Someone who works on ads!? Thank goodness.

recent experience:

Friend needs to google ads for new location in another state. I say call google and get setup - your web site is good - and they will actually answer the phone when you call for this.

Couple months later - zero calls for new clients.

I take a peek into his campaign - it's set on some new fangled 'smart ads' - there is like almost no data on keyword clicks and such.

I mention that it's odd for ads for a specific niche (rolfing) to burn through a few thousand dollas in ads and not being a single new customer. (he laughs 'there is no way it's been thousands of dollars' - I did not laugh and said yes you have spent thousands already I can see THAT in your stats - he had no idea)

He reaches out for support via phone and help forms. Eventually I do the same.

The pain one must go through filling out these long forms with lots of entries to get support - omg.

No one can figure out where the money went, which search phrases, etc. I start to work on negative keywords lists and location radius.. it burns another 2 grand - with no stats.

Support is delayed - even India is delaying things with covid at that point.. messaging is sparse - basic answer is we took your money, you agreed, sorry you got zero business.

His bank account wiped out and he did not even know it was happening. I think he panicked with his bank and they cancelled his debit card about that time.

I tried to create a new campaign for him that would be exact match and have good negative keywords at that point that would actually get clients and not waste clicks.. but his account was frozen.

More support attempts.. weeks later - a message saying similar to - pay us another $1800 - smart ads don't do good stats - sorry about your luck.

I had paused the smart ads campaign that google set up and created a better one - but at that point my friend was so soured on the google experience, and the ripoff that he did not want to pay the additional $1800 that could not be charged to his cancelled card.

Short story long.. this campaign was not setup and run by an ad agency - google set it up. It was a complete waste of money and time and it has hurt the brand not just wit the two of us, but others we share details on this.

I suggested they refund 1800 and let him start fresh with the new setup I created.. more long forms to fill out.. eventually no dice.

There was a time when I helped businesses with google ads and it made several places successful for some time. What google has become with their lack of customer support and transparency is mind boggling to me.

If the yellow pages helped customers make ads and charged 3 grand a month to run them and in turn zero new customers called - I would imagine there would be less ads in those sections next year.

Anyhow your google ad folks essentially took advantage of a 70 year old and wiped his bank account - and returned zero benefits.

Might be time for some changes with how all that works - maybe just stop the retail side of doing ads for small folks and make them go through an agency so you can place the blame elsewhere - or/and maybe an agency would do a better job making sure there were proper stats and return on investment in order to keep paying clients in business.

Right now the metrics and reports of taking money from small businesses while paying folks in India to sell and support it - it's really not working as well as it might look in those quarterly spreadsheets.

imho - ymmv.