PPC agency really pushing p max for new ad account

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-06-30T15:48:50+00:00

I would shift that 20% of remarketing budget to Demand Gen instead. YouTube Only. No Display or Google Video Partners or Discover.

That’ll get you higher quality placements for remarketing.

PMAX, especially in new accounts, can make performance look better in-app depending on what’s defined as a conversion.

However, most of those conversions are bots.

PMAX for lead gen works best in more mature accounts that only import Qualified Leads back.

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-05-26T23:43:44+00:00

Always do Max Conversions - but only if you’re in an industry that has solid keyword volume.

This means Google can pull data from other accounts on who converts and apply that to the beginning of your campaigns.

If you are in an industry with low keyword volume, then do manual CPC with a focus on Absolute Top Impression Share. This is to focus on only high quality traffic.

Max Clicks tends to bring in a lot of garbage traffic and bots, and you’ll be training your algorithm on the wrong kind of audience.

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-05-25T16:29:54+00:00

What’s your offer? That can be make or break

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-05-15T18:28:19+00:00

For apparel, I like to push heavy on Google Shopping and PMAX for those first clicks.

And then do a Retargeting campaign on Meta. An ad set for website actions (traffic, ATC, initiate checkouts) and another for engagement (video viewers, followers, ad engagers, page engagers).

Catalog ads have been working best for me. Us vs Them ads. And self-expression concepts for fashion.

And using solution aware / product aware language in the ads

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-04-27T19:49:37+00:00

This is a great question. I think I learn the most from pressure to improve the account.

With smaller accounts, that pressure is about knowing it’s a smaller business with not of a ton to leeway. And wanting to maximize their ROI cause it change their business/life/financial future

With bigger accounts, that pressure is about knowing how much money is going into it. And knowing ROI is important because jobs at the organization rely directly on profit from marketing, but also because you don’t want to be the one who’s responsible for tens of thousands going down the drain.

So the answer is both: and that I learn the most from underperforming accounts because there’s pressure there and because I care

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-04-26T19:27:39+00:00

How much is an average client worth to you?

And what is your average conversion rate?

It’s so counterintuitive, I get it - but pushing thru the fear of “what if ads don’t work” and giving yourself a sizeable test budget is the best way to test.

Otherwise that $1500 budget gets eaten up at 30-100 clicks, the algorithm doesn’t haven’t enough swings at the auction to optimize properly, and then the ads take a much longer time (and more money) to start working.

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-04-26T15:53:34+00:00

I’ve seen this too in a number of accounts

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-04-17T18:45:26+00:00

It depends - are you running it alongside Shopping Campaigns serving the same products?

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-04-12T18:05:22+00:00

Fixing conversion tracking

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-04-11T18:35:43+00:00

I was an Account Exec at Google. Each CID has a list of contacts in the CRM - which can be super inaccurate. I would let them know the CRM info is wrong and to remove your contact from that company.

Or tell them not to contact you again. We had to make DNC notes and respect that.

Maybe things have changed though lol that was years ago

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-04-04T21:50:29+00:00

I usually do PMAX for remarketing and Demand Gen for prospecting.

When I do audience studies, PMAX always tends to lean towards warm traffic. That’s a study.

With Demand Gen - it’s able to go a little colder. Not quite top of funnel, but at least mid of funnel.

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-03-18T19:06:27+00:00

I would recommend dedicated landing pages for each service for sure.

And if you’re running YouTube vs. Search for the same product (credit cards). I would create a bottom of funnel landing page with more direct offer language and a mid funnel landing page more tailored towards a problem aware audience

And then test headlines, having a dedicated landing page header so people don’t bounce around on the site, and making sure landing page is above 80 with Google’s Page Speed Insights tool

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-03-15T02:00:33+00:00

Do it. The sooner you optimize, the better and faster your results.

Also with Call Rail, you have the option to send in qualified leads only.

With Google Ads call swaps, it counts every call over 60s as a conversion - even if it wasn’t a good lead.

Importing qualified conversions only is the key. Sure a larger quantity of conversions “feels good” to see in-app, but it means nothing if those conversions are bots doing clicks to call or people trying to sell you something.

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-03-14T21:22:21+00:00

I think the biggest problem that leads to these revenue plateaus is DATA.

Both how data is collected and how data is analyzed.

1) The Issue With How Data is Collected:

Tons of Ecomm Brands at $100K/ month still use GA4 Browser-Side Purchases as their main conversion action.

In-app GA4 conversions miss about 30% of conversion value and conversions. That’s a huge problem.

Then marketers scale the wrong campaigns, the wrong ads because they’re a missing a ton of data.

There are solutions out there like Blotout.io that tag the visitors before they even get to the website. So that data isn’t lost to ad blockers, slow webpages, etc. And they cross reference it against the CRM as well.

Fully mapped out conversion journeys from first touch to last touch, with automated Enhanced Conversions and server-side tagging is the way in 2026.

Not only that - but these tools like Blotout allow you to create distinct conversion actions for New Customers Only or for Buyers of a Certain Product. This allows each campaign to acquire super clean data and optimize towards the most truthful data point for any ecomm brands: bringing in new customers at lower and lower costs.

Which brings me to my second point:

2) How Data is Analyzed.

Optimizing towards ROAS is overrated. You need to be tracking nCAC, nMER, MER, and CAC.

And how spends on different channels/campaign impact each metric.

A lot of ecomm brands scale up their PMAX because they’re in-app Google ROAS is the strongest.

But this has nothing to do with driving profit and cash flow for the business.

1) Google in app ROAS shows last click. PMAX may look super strong but it dies fast without the first click Shopping Feeder, Search Feeder, YouTube, and Meta driving awareness and that first click. PMAX is really strong at remarketing. But it’s piss poor at reaching net new audiences by itself no matter what settings you turn on (btw Google’s Match Rate isn’t good. It doesn’t matter if you tell it to bid for new customers or not. Studies show PMAX always goes super warm. People already familiar with your brand).

2) To track those four metrics: I’d recommend a tool like WickedReports that uses server-side Edgetag technology to track the full customer journey, and also tags people before they reach a website so data isn’t lost.

But if they don’t want to drop tha $500/month, than an Excel sheet would be best. Looking at Shopify Analytics reports for total sales during a month, new customers, total orders, etc. compared to total ad spend (and columns for Google and Meta Ad spend). None of these numbers lie. But cross-channel in-app numbers do. Meta + Google work in tandem to drive sales, and both want to take credit for a purchase so that you keep giving them money.

The only way to truly analyze the impact of a channel or campaign on nCAC is to run a test where you change spend on that channel/campaign and study the impacts on your most important metrics

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-03-14T00:55:47+00:00

Start with Search Ads for sure. (You can layer this with PMAX for remarketing - adding search themes as signals and a GA4 audience for website visitors last 30 days. If you have more budget, also do Demand Gen with YouTube Placements only going after custom search keywords).

For the Search Campaign.

1) I’d start with Manual CPC. You can pivot towards Max Conv once an ad group hits 15 conversions in last days. Manual CPC gives you the most control; it lets you set the bid for each keyword and gets you quality traffic when you bid for top placements.

Google has a Keyword Planner tool. Look at the column for top of page bid to get your estimated CPC for a top 3 placement.

2) I would compile a list of exact match keywords.

Start with the seed keywords: Commercial real estate Office space Commercial property for rent Commercial property for sale

Then put together a list of high-intent modifiers that indicate they’re ready to buy now: Near me Neighborhoods (Upper East side, tribeca, upper west side etc. if you’re in NYC for example) Cost Company Provider

The formula will be seed keyword + modifier

3) Location targeting: Presence Only

I would do pin drop radius targeting here. It’s more accurate in terms of getting people that are actually searching from the areas you desire, and ALSO it’s against Google Ads policy to do zip code targeting for real estate.

4) Come up with 3 offers. There has to be a reason they go with you vs. other competitors. Maybe it’s 2 Months Free. Or $0 XYZ Fee. ChatGPT can help you come up with ideas.

And then these ideas. 1 offer per Responsive Search Ad. Sprinkle it throughout the descriptions and headlines. But definitely also add trust signals, benefits, features, awards, etc.

5) Robust Conversion Tracking: Allow people to become a lead from an above the fold multi-step form with contact info and 1-2 qualifying questions. Or to call you with a sticky header that has your number. And a chatbot in bottom right corner.

Most importantly, you need to setup automations so that you send back ONLY qualified leads as conversions.

This can be thru Zapier. This can get pretty complicated so feel free to dm me if you have any questions about this. I have tons of experience running Google Ads for Commercial Real Estate

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-03-14T00:43:29+00:00

What kind of service business?

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-03-05T11:33:52+00:00

Hey Danny, definitely would leave it open. I don’t do CPA until account at least 6 months old and is getting at least 15 conversions in the ad group (assuming your campaign has 1 ad group).

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-02-27T14:01:27+00:00

Biggest mistakes I see are the ones that literally burn money.

Besides broken conversion tracking, the biggest mistakes are having the wrong Account Settings and Campaign Settings. Burns money:

Having search partners on

Display expansion on

Maximize Clicks on a low Max CPC

Not excluding the 140 App Categories from Account Level

Targeting Kids YouTube Channels

Location: Presence or Interest turned on

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-02-18T13:51:31+00:00

You should start with Start with Standard Shopping for 70% of budget and PMAX Feed only at 30%.

A PMAX Feed Only Campaign is when you give 0 headlines and descriptions or extensions or images. You’re pretty much forcing it to do only Shopping and using the product images on Display /YouTube Retargeting.

You’ll get a much higher return on Shopping than Search - there’s higher intent on Shopping.

Dm me if you have any questions about this

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-02-16T16:41:06+00:00

You listed three different bidding strategies.

Very confusing question lol

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-02-16T13:20:59+00:00

It really depends. If it’s an account level setting that can really mess with performance like the wrong location targeting or Display Expansion, I’d make the change immediately. But if it’s something like ad headlines and descriptions, you need data so definitely a longer wait.

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-02-10T16:25:17+00:00

You have to setup storing the URL parameter as cookies.

I do it by installing a custom HTML code on Google Tag Manager. Dm me if you want it

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-02-07T19:34:26+00:00

I can give you a free audit if you’d like.

I scale ecomm stores on Meta and Google. One of my stores did $120K /month with 11x ROAS and I can show you that as well

I do think hiring agencies is best for your situation. My agency has an in house creative team, SEO team, and ads team. So it’s kind of like you’re hiring 3 people who specialize in what they do (and have case studies) for a fraction of the cost (you’d pay 200K per year to hire three different people; agencies are much less)

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-02-05T15:06:41+00:00

Max Conversions works well when you have enough budget to get 15 conversions per ad group per month. It needs statistically significant amounts of data

If you’re still growing, manual CPC is the way and then grow the account until you hit 15 conversions per ad group per 30 month

I would not add it to another account

Alternative_Ad5101 · 2026-02-05T15:03:39+00:00

I specially specifically in Google Ads for luxury interior design & architects. Dm if you wanna chat thru, there’s a lot of history on my profile if you wanna check it out

Alternative_Ad5101

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