Here goes:
As a former AdWords consultant (I spent well over $ 1 million on just one customer) I am enraged by the recent - virtually criminal - changes to Google Ads.
DO NOT expect Google Ads to work as it once did.
One tiny account I've maintained for the last 10 years needed updating so we could run it for one of my very small clients. We spent maybe $ 2,000 per year, tops - maybe 500 bucks per month. Client's business is highly seasonal so it only ran for a couple of months every year.
My other clients exceed 20X this spend. Things were good.
This small client was unusually successful and provided me with a useful prototype for other tiny clients.
The account was tightly managed, focused, carefully geotargeted, extremely well curated in terms of exact match keywords -- and filtered by hundreds and hundreds of negative keywords.
I managed it closely, fully aware of the invisible hands at play. My least favorite was the increasingly drifting nature of Google's automatic broad match infecting my exact match keywords. No problem.
Tried PMAX (thanks to a "helpful Google consultant) - what a colossal waste of time and money.
Just plain old AdWords continued to perform well, year after year.
It was set to run "manually" meaning we could give it $ 500 bucks when we felt like it.
Now it looks like most of what I came to rely on is gone.
They needed my driver's license to re-activate the account. I complied. We were not planning to put any money in; the client was on the fence as business has been good without it.
Today - boom - I am the new owner of a $ 1,200 debit to my bank account. Zero useful clicks.
Thousands of totally inappropriate impressions and clicks that clearly show that negative keywords no longer work.
And no - no way to turn back on manual billing.
Gee - what ever happened to "Don't Be Evil"?
What ever happened to their unbelievably good 800 number customer service?
So long Google.
Be forewarned. Do not expect your experiences to be any different.
And heaven help you if you turn on display or PMax or any of their other "new" products. They too are a complete waste of time - and money.
