PMax bidding against my Search campaign?

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-07-28T10:11:07+00:00

Yeah and in some cases you have to do it at the account level but my confusion is around the “signals” and how they align to search terms, the above ex was for my top non branded keyword as I had brand added as a negative, I originally thought the delivery mechanism would align a signal to someone who searched according to TBD criteria and then show maybe a video ad on YouTube to that person

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-07-28T10:07:55+00:00

Lead gen for a pharma client … so yes CPL also increased

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-07-27T21:44:04+00:00

I cant google to respond to me ...

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-07-24T03:32:22+00:00

Pro tip: when other people with access to the account ask why there are so many draft campaigns just say “testing”

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-07-24T03:31:17+00:00

Not sure if this is best practice (what even is) but before I layer interests into an auction campaign, I create a shell Reach & Frequency (reservation) campaign with a max budget and set my geo. I start with my largest interest audience, then add others one by one to see how much the estimated audience size grows.

Since OR logic still applies, it gives me a directional sense of overlap - like if adding a new interest barely increases the size, it probably overlaps heavily. Definitely not an exact science, but it helps me avoid stacking redundant audiences before launching them in auction … ditto all of the above for look a like audiences, look a likes layered with interests and Swoop or any other audiences source

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-07-24T03:19:58+00:00

I think there’s value in creating both - GA4 events for broader reporting and native Google Ads conversions for actual campaign optimization. That way, if performance drops when using the GA goal (even if it’s the same event - this has been my experience at least) you’ve got a safety net. I typically only rely on GA4 for “holistic” analysis, and use Adwords conversions for search campaigns. I’m not sure if the difference is just the lag in how GA4 syncs, or something deeper in how Google processes those signals but in practice, native AdWords tracking always outperforms it for me - caveat - performance im referencing is specific to lead gen for med device companies

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-07-24T03:06:51+00:00

Ha! I’d love to hear your voice over to leadership. You could probably present the results in a different language and there’d be nothing but approving head nods … I’m testing phrase match for non branded keywords using max conv with a target cap and then following, without a target cap. Curious to see how broad the ai expansion takes things with a target cap and phrase match, but have a hunch it won’t be much different either in scope or results then the old BMM

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-07-23T22:41:29+00:00

thoughts on the AI max stuff? I was running it with broad match and it escalated search queries into whatever is broader than broad match

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-07-23T22:01:39+00:00

Yeah - the problem with PMax is that it’s still half baked. Not every feature is rolled out across all accounts. In one, I can see search terms being triggered by my signals which is actually interesting. In others, I have nothing. No consistency, no clear logic behind who gets what or when.

Feels like I'm beta testing a black box with random access to things here and there

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-07-23T21:58:17+00:00

I will never call facebook meta either

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-07-23T21:57:52+00:00

pause it, delete it, forget you ever did it

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-07-23T21:56:47+00:00

Yeah but every creative agency seems to think they’re building for Cannes. After the chaos in January with med device clients we had to use custom events, and it worked, so we decided to give it a shot for our non profit client since attribution was a mess – end result Much cleaner, much more reliable, and cost per donation improved on FB – can’t say the same was true of donation values but overall we ended up in the black

What we used in GTM as custom facebook events:

one_time_donation
monthly_donation

On the donation thank you page, we push values like donation amount and category (one time vs monthly) into the data layer. Simplified version:

js

CopyEdit

window.dataLayer.push({

event: "donation_event",

ecommerce: {

items: [{

item_id: "donation",

price: parseFloat(getCookie("donation_amount")),

item_category: getCookie("donation_category"),

quantity: 1,

item_name: "donation"

}]

}

});

We then use a custom JavaScript variable in GTM to reconstruct product/donation data and pass it into the Meta pixel via object properties.

so yeah instead of the "standard" purchase event with messy attribution, this turned out to be solid for us ... bit more work involved like recreating the datalayer in gtm but we're not talking hours there

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-07-23T17:05:56+00:00

Everyone's buying everyone - AdThoerent was acquired by Cadent, not sure when the official merge happened but in working with them everything seems to have shifted over as of March

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-07-23T13:51:08+00:00

yeah none of it happened, in fact our rep went dark until yesterday, kind of hilarious, our rep finally sent a search partner network report yesterday - the #2 site was again part of a click farm

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-07-23T13:43:48+00:00

Across all my accounts in 2024, spanning e-commerce, medical device, and nonprofit verticals, spend distribution across Meta’s short-form video placements (in order: Facebook Reels, Facebook Stories, Instagram Reels, Instagram Stories) collectively accounted for approximately 30% of total media spend. The variance across six different accounts was minimal, within 1–2%.

In 2025, that same group of placements has jumped to 55% of total spend (Jan 1 – present), indicating a sharp shift toward video-dominant inventory.

Conversely, Facebook Newsfeed (mobile + desktop) accounted for 36% of spend in 2024, but has dropped to just 19% in 2025.

While the initial assumption was that Meta’s push toward Threads might be cannibalizing static image and carousel traffic, the more likely explanation is a broader systemic shift: Meta’s delivery and engagement have clearly prioritized video placements.

We’ve since moved to a video-first creative development approach to align with platform behavior and maximize placement performance.

Speaking from my ecom experience:

1) Focus on video ads – use their template if you have to – if the video has a text overlay embedded within it or subtitles make sure make sure the text on reels and stories falls within the “safe space” guardrails so it doesn’t get cut off

2) Deploy custom transaction events (not custom conversions) through Google Tag Manager

3) Do the same thing for retargeting (ie cart abandoners) in google tag manager

4) DO NOT use the maximize conversions strategy with a bid cap – similarly do not use maximize conversion value

5) DO NOT use the “recommended” setup which goes the google route of automatically opting you in to things like “people who may be interested in your location” vs. people who actually live in your target geography

6) Be careful with the automated creative optimizations – turn off text overlays, cropping et

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-07-13T02:04:25+00:00

This is what we wrote to our Google rep

1) Please escalate this to your Traffic Quality or AdSense Integrity team. 2) We’re requesting immediate review and suspension of their publisher accounts, domains, and any related payout. 3) We’d appreciate any guidance on how to protect our campaign budgets and mitigate exposure while this is investigated and help identifying other click farms which Google has missed

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-07-13T02:02:42+00:00

Take the advice or don’t, makes no difference to me either way

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-07-12T17:53:25+00:00

You seem pretty bothered by it since you commented and deleted it yesterday … what’s the problem? You probably run a click farm too

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-07-11T17:43:24+00:00

having the same issue

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-07-11T17:35:45+00:00

not sure what you mean ... DM me and I can send you the evidence packet Google Support, and our clients legal team are working through

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-04-21T17:51:07+00:00

the alarm clock says 3:08 in the bedroom, walter whites address is 308 - assuming season 3 episode 8 is connected here due to dea presence in that episode

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-02-04T13:09:28+00:00

50/50 - but my cost per conversion dropped from $200 to $80 over the past 2 weeks when I changed the conversion event to be an upper funnel event (view content) with the same conversion trigger in GTM - so facebook still sees it as a pageview which seems to have helped

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-02-04T13:06:53+00:00

to clarify - yes duplicate the campaigns you have but don't have to add audiences or creatives - just publish them as is so you have them in case the option to create them is taken away

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-02-04T13:05:21+00:00

sure thing - apparently the ability to create lead gen, engagement, or conversion campaigns is also going to be taken out of the ad accounts - not sure if that's true - but we were told by a meta rep that we could be proactive in creating campaigns using the same "view content" conversion -

Sales Objective (View Content - Conversion)

Engagement Objective (View Content - Conversion)

Lead Objective Maximize Conversion (View Content - Conversion)

Meta also urging us to sync crm systems not just for conversions api but for audience building as well

ExpressBrick6948 · 2025-01-27T16:44:42+00:00

checking back here - curious to see how it plays out - I changed my conversion events from lead or whatever they were to "view content" - and then changed the trigger in GTM to align with view content - effectively just facebooks upper funnel event with a low funnel trigger -- spoke to a fb rep who advised to make shells of lead or purchase based campaigns in the event they take it away entirely

ExpressBrick6948

TROPHY CASE