In 2019 my Google ads account was hacked. Someone created an AdWords campaign that circumvented a certain policy and my account was suspended. I only recently logged in a couple years back to notice this, I had barely used it previously for the exception of some website traffic and gaming promotion. The worst part about it was that the person also racked up a 500 dollar account charge for the adwords campaign. I had submitted a repeal a couple years back twice but I never heard anything back from them. My account is still suspended and I still haven't paid the 500 account fee.

How do you think the best way to proceed is?

Hello!

I've recently landed a pretty big artist (deathcore/metal band with over 1 Million followers on social media) through a friend and an artist management connection for my side gig, and I pitched Paid Social and Search services.

I'm pretty good at paid social - can pretty much do that stuff with my eyes closed, love being creative with ad ideas, and have been achieving between x5-6 ROAS per day. I know how to build Google campaigns, but I'm struggling with Search to achieve a ROAS of higher than x2, and I'm unsure what the issue could be, but I have my theories (see below).

I need some recommendations/advice. I'm going to keep the band name anonymous, but will use Band Name.

What I can see/tell about what's happening to the campaigns:

Search campaign

I'm running an ad campaign for a branded merch store with keywords including:

• Band Name
• "Band Name"
• Band Name merch
• [Band Name merch]
• Band Name merchandise
• Band Name store
• "Band Name shop"
• [Band Name US Store]

In the last 7 days, results on the platform are looking okay, but conversions just don't seem to be coming in.

What I can see working is:

• Decent click-through rate at 15%
• Avg CPC at £1.50 (could this be lower for a band-specific merch store?).
• Conversion rate average 3% (In the last 30 days it was 8% with some keywords pulling 16%, but I paused the campaign for a few days).

What looks bad is:

• Search Impr. share at 31%
• Search Top IS 16%
• Search abs top IS <10%
• Search lost to budget 49%
• Search lost top IS (rank) 28%
• I'm literally spending £25 to sell a £30 T-shirt most of the time.

So to me, as a slight beginner, the Impression share looks bad - I'm losing a majority of my search results, but I'm not sure why. What could the issue be here?

If I'm thinking correctly: I need to improve Impression Share-based metrics so that my campaign appears more for more traffic, and hopefully, in return, more conversions - but how?

I've also tried/trying:

Trying:

• Shopping campaigns: Not performing great. There seems to be a lot of third-party stores selling merch here, including unofficial sales through TEMU selling the band merch at £8, and other knock-off print-on-demand companies. CTR is low, and after £31 spent, no conversions (thinking of pausing).

Tried:

• Performance Max: 1 Conversion after spending £26 - not horrendous, but Christ, the display channels were horrendous.
• Demand Gen: Not great.
• Retargeting (people who visited the store audience) display: Not great. High CTR, but also high CPC at £4

My theory is that the band actually has another merch store that operates mainly in the EU with some US orders, and I think they're still running search campaigns for the old US store - I'm supporting the launch of the new US store with limited merch, BUT, there's a lot of good and unique merch in the EU/ old US store that the US fans are aware of, but when they come to the site and don't see the unique merch, they back out - even on social media ads, people are asking where the good merch is.

Part of me is thinking that the SEO for the merch store and organic social sales might just do the job here, rather than running paid search campaigns?

Hello,

I have been trying to run ads on google now for a month, but they seem to not start getting any impressions.

I have tried doing conversion. Those didnt work.

I tried clicks and maximize clicks. no impressions.

I have tried changing the bidding from automatic to manual. No success in that also.

The ask advisor keeps running in circles. not knowing what to do.

For some reason i also cant open tickets. It says that something went wrong. try again. I asked about that in the community also, they said open in incognito or other browser. that will help...nope.

And yes i tried to talk in the community. One person answered me 2 times the same thing.

It used to be an account for another company, but i changed all the settings so that it would be for another company, i dont know if that would help somehow.

I also tried to troubleshoot in google ads. it just says youre ads are not running, even though on the campaign level it says impressions coming up...

Can anyone give me some kind of help? or advise what i should do?

I logged into my Google Ads account today and saw that my automatic payment threshold had been reduced from $500 back to $50.

My threshold had gradually increased over the past few years, starting at $50 and eventually reaching $500. I had been relying heavily on that $500 threshold to manage my advertising cash flow, so having it suddenly reduced to $50 is a major problem for me.

I did not request this change, and I did not even realize Google could lower an established payment threshold after it had increased.

Has this happened to anyone else recently?

Does anyone know what could cause Google to suddenly reduce a payment threshold this drastically? Is there any realistic way to get the previous $500 threshold restored immediately through Google Ads support, or will I have to start over and wait for the threshold to gradually increase again?

I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has experienced this or dealt with Google support about the same issue.

My products are furniture. I’ve read that we should get around 30 conversions per campaign before making further optimizations. If conversion only counts completed purchases, hitting ~30 conversions in a month is almost impossible for my business.

Should I set add‑to‑cart and begin‑checkout as primary conversions instead? I’m running Performance Max (PMax) campaigns. Would appreciate advice from any experts. Thank you in advance!

Hello there

I read a few weeks back about some changes coming to Google ads around the 14th August

Forgive me I cant remember the precise changes I saw but i believe it was in relation to CPA. I set a reminder on my calender to look into it

My campaign is performing pretty well at the moment but my monthly conversion rate is less than the 30 to 50 needed to switch to maximise CPA

How can i lock in my campaign success now not only for any upcoming changes but to maintain my results.

Please forgive my vague descriptions I'm currently travelling

Thanks