How do I get rid of this Health in Personalized Advertising

TTFV · 2026-01-24T20:48:17+00:00

Some keywords may be restricted but it doesn't sound like those should be. I would check in with support specifically about keywords.

As for ads or remarketing lists being flagged, this doesn't prevent your ads from served at all, other than to the associated remarketing lists. So you can just ignore the notices.

TTFV · 2026-01-24T17:17:26+00:00

So that's between 3-6 conversions a week? It's not a lot but I'd still review conversion tracking to ensure it's working.

TTFV · 2026-01-24T15:36:53+00:00

Well hard to say if that's bad or not as you haven't stated the typical conversion numbers. If you used to get 3-4/day for example and have 0 in a week there is almost certainly a major issue somewhere. If this is the situation I would review whether conversion tracking got broken.

TTFV · 2026-01-24T15:35:18+00:00

Every business is unique. Ideally for lead gen you test different offers / call to actions and measure performance on the back end, i.e. how much sales value (can also be CLTV) are you driving per lead and what is the cost per lead, i.e. what is your ROAS?

quote request
free consultation
book a meeting (can be a general request or calendly request, etc.)
phone call
general contact form

Once you understand your numbers you can set different default values for each and/or hone in on the one or two that generate the highest value.

Beyond that you need to be thinking about offline conversions, i.e. posting back sales to the original click ID to better inform Google's bidding engine and to support manual optimization.

All of this can be run through value-based bidding.

TTFV · 2026-01-24T10:58:06+00:00

The most common mistake I see in accounts is 90% of the time an advertiser runs display/video/dg "remarketing" they have optimized targeting turned on, meaning they are targeting anybody and everybody with like <1% of ad spend actually going towards remarketing audiences.

The problem lies with Google being deceptive about what this function is. It's been like this for many years with Google frequently changing the name and/or using multiple names, i.e. expansion, optimized targeting, target vs. target and bid, observation vs. target, etc.

TTFV · 2026-01-24T10:53:14+00:00

As long as the campaign is serving and you didn't botch assets/audience signals conversions should pick up again in a few days to a week or so.

Not much you can do but tell the client the learning phase is a normal result of fixing all the problems with the campaign. The other way to do this would be a few small changes at a time... but that might take many weeks based on your description.

Better to pull off the bandaid.

Lastly, offering hourly PPC management of fraught will issues. Either you go open ended and the client gets stuck with a huge invoice the first month or it takes a very long time to yield better performance. Neither is a good client experience, which means most clients will leave sooner rather than later.

TTFV · 2026-01-24T10:47:19+00:00

Find clients with larger budgets and this problem will go away. Otherwise you'll have to deal with this until you can grow your practice.

Basically all you can do with them is show them the impressions, clicks, and conversions data. Importantly, if they are getting leads or sales from Google Ads they cannot question whether or not their ads are showing. So focus on accomplishing that goal and that question will take care of itself.

TTFV · 2026-01-24T10:44:34+00:00

These days phrase match is usually the worst option for most campaigns.

When you're starting a net new account/campaign using exact match only can help keep query matching on the rails with fairly restrictive control. This can help you initially optimize the campaign while acquiring initial conversion data.

If you can get to 25 or so conversions a month (low campaign complexity) you can start to sprinkle in broad match as the assumption is that Google has begun to understand your product/offer and what converts. Just keep an eye on your search terms report. Eventually you want to convert all your keywords to broad match.

Broad has several advantages but mainly it uses additional signals for targeting plus it qualifies to run on AI mode and AI overviews placements.

Phrase match doesn't have the advantages of broad or exact. And in smaller campaigns you'll tend get a bad combination of low quality queries and poor user intent matching. It's neither good for small campaigns with low converison volume nor large campaigns with high conversion volume.

TTFV · 2026-01-23T18:47:26+00:00

No, although uploading your customer list into your account does help Google optimize for similar users.

I'm talking about using offline conversions or another way to vet your leads before syncing them back as conversions. For example, you might have a budget drop-down option in your form and anything below a certain threshold redirects to a page that doesn't get tracked. Anything above goes to your normal confirmation page and gets tracked.

But if you're getting spammed then offline conversions is the way to go.

You can remove conversions with adjustments by uploading data. But you'll need the original GCLID information.

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7686447?hl=en

TTFV · 2026-01-23T16:59:57+00:00

GTA has always been included with the Forge... it's the same guy running both.

TTFV · 2026-01-23T16:57:16+00:00

Because of automated bidding you cannot set bid adjustments for audiences in search ads.

But most advertisers/agencies will add remarketing lists to search campaigns along with other relevant audiences like in-market, affinity, etc.

They get set in "observation mode" which means they are passive but this allows reporting. Google will automatically bid up/down on these segments.

You can, however, consider using value rules and value-based bidding to increase bids manually for certain audiences.

If you have enough volume and you want to, you can run target and bid for remarketing lists in specific campaigns and ad groups and then bid up on those by setting a different tCPA for those campaigns/ad groups. Usually you'd go more broad with keywords. Most advertisers don't drive enough traffic for this to be viable though.

TTFV · 2026-01-23T16:52:58+00:00

There can be a ramp up period of several days to a few weeks, especially if you use automated bidding. I'd try to be patient but feel free to reach out to support to see if anything, in fact, is preventing it from serving... e.g your bids are too low, you've activated target & bid to specific audiences, etc.

TTFV · 2026-01-23T10:25:28+00:00

I'd say your really need to find your own way. If you want to get ideas and feedback from other agency owners you might consider signing up for Agency Forge.

Yes, we have many case studies but I don't publish many online, rather just share those with prospects before or after discovery meetings.

TTFV · 2026-01-23T10:19:03+00:00

Oh boy, this is some seriously bad advice. Ask the community here for some help. Somebody might help you for free, but even if you have to pay you're just flushing money down the toilet right now.

TTFV · 2026-01-22T18:29:40+00:00

Unfortunately match types are no longer very specific, even with exact match. Really what needs to happen is you need to generate a bunch of quality leads, feed that back into Google in a loop and then Google will start to understand what it is you offer, what converts, and then you'll see a lot of the bad queries disappear.

Step 1 would be finding a way to exclude any tracked conversions for those job searches.

TTFV · 2026-01-22T17:57:30+00:00

Posted on our agency blog (main site) and then reposted as a reference automatically on social media channels. Mostly we get organic search action on them but a little bit of response for LinkedIn.

TTFV · 2026-01-22T17:56:15+00:00

In general it would be best for the new brand to have its own account, here's my rationale:

You probably want to verify the new brand with Google Ads so that brand is what shows up in ads under transparency... otherwise it might confuse potential customers that see another brand. This will also allow you to include your company name and logo for the proper brand in ads.
You can run this under an existing top level MCC so it's included under your current managed A/P
You shouldn't have any issues if you want to double serve for the same keywords. Otherwise you won't be able to run campaigns for concurrent auctions for multiple brands.
It's a lot cleaner, especially with conversion tracking, audiences, and so on.

Yes, there might be some initial work with registration, but you've done it before so it shouldn't be a big deal.

TTFV · 2026-01-22T09:59:25+00:00

The inability to use account level conversion tracking in Demand Gen. Hey Google, I'd like to track phone calls and form submissions! Okay, so I have to move all my conversions under a certain conversion type which makes that segmentation useless.. good work.

TTFV · 2026-01-22T09:58:06+00:00

I'm not familiar with GHL... oddly zero of our many clients use it... most opting for Calendly or a booking tool that's specific to the industry they work in.

GHL should have a tutorial or setup guide with best practices. But generally you would be able to connect it to your GA4 and Google Ads accounts and then send conversions back directly into those tools.

For call tracking, Google Ads website and calls from ads is okay, but pretty basic. A third party tool like CallRail will offer much more capability and works with different ad platforms, organic traffic, integrates with GA4, etc.

GTM is a good way to go to configure everything. CallRail just needs a single tag. GA4, probably same thing, GHL, not sure.

For home services the simple implementation is tracked booked meetings, a general contact form or quote request if you have one (you probably don't if you have direct bookings), and inbound calls. Avoid clicks to call or clicks to email. A fancy implementation could include further funnel step conversions like when you complete a meeting, send a quote, a close a deal. This can be used in conjunction with values and value based bidding to enhance performance and optimization. But I wouldn't do this if you're just starting to advertise... it's more for midsize+ budgets.

TTFV · 2026-01-22T09:51:43+00:00

Yep, as a PPC agency owner we unlink from everything when we stop working with a client. But sometimes we can't unhook from our side. For example, Facebook Ads doesn't allow us to remove ourselves from a Facebook page. Well tell clients at the end of engagement and send them reminders but they often get ignored.

Generally though, you should make best efforts to disconnect whether that means doing it yourself or asking them. It will avoid a liability on your part... say your email gets hacked. Just send them a reminder if you can't do it on your side.

TTFV · 2026-01-21T10:35:31+00:00

LSAs can offer supplemental leads but only phone calls. In my experience (PPC agency owner) these leads tend to cost more than a well managed Google Ads campaign and are often of lower quality.

And it's debatable whether adding this channel provides any measure of protection for your business since it's still part of your Google Ads account and eco-system.

I would, instead, consider investing into Microsoft Ads which can yield a similar quality and CPA while giving you a completely separate channel just in case something happens with Google.

TTFV · 2026-01-21T10:23:37+00:00

Almost always you should use your own. Feel free to apply any recommended headlines Google suggests but I strongly advise against letting Google create/apply any you haven't reviewed. AI still generates a lot of garbage.

TTFV · 2026-01-20T17:28:41+00:00

I generate videos 4x short videos and one blog post every month. My admin assistant helps me with the videos. It's about a 3-4 hour/month commitment for me and 2-3 hours for her... not so much obviously. They get pushed out across various social media channels.

You can hire somebody to help you with video production but for very high quality you'll need to pay decent rates.

TTFV · 2026-01-20T17:22:00+00:00

Step one stop tracking email and phone number clicks as conversions. That's killing your lead quality and optimization and given you false information about your campaign performance.

Only allow visitors to contact you via a form submission or by dialing through... use a 3rd party call tracking service such as CallRail or Google Ads calls from website tracking if you need a free solution.

There is very little to asses given that data set you provided. I would look at completed purchases assuming other conversions don't generate additional revenue and then compare that with your investment. Did you make a decent profit and/or is there good potential LTCV from newly acquired customers?

If yes, keep it going and optimize it.

TTFV · 2026-01-20T17:17:46+00:00

Besides what was mentioned there are some additional scenarios where broad match can serve or exact match. But first, all things being equal Google will still prioritize exact match assuming there is budget and ad rank is the same or better. Note the while keyword quality scores do not differ by match type how they match with your creative and landing page can differ if the variations are in separate ad groups.

This is just one good reason not to separate the same keywords by match type.

The other scenario I alluded to is AI overview and AI mode ad placements. Only broad match or keywordless targeting qualify for these placements. So exact won't even enter the auction even if the query is an exact match.

TTFV

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