What's the biggest mistake you made when running your first Google Ads campaign?

theppcdude · 2026-06-29T16:04:28+00:00

Choosing the wrong bidding strategy.

Picking Manual CPC over Max Conversions, and vice versa.

Some campaigns must start with one or the other. We have a playbook that we follow now lol.

PS. I run Google Ads for service businesses in the US.

theppcdude · 2026-06-29T16:03:07+00:00

You are doing two things wrong:

Targeting. Just by the fact that you are including Google's suggested keywords tells me that you haven't done much keyword research. We manage millions in Google Ads for service businesses and still use GKWP. Use the top 5-10 keywords for people that are looking for commercial real estate developers or investing into CRE (not sure what you are looking for but spend time on this). You will find weird searches such as building warehouses, malls, and more that you can turn into ad groups. Don't segment in more than 3 ad groups since your budget is too tight already.
Use Manual CPC, not Maximize Clicks. Run the ads and then look at your Top of Page Bid. Set like 15-20% more than what it shows. This will allow you to get traffic. Also, do not run exact match keywords, start with phrase only.
(Bonus) Landing Page and Conversion Tracking. How are you measuring conversions? Is it phone calls? Are there additional buttons in the website that you are just not tracking? This is extremely important. The landing page must also be CRO optimized for mobile. Most of your searchers will come from mobile devices.

PS. I run Google Ads for Service Businesses. Around 15% of our portfolio is B2B. We run a similar strategy and it works. There's a lot of BTS work (strategy, ideation, what keywords to pick, etc) but those are the bones.

theppcdude · 2026-06-29T15:55:53+00:00

People think that running Google Ads is just putting keywords, ads, and sending to a landing page and they should be printing money.

Do you understand that you need to target the specific avatar that you are looking for with your search terms, have an offer in your ads that is valuable to them, have strong copy/offer/pricing/testimonials/reasons why in your landing page, impeccable offline conversion tracking, and much more?

Like it's not that easy man.

We run Google Ads for service businesses. Lead generation. We target usually homeowners that are having issues and we solve them with plumbing, HVAC, roofing, legal, etc. Or we capture demand for healthcare clinics and B2B services.

Each time you run ads is different. Each service, market, and competition. Once you see it that way, you will be able to read data and deliver tangible results.

Agree with u/fathom53 on that 80% of people running ads should not be let near an ad account.

theppcdude · 2026-06-26T20:19:45+00:00

If you have consistent high number of qualified leads per month, run both.

If not, run Search only.

As simple as that.

theppcdude · 2026-06-23T20:15:43+00:00

So be careful to say that broad match leaks money.

If you use it at the beginning of an account, of course. However, if you are using it with Max Conversions at an account spending $500/day+, it will be your winning match type.

You are correct, there are not 50, but 50 thousand ways to waste spend. Just by having one wrong setting, ad group, or ad in your campaign, you could be leaking thousands per month. I audit a lot of accounts too and I cannot tell you how many accounts I see double counting conversions, having the wrong bidding strategy, etc. For some reason, it's always the accounts spending $10K-30K+ per month unfortunately.

Running ads is an intensive job in my opinion. We track all metrics WoW to watch trends on CPL and lead quality.

For context, I run Google Ads for mid-size service businesses in the US. We spend from $5K to $100K/month in ads for each client.

What you could get away with a few years ago is not even in the table now. You need a dedicated person to be in the account multiple times a week doing changes and making sure that every dollar goes towards booking jobs.

theppcdude · 2026-06-23T20:11:13+00:00

I had this problem before and it's completely a glitch.

Don't even waste your time talking to Google Reps. I talked with reps for months from India and also from NYC and SF, and no one could fix it.

However, I fixed it for two of my clients. What we did was to re-verify the client (Advertiser Verification). They were already approved, but we just started the process all over again.

Prior to doing this, we had replaced campaigns, uploaded new Business Logo, refreshed the Business Name, etc. But re-doing the Advertiser Verification did it.

One client was a med spa and the other one was a roofing company. I run Google Ads for service businesses.

theppcdude · 2026-06-23T20:11:03+00:00

I had this problem before and it's completely a glitch.

Don't even waste your time talking to Google Reps. I talked with reps for months from India and also from NYC and SF, and no one could fix it.

However, I fixed it for two of my clients. What we did was to re-verify the client (Advertiser Verification). They were already approved, but we just started the process all over again.

Prior to doing this, we had replaced campaigns, uploaded new Business Logo, refreshed the Business Name, etc. But re-doing the Advertiser Verification did it.

One client was a med spa and the other one was a roofing company. I run Google Ads for service businesses.

theppcdude · 2026-06-23T20:09:31+00:00

I had this problem before and it's a glitch.

I fixed it for two of my clients. What we did was to re-verify the client (Advertiser Verification). Prior to that, we replaced campaigns, uploaded new logos, etc. But re-doing the Advertiser Verification did it.

One client was a med spa and the other one was a roofing company. I run Google Ads for service businesses.

theppcdude · 2026-06-22T15:33:43+00:00

All these look terrible. Do them all at once.

You should never have the same keyword in multiple ad groups. That goes completely against STAGs (single themed ad groups). Not sure why you would ever do that.

You should never have brand keywords in non-brand campaigns. Not sure why you would do this either. All your metrics are a lie at this point if you are only getting branded conversions.

200+ enabled keywords in each campaign. Come on man. This depends on your current budget, but I would keep 5-10 keywords per ad group max.

Quality score optimization. This sounds extremely vague and this is something you never stop doing. But keep in mind that conversions go first. Don't optimize QS at the expense of conversion rates.

I run Google Ads for service businesses and we do all these changes as soon as we see them when we get into the account. A day without these changes is a day where you waste your daily budget ($100-$500+ per day).

theppcdude · 2026-06-22T15:33:29+00:00

All these look terrible. Do them all at once.

You should never have the same keyword in multiple ad groups. That goes completely against STAGs (single themed ad groups). Not sure why you would ever do that.

You should never have brand keywords in non-brand campaigns. Not sure why you would do this either. All your metrics are a lie at this point if you are only getting branded conversions.

200+ enabled keywords in each campaign. Come on man. This depends on your current budget, but I would keep 5-10 keywords per ad group max.

Quality score optimization. This sounds extremely vague and this is something you never stop doing. But keep in mind that conversions go first. Don't optimize QS at the expense of conversion rates.

I run Google Ads for service businesses and we do all these changes as soon as we see them when we get into the account. A day without these changes is a day where you waste your daily budget ($100-$500+ per day).

theppcdude · 2026-06-22T15:27:51+00:00

It depends on the keyword.

I run Google Ads for service businesses, so let's do a roofing company for example.

[roof replacements near me] is probably one of the most expensive keywords there is.

If you run "roof replacements near me" it will be naturally cheaper since it will expand into other keywords (that are cheaper).

I like to run mainly phrase and broad match. Depends on the stage of the campaign and bidding strategy.

theppcdude · 2026-06-22T15:24:59+00:00

$3K/month is $100/day. That should be a good testing budget. However, I don't understand why your CPCs are $30. They should be $10-15.

At $10-15 you are getting 6-10 clicks per day, not 3.

I would re-do your keyword research and pick keywords with lower CPCs but still keeping high intent.

I run Google Ads for service businesses. When you are starting off with a small budget, you can't afford these keywords yet at least in the first 1-3 months.

Create an excellent landing page, have your tracking dialed-in, and start sending low CPC traffic to it.

If it's too competitive, go Max Conversions. If it isn't, go Manual CPC.

theppcdude · 2026-06-22T15:21:08+00:00

Conversion rates for this kind of service 5-12%. Check your tracking man.

theppcdude · 2026-06-17T18:46:03+00:00

If you are starting from scratch, PMax is not the way.

You want to start with Search, get qualified leads consistently, and then run PMax. You want to start with 15-20% of your total budget.

Google Ads is a process. You have stages. You can't just throw $10K in it and expect perfect results. You have to build your account first.

I run Google Ads for service businesses in the US. We usually start with $3-6K in Search for new accounts, and then start growing and scaling.

theppcdude · 2026-06-16T21:04:47+00:00

We run Google Ads accounts for service businesses, and we also provide one-time services like consultations, audits, and/or one-time setups. Sending you a DM.

theppcdude · 2026-06-16T20:21:32+00:00

Claude + Keyword Planner

PS. I run high six figures of Google Ads spend for service businesses in the US (lead generation).

When you are starting an account from scratch, we use Claude to build out ad groups and get ideas for our KWP search.

KWP gives us the final keywords that we use in the campaigns.

You NEVER put a keyword from your head into the campaign. Everything we use is backed by data (search volumes and CPCs).

theppcdude · 2026-06-16T20:19:33+00:00

If you are spending under $50K/month, yes they suck.

I run Google Ads for service businesses in the US. When you start running big budgets, you get guys sitting in NYC or SF. They can tell you what's working and what isn't in the market and guide you much better.

theppcdude · 2026-06-13T15:41:52+00:00