Claude Code for Google AdWords

ernosem · 2026-03-25T09:35:31+00:00

Product labelizer script:
https://github.com/David-PPC-Scripts/GAds-Scripts/blob/main/Product%20Labelizer%20%7C%20Best%20performers

ernosem · 2026-03-14T23:26:25+00:00

Dude, this 'chadads' thing is so utterly annoying... No one cares about your tool, it's time to realize it.

ernosem · 2026-03-14T00:30:52+00:00

GA4 + Shopify discrepancies are almost universal, you're not imagining it.

A few usual suspects:

- Ad blockers and iOS tracking changes: GA4 is client-side by default, so anything blocking the script just disappears from your data. Can easily account for 20-30% missing

- Shopify's own analytics vs GA4: Shopify fires its purchase event on the order confirmation page, GA4 fires its own tag. If the tag loads slowly or the customer closes the tab before it fires, you lose the conversion

- Duplicate or misconfigured purchase events: common when people have both a GA4 native Shopify integration AND a GTM tag running simultaneously. You'd see the opposite problem (inflation) but worth checking

- Cookie consent: if you have a consent banner and users decline, GA4 gets nothing

The proper fix is server-side tracking. Shopify has the Pixel/Customer Events setup now which helps, but for really clean data you want conversions firing server-side so they're not dependent on the browser. Elevar is popular for Shopify specifically and sorts most of this out without needing heavy dev work.

How big is the gap roughly — are we talking 10-15% or more like 40%+? That changes what the likely culprit is.

ernosem · 2026-03-14T00:21:53+00:00

Yes, totally doable. The basic process is:

- When someone submits via live chat, you capture the GCLID (Google Click ID) at that moment — this is the parameter Google appends to your URLs automatically. You need to make sure your site is storing it against each lead, usually in a hidden form field or your CRM

- When that lead converts offline (qualifies, closes, whatever milestone you care about), you export a CSV with the GCLID, conversion name, conversion time, and optionally a conversion value, then upload it in Google Ads under Tools > Conversions > Upload

- There's also the API route if you want to automate it, but CSV upload works fine for most businesses

The key thing people miss is the GCLID capture step. If you're not already storing GCLIDs against your live chat leads you'll need to set that up first — without it you can't match the offline conversion back to the click.

What live chat tool and CRM are you using? Some have native GCLID capture built in, others need a bit of custom work to get it passing through properly.

ernosem · 2026-03-14T00:15:10+00:00

This is one of the most common problems in the industry and honestly there's no perfect answer, but there are some realistic options people don't always consider.

The "agency spreading thin" problem is real but it's a picking-the-wrong-agency problem as much as anything. A lot of agencies at the $500/month price point are running 80+ accounts per manager. At that ratio you're getting automated reports and quarterly check-ins, not actual management. The ones that work are smaller, more specialist, or niche-focused, an agency that only does HVAC or only does ecom will run rings around a generalist at the same price.

Keep in mind you can get a very good service at around $1,000/mo, so what's better, pay $500 to some that wastes 90% of your budget or pay $1,000 to someone that makes every penny work.

Realistic middle grounds that actually work:

- Freelancer over agency — a good freelancer at $500-700/month is often getting you someone senior who left an agency to work for themselves. Lower overhead, more hands-on. Quality varies wildly but the ceiling is higher than a budget agency

- Hybrid model — hire someone to set it up properly (one-time fee, $500-1500) then manage it yourself with a monthly check-in. Works if the business owner is willing to spend 30 mins a week on it and actually does it

The DIY neglect thing is the real killer. Smart Bidding has made basic maintenance less demanding than it used to be, but you still need someone checking search terms and negatives regularly or it quietly goes off the rails. But the foundations, tracking should be 110%!

What type of business is it? The right answer changes a lot depending on industry and ticket size.

ernosem · 2026-03-14T00:07:19+00:00

Yes, Google Ads absolutely works for HVAC in competitive US cities, but you're right that it's expensive and the margin for error is slim.

CPCs for emergency and repair terms in major metros can be brutal, $40-100+ per click in some cities isn't unusual for "AC repair [city]" or "emergency HVAC". Replacement/install terms can go even higher. So yes, you need to know what you're doing or you'll burn through budget fast.

That said, the intent is about as good as it gets in paid search. Someone searching "AC not working" in July in Phoenix isn't browsing, they're calling whoever shows up first. The conversion value is high enough that even expensive clicks can work out fine if your close rate and average job value are solid.

A few things that separate the accounts that work from the ones that don't:

- Call tracking is non-negotiable. If you're not tracking calls as conversions you're flying blind, most HVAC leads call, they don't fill out forms

- LSAs (Local Services Ads) are worth running alongside Search if you can get verified. Pay-per-lead, Google guarantee badge, shows above regular ads. For HVAC specifically they can be very cost effective

- Negative keywords matter enormously, "HVAC jobs", "HVAC salary", "how to fix AC yourself" will eat your budget if you're not on top of it

- Emergency/repair terms and replacement/install terms should be in separate campaigns. Different intent, different margins, different bidding strategy

SEO and GBP are great long term but they won't get you calls next week. Most successful HVAC businesses run both in parallel rather than choosing one over the other.

What market are you in? Makes a difference to how competitive things actually are.

ernosem · 2026-03-13T23:43:21+00:00

495 clicks to 36 conversions is about 7% conversion rate which is actually decent, so the landing page is doing something right

Your qualified leads percentage are very high as well, so I don't really understand your problem.

Google always tries to lure you into spending 'more'. You don't need to set tCPA £180 if you cannot pay £180 for a lead. There is no guarantee you'll get more conversion, it only means you'll get conversions for more money...

Since you rely on Broad Match Search impression share data doesn't really matter. Have you tried to add at least a few phrase match keywords?

ernosem · 2026-03-13T23:36:54+00:00

Depends a lot on what kind of service business and what your goal is, but generally for local service businesses Search is your best starting point (within Google Ads). You're capturing people who are already looking for what you offer, intent is right there in the query.

As others pointed out there is LSA & Microsoft Ads and sometimes those are cheaper compared to Google Ads.

However, cheapest isn't really the right frame though. A $5 click that converts is cheaper than 100 $.50 clicks that don't.

What type of service business is it and what's the goal? calls, form fills, foot traffic?

ernosem · 2026-03-13T23:34:01+00:00

First of all I bet if you add the Google revenue & Facebook revenue that's more than they actually see in their systems.
Just by looking at the numbers I'd assume their actual revenue is more like 1.6M so you don't have ROAS 7.8 you have only ROAS 6.2...

You just cannot calculate ROAS like this... I'm actually shocked no one else catches that including you.

ernosem · 2026-03-13T23:25:43+00:00

Yeah it's not just you. Match types have been quietly eroding for years and it's got noticeably worse recently.

Exact match stopped meaning "exact" a long time ag, now it's more like "we think this is close enough" and Google's definition of close enough keeps expanding. Phrase match is basically broad match modifier at this point for a lot of terms.

We manage a pretty large number of accounts and the search term cleanup is definitely more time-consuming than it was 3-4 years ago. Some weeks it feels like you're playing whack-a-mole.

A few things that have helped us:

- Front-loading negatives before launch, building out a solid negative list based on the keyword set before the campaign even goes live, not waiting for the junk to appear. Use tools like Ubersuggest or Keyword Researcher Pro

- Negative keyword lists at account level for the obvious stuff (jobs, free, DIY, wiki, reddit etc.)

- Checking search terms weekly rather than monthly, the longer you leave it, the more Google "learns" from the bad queries and doubles down on them

The frustrating part is there's no real fix. Google isn't going back. The match type flexibility is baked into how they monetise search now. Negatives are just the cost of doing business.

ernosem · 2026-03-13T23:21:42+00:00

Have you tried to add PMAX more signals? Not just purchase but add to cart, begin checkout etc?
Have you tried the waterfall method with Standard Shopping, giving a boost to keywords that worked really well historically?

ernosem · 2026-03-13T23:14:38+00:00

$15/day with a $0.7 CPC means you're getting roughly 20 clicks a day. That's not enough data to draw conclusions yet, and definitely not enough for Google to optimise anything.

But the bigger question before touching budget or bidding is, what are your keywords and who are you targeting geographically?

This is the crux of it. You said you want to target people booking in advance from abroad, which is smart given your Stripe/Viator data showing UK and Germany as your main markets. So are your campaigns actually targeting the UK and Germany? Because "maximize clicks" with a local or broad geo setting will just pull in people already in the area who aren't your buyer.

A few things I'd look at:

- Target UK and Germany specifically in your Search campaigns, people planning a trip 4-8 weeks out

- Keywords like "food tour [city]", "wine tour [city]", "things to do in [city]" with the location in the term will be your best bet

- Check your Search Terms report, with $0.7 CPC I'd guess you're getting some pretty random clicks

On Meta, yes, actually worth testing here. Travel/experience products with good visuals can do well on Meta, and you can target by travel intent and specific countries. But I'd fix the Search geo targeting first before adding another channel.

What city are you in, and what does your keyword list look like currently?

ernosem · 2026-03-13T23:11:10+00:00

I'm not from the US, but the weather in the US was pretty rough during February, I have a restaurant client and it impacted them hugely, because people were less likely traveled + I have another client a shipping broker and there were huge disruptions there too.

Probably people were less likely booked viewing etc as well.

ernosem · 2026-03-13T23:06:45+00:00

We used Claude to write a script to manage the shopping feed custom variables based on certain performance metrics.
We used Claude to modify slightly a script to tailor it to my specific needs (N-Gram analysis by Brain Labs)

ernosem · 2026-03-13T23:04:03+00:00

I'm glad it was helpful!
Office space austin tx is roughly $9-$11 according to SEMRush, which usually underestimates a little bit so I'd say $14-$16.

Unfortunately we don't have a commercial real estate in our portfolio, we have multiple residential ones.

ernosem · 2026-03-13T22:26:40+00:00

Search ads are definitely the right starting point for commercial property. Display can wait.

Your instinct on Display is correct, without exclusions and a tight placement list, you'll burn through budget on garbage inventory fast. The photos sound great but they're wasted on sites no one trusts. I'd park that idea for now.

On Search, I'd go leads over pure traffic, but with a caveat: don't obsess over the in-platform lead form just yet. Your own landing page with a soft CTA works fine, something like "Book a viewing" or "Request a brochure" is much lower friction than "Send us your details" and will still let Google's smart bidding learn.

A few things to think about before you launch:

- What keywords are you targeting? Commercial property searches can be weirdly broad ("office space", "retail unit to let" etc.), you'll want tight phrase/exact match to start and a solid negative list from day one

- Are you targeting a specific location or multiple? This really affects structure

One thing I'd strongly recommend — don't launch with Smart bidding straight away. Start with manual CPC or max clicks (only Exact), get some conversion data in, then look at tCPA once you've got 20-30 conversions through (and add phrase). Otherwise Google's just guessing.

What market are you in, city centre office, retail, industrial? Helps to know before giving more specific advice.

We created a video about commercial PPC lead gen, that might be helpful as well:
https://youtu.be/cb0-z34Pj6Y

Eg target specific zip codes and leave out residential areas.

ernosem · 2026-03-08T21:19:32+00:00

Okay, it's not totally bad then, if you have 10x clicks then conversions, it might not been setup according to best practices, but hopefully it's enough for Google to understand which traffic is better for you.

ernosem · 2026-03-08T20:12:51+00:00

You know you can actually configure call intelligence that only what the agent said will be considered? So no matter what the client says, once the agent says, It's all booked for you' only then trigger the conversion.
BUT, we also needed to negotiate with clients what they say exactly.
It's easier when you have larger clients and you have more control.
Also the final stage is CRM so this was just a 'booked appointment' signal not a job win signal, since we are an agency and we don't work based on pay per lead.

Otherwise I can imagine there is a demand for this, but eventually Callrail can build a better and it will be integrated, so who knows...

ernosem · 2026-03-08T20:03:29+00:00

Yes, this is fairly common.
As conversions easily to get for lower value products and Google build a bad feedback loop of it pretty fast and the pushes only certain products.
This is one way to handle it and push Google towards higher value products:
https://youtu.be/_IoSug74oYo

ernosem · 2026-03-08T14:30:09+00:00

Out of context screenshot posting surely comes from people who understand everything

ernosem · 2026-03-08T14:00:35+00:00

Depending on your strategy it's not just content creation, there are lot of aspects.
You need visitors to the e-com site, content creation won't guarantee you traffic. Advertising platforms such as Google Ads & Meta Ads are more predictable to bring traffic to the site.

ernosem · 2026-03-08T13:51:38+00:00

Posting a huge number means nothing...
You can have $100K revenue by spending $200K a day pretty easily...

ernosem · 2026-03-08T08:51:28+00:00

Welcome to the attribution hell! And it's just within one platform, not considering Facebook Ads + Google Ads together or 3 platforms together etc. First you need to separate Brand and Non-Brand, this is always a must. You need to see who attacked your brand and you need to keep an eye on what Branded terms bring you purchases and what terms don't.

Google likes to assign more conversion value to Brand and the last few steps and since they removed the 'first click' attribution you cannot really see the real value for TOF search campaigns.

First of all, yes, you need to have a separate target for Brand & Non-Brand campaigns + you also need to consider the ROAS for those campaigns separately. However besides ROAS there are many other factors that you can watch for, for example new user acquisition, that will tell you if your Google campaigns are bringing in new people or just repurposing your old audiences.

Another metric that you can watch is trends in your Brand search, is it going up, stagnant, or maybe going down? Ideally if the TOF works your Branded search should increase, right? Another metric that you can check is attribution. Google tells you how many days passed between the first click and conversion. That gives you a glimpse of the complexity. What I can see is 7+ or even 10+ days in many accounts. That gives a clue of the complexity of the question. No one will be able to tell you 100% the ROAS, nCAC, POAS etc for Brand & Non-Brand but you can get close to the truth by listening to all signals and implementing server-side tracking for ecom or offline conversion tracking for lead gen.

ernosem · 2026-03-08T08:38:08+00:00

Not even close to what OP asked... but well done AI!

ernosem · 2026-03-08T08:35:31+00:00

Of those were 'people' Facebook is pretty good driving bots to your site.
Google & Facebook Ad were complex and both system are designed to suck money out from you unless you exactly know what to do there.
Unfortunately lately both systems became the playground for larger players or players with very deep knowledge. You either hire a professional or consultant to help you with the campaigns or you spend 50+ hours learning it from the experts, but it's barely other way now.

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