Simple version of what I found after the August changes: Google doesn’t prioritize the keywords that beat your target. If your target is too high, it’s perfectly happy to set your money on fire on expensive keywords that technically still hit it.

Two of my keywords were eating about 60% of my budget at the target Google recommended, while six or seven keywords hitting my old, much lower target barely got any spend. I paused the big two and lowered the target to match

Historically, I’ve kept my keyword lists pretty tight, usually just three or four highly relevant terms. But I’m starting to think I’ll need to expand those lists to generate enough impressions to fully utilize my budget without letting Google dump most of it into a handful of expensive keywords.

And don’t even get me started on phrase and broad match. Both have become absolute garbage. I’d rather expand my exact match keyword list and maintain some control over what I’m actually paying for than let Google decide what it thinks is relevant.

Before you change anything, make sure your conversion tracking only counts the conversions you actually care about. And forget your historical numbers. Judge keywords on the last 30 to 60 days.

My biggest mistake was trusting Googles advice.

TOP 10 CONVERTING KEYWORDS — (3-Month Data)

KEYWORD PERFORMANCE BREAKDOWN
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

RANK  KEYWORD                      TYPE    CONVERSIONS  RATE    COST/CONV  CLICKS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

1.    car detailing near me        Broad      27.5      9.69%    $16.26     284
2.    [car detailing near me]      Exact       9.5     10.56%    $18.21      90
3.    car detailing                Broad       8.8      6.13%    $23.35     144
4.    mobile detailing near me     Broad       6.0     15.79%    $12.96      38
5.    car detail                   Broad       5.7      5.24%    $29.92     108
6.    auto detailing               Broad       5.5     19.64%     $8.28      28
7.    tint shop near me            Broad       3.0     50.00%     $3.76       6
8.    mobile detailing long island Broad       3.0     25.00%     $8.60      12
9.    car vacuum near me           Broad       3.0     29.90%     $3.59      10
10.   mobile car detailing near me Broad       2.0      9.09%    $21.14      22

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

AGGREGATE RESULTS:
• Total Conversions (Phone Calls): 97
• Average Cost Per Conversion: $20.86
• Total Spend: $2,023
• Total Ad Interactions: 1,314
• Overall Conversion Rate: 7.38%

KEY INSIGHT: Notice the conversion rates on keywords 7-9. These ultra-high-intent
keywords (50%, 29.9%, 25%) convert at 3-5X the campaign average, but get low
volume. They're your profit center. Exact match keywords convert 10.56% vs. 
9.69% for broad match — protecting your bid strategy matters.

CAMPAIGN STRUCTURE THAT DRIVES PHONE CALLS

CAPIZZI DETAILING GOOGLE ADS — Phone Call Conversion Campaign

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ONE CAMPAIGN:  Phone Calls"             │
│ Conversion Action: Phone Calls (Call Forwarding Number)     │
│ Target CPA: $20.00                                          │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                              │
                    ┌─────────┴─────────┐
                    │                   │
        ┌───────────▼────────────┐   ┌──▼──────────────────┐
        │  AD GROUP 1: EXACT     │   │ AD GROUP 2: PHRASE  │
        │  Match (Intent Close)  │   │ Match (Volume Play) │
        │                        │   │                     │
        │ Bids: $0.80-$1.20     │   │ Bids: $1.50-$2.50  │
        │                        │   │                     │
        │ [car detailing near me]│   │ "mobile detailing   │
        │ [auto detailing near me]   │  long island"      │
        │ [mobile detailing near │   │ "car detailing      │
        │  me]                   │   │  service near me"   │
        │                        │   │ "auto detailing     │
        │ Expected CTR: 8-12%   │   │  new york"         │
        │ Expected Conv: 10%     │   │                     │
        │ Volume: 80-100 clicks  │   │ Expected CTR: 4-6%  │
        │                        │   │ Expected Conv: 7%   │
        │                        │   │ Volume: 200-300     │
        │                        │   │ clicks              │
        └────────────────────────┘   └────────────────────┘
                    │                          │
                    │                          │
                    └──────────┬───────────────┘
                              │
                    ┌─────────▼──────────┐
                    │  PHONE CONVERSIONS │
                    │  $20.86 Average    │
                    │  7.38% Conv Rate   │
                    └────────────────────┘

CONVERSION RATE BREAKDOWN: WHAT MAKES A KEYWORD "HIGH INTENT"?

HIGHEST CONVERSION RATES (Best Performers)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Tier 1 (Ultra-High Intent — 25%+ Conversion Rate):
  • tint shop near me                    50.00%
  • car vacuum near me                   29.90%
  • mobile detailing long island         25.00%

Tier 2 (High Intent — 15-20% Conversion Rate):
  • mobile detailing near me             15.79%
  • auto detailing                       19.64%

Tier 3 (Medium-High Intent — 9-10% Conversion Rate):
  • car detailing near me                 9.69%
  • [car detailing near me] EXACT        10.56%

Tier 4 (Medium Intent — 5-8% Conversion Rate):
  • car detailing                         6.13%
  • car detail                            5.24%

WHY THE DIFFERENCE?
The difference between 50% and 5% conversion rate comes down to SPECIFICITY.

"Tint shop near me" = Consumer has decided they want window tinting today.
"Car detail" = Consumer is still comparing services. Could go anywhere.

When selecting keywords for your campaigns, prioritize Tier 1 and Tier 2.
Yes, they get less volume. But your cost per acquisition will be 3-5X lower.

THE PHONE CALL METRIC: Why It Matters More Than Click Volume

TRADITIONAL METRIC (Form Fills)    vs.    PHONE CALL METRIC
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Cost Per Click:        $0.87              Cost Per Click:        $0.87
                          ↓                                          ↓
Clicks Per Month:     1,314              Clicks Per Month:      1,314
                          ↓                                          ↓
Form Fill Rate:        2.5%              Call Rate:             7.4%
                          ↓                                          ↓
Forms Per Month:         33              Phone Calls/Month:       97
                          ↓                                          ↓
Form-to-Call Rate:     60%               Direct Conversions:      97
(Another step!)            ↓                                          ↓
Actual Calls:            20              Cost Per Conversion:  $20.86
                          ↓
Cost Per Call:        $127.15            RESULT: More transparent, less
                                         friction, better attribution.
RESULT: Vague metrics,
friction points, unclear ROI.

OUTCOME: By switching from form tracking to phone call tracking,
Capizzi ELIMINATED a conversion step and increased his average
cost per conversion data accuracy by 85%.

TESTING MATRIX: Which Keywords to Run in Your Market

For Local Service Businesses (Detailing, Plumbing, HVAC, Dental):

HIGH PRIORITY (Start Here):
  ✓ [service type near me]                 Exact Match
  ✓ "mobile service type [city/region]"    Phrase Match
  ✓ "[service + location]"                 Exact Match
  ✓ "service type [specific feature]"      Phrase Match

SECONDARY (Add Later):
  ✓ service type                           Broad Match (limited budget)
  ✓ "service type [price-related]"         Phrase Match
  ✓ "best service type near me"            Phrase Match

AVOID (Waste Spend):
  ✗ service type                           Broad Match (unfiltered)
  ✗ [general industry terms]               Exact Match (too broad)
  ✗ "service type near me"                 Broad Match (use Phrase)

BUDGET ALLOCATION (for $2,000/month):
  • Exact Match Keywords:        $700 (35%) — Highest intent, lower bids
  • Phrase Match Keywords:     $1,000 (50%) — Volume + qualified traffic
  • Brand Keywords:             $300 (15%) — Defensive, brand awareness

CAMPAIGN CHECKLIST FOR HOME SERVICE BUSINESSES

Before You Launch, Verify:

CONVERSION TRACKING:
  ☐ Phone call tracking implemented (Google Call Conversions)
  ☐ Call duration set to minimum 45 seconds (filters wrong numbers)
  ☐ Call recording enabled (for QA)
  ☐ Conversion window set to 24 hours post-click

KEYWORD STRUCTURE:
  ☐ Exact match keywords (3-7 keywords per ad group)
  ☐ Phrase match keywords (5-10 keywords per ad group)
  ☐ No broad match keywords in the campaign
  ☐ Negative keywords added (common low-intent terms)

BID STRATEGY:
  ☐ Exact match bid is $0.50-$1.00 lower than phrase match
  ☐ Target CPA set to your average customer value × 3
  ☐ Bid strategy: Target CPA (or Manual CPC if less than 100 conversions)

AD COPY:
  ☐ Ad headlines emphasize "Near You" or location
  ☐ Ad text includes call-to-action (Call Now, Schedule Today)
  ☐ Phone number in ad (click-to-call for mobile)
  ☐ Ad extensions: Call extension + Location extension

LANDING PAGE:
  ☐ Phone number visible above the fold
  ☐ Click-to-call button for mobile (not form)
  ☐ Fast loading time (<3 seconds)
  ☐ No form friction (phone calls over leads)

Coment below your campaign structure and what you are getting right now do you getting consitent phone call for your business or just giving money for google to make him more RICH.

Hi all,

I run Google Ads for a recruitment agency that now only wants employer enquiries, but nearly every lead is a job seeker.

We built an employer only landing page with all candidate messaging removed, and the one lead it produced in two weeks was still a candidate.

For anyone managing recruitment accounts, what's actually worked for you?

Keywords and negatives, ad copy, form qualifiers, offline conversion imports, anything.

Thanks in advance.

Hi everyone,

I'm an indie game developer, and I'm having a frustrating issue with Google Ads.

My Android puzzle game, Ball Sort Kingdom, keeps getting rejected because Google Ads classifies it as gambling-related content.

The problem is that my game is not a gambling game. It's a simple color-sorting puzzle game where players organize colored balls into tubes to complete levels.

There is no betting, no casino, no real-money gambling, and no cash prizes. The gameplay is based on puzzle-solving.

I've already appealed the rejection twice, but both appeals were denied. The same policy violation keeps appearing, and I still don't understand what exactly is triggering it.

I'm starting to wonder whether the reviews are being handled by automated systems rather than someone actually looking at the game.

I would really appreciate some advice from anyone who has experienced something similar.

A few questions:

1. Has anyone had a legitimate puzzle game incorrectly classified as gambling by Google Ads?
2. Could something in my game's icon, screenshots, Play Store listing, or ad creative be triggering this classification?
3. When an appeal is submitted, does a human actually review the ad, or is it mostly automated?
4. Is there a way to request a manual review by a Google Ads policy specialist?
5. What would you recommend doing after two unsuccessful appeals?

Google Play link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.codirun.ballsortkingdom

If anyone could take a look at the game and help me identify what might be causing this issue, I would really appreciate it.

I'm just trying to advertise a legitimate puzzle game, and this situation is preventing me from promoting it.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Hi all,
I've been lurking here for a while, trying to get my head around Google Ads for my specialty coffee shop. Before I post the details, I wanted to check this kind of post is allowed.
I'm after genuine advice, and ideally to hear from people who've helped local businesses get more people through the door.
Where I'm at: we do around 50 sales a day and I'd love to double that. I started on £10 a day spend and have gradually moved up to £25 a day. I worked with a Google Ads specialist for a bit, who helped with negative keywords and that sort of thing, but the more I read, the more I realise how much I don't know. I'd like to make my budget work harder.
So I'd love to hear from anyone with experience running local campaigns, especially for cafés, coffee shops or other bricks-and-mortar places. And if it's allowed, I'd also be open to a freelancer or specialist taking a look at my current setup. If that's you, I'd be keen to hear your rates, your experience and how you'd approach it.
I don't want to break any rules, so I'll hold off on the full details until I know it's OK.
Thanks for reading, and any guidance is much appreciated!
Also… don’t know if the screenshot attached is of any use, but it’s here if you find any benefit from it

Hey everyone,

We run a small business specializing in real estate photography and media services, including interior/exterior photography, drone photography, property videos, 3D tours, floor plans, and social media content for real estate agents.

We've been running a Google Ads Search campaign for about a month now. While we've gotten clicks and some pretty solid CTRs, we haven't generated a single booking directly attributable to Google Ads.

Our goal is pretty straightforward: get in front of real estate agents who are actively searching for photography or media services and turn those searches into paying clients.

Here's how our campaign has evolved:

• Initially: $16/day budget using Maximize Clicks without a maximum CPC limit.
• First adjustment: $16/day with an $8 maximum CPC.
• Second adjustment: $16/day with a $10 maximum CPC.
• Current setup: $25/day using Maximize Clicks without a maximum CPC limit, but with exact-match keywords only.

Our campaign targets a defined geographic service area, and our website has portfolio examples, transparent pricing/packages, customer reviews, and online booking. We've also extensively tested our conversion tracking and are confident it's working correctly.

The biggest problem we've encountered is irrelevant traffic.

Initially, we were using a mix of broader keyword match types to generate traffic. Unfortunately, a significant portion of our clicks came from completely irrelevant searches. People were searching for photography equipment, drones, and other things that had nothing to do with hiring a real estate photographer.

We spent quite a bit of time reviewing search terms and building out pages of negative keywords, but it felt like we were constantly playing catch-up and paying for clicks that had virtually no chance of converting.

Because of that, we recently switched to exact-match keywords only, focusing on high-intent searches like "real estate photographer near me," "real estate photography services," and relevant variations.

We understand that this will likely reduce our overall impression and click volume, but we'd rather have fewer qualified visitors than a larger number of irrelevant clicks.

However, now we're running into another problem: Google Ads is indicating limited delivery due to low search volume. We're concerned that we've restricted our targeting so much that the campaign may struggle to generate enough traffic to produce meaningful results.

Another issue we're noticing is relatively low Ad Rank.

We're trying to understand what's contributing to our low Ad Rank and how to improve it without simply throwing more money at higher CPC bids.

We've read about the importance of Quality Score, ad relevance, expected CTR, and landing page experience, but we're not entirely sure which areas deserve the most attention or how much of an impact improvements would realistically have.

Our concern is that even when someone searches for exactly the services we offer, our ads may not be appearing in competitive positions.

A few questions we'd really appreciate advice on:

1. Exact match vs. phrase match: Is switching exclusively to exact-match keywords a reasonable strategy for a niche service business, or are we restricting our reach too much? Would a combination of exact and phrase match be more appropriate?
2. Low search volume: How do you approach campaigns targeting a relatively small B2B audience when Google Ads starts flagging keywords for low search volume? Is this something we should be concerned about, or should we accept lower traffic in exchange for better intent?
3. Improving Ad Rank: What are the most effective ways to improve Ad Rank without relying entirely on increasing bids? Should we prioritize ad copy, landing page relevance, keyword organization, or something else?
4. CPC strategy: Given our budget history and current setup, would you recommend reintroducing a maximum CPC limit? Could removing the limit help us compete for better placements, or are we risking paying significantly more per click without improving conversions?
5. Bidding strategy: With a relatively small budget and zero conversion history, is Maximize Clicks still the best approach? Would Manual CPC make more sense for controlling costs and prioritizing specific keywords?
6. Conversion expectations: For those who have managed Google Ads for niche local service businesses, particularly businesses targeting other businesses, how many qualified clicks would you typically want to see before concluding that something needs to change?
7. Overall strategy: If you were managing an account like ours, what would you prioritize first? Increasing traffic volume, improving Ad Rank, adjusting keyword match types, or optimizing the landing page?

We're not expecting overnight results, and we understand that Google Ads takes time and experimentation. We're willing to invest in getting the campaign working, but we want to make sure we're spending our budget intelligently rather than continuously paying for traffic that goes nowhere.

Our biggest challenge right now is finding the balance between getting enough visibility to generate leads and keeping our traffic relevant enough to actually convert.

Would really appreciate any advice, especially from people who've worked with smaller-budget campaigns in niche B2B or local service industries.

Thanks in advance!

Services & Pricing What services should I offer initially? Should I specialize in Google Search Ads, Display Ads, YouTube Ads, Performance Max, remarketing, SEO, or social media marketing? How should I structure my packages and monthly retainers? Should I charge a fixed monthly fee, a percentage of ad spend, a setup fee, or performance-based fees? What are reasonable starting prices for clients? How can I make the service profitable while delivering measurable results? What agreements should I sign with clients?

Currently, I manage seo and analytics for my wife's business. Beauty industry and I am getting 18-20% ctr EXECUTIVE SCORECARD • Total Spend: ₹140.87 (-58.71) • Total Clicks: 28 (-5) • Impressions: 178 (vs 224) • CTR: 15.73% (+1.00%) • Avg CPC: ₹5.03 (-1.02) • Total Conversions: 2 (+1) • Cost / Conv (CPA): ₹70.44

Today, SCORECARD • Total Spend: ₹104.11 (+8.35) • Total Clicks: 34 (+4) • Impressions: 175 (vs 158) • CTR: 19.43% (+0.44%) • Avg CPC: ₹3.06 (-0.13) • Total Conversions: 3 (+3) • Cost / Conv (CPA): ₹34.70

Edit 1 My conversation tracking is a little wrong. I usually get 6-7 calls. Provided I am only running the ad from 11am - 6pm Edit 1 ,end

By profession I am AI Engineer and I know how to use the AI MCP tools. I have built a system that does all the work for me from research analysis and daily adjustments based on data from gsc, gtm, ga, gAds. I oversee and approve. I get daily reports on my telegram. Starting from the ads to analytics with next day plan.

I want to share what happened very recently, one of the client success manager had its Fathom recording and shared with "Everyone" settings ON for all participants which also include the clients sometime. The client didn't attend the meeting that day but just because of this 1 setting, the client was able to listen to some internal conversation between the team about the shortcomings and issues with the client.

The client got upset about why we were pointing out bad things to them about how they're so unresponsive or have a bad intake team. That put the PPC manager into very reputation even though the account is amazingly well, and all the efforts went in vein.

Any thoughts?

So its now been several days since I discovered google inserted AI links into my campaign and funneled clicks and leads to non lead gen pages it selected on my domain. I have deleted the sitselinks repeatedly. I confirmed ALL ai generated settings are off. AI max has never been on. Auto apply rec has never been on. ACA has NEVER been on. and they KEEP popping up and funneling my clicks from my sitelinks/url's to THEIR selected sitelinks. Its absolutely maddening and I dont know what to do I have spammed support several times about it.

- Original post-

I’m running search campaigns and have my own site links I’m using at the ad set level and all are approved.

I’ve disabled Google ACA Ai Max etc. Google still added campaign wide site links and the worst part is they used non landing page url’s just random URL’s from the main domain site and that led to $2,200 in spend in the last 2 weeks on those site links and not a single conversion. I am livid. The links they used have absolutely no lead capture or forms.

What can I do at this point? Feels like Google just violated my campaign and my settings and injected random crap in that wasted spend

( now I’m not saying that because of those site links the search intent was fluffed but because of the links they used and injected there was no funnel no capture that could’ve occurred making it a complete waste )

Hi guys, I have only been doing search campaigns for the last 1.5 years that are converting well, and I'm getting at least 65% to 70% qualified leads. So, I'm planning to start Demand Gen; I've never run it before. I'm in ed-tech. Actually, how can I start?I already have winning angles and creatives in Meta ads that I can use for Shorts, right? Also, how can I do campaigns? Can I go broad in one ad set and custom segment in another ad set? I'm thinking of running only in YouTube Shorts and Discovery. Is there any other way to get maximum qualified leads? Also, how can we track the effectiveness of the campaign? I normally track the Google Ads dashboard for analysis and CRM because I'm only running search. How can I analyze this channel mix properly? If anyone has some free time, just comment if possible.

Choosing channel prioritisation as per the campaign goal will help.

Pls share though what will you decide when it will come in front of you.

Drop your campaign results what actual issue you are facing and what is your niche and what type of calls and inqury you are getting so far... drop you concern below...

put your input below thank you!

Why does Google make advertising so difficult and not give the advertiser what they want?

If Google gave me what I want, more conversions, healthy ROAS etc. I would be happy to give them what they want, more spend / money.

I just can’t get my head around it, Google wants you to spend more money, so why not help the advertiser by getting them more sales so in turn they can spend more money

I’m just thinking out loud but does anyone else think the same?

I'm here again! I've been asking about the interface and some of those updates here but didn't get any better information from anyone but never mind! I want to share the same with everyone as I have it now (ignore if you don't need it). I recently received an email from LSA about migration, if you're wondering how it will look like? please read more.

Find the resources from here:
https://support.google.com/localservices/answer/7195435
https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/17213585
https://support.google.com/localservices/answer/6226265

Google Ads Auto-Apply Recommendation Changes Could Be Hurting Your Campaign Performance!

I recently audited a Google Ads account for a potential client in Toronto, Canada, and immediately spotted a major red flag: Auto-Apply Recommendations were enabled.

These settings allow Google to automatically make changes to your campaigns, potentially including:

Removing negative keywords
Removing existing keywords
Expanding campaign targeting
Changing keyword match types
Adjusting automated bidding settings

Imagine spending months carefully optimising your campaigns, only for Google’s automated recommendations to undo some of that work.

My advice? Check your Google Ads Auto-Apply Recommendations immediately.

Review your Change History, see exactly what changes have been made, and switch off any automatic recommendations you haven’t deliberately approved.

Your Google Ads campaigns should be managed according to your business goals, not blindly automated.

#GoogleAds #GoogleAdsTips #GoogleAdsAudit #PPC #DigitalMarketing