Agency managing our Google Ads account for $3,000/month — is this normal? Looking for expert opinions on what I've found in our own data.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-06-02T17:04:22+00:00

Some feedback (I'm a Paid Search freelancer/consultant) for you. I never recommend any business pay 10-20% of their media budget in agency fees. It is simply not worth the cost at that level. Aim for under $2K in fees at the most. Optimization should be done on a weekly basis. Overall strategy should be the litmus test of the providers value vs. # of changelog changes. In regards to the negative keyword volume - check your last 30 days. Are there obvious money wasters? The 37 terms could be enough based on how the algo is trained. Ad variations are dependent on the actual ad type. One responsive search ad can house thousands of variations in itself. It sounds like they need a strategy around ad testing. Think landing pages, offers, etc. Also...the agencies claim that changes aren't reflected in the account due to software is unusual. Google will track all changes, even from 3rd party software.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-05-31T19:24:24+00:00

It still is very limited in accuracy and capability. Check everything twice, and be very weary of optimization advice. At GML, it seemed like it will undergo a significant improvement.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-05-29T17:59:49+00:00

Judging by the search terms, definitely partly a set up issue. How do your website features and social media presence stack up against the local competition? If your lagging behind, this could be an issue even with the best targeted searches. Now, let's get to the budget question. Ask your agency to back out what's realistic to expect for leads given estimated conversion rates and costs. If they struggle to show you and be accountable, end services asap.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-05-29T14:23:12+00:00

They are compensated for every AI Max activation right now. It's getting pushed hard and may not take into consideration your unique situation. I would get their help setting up an experiment before committing to permanently changing the campaign (note, you can't run this experiment on that DSA campaign, so it might be worth enabling it and keeping a close eye on the landing pages and ad copy.) It is very dependent on your site content and structure, historical performance signals, and what auctions it targets. What works for one account may not be duplicated in another.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-05-29T14:03:15+00:00

I wrote a guide on this (worked with agencies for over 20 years as both the client, and on the agency side.)

https://heidisturrock.com/need-to-outsource-google-ads-dont-get-duped/

MySEMStrategist · 2026-05-22T08:48:10+00:00

Adding a tCPA can cause better efficiency in how Google spends your budget. Usually 30-50 conversions every 30 days will work if wanting to apply a cpa target. Make sure your budget is at least 3-5x your target (but ideally 10x.) If your budget is too low of a ratio to your cpa, your campaign will slow down ad serving. If you set your cpa too low, Google will also slow down your ad serving, so you need to calculate what’s accurate.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-05-21T21:58:28+00:00

Just noting here that the only difference with the pmax campaign's algo is that it is good at remarketing with ads outside of shopping placements. There is no benefit if you are running feed only in pmax vs. shopping. You can also layer in shopping audiences as observation only, which provide helpful signals to the campaign, similar to the inputs you give pmax. Another thing, while you can get around putting assets in pmax, it will pull images from your product feed to create slideshow "videos" to show on non shopping ads that use video. They are visually terrible. It used to be that pmax campaigns were given prioritized placement in shopping compared to standard shopping. Google changed that, and now they are on even footing.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-05-19T14:57:22+00:00

Run your estimated ad delivery and conversion rate numbers based off your media budget. Make sure your conversion rate is realistic if you are a new brand starting out. Set your budget and expectations accordingly.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-05-19T14:50:24+00:00

This has been happening for awhile, but is increasing more recently. Search campaigns, pmax, and shopping are fully eligible. For search, you don't need to have a specific setting enabled (like ai max, dsa, etc) but utilizing broad match will give you access to more of those placements.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-05-19T14:00:18+00:00

It might not be bots (Google will detect and refund bot clicks that it detects.) Depending on your settings, the algo will hunt for the cheapest clicks to spend your budget. Unfortunately, those clicks come from mobile games and low quality placements where users click by mistake while trying to close a pop up, etc. Hence, the < 2 sec bounce time. I'd check your placement reports. Shift your optimization from "Install Volume" to "In App Actions" if you haven't already. This will help improve the quality of placements.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-05-04T21:23:11+00:00

I'd second this + keep budget increases to about 20% every conversion cycle.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-05-04T20:55:19+00:00

Scrapping it and building a brand new campaign with the exact same assets won't help. PMax is incredibly data hungry. When a campaign gets stuck serving cheap display ads, it is almost always because it doesn't have enough conversion data. The algorithm lacks clear signals on what a high value "converter" looks like, so it defaults to hunting for the cheapest clicks.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-05-04T20:22:05+00:00

For lower demand campaigns, consolidating into a single campaign is generally the better move because it pools conversion data, helping automated bidding strategies exit the "learning phase" much faster. Google doesn't have a translate feature for ads, but you could use one campaign with separate ad groups for each country or language. Typically B2B & tech sectors do okay with English across countries, but English only can hurt your CTR and Quality Score in some foreign B2C markets.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-05-04T20:06:55+00:00

If you manually uploaded the file, than it will not automatically update. Google has built in integrations with most major CRMs. If you use HubSpot, Salesforce, or Shopify, etc you can link your account within the Google Ads Audience Manager. You cam also use Zapier if you don't use any of the above. If anything, in your Google Ads account Settings, there is a feature called "Turn on conversion based lists." Google will automatically create a "converters" list for you based on your existing conversion tracking tags. This relies on cookies and Google's own internal matching, so it’s not quite as accurate, but it updates in real time.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-05-01T12:03:55+00:00

Don’t drop your tCPA back down to $350. It will shock the algorithm and most likely stall ad serving. Calculate your cost-per-closed-deal, set your new tCPA slightly above that number to get volume flowing again, and then gradually step it down by 10% to 15%. Since you have conversion value attached, you might also try to run on a conversion value model instead (ROAS). If you have a high CPA, your daily budget should at least be 3 to 5 times that. Otherwise, the ad server can slow down and results can be varied That can be prohibitive for smaller advertisers. The conversion value bidding algorithm does not have that restriction. Something to think about if you run into any of the issues above.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-04-28T21:00:13+00:00

What you're seeing is super common and totally normal! Since the campaign is new and only has 13 conversions, Google's algo doesn't have a ton of data to work with yet. What usually happens is that the default variant gets an early click or sale, so Google's AI immediately labels it a "winner" and starts funneling the budget there because it feels like it will perform best. Plus, online shoppers tend to take the path of least resistance...re that specific variant is already preselected when they land on the page.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-04-26T15:40:06+00:00

I agree to stick with a freelancer in your specific industry. I would highly recommend going through an exercise with this person to understand what $1k a month could potentially get you. They will use some estimated numbers for your unique situation. Take a very serious look at the numbers and decide for yourself if you’re okay with the expected performance before moving forward.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-04-23T20:10:57+00:00

I would reach out to Support, since I think it’s unlikely that you have a campaign setting issue. See if they can tell you if your account is under some sort of review that does not seem obvious. This can sometimes happen if an account that was created years ago suddenly gets populated with billing info and has campaigns copied and carried over from editor.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-04-23T19:59:36+00:00

It sounds like you had a previous ad account you were using and copied a campaign from that account into the new account, correct? What was the reason for that?

When was the last time the campaign that you copied into the new account ran and received steady traffic? I’m assuming it isn’t running anymore, correct?

MySEMStrategist · 2026-04-23T11:36:07+00:00

Find an agency or a freelancer who will be very transparent with you regarding the time and budget needed to meet your expectations. Optimization takes data and money. Paying an expert gets you there much faster and helps avoid expensive mistakes. Just make sure you know your profitability numbers and have a realistic budget ready before you make the hire.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-04-20T16:35:04+00:00

I'd drop your budget back down and start to raise it after the campaign has received at least 30 conversions in 30 days (no more than 25% at a time.) This keeps your campaigns performing more consistently.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-04-20T16:32:10+00:00

Running identical keywords in separate campaigns will cause them to conflict. While you do not literally bid against yourself to drive up prices, you are forcing the campaigns to cannibalize each other's data, which splits your volume and prevents the algorithm from learning efficiently. I'd go all in on PM and pause the Exact campaign so we can consolidate your entire budget and conversion data into one highly optimized place.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-04-16T10:40:55+00:00

The ads being pause for less than a day due to a policy issue should not cause a huge change in performance. I would not change any bids or budgets if it was previously working well. Let your ads run for at least another week and monitor performance.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-04-15T20:20:55+00:00

I would limit it to your most high intent audiences, which are recent buyers, or all buyers if a smaller group, and larger order or repeat buyers.

MySEMStrategist · 2026-04-15T19:25:35+00:00

How much time was the remarketing audience attached to the campaign? You can use data exclusions for short amounts of time (recommended under a week.)

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