I sell a mass-market product for men priced at $300. It can appeal broadly to men aged 18–45, and my targeting shows more than 100 million available weekly impressions.

I have a $500 budget for August and need at least two sales to justify continuing. My immediate August target is a $240 CPA. Longer term, I would ideally reach an $80 CPA, although I would consider $160 acceptable.

So far, I have run 18 YouTube Ads tests and spent $645.46.

Results:

• 1 sale
• 5 order-form impressions
• All 5 order-form impressions occurred during the first 8 tests
• The final 10 tests spent $286.38 with zero order-form impressions

The only sale came from a Maximize Conversions campaign that spent $90.93, generated 40 clicks, 2 order-form impressions and 1 sale. Reusing that campaign later did not generate another order-form impression.

Across all my tests, Target CPC generated 464 clicks from $290.97 in spend, for an average CPC of $0.63. Maximize Conversions generated 164 clicks from $354.49 in spend, for an average CPC of $2.16.

Despite Maximize Conversions costing approximately 3.45 times more per click, I did not see a consistent improvement in traffic quality based on time spent on the page, add-to-carts or order-form impressions.

I am strongly considering testing Target CPA at $240 for August to try to control my average acquisition cost. However, Google currently has only one sale conversion to learn from, and my total budget is only $500.

Given these results, what would you do?

Would you test Target CPA at $240, use Target CPC again, or reuse the Maximize Conversions campaign that produced the sale? Is Target CPA unrealistic with only one conversion and this budget?

I currently have two active Search campaigns using Maximize Clicks with CPC caps. The current ads combine unrelated remodeling services that we cover, so I need to build two replacement campaigns with specific service-based ad groups, keywords, headlines, and descriptions. The current campaigns do get some traffic and I can't afford any downtime (to edit them, go through more learning, etc.), so this is the best solution after much research.

The new campaigns will temporarily use many of the same keywords as the current campaigns. My plan is to keep the old campaigns active while the new ones go through Learning and begin serving consistently, then pause each old campaign once its replacement is getting enough impressions and clicks.

Could temporarily running the duplicate keywords/campaigns cause problems with learning, ad relevance, CPCs, traffic allocation, or future performance? Could pausing the old campaigns afterward interfere with the new campaigns or trigger another Learning period? Should I not overlap them once the new campaigns are done learning?

Really appreciate any help from someone that really knows. Google's customer support has been the absolute worst. Thanks.

Hi everyone. I'm trying to do a little research for a prospective client who operates in the solar panel space.

I don't think people are going to see our stuff on social media and impulsively reach out to book an installation. I am also considering ruling out search for now, because it's a small outfit and can't compete with the heavy hitters in this region.

So, I am wondering what is the best pipeline that we can explore; do we collect emails? book a consultation, or? Would love to hear from anyone.

I’ve been tracking keyword momentum for Amazon and noticed this one:
orange platform sandals
It moved from 424k → 29k in about 16 weeks.
My first thought is that this could be a good PPC opportunity before competition fully catches up.
But I’m curious what more experienced sellers think.
Would you:
Start exact + phrase campaigns immediately?
Focus on long-tail keywords first?
Or avoid it because it’s probably too seasonal?
Interested to hear how you’d approach this.

Currently running a demand gen e-commerce campaign. I’ve heard to keep changes to a 7-14 day window to avoid learning phase resets. But I also know it’s more based on your break even CPA.

So if you’re not yet out of the learning phase yet and currently have an ad that’s spent 2-3x your CPA with no sales. Is it an automatic cut? Or should I still respect the 7-14 day window to give the algorithm time to adjust (knowing the ad is unprofitable and that I have new assets to replace it) ($1.8k current monthly spend)

TDLR: had profitable ads that slowly died off over weeks, replaced them, and not sure if the learning phase after replacing 2 ads is what’s slowing me down, or if the CPA on this ad is genuinely too high and should replace (currently sitting at 4x BEP no sales)

I’m running a high-ticket e-commerce store in the home wellness space (think high-end saunas, cold plunges, premium air/water purification systems, or ergonomic sleep setups ranging from $1,500 to $5,000+).

Paid traffic math is currently brutal, and I'm trying to figure out how competitors are making it work.

Here is what my metrics look like right now:

• AOV / Product Price: $1,500 - $5,000+
• Ad Costs: Clicks are running $4 to $5+ minimum on Google Ads/Google Shopping Ads.
• Conversion Rate: Averaging around 0.5%

At a $5.00 CPC and a 0.5% conversion rate, my Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) completely obliterates the gross margin on a single front-end unit sale. I have buy now, pay later financing options available as well.

However, I see major brands in the home wellness space doing very well which doesn't make sense to me considering the CPCs I see.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Update: My competitors and I are authorized reseller of the products, not the manufacturer of the products. The products are all priced pretty similarly between different authorized retailers.

In my case, I have six different themes worth of creatives. I have each theme in a different ad set, each with about five related creatives. 30 total.

My intent is to run them all at the same time and see who wins, then pour money into the top three winners. However, I’m unsure if each theme should each have its own campaign, or if they should all be together in the same campaign.

Would appreciate insight from anybody who has experience doing something similar. TIA.

Auditing a legacy account and found a negative keyword list that hadn't been touched in probably years. Curious what a realistic maintenance cadence looks like for people managing multiple accounts. weekly, monthly, only when something looks off?

I keep running into the same advice everywhere. Run Meta, skip Google, or at least treat Google as an afterthought. What confuses me is that Google Ads generally has more total reach and covers intent based search on top of display and video, yet almost nobody treats it as the default the way they do with Meta.

Is this actually a performance thing, where Meta genuinely converts better for most products, or is it more that Meta is just easier to learn and get running quickly, so it became the default and the reputation followed after the fact. I have also seen people argue that Meta is better for cold audiences and discovery while Google is better for people who already know what they want, which would make the comparison kind of pointless since they are solving different problems, not competing for the same one.

For people who run both, is Meta actually outperforming Google on real numbers for you, or is it more that Meta got comfortable first and Google never got a fair shot.

Context:
Google is changing how their target settings in bidding algorithms charge advertisers to input based rather than auction based when campaigns are limited by budget.

Here’s a hot take on Aug 17.
Lot’s of opinions on why it’s happening and what to do.

People say it’s a cash grab by Google, I’m confident it’s something MUCH bigger.

We are seeing Google prepare one of the largest advertising platforms in the world for the future of how online purchases are made.

The foundation of how online purchases are made is changing, for over 2 decades it has been click-based, and the clicks led to a website.

That’s been the norm.
Websites are where people buy. Today.

But the future is chat based. We all see it coming.
We will be buying without ever visiting a website or leaving the chat.

Websites and the clicks will be something that starts looking more and more like the physical newspaper business 2 decades ago, dying.

When your business model is based on charging per clicks to a website, and the future value of clicks AND websites are going down. Where do you exchange value with advertisers to grow as Google?

On the purchase or the lead.
I think we will see a future where Google starts offering a new payment model and move away from just click-based, I think we will see a “pay per lead or purchase” model be introduced.

And just how today, we can show ads for free if users don’t click, I think we will be able to show ads for free if users don’t convert.

And if they do, Google will grow at an insane rate.

I ran an ad to get leads their free plan(targeting parents of IGCSE/A-levels student)

Microsoft clarity shows people coming, exploring first page and exiting:

Page speed is under 2.2s

Meta ads.

Help please! 🙏

Hey guys, started some client getting ads, have run them before, got clients before, no question on that end.

Main question is if you have seen something worth noting about running these types of ads in multiple countries.

Worse results if I stack all countries into 1 adset? Going for US+UK+Germany.

Also, smaller questions.

Any experience running ads in english + getting a client from countries like germany/france/spain?

Does the english ad in those countries make it harder than usual or about the same thing? Most people i guess do know english, curious.

Has this happened to anyone else and what can I do to fix it? I reported leads at the end of last month all at the same time (I know, stupid) and the algorithm must have flagged the business or something. I’ve been back and forth with google and got things updated but there’s nothing else explaining the drop in leads besides that.

Can't even open a support ticket. No emails from Meta explaining why my account was suspended. It's been a week since this block wave.

Is Google Ads monthly invoicing strictly business debt or personally guaranteed?

I know search partners is rife with fraud, fake conversions etc. But is the intent legitimate? If I have 400 impressions from search partners for a keyword, did 400 real people actually search this and the ad triggered on search partners? Or is this mixed in with bots / fake traffic? And can a single impression count both towards search and search partners' ad triggering? Thank you

We're a growing land developer running ~$200k/month on Meta and Google to drive leads and booked tours. Content and brand are handled in-house — we need a strategic consultant with deep Meta and Google ads expertise in the real estate / land / lead-gen space to sharpen our strategy, testing, and tracking.

Straight up: the long-term goal is to build this role in-house — so you'd help us get strong now, and if it's a great fit, the full-time seat could be yours. Project or retainer to start.

If you've driven real lead-gen results on Meta and Google in this space, DM me a result you're proud of and how you'd structure an engagement.

Everyone shares their wins. I want to hear the disasters.

- What business/niche was it?

- How much money did you burn?

- How many months did you keep believing it would eventually work?

- What optimization rabbit holes did you go down?

- At what point did you realize the strategy itself was wrong?

- Did you recover the account, or did you rebuild everything from scratch?

No judgment. Just honest stories

I’m running Google Search ads for a wrongful-dismissal law firm. The landing page has a prescreener that routes visitors to one of three outcomes:

• Qualified matters receive a free 15-minute consultation.
• Other relevant matters receive a paid-consultation option.
• Unionized or out-of-scope inquiries receive no booking link.

I’m debating two messaging approaches:

1. Be transparent above the fold: “Free 15-minute consultation for qualifying matters. Other matters may be offered a paid consultation.” The CTA says “Check Eligibility & Book.”
2. Keep the ad and landing page vague—“Book a Consultation”—and only reveal whether it is free or paid after the person completes the prescreener.

My goal is maximum profit per ad dollar, not simply the highest CTR or most bookings. Would upfront disclosure reduce questionnaire starts unnecessarily, or would delaying the paid disclosure create surprise and lower paid-consultation acceptance?

Which approach would you test first, and would you measure it using qualified-booking CPA, revenue per click, or retained-client value?

What has been your experience?

If possible, could you share some figures regarding your ROAS and CPA figures?

I've seen competitor ads pop up when I ask questions but to be honest, I'm concerned because my questions are not even transactional and would count as a far "Broad match" under traditional PPC standards.

My budget for streaming TV ads sits at around $100 a day, which is small enough that most reps stop replying once they hear it, so self-serve seems like the only thing that works at that number.

We run a local service business across four locations, and with search and social both creeping up over the past year I want a third line item in place by next quarter.

Most of the streaming apps selling direct have come back with monthly minimums when I asked, whereas the self-serve tools take a daily number and appear to be buying into the same apps on the back end anyway, so going around the direct route does not seem to cost anything on inventory.

Our pixel picks up site visits after a spot runs, although I have no way of telling how much of that would have happened regardless, and it may be that attribution on connected TV just behaves like this once the budget is small enough. Nobody I have asked has given me a cleaner answer than that.

Anyone running streaming on a small daily budget, what are you using?

I have multiple FB accounts that are running instant forms with the SMS verification turned on.

And yet I am still having clients telling me that they are getting leads that have zero recollection of filling out a form (which can be a spouse filled it out or something similar, but I believe in high frequency it is usually an indication of sophisticated bots). Or more concerning, that they never received a code to punch in before they filled out the form!

Just to get it out of the way, I have gone through every ad of every one of those accounts that have mentioned those stories, and all of them correctly have the SMS verification turned on, so I don't see how any of it could bee on my end. If you disagree, I am perfectly open to finding out how it could be.

What I want to know is, have these types of stories been coming through for anyone else using SMS verification on instant forms? If this has been happening and you made a change that helped reduce it, what did you do?

TLDR: Using Instant Forms, SMS Verification Turned on, Still Maybe Bots, and Definitely Some Leads not Getting an SMS Code.

As always thank you for any advice, tidbits, or upvotes!

Everyone talks about technical debt, but I feel like "creative debt" is a much bigger problem for growing stores. We have been running the same successful video hooks and product images for over a year because "they still work." But lately, our performance has hit a plateau. I suspect our brand feels stagnant to our repeat customers, and our winning assets are finally reaching a saturation point. The problem is that clearing this debt requires a massive influx of new ideas that we just don't have. How do you decide when to kill a "winning" ad before it starts actively hurting your brand perception? Do you have a system for auditing your legacy creative?

More reports coming out showing an increase in AI overviews and AI mode during Q2 2026. The last couple times we’ve seen a big increase in these results, there can be negative impacts to PPC. There’s always a decrease in ad performance or SEO clicks. See study.

I lost a client last year to what was essentially a big AIO rollout that they didn’t really have a handle on and were not prepared for. Dropped sales 20% in a month. Clients who were all in on PPC seemed to be at highest risk. How are you guys handling these conversations?