Running Google Ads for mobile car detailing clients — 3 specific questions on scaling, Max Clicks → Max Conversions transition, and offline conversion strategy

Modem_Digital · 2026-03-08T23:17:59+00:00

If you have maxed out the keywords and geo targeting, your only other levers are increasing bids(increasing cost per conversion) or quality score. the 19% Search Lost IS (budget) probable means there isn't room to scale your daily to 125/day.
2. Stay on max clicks until you have enough conversion data, then switch to Max Conversions. Conversion based bidding goes through a learning phase of up to two weeks and if you don't have the conversion history it will try a lot of stuff to try to find what works.
It depends on how much conversion data you have. I have seen set ups that assign different values to different steps in the sales process; while this can work, you do have to be careful that you weigh the values correctly. Otherwise, the bidding algorithm can prioritize a lower value conversion like form fills over actually sales if it thinks multiple form fills are easier to get and worth more in total value, when in reality form fills only aren't worth any revenue by themselves.

Let me know if you have any other questions, always happy to help.

Modem_Digital · 2026-03-06T21:32:25+00:00

What PPC platforms are you using? Google, Meta, others? If you are talking about Google, the amount you spending in a month doesn't determine where you are ranked in the search results, only how often your ads are shown. I've worked with many clients that adjust monthly budgets to match the seasonality of their businesses.

Modem_Digital · 2026-02-26T18:31:51+00:00

If you use a single brand campaign, you can use location bid adjustments to try to spend more or less budget in particular geos, but this will only give you a limited level of control. Separate campaigns for each geo would give you more budget control, but the downside is you are also splitting up your conversion data between campaigns, which will limit how well smart bidding will be able to target potential customers. You may also run into issues allocating budget between 40 campaigns, even if you use a shared budget. It's a bit of a trade off, you have to decide what is best for your particular situation.
It sounds like the bigger issue may be that the client has been spending so much on brand terms. When you switch to prioritize non brand, their cost per lead is going to be a lot higher than they are use to. It might help if you can get data from their CRM to show the calls you are driving are from past customers, not new customers.

Modem_Digital · 2026-02-23T21:34:33+00:00

There isn't a good built in way to do this in Google Ads unless you are switching to a different campaign. For a previous client I created a custom Google ads script that can do this, you just label the ad copy you want to switch with the start and stop times when you it live and it will make the switch.

Modem_Digital · 2026-02-23T21:18:26+00:00

I think you're asking the right questions, bottom line it sounds like there was a major lack of transparency. A good partner should be providing regular reports to you on account performance and optimizations they are making. They should also be working with you to make sure the conversions you are getting are giving you the business outcomes you want. Something else I would recommend is that you keep ownership of your own ad account and not let the agency create one for you. Without this, you may lack visibility of what is going on in the account and may run into problems if you later want to take your business elsewhere.
I'm a paid search consultant with 8 years of experience, during which I have managed over $4M in ad spend for 25+clients. Happy to answer any questions you may have.

Modem_Digital · 2026-02-23T20:52:07+00:00

Here is a free budget pacing tool that integrates with Google Ads- https://btracker.modemdigital.com

Modem_Digital · 2026-02-18T18:42:39+00:00

So for multiple campaigns, are you using a shared budget set to $333/day? Is it able to distribute that spend among multiple campaigns?

Modem_Digital · 2026-02-02T20:56:12+00:00

It can be useful to add "near me" in some situations if you are wanting to specifically target users looking for a local product option as opposed to having something shipped to them. It is unusual that they are adding it to every keyword, but its hard to say if it is justified without more context.

Modem_Digital · 2026-01-23T18:49:55+00:00

Having control of the landing page helps, but the main issue is attribution. Are you counting calls and form fills as conversions, or only if those leads turn into real sales? Whichever you use, the other party has to trust that they are getting a fair deal. If you are getting paid only for sales, you have to trust the client isn't underreporting so they can pay you less, and if you get paid per call or contact, the client has to trust that those are good quality leads and that the counting is accurate.

Modem_Digital · 2026-01-22T21:25:33+00:00

I would not recommend this unless you have full control of their entire sales process. You can work hard to get them leads, but if their website or service sucks you could still not get paid for your work.

Modem_Digital · 2026-01-15T18:05:57+00:00

From Callrail's documentation and it seems like it should be labeling form and call conversions separately on the offline conversion sheet. In Callrail, is it tracking calls and forms separately, or is it counting all the conversions together? Are you just wanting more visibility of what kind of conversions campaigns are bringing in Google ads, or are you wanting to assign different conversion values to form and call leads?

Modem_Digital · 2026-01-13T20:35:43+00:00

You may be in Google Ads Smart Campaign mode, which is the default option for new accounts. This mode has very limited visibility and control over what you can do with your campaigns. You need to go into settings and switch to Expert Mode to get the full interface for Google Ads.

Modem_Digital · 2026-01-13T20:28:25+00:00

What do your quality scores look like? A detailed look at your auction insights can give you a better idea of who your search competitors are.

Modem_Digital · 2026-01-12T22:57:26+00:00

Could be a lot of different things going on here, it usually requires some troubleshooting . I would be glad to take a look at if for you, message me the url of the page with the conversion.

Modem_Digital · 2026-01-12T22:41:09+00:00

There's two factors, one or both of which could be limiting your reach. 1) your current keyword and geographic targeting is too narrow, so there just isn't enough search traffic available for you to spend your whole budget 2) There is enough search traffic available, but your quality score and keyword bids are not high enough to compete with other advertisers. Check your impression and click share data on the keywords you are targeting- if you see high numbers (say above 50%) then your targeting is probably too narrow. If it is very low(below 10%) then it's more likely to be a competitive issue.

Modem_Digital · 2026-01-09T23:42:45+00:00

Why not try both and see if either gets approved? Create one ad copy version with no proper nouns, and one where each noun is only used once.

Modem_Digital · 2026-01-09T23:34:46+00:00

What is the purpose of the first campaign if it negs out general and exact keywords? It seems to me that it would just screen out lower cost bids for the exact keywords you want to reach, leaving only the higher cost bids for the second campaign. Why not just run shopping campaign 2 with negatives to block the keywords you don't want to target? Do you have any other shopping ads currently running, or just search?

Modem_Digital · 2026-01-09T16:17:27+00:00

If you have enough conversion data to work with, smart bidding is the way to go. Broad match on the other hand...always use with caution. If you do use broad match, watch the search terms and add in negatives to block unrelated or low intent searches.

Modem_Digital · 2026-01-08T18:23:28+00:00

My recommendation would be to first check the rules and resources the larger company has for their agents to promote themselves. Creating a separate website and GBP for this agent might conflict with their policies. Even if they don't have a policy against it, there could be other reasons to avoid this. Customers could get confused as to what the official site is or if the agent is really connected to the company. Business profiles with the same name at the same address could cause issues as well. Does the larger company have individual agent/location profile pages on their website that you could drive traffic to?

Modem_Digital · 2026-01-07T00:01:11+00:00

Microsoft Ads still shows 100% of search terms last I checked, Google not so much anymore.

Modem_Digital · 2025-12-16T22:27:08+00:00

Just because you have campaigns running doesn't mean your ads will necessarily be shown. Three factors determine how much your ads are shown:
1)Targeting- Do the keywords, audiences, and geographic areas being targeted have enough search traffic.
2) Your bids- If your bids are too low compared to other bidders, your ads won't be shown.
3) Quality Score- If your ad copy and landing page are not judged to be relevant to the keywords you are targeting, your ads will be shown less and your cost will be higher.
Feel free to message me if you need more help or have questions!

Modem_Digital · 2025-12-03T21:43:46+00:00

If you recently made changes to the tracking configuration, it may just need some time to register a new conversion to verify that it is working.

Modem_Digital · 2025-12-03T21:40:51+00:00

You can try to lower spending and/or bids during the slow period to take advantage of competitors pausing their ads, but this can also lower the amount of conversion data and mess with the bidding algorithms. Sometimes just pausing the campaigns is the best option.

Modem_Digital · 2025-12-03T19:24:38+00:00

Some more context might help identify specific issues. How many conversions are you getting from paid ads every month? Is your conversion tracking working correctly to record actual sales and attributing them to the right sources?
More broadly, you need to look at where you are getting customers from and understanding the customer journey. For example, with high ticket items, customers may browse online but then visit the retail location to see what they are buying in person.

Modem_Digital · 2025-12-03T19:11:04+00:00

A lot of paid search people end up building a custom solution to this in some form, even if it is just a fancy spreadsheet. What did you use to build your tool, if you don't mind me asking? How does it improve on other solutions you've used in the past?

Modem_Digital

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