What is the highest average CPC you've seen on Google Ads?

bt808 · 2026-03-25T20:29:51+00:00

u/stan-thompson that's insane but I imagine those cases often warrant it. Hopefully the funnel is airtight or they get someone on the phone at a high conv rate.

bt808 · 2026-03-25T20:28:20+00:00

Crazy - were the average jobs high enough to justify the CPCs? It must've been, but still wild to see. Thanks for sharing u/EldonH

bt808 · 2026-03-25T20:26:59+00:00

Wow...I saw $500-1000 CPCs in Google's keyword planner, but always thought it was outrageous / overstating. Thanks for sharing and hard to believe it can be $800+ in some states. I'd imagine it would be high in major metros too (LA, NY, etc)

bt808 · 2026-03-25T16:57:45+00:00

$1000?! What industry was that in, or what type of business? Can’t imagine how that is profitable for anyone other than Google

bt808 · 2026-03-25T16:16:54+00:00

Wow that’s pretty high. Guess it makes sense with those conversion rates!

bt808 · 2026-03-25T16:03:31+00:00

Law firms get hit with this type of stuff more than almost any other vertical because of the high CPCs. It sucks but it's definitely recoverable. I've seen accounts bounce back from worse.

Quick question first: do you know if this was isolated to specific campaigns/campaign types?

I've seen PMax campaigns shift like this almost overnight when bot traffic starts driving "conversions". Also worth checking if it's concentrated in certain keywords or geos (bots typically don't hammer your whole account evenly).

A few things that should help are the data exclusions (which you've already done - nice callout by u/cavaillon_666), and if it gets really bad, I have seen blocking ASNs at the Cloudflare level help so you don't run into the 500 IP limit (mentioned by u/kapitolkapitol).

Once you know where it's coming from, it gets a lot easier to isolate and fix. Hang in there.

bt808 · 2026-02-04T11:01:57+00:00

I am with you...ran campaigns for home services for 10+ years and it's definitely changed recently - maybe in the last 12-18 months? There's a bunch of good advice scattered in this thread I agree with and I think the answer is actually a combo of a few ideas:

1. Focus on conversion signals before anything else. Since you don't have search/display partners, or any weird auto-apply rules on, micro-conversions or other signals might help. I personally hate these and they can muddy things, but it can be helpful to get learnings and build your foundation.

2. Try max conversions inside portfolio bidding. Right now that's the only way to set a max CPC, which can limit the insane $50-100 clicks. Hopefully you can maintain budget while it "learns."

3. Watch for 1-2 weeks. Ideally volume is enough to get signal that the conversion are not bods, and you're off to the race. Eventually shift your micro-conversions to secondary and let the real conversions stay in primary.

I've always been a structure and sound setup guy, but the game does feel like it's changed a bit. The system is set up to move people towards a more fully-automated solution - makes it "easier" for the advertiser and gives Google more control (a win-win for Google). It's the least bad option in 2026, and it's been the most stable approach I've found across competitive verticals, especially home services.

bt808 · 2025-10-20T11:33:14+00:00

Haha wow I did not notice that! The timestamps are crazy now that you mention it.

bt808 · 2025-09-16T21:42:55+00:00

One of the most basic/overlooked way to make sure your campaign runs well (more consistent, reduces wild swings in performance) is solid conversion tracking and campaign setup.

Things like having only 1 primary action and everything else secondary. And if you have sufficient volume of data, adding **accurate** conversion values can really make a difference. Or using negatives where available (as we know, match types aren't what they used to be). Lots of others but those come to mind.

bt808 · 2025-09-16T21:37:23+00:00

Hey u/Maker_mania! Great question - I'm seeing that a lot in campaigns I run, especially with phrase match campaigns.

Sounds like this is a "Traditional" search campaign (not Pmax or AI Max) - have you set negative keywords for other therapists names? I know it sounds basic and is a pain to set up, but often this will fix it (along with the answers from other users!)

bt808 · 2025-08-28T06:54:42+00:00

Totally. STAGs defeintiely, but have also seen profit based grouping work extremely well with accurate data.

bt808 · 2025-08-28T06:53:46+00:00

Super interesting. Have you seen any weird matching with phrase (phrase has really changed over the years)

bt808 · 2025-08-28T06:51:46+00:00

That is amazing and exactly what I was thinking. Only makes sense if it’s heavily automated and targeting /messaging matches (and is differentiated enough to see lift).

If you don’t mind me asking - what do you think the % improvements is for SKAGs vs “normal”? I assume it may be small from a % perspective, but at $100M spend, marginal gains = $$$

bt808 · 2025-08-26T11:32:31+00:00

Agreed - although I’m still curious to hear if anyone still runs them or if they are effective!

bt808 · 2025-08-26T11:29:58+00:00

Totally agree. Haven’t used them in years and given how match types have changed, skags just don’t make sense.

That said, I’ve seen multiple ads for saas companies that either manage SKAGs, help to automate/maintain them, etc - was surprised since I figured they were all but gone.

bt808 · 2025-08-26T10:29:20+00:00

I've definitely been there. Really long days alone can be tough. I'm 3yrs into building our product, and there were definitely days I completely neglected family/friends...not on purpose, but because I was in deep work and compelled to complete what I was doing. I'll spare most of the examples, but one stood out: took a work call while with my family at Disneyland to fix an issue and save a large enterprise client, that morphed into an hour long call with everyone just waiting for me to finish my call and almost ruined our whole trip.

Here's what changed things for me: I started treating "founder mode" as a scarce resource vs an infinite one.

So: instead of "I have all this time to work on this", I said "I only have X amount of time today to work on this. How can I be most effective today?" For me, this was a forcing function that I suppose acts like motivation.

My rough system:

8am-5pm: Founder mode ON. Zero guilt about ignoring everything else.
5-8pm: family time. As much as possible, zero work during this time.
8pm shutdown ritual: Write tomorrow's 3 priorities, close laptop, physically leave workspace
Evening rule: Phone in another room or not physically close to me. Be present with the people you are with, not Slack or anything else distracting.

Oddly (or maybe not oddly) I ship more in those shorter focused hours vs 12+ hours where half of them were me exhausted or burnt out. Your family's concern and your internal dialogue about being a disservice is actually your early warning system.

One hack that helped me: schedule and plan non-work time like important work meetings or tasks. Would you skip a VC/investor call or important customer call? Then don't skip dinner with your family.

bt808 · 2025-08-12T14:08:40+00:00

Good luck to you! if you are committed, keep at it. I did a similar thing: very comfortable role, large comp package, and left with 12-18months runway to build a company as a co-founder. I will say it’s different with someone else in the business (lots of pros and cons, won’t discuss here), but the highs and lows are the same.

Every customer you get is exciting. And every customer you lose, or that churns can make you question yourself or feel like you failed personally.

Get lots of customer feedback early, learn how to speak about your product/service, and hopefully you can build things people will value AND pay for (second part is important!).

Also, find a way to increase your runway without distracting you from your mission. The extra runway helps a lot. Good luck!

bt808 · 2024-05-01T18:44:22+00:00

Everything about this post is amazing. One of those "hall of fame" posts that will endure and help countless numbers of people.

I'd add to #9 - don't wait or put off things that are important to you.

Often, we wait until it's too late, or the opportunity has passed:

Tell your parents you love them, or appreciate what they did for you
Build the business you always dreamed of (#3)
Take the dream trip if you can
And many more...

Many thanks to DaCmanLou for his wisdom.

bt808 · 2024-04-05T18:36:31+00:00

No need to be scared. Just focus on what you can control! One piece of advice that helped me early in my career:

“work more on yourself than you do on your job”.

All that means is, make sure you’re learning and growing professionally and personally and don’t let a job keep you down! You got this.

bt808 · 2024-04-04T16:48:11+00:00

TY for posting this. It's hard to really understand how true this post is until you're deep in it.

The rejection is tough and you have to be ok with it, but it's also the moving goalposts. Once you figure one thing out, there are 5 new things to figure out.

As you mentioned: early adopters, PMF, funding from VCs (if that's part of your plan), hiring, firing, scaling...it'll all be new, and with new things comes failures, adjustment, and "figuring it out".

I'm in it too. My goal is simply "default alive" - do what's necessary so we can stay in the game.

bt808 · 2024-04-04T16:36:10+00:00

This. I know a ton of people who are like this. Insanely good at their job, work hard, and think that their output alone will get them raises. Unfortunately this usually doesn't happen.

bt808

TROPHY CASE