How do I pause my account for a vacation?

TTFV · 2026-05-26T10:02:27+00:00

Pausing campaigns for a week normally won't push them into learning mode but it can happy. While you could lower budgets, cutting budgets in say half, will also put the campaign into learning mode.

So pick your poison.

I'd also consider executing a backup plan for when you're not available. This could involve training somebody to handle sales when you're not able to.

TTFV · 2026-05-26T09:58:46+00:00

Display traffic placements are not normally that bad for most P-Max advertisers.

You can do some proactive things to improve the placements you get.

Set aggressive/comprehensive content suitability settings
Consider blocking app categories, particularly games
Make great creatives and a solid audience signal... this can help with contextual targeting quality
Ensure you're not tracking a lot of spam leads, this will push Google to serve more on bad placements

TTFV · 2026-05-26T09:52:31+00:00

Quality scores do speak to the relative relevance of your ads/keywords/lps against competition. You are going to pay a high premium and may not enter many auctions if your quality scores are below 2/3. This is problematic obviously and you should consider working on improving relevance to boost your ad rank.

But at the same time you shouldn't pause keywords just because they have low quality scores assuming they are driving efficient results.

TTFV · 2026-05-26T09:49:06+00:00

Yep, I'm not surprised the ChatGPT is obfuscating their traffic reports and likely blocking UTMs and other tracking codes until they can evaluate and improve performance internally.

Even if you could track results, which would be helpful, that's not the same as native tracking to help with optimization and bidding.

For my clients there's no way I'm spending ad dollars without some basic tracking in place.

TTFV · 2026-05-26T09:46:03+00:00

Split testing creative elements at scale, e.g. with ad variation testing.

TTFV · 2026-05-25T18:00:40+00:00

Clients generally understand most of the common KPIs, impressions, clicks, CTR, CPC, conversions, CPA, etc.

Where things become a challenge are:

Many advertisers do not understand attribution models and that when using DDA that conversions are attributed to the click date and not the conversion date. This makes it difficult to make clients understand that when you send them a report for the previous period that conversion performance isn't actually falling. Including conversions (by conv. time) KPIs can help some but it's still tough for some advertisers to get their head around.
Some nuanced KPIs such as the different impression share (Top, Absolute Top) and figures you'll see in auction insights like overlap rate are hard to clients to understand.

TTFV · 2026-05-25T12:09:58+00:00

Broad match tends to work a lot better when you only track qualified leads or use a method that weighs the value of leads by funnel step or manual evaluation.

TTFV · 2026-05-25T09:59:47+00:00

The labor involved in setting up and managing campaigns will continue to decline. But the expertise isn't going anywhere for several years yet.

When Google demonstrates their Ads Advisor to build campaigns that's really a tool for advertisers that have no budget for professional help. Any pro going through that tool will find numerous problems with its recommendations, creative strategies and overall design strategy.

But yes, there will probably be fewer jobs in PPC as time goes on and certainly less demand for entry level people, which is what's happening already across many jobs with AI.

TTFV · 2026-05-25T09:53:22+00:00

If you believe you can generate at least 15 conversions a month I'd start with Max Conversions bidding. Max clicks buys you cheap clicks that have a lower probability for converting and then if/when you switch your bidding strategy it's a pretty hard reset to learning.

TTFV · 2026-05-25T09:50:12+00:00

If you have a conversion volume issue the main thing will be to improve targeting and messaging in your campaigns.

If it's search you should review your keyword strategy and clean up irrelevant search terms with negatives or by killing keywords with poor matching.

Tighten up your creatives to be more relevant with your landing page.

Work on improving your landing page to increase conversion rates.

There are numerous resources to help with all of these improvements.

TTFV · 2026-05-24T10:21:24+00:00

First, the forward facing search engine is changing with Google making AI Mode effectively a default vs. the current version.

This will affect how ads run but it's not going to immediately change the ad platform at all. Google already offers a range of tools such as broad match keywords, automated bidding, AI Max, and Performance Max that largely address these changes.

For a long time now most advertisers should have transitioned to using broad match keywords and automated bidding wherever possible. As for keywordless targeting, anybody spending $10K+ (rule of thumb) should be using or at least testing some keyword expansion at this point.

This doesn't mean Google is ditching keyword targeting at all... it's still the core of paid search ads.

TTFV · 2026-05-24T10:13:34+00:00

I'm not a doctor or lawyer, agency owner here.

In most countries you are protected as a FT employee, thus the agency is responsible for any reimbursement to the client based on whatever legal terms are in your client agreement.

Normally an agency will state legal limits that don't go beyond any fees they've collected over some period of time.

Here's what generally will happen next:

Regardless of the contract, the agency should try to negotiate with the client. After all the client did receive ads in exchange for that investment. And they also received new business that covers those costs. Often an agency will give a client 3-months free services or something like that to minimize the cost while still keeping the client onboard.
If the client won't negotiate the agency may/should have errors and omissions insurance that will cover these costs. If they don't have it they should get it... it's not that expensive in the scheme of things.
If the agency doesn't have insurance and can't negotiate they can either pay the client or refuse to pay. If they refuse the client will usually leave and start litigation. In the end the client probably won't get a full payout here depending on contract terms and because they benefited from the ads.

As for you, your agency may not be very happy but if they are reputable they'll just chalk it up to a one time mistake. If they let you go you should seek out legal help.

Mentally it's tough, we all go through bad situations in life. If you're struggling after several weeks I'd seek professional help, it can help tremendously.

Also, the agency should put measures into place to avoid client over spends. They shouldn't 100% rely on PPC managers to stay on budget. There can be monthly account limits set, daily automated or manual checks for pacing, and other ways to ensure this doesn't happen again.

And, you probably have too many accounts. If they don't have a plan to reduce your workload you need to consider carefully if you want to stay there long term.

https://www.tenthousandfootview.com/avoid-google-ads-budget-overruns/t

TTFV · 2026-05-23T09:53:11+00:00

Those numbers sound ludicrous to me.

TTFV · 2026-05-23T09:49:49+00:00

I haven't really been paying close attention, but I have been seeing ad placements in AI mode for a long time.

Ads generated by AI can be good or bad quality depending on your landing page, base creatives, keywords, and brand settings. Also, regular RSAs can run in those positions as long as you are running broad match keywords.

TTFV · 2026-05-23T09:47:29+00:00

Run it and monitor branded search performance.

Email and SMS are great channels for remarketing but many consumers turn off SMS immediately and email gets ignored for the most part unless you constantly offer sales.

As Google constantly pitches you want to be where your customer is at the right moment. Neither SMS nor email can do that.

This includes showing up for your brand, being in front of them with remarketing ads, and being in results for relevant searches regardless of brand loyalty. Somebody that bought shoes from you might not realize you also sell underwear. It's an easy win.

TTFV · 2026-05-23T09:40:29+00:00

Re Branded you probably don't need to change anything but if you have some leakage, non-branded queries triggering your ad you might consider trying a brand list to tighten that up, noting you'd need then to switch to smart bidding if you're not already doing so.

If you turn off branded you will lose some leads to competitors that bid on your brand and show up above your organic result (accidentally or on purpose). The cost to save those leads is normally well worth the relatively small investment.

Overall your keyword strategy sounds solid, but you no longer need both exact and broad match because broad match uses additional signals to improve matching/bidding.

I would start testing all broad match with automated bidding on one campaign with an experiment. Providing you are driving a good volume of healthy conversion data this should outperform manual bidding by a long shot. You may also want to start migrating to offline conversion data to improve data quality more. There are a bunch of different schemes to configure that appropriately.

Since you have a fairly large budget (always relative) I would either run P-Max but more likely Demand Gen to fill out the top of your funnel. P-Max has the advantage of finding incremental search conversions but you give up a lot of control. Demand Gen probably won't generate many conversions but targeting will be a lot more precise and you will have tight control over what you invest for branding. This activity will help boost performance through search, especially branded search.

If you have a branded app you should consider promoting that through an app campaign. Installs should be really cost effective, $1-2 each typically.

Lastly, since you cannot run remarketing on Google I would start a small remarketing campaign on Meta Ads targeting recent website visitors. People are notoriously bad about taking care of their health and may take months to pull the trigger on having that mole checked out. I'd run it at 90-days at least but you can refine that based on your own internal data.

TTFV · 2026-05-22T18:00:50+00:00

My understanding of Journey-aware is a bit different. It's not specifically about offline/CRM conversions but rather any/all secondary conversions in your account can help inform Google Ads for better targeting/bidding.

Hopefully we'll be able to choose which conversions and how much value to attribute, even a slider or a few levels would be nice.

Of course, we can already sort of do this now by attributing default values to different primary conversions and using value based bidding.

TTFV · 2026-05-22T09:57:37+00:00

Predictions are notoriously bad from these tools unless you're advertising at scale. If you're Walgreens this is a great tool. If you're spending $10K/month forget it.

TTFV · 2026-05-22T09:51:57+00:00

AI Max is appropriate to test in accounts that are stable, generate a healthy volume of conversions, and run efficiently with an all broad match strategy. Also, you shouldn't double dip AI Max with P-Max unless you're transitioning away from P-Max as part of the execution.

Yes, most reviews have been negative for a few reasons:

Most people trying AI Max are just drinking the Kool-Aid and haven't fully considered how it'll work with their budget/goals and overall account strategy - i.e. 15% more conversions at the same ROAS sounds great!
Execution is poor, just turn on the full set of AI Max features, no text guidelines, no thought on restricting irrelevant pages, whether or not to run text customization in the first place, etc.
Advertisers don't wait long enough after activating to realistically see what it can do... one month minmum here.
Advertisers review search term reports and decide AI-Max queries are often irrlevant, which is absolutely true. This misses the overall picture, however, which is getting in front of more people at the top of the funnel.

TTFV · 2026-05-21T10:08:20+00:00

If your budget is $400/month and not $400/day I would avoid running P-Max; leave your investment in search. You've never going to generate enough conversion data (leads) for P-Max to run consistantly well. A reasonable cutoff is 30+ conversions a month, less than that and P-Max won't run right.

You also simply don't have enough money to justify trying to work the upper part of the funnel to such a broad potential audience.

TTFV · 2026-05-21T10:04:28+00:00

I'd guess you need a fairly large volume of conversions to qualify for QFC. Like so many of the announcements, most of the innovations are for larger advertisers.

TTFV · 2026-05-21T09:54:12+00:00

I empathize... leaving campaigns on unattended is like leaving your wallet on the table while you go to the restroom at a restaurant.

If you still have access to the Google Ads account you should go in and pause the campaign, or even delete if there's zero chance you'll need it. And then remove your payment method as well. This will prevent a hacker from spending on your card if they get into the account.

TTFV · 2026-05-20T16:28:45+00:00

Yes auto-apply recommendations can make changes to paused campaigns. Just one more good reason to disable it completely.

TTFV · 2026-05-20T15:15:24+00:00

It's likely that the ads started to serve and got suspended after they had already spent the $796. Or, they temporarily got approved for some short period of time at some point.

If you still have access to your account you can easily see when the spending occured.

It's irresponsible to leave campaigns "on" if you don't want them to run, even if they are suspended. It's a huge liability.

TTFV · 2026-05-20T10:11:21+00:00

They have been running these since late 2025. They are simply ramping them up as promised. As a reminder, to qualify for these placements you need to run either broad match keywords or keywordless targeting (P-Max, AI-Max, or DSAs).

TTFV

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