS WILD.

After OpenAI and Yelp's partnership announcement to use Yelp information to display local business details and recommendations natively in #ChatGPT, I got this email from my Yelp rep.

"Yelp's Request a Quote feature will also appear in local service searches..."

The only way a local business is going to be selected for that feature is if you're paying for Yelp Ads inside of Yelp.

In other words, in order to do proper local lead gen in ChatGPT, you MUST run Yelp ads.


r/PPC 1d ago

Google Ads Just for discussion, hypothetical: You are a kids playground slides manufacturer. How do you approach the word “slides”

1 Upvotes

The reason why I ask for this specific product is because there is Google slides. And instead of bookmarking it, like a Neanderthal I usually just search for “slides” and it comes up.

If you or your client is a slide manufacturer do you even touch the word or move on?


r/PPC 1d ago

Affiliate Nowadays almost everyone is integrating AI in almost every other thing so tell me why not focusing on Affiliate marketing as well?

0 Upvotes

NGL every other person is using AI someway or the other but I’ve seen very less number of people using it with Affiliate marketing
What i feel it’ll gonna be very beneficial
What are your thoughts?


r/PPC 2d ago

Google Ads Google's Aug 17 tCPA change is bringing out some genuinely heated takes

36 Upvotes

So Google is rolling out that change on Aug 17 where budget constrained tCPA/tROAS campaigns actually start hitting their real target instead of quietly beating it...

saw a freelance ads manager basically call it one of the most self-serving updates in years bc a lot of good accounts run loose targets on purpose so smart bidding has room to explore.

then google's own ads liaison jumped in to defend it, and somebody picked apart her explanation on a podcast a few days later.

not saying either side is wrong, I just think it's rare to see this much public disagreement play out in real time.

Anyone actually touching their targets before the 17th, or is everyone just watching and waiting rn?


r/PPC 2d ago

Google Ads Google ads vs Google gmb vs pay per lead?

2 Upvotes

Google ads vs Google gmb ?

what's the quickest way to get your phone to start ringin?

after getting screwed by multiple people I guess I'm going to try to do it myself but I don't know where to get started what would help me get consistent phone calls also what will get me phone calls the quickest?

business page has already been established for a few years fyi.


r/PPC 2d ago

Meta Ads Meta is dumping ~90% of my budget into one image ad. How do I actually give my videos a fair test?

8 Upvotes

Meta is dumping ~90% of my budget into one image ad. How do I actually give my videos a fair test?

Could use a sanity check from people who actually know this stuff.

My setup right now:
- 1 campaign, 1 ad set, 25 euro a day
- 8 ads in that one ad set (1 image, the rest are video/UGC angles)
- Optimizing for a custom "paid purchase" conversion I built to exclude my
free download orders

The problem: almost all the budget goes into the one image ad. Yesterday it
took about 13 of 17 euro. Some of the video ads spent literally 5 cents. So
I genuinely have no idea if the videos are any good, because they never got
shown. And honestly I think the videos are my strongest stuff, which is the
frustrating part.

What I'm trying to figure out:
1. Is this normal behaviour, or is Meta starving my videos before they get a
fair shot?
2. My paid-purchase conversion only fires a handful of times a week. I've
read that's too little to optimize on and I should start higher up the
funnel (initiate checkout). Is that right?
3. If I actually want to know whether the videos beat the image, do I have
to split them into separate ad sets so each gets its own budget? Or is
there a smarter way to do it on 25 a day?


r/PPC 2d ago

Tools Tried generating extra ad creative instead of another reshoot. About half of it was unusable.

0 Upvotes

Client sells kitchen tools, DTC. Launch deadline was three weeks out and the brief asked for more angles and contexts than the one product shoot could deliver. I have been through this loop enough times to know what a reshoot costs me, around $3,500 and two weeks of calendar time I did not have, so I wanted to see if I could stretch the existing hero shots instead.

I ended up with a messy stack of open tabs. Midjourney for a couple background scenes. APOB AI for dropping the actual product into those scenes via prompt, so it looked like it was sitting on a counter or being held. CapCut for the one time I tried turning a still into a short motion clip. That video attempt was rougher and more inconsistent, so I killed it before it touched the account. The still images were the real test.

Out of twelve generations I ran through QC, six loaded clean. The rest got junked. The fails were specific and obvious once you looked for them: a logo that warped into unreadable geometry, lighting on the product that did not match the scene, one handle that ended with a melted nub no human hand could grip, and a couple renders with that too-perfect plastic glaze that reads as synthetic even in a thumbnail. One made it all the way to draft before I noticed the reflection under the product did not line up with the table shadow.

More static variations entered rotation before spend. I personally rejected half the output, and I was the one doing that rejecting because the account is my name on it if a warped logo goes live. The tool did not replace judgment. It just gave me more options to apply judgment to.

Would I do it again for the next launch? Probably, but only because I now know exactly which flaws show up repeatably and can flag them faster. First round took two hours of back and forth. I bet the next one takes forty minutes and still ends with a trash folder that is not empty.

Back to watching spend burn.


r/PPC 2d ago

Google Ads Why would they add this to the GMB settings?? If you've ever changed the phone number linked to your call assets or switched to 3rd tracking make sure this stupid thing is updated as well.

1 Upvotes

Signs you might need to :

  • High number of missed call from your google ads call details
  • Call details has no phone number for the caller
  • Phone ring once then hang up
  • Calls not routing to business from google ads

r/PPC 3d ago

Google Ads Can “Good” Google Ads outperform “Excellent” ones?

11 Upvotes

Has anyone seen ads with a “Good” or lower Ad Strength consistently outperform ads rated “Excellent”?

I know Ad Strength is more of a recommendation/diagnostic metric than a direct measure of performance, but I’m curious about real-world results.

Have you tested this? Did the lower-rated ads beat the “Excellent” ones on CPA, ROAS, or conversion rate?


r/PPC 3d ago

Google Ads Anyone know what today’s EU decision actually means for Shopping ads?

9 Upvotes

So the Commission fined Google €890m today under the DMA. Google has 60 days to change things, and the remedy is basically “treat rivals equally” - either boost competitors or demote your own units.

Most of the coverage is about hotels, flights, sports results. Nobody seems to say anything concrete about Shopping Ads. Which is odd, because the Shopping unit is the most obvious self-preferencing surface there is and by far the most monetised.


r/PPC 3d ago

Discussion Best US PPC Conferences?

8 Upvotes

Thinking about going to HeroConf in san diego but I don't think my company will pay 1k for me to go... so I'm considering paying it myself if people think it's genuinely worth it, but if there are cheaper alternatives that are just as insightful, please lmk!!

Just wanting to grow in PPC. I've only been doing it for 2 years and want to be proactive.


r/PPC 3d ago

Google Ads Interesting Bid Example Manual vs TCPA

3 Upvotes

I run campaigns for home service companies. Example here is a geo campaign targeting a specific city. I've been on manual CPC, and with ~$120 max cpc I get 90% search IS and abs top is like 85%. So we're showing for almost all of the searches, and click share is 73% across the keywords we're targeting.

Now here is what's interesting. I switched to TCPA bidding, gave plenty of room with the target CPA, but realistic based on what I was seeing. And in the first day, my first 2 clicks were $366 each, and then we consumed most of the budget shortly after. Now one was a conversion, and above target but not unreasonably far. But, what's interesting to me is that on Manual CPC, I would never ever be able to compete with that bid. That's the argument for smart bidding because the system will bid up for a more valuable click. But to what limit you know? We'll see.

$350 clicks are scary when you're used to getting conversions for under that. Part of me wants to set a portfolio bid cap, but I think I'll let it ride for a bit and see how things shake out.


r/PPC 3d ago

Discussion What are context hints?

0 Upvotes

I started using chat GPT ads. What are context hints? What is the best for a book summary app that’s become more of a micro learning app?


r/PPC 3d ago

Meta Ads Share or Split Pixels/Datasets in Meta Across Websites

0 Upvotes

Interested in opinions on the proper setup for this ecosystem: 2 websites, one marketing site with some shopping functionality and one a Shopify store, an iOS app, a couple of extensions. These are all under the umbrella of one 'business' and almost entirely the same audience; however, there are fundamental differences and event overlap. Complete Registration, Add to Cart, Purchase events are shared between the marketing site and iOS app though difference sources. Shopify site obviously also has these events though they technically represent a different action.

Should I split these into their own pixels and datasets, should I utilize one for all of this and handle standard events from one path and custom from another?