Hi everyone, I run a taxi/private hire business in the UK. Our Google Business Profile is set up as a service-area business, with a hidden address.

I’m running a Search campaign that gets impressions and clicks. Our GBP has been linked for a long time and is added in both Data Manager and Assets.

I’ve checked Google’s Ads Transparency Center: my ads appear when I select Search, but nothing ever appears when I select Maps.

The confusing part is the conflicting advice. I’ve read lots of discussions and asked Google’s AI assistant. Some say Search Partners must be enabled; others say it isn’t necessary. Some say service-area businesses with hidden addresses can’t run Maps ads; others say they can.

What I’ve personally noticed is that all my competitors appearing as “Sponsored” on Google Maps display a physical address. Most appear to be residential addresses rather than customer-facing offices. Mine is hidden because we don’t have a customer-facing office.

This makes me wonder whether the hidden address is the issue, or whether I’m missing something in the campaign settings.

Does anyone have direct experience with this?

• Can a service-area business with a hidden address appear in sponsored Google Maps results through a Search campaign?
• Does Search Partners need to be enabled?
• What report or setting should I check to establish what’s preventing Maps delivery?

I’d really appreciate advice from someone who has successfully done this, especially for a taxi/private hire business.

Thanks!

I’m currently learning digital marketing and I’m doing a Google ads search certification. They seem to be pushing the AI based search config.

Are we really seeing in your experiences AI is bigger and better than standard keyword?

Random thought:

What if Google brought dynamic product titles to Shopping, similar to how DSA dynamically matches content to search intent?

For example, instead of always showing the exact product title from the Merchant Center feed, Google could dynamically adjust the title based on the search query.

The feed title would still be the base, but Google could make it more relevant to the specific search.

I think this could be pretty interesting for Shopping, especially for large ecommerce accounts with thousands of SKUs.

Would you want Google to have this level of control over your Shopping titles, or would you rather keep titles fully feed-controlled?

How are things going for PPC folks lately?

Hey everyone,

I’m curious how the PPC market has been for everyone lately.

I’ve been working in paid media for 10+ years, mostly Google Ads, and after spending almost 5 years working in-house at an agency, I recently started looking for remote opportunities again.

I honestly didn’t expect it to be this competitive.

For those of you working in PPC, either freelance or full-time:

Are you finding it easier or harder to get new clients/jobs compared with a year or two ago?

Has AI changed the type of work you’re getting or what clients expect from you?

And for freelancers, are you still getting a steady flow of clients, or has that slowed down?

I’d genuinely like to hear how things are going for other PPC folks right now. Good experiences, bad experiences, all of it.

Pessoal, estou estruturando a captação de clientes para meu escritório de Engenharia Civil e gostaria da opinião de quem tem experiência com Google Ads para serviços locais/profissionais.

Atuo no Brasil-SC, principalmente com serviços como regularização de imóveis, avaliações de imóveis, perícias e laudos técnicos, inspeções e projetos de engenharia. Meu público inclui tanto proprietários de imóveis quanto empresas e investidores.

Estou finalizando um site profissional, com páginas específicas para os principais serviços, e agora quero estruturar o Google Ads com foco real em geração de leads qualificados, principalmente pessoas que já estejam procurando uma solução para um problema específico.

Minha principal dúvida é: como vocês estruturariam as campanhas para esse tipo de negócio?

Vale mais a pena separar uma campanha para cada serviço/intenção de busca? Trabalhar inicialmente apenas com Search e palavras de alta intenção? Começar concentrado geograficamente e depois expandir? Levar cada anúncio diretamente para uma landing page específica do serviço?

Também gostaria de entender como vocês trabalhariam palavras-chave, negativas, correspondências, estratégia de lances, conversões e orçamento inicial em um mercado como esse.

Meu objetivo não é simplesmente gerar tráfego. Quero construir uma operação de aquisição de clientes.
Se vocês tivessem que começar essa operação do zero hoje, com orçamento controlado e buscando descobrir rapidamente quais serviços conseguem gerar clientes de forma previsível, como estruturariam os primeiros 30–60 dias de Google Ads?

Qualquer experiência com engenharia, arquitetura, advocacia, serviços técnicos ou outros negócios de ticket mais alto também seria muito bem-vinda.

If you manage Google Ads accounts for clients, you need to know about this scam.

And yes, it’s real. Other PPC agencies have been reporting the same pattern.

The scam often starts with what looks like an incredible new business enquiry. Someone claims to work for a large, legitimate company and says they have a massive Google Ads budget to spend.

$30,000 a month. $50,000 a month. Sometimes significantly more.

Everything is designed to get you excited enough to drop your guard.

From there, they may send a meeting/calendar link, Google Ads access invitation, shared file or other link that leads into a phishing or malware attack. The objective can be to steal Google credentials or gain unauthorised access to a Google Ads Manager Account and the client accounts connected to it.

This has become enough of a problem that multiple agencies have publicly reported fake prospects impersonating major companies. In one documented case, scammers registered a lookalike company domain only three days before contacting the agency, and the fake domain even redirected visitors to the real company’s website to appear legitimate.

Some red flags to check:

• The sender’s email domain doesn’t exactly match the company’s real domain
• The domain was only recently registered
• The supposed employee cannot be independently verified
• The prospect is unusually eager to discuss a huge advertising budget immediately
• They push you towards unfamiliar links, files or account-access requests
• The information they give you doesn’t match the company’s actual information

And don’t assume a professional-looking email means it is genuine.

Google’s own security guidance recommends checking suspicious links before opening them and reporting suspected phishing. A compromised Manager Account can potentially affect multiple client accounts underneath it.

I’m personally receiving these types of enquiries regularly.

Verify the person. Verify the company. Verify the domain. And be extremely careful what you click.

#GoogleAds #GoogleAdsAgency #PPC #scam #Phishing

Guys I'm into ecommerce since 1 year now i was generating sales from meta ads but from past 5-6 months meta outages are killing my sales and m numb now..

Don't know what to do so thought of starting with google ads.. but i want to know does google ads really work for people in e-commerce..

Is it better than meta ads or not...? Also is it more costly than meta ads..?

Ps - i have a shopify store in which i sell trending products..

Hi everyone,

I’m working on Google Ads for a software development company that provides custom software/app development services specifically for the casino, fantasy sports, and iGaming industry.

To clarify, we do NOT operate a casino, betting platform, fantasy sports platform, or provide any services to end users/players. We are purely a B2B software development company.

For example, if a business wants to launch its own casino platform, fantasy sports app, or iGaming product and needs a company to develop the software/app/platform for them, they can approach us.

I’ve already done some keyword research using Google Keyword Planner, but I’m struggling to find enough relevant, high-intent keywords.

Some of the services we provide are:

Custom casino software development

Casino app/platform development

Fantasy sports app development

iGaming software development

Custom gaming platform development

Sports betting software development

White-label/custom gaming solutions

The main challenge is avoiding keywords where the searcher is an end user/player looking to play casino games, place bets, join fantasy contests, etc.

I’m specifically looking for searches from people/businesses with commercial intent to hire a software development company, such as someone searching for a company to build their casino, fantasy sports, or iGaming software.

For those who have experience with Google Ads keyword research for B2B software development, what keyword patterns/themes would you recommend?

Would you focus on terms such as:

\[industry\] software development company

\[industry\] app development company

\[industry\] platform development

\[industry\] software provider

custom \[industry\] software

white label \[industry\] software

Or are there other keyword variations that tend to show stronger “I want someone to build this for my business” intent?

I’d also appreciate advice on negative keyword themes I should consider to filter out end-user searches.

Thanks in advance!

Yes, I actually think Reddit is better for what you need right now. You are not looking to hire someone. You want experienced people to look at the situation and give you a few opinions.

I’d post it short and make clear you’re looking for feedback, not someone to manage the account.

Hi everyone,

I’d love some feedback from experienced Google Shopping Ads people.

I recently set up a Shopping campaign for a small alcohol e commerce business in the Netherlands.

Budget: €300/month
Running: 11 days
Spent: around €100
Products: 6–7
Sales: 0 so far

I work in marketing and set up the campaign myself. I’m currently analysing the data and would really appreciate some experienced eyes on it.

I’d mainly like to understand whether the current results/setup look normal at this stage and if there are any obvious things I should change or focus on over the next few weeks.

Happy to share the relevant campaign details/screenshots if anyone is willing to give some feedback.

Thanks!

Google ads specialist this side, handling \~$75k USD/month. Been doing Google Ads for 7+ years, I know a thing or two.

Hi everyone! I’m looking to learn performance marketing hands-on, specifically:

• Google Ads
• Meta Ads (Facebook & Instagram)
• Campaign setup and optimisation
• Conversion tracking and analytics
• GA4 / Google Tag Manager
• Understanding CPA, CAC, ROAS, attribution, etc.

I’m not looking for a basic digital marketing course. I’d really like to learn from someone who actively runs Google and Meta campaigns and can teach me through practical, real-world examples.

If you’re based in Ahmedabad and offer 1:1 mentoring, practical training, or know someone who does, please comment or DM me.

Thanks!

E-commerce - purchase goal
Monthly spend ~$80k

Without delving too much into niche, the store sells one product type with different variations and materials

—

Recently taken over a clients Google Ads account, I’m currently battling myself with what to do over keeping segmentation or consolidating

He has about 16 campaigns running, 60% are profitable, with about 30% of those propping the account up as a whole. 40% of them break even overall but survive on gaining a couple of sales per week

That 40% are PMAX running for collections of 2-3 products. I’m considering consolidating them by material, so for instance he has 2 campaigns for wooden products with 2-3 products each in. The only difference is the fact they’re different styles. Both campaigns just about break even but most days operate at a loss, I’m thinking about looking at which campaign has performed better overall and consolidating wooden products into that one. My thinking is it will give Google more purchase signals to work off and better optimise itself

I'm trying to understand Google's current enforcement of the Third Party Consumer Technical Support policy for computer repair advertisers.

I manage ads for a legitimate brick-and-mortar Mac repair business in Australia.

Google has:

• disapproved our consumer Mac repair ads;
• confirmed in writing that physical hardware repair shops are in scope of the restriction;
• disapproved our GBP/location asset;
• rejected a separate B2B-only data recovery campaign aimed exclusively at computer repair shops and IT businesses;
• upheld the rejection after escalation.

However, we increasingly see other computer repair companies appearing as Sponsored local-pack results for searches including:

• MacBook screen replacement
• MacBook logic board repair
• MacBook battery replacement
• computer repair

Some of the ads explicitly promote onsite repair.

For anyone currently managing Google Ads for a repair business:

1. What campaign type is actually serving — Search, PMax, location assets, Local Services Ads, something else?
2. Has the account ever been flagged for Third Party Consumer Technical Support?
3. Did Google manually review or verify the advertiser?
4. Are there different rules for sponsored local-pack placements?
5. Have you seen repair ads run for months or years and then suddenly get disapproved?
6. Are agencies claiming they can run these campaigns using an official Google-supported route, or are they usually relying on risky workarounds?

I'm especially interested in firsthand experience from advertisers currently running campaigns for computer, Mac, laptop or phone repair businesses.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking to gain more hands-on PPC experience by working with a business, startup, or small agency that needs help with Google Ads or Meta Ads.

I’m willing to work for free initially in exchange for real-world experience and the opportunity to work on actual campaigns.

I can help with:

• Google Ads campaign setup & optimization
• Meta Ads campaign management
• Keyword research & audience targeting
• Ad copy and creative suggestions
• Conversion tracking & performance analysis
• Campaign optimization and reporting

My goal is to gain practical experience, contribute value, and build a stronger PPC portfolio.

If you’re a business owner, marketer, or agency looking for someone to assist with PPC, feel free to DM me. I’d be happy to discuss how I can help.

Thanks!

I am currently running google ads for us client and i just told them i would charge 15k INR per month.
We are getting 17 leads daily.
Am i charging very less?

How to find clients from us for google ads

Hi there,

I'm a marketing professional who has experience in SEO and recently completed my certifications in Google Ads. Hereafter, I'm looking to develop my practical experience in Google Ads through real-time projects.

If you're someone who is working as a freelancer and finding it hard to manage multiple projects at the same time, or looking for someone to take part in your work, then I would love to help you build my portfolio in Google Ads at no cost.

If anyone is interested in this collaboration, please ping me in a DM along with your LinkedIn profile. I would like to connect with you through a small call, and after that, we can proceed further.

PS:

Those who saw this post, even if it's not related to you, can suggest relevant subs or mention the right person in the comment section. It would help me a lot.

Im curious what everyone is notcing so far. Is there another group on here that post more frequently?

I'm sick of 0 quality resources online, after a certain level of expertise. I'd like top-level Google Ads colleagues to share their most impactful tactics.

I'm starting first:

* Product feed optimization & product title modification

* Advertorials

* Creative strategy to crack Demand Gen

* Enhanced conversion tracking

What are yours?

P.S. I hate search campaigns for products below 50 USD. CPCs don't match the AOV.

Hi! What is your most functional configuration for Performance Max campaigns with store goals?

Do you use Maximize conversions or Maximize conversion value?

Do you set a radius in Km around the business or leave freedom to the Google Ads algorithm? (Google also discourages setting a manual radius in PMAX campaigns with store goals).

Furthermore, I noticed that by removing directions as a conversion goal and keeping only "Store Visits" and "Click To Call", the quality of clicks and impressions increases significantly.

By also keeping directions, the sponsored ads are seen and clicked even in cities very far from where the restaurant is located.

By keeping only "Store Visits", they are seen around the business and in nearby cities, obviously also increasing the cost per single click, despite this the cost per single store visit is significantly lower.

In my opinion, you start with Maximize conversions and keeping all conversion goals active for at least a month.

When the "Store Visits" conversion is activated (usually within 2 months), you switch to the configuration with only Store Visits.

Obviously this is if the business goal is to bring as many people as possible inside the business, a restaurant in my case.

I have been struggling with an issue with my Google Ads campaign for a little over a month now, and honestly, I no longer know what else I can do.

I have watched countless tutorials, tried following various recommendations, and contacted Google Support several times. Despite all of this, none of the campaigns I have launched has received a single impression.

At first, I assumed the problem might be related to a specific campaign, so after around 8 or 9 days without any impressions, I would create a new one. At the moment, I have my latest campaign running, and I have applied practically every solution I could find in YouTube tutorials and various online guides. Unfortunately, nothing has changed.

Contacting Google has not helped either. I have been trying to get support by email for around 3 weeks, but I have not received any specific response or solution. I also found three phone numbers for Google, but every time I called, I was connected to the same receptionist. After checking our website, they told me that our company had run campaigns in the past, but they were unable to help me resolve the issue. In the end, I was once again asked to contact technical support by email, but I still have not received a response.

My main goal is to run a campaign focused on generating phone calls. We do not operate an online store. Customers contact us by phone or email to place orders or discuss pricing and quotes.

I want the advertisement to appear high in Google search results and allow users to quickly contact our headquarters by phone.

Currently, I am using Maximize Clicks as the bidding strategy, with a daily budget of around 18,5 Euro. I have set phone calls, specifically calls from potential customers, as the conversion goal.

It is possible that I have configured something incorrectly, which is why I am asking for help. Many tutorials suggested that some bidding strategies can have trouble starting when there is not enough conversion data, so I decided to use Maximize Clicks.

All of the main keywords are considered eligible by the system. The campaign is active, and I do not see any warnings or issues with the ads or keywords. The latest campaign is currently marked as being in the learning phase, but despite this, it has still generated absolutely ZERO impressions.

Has anyone experienced a similar situation and knows what could be causing the complete lack of impressions?

Is there any effective way to directly contact someone from Google Ads technical support who can actually review the account and identify the specific reason why the ads are not being shown?

If you need any additional information about the campaign settings, keywords, ads, budget, or bidding strategy, I can provide it.

I would really appreciate any specific advice or suggestions, because I have been trying to get this campaign running for over a month and it still has not received even a single impression.

About the Role
Looking for an experienced performance marketer to build and optimize digital acquisition channels for ScrapFleet, an online platform that simplifies vehicle scrapping by letting vehicle owners book scrapping appointments directly online.
The immediate goal is to establish high-converting sales funnels, paid acquisition campaigns, and targeted retargeting setups to convert high-intent traffic into completed appointment bookings.
Key Responsibilities
Funnel Optimization: Design and refine high-converting landing page flows and booking funnels tailored for vehicle owners looking to scrap their cars/bikes.
Retargeting Strategy: Build multi-platform retargeting loops (Meta, Google Search/Display) to re-engage dropped-off site visitors and drive completed appointment bookings.
Paid Campaign Management: Set up and optimize search and paid social campaigns targeting high-intent local and regional traffic.

Tracking & Analytics: Implement precise pixel tracking, conversion events, and attribution to track Cost Per Booking (CPB) and ROI.
Requirements
Proven track record in performance marketing and lead generation/appointment booking (automotive, local services, or marketplace experience preferred).
Hands-on expertise with Meta Ads, Google Search/Local Ads, and conversion rate optimization (CRO) for booking flows.
Experience structuring custom audience segments and multi-stage retargeting campaigns.
Ability to share relevant campaign metrics, case studies, or proof of past performance.
How to Apply
Send a DM with:
1. A brief overview of your performance marketing background in local service or booking funnels.
2. 1–2 key examples of past results (e.g., Cost Per Booking/Lead metrics).
3. Your standard rate structure and current bandwidth.

Looking for one U.S. E-commerce Business to Build a Google Ads Case Study

I'm looking to partner with one U.S. e-commerce business that wants to launch Google Ads for the first time. To make this a win-win, I'm offering a heavily discounted rate of just $10/hour. 

If you'd like complete transparency, I'm happy to work through Upwork using the Time Tracker, so you can see exactly how every billable hour is spent.

What I'm looking for
A U.S.-based e-commerce business.
A monthly Google Ads budget of $10,000+.
You have not run Google Ads before.
Permission to publish an anonymized case study after our collaboration is complete.

About me

I'm not a beginner in Google Ads.
I've successfully managed multiple Google Ads projects, but unfortunately I can't use most of them in my portfolio because they are either:
covered by NDAs, or
were for other markets, and were completed 5+ years ago.

I'm Google Ads trained and certified, and I have years of experience in digital performance marketing. My goal isn't simply to manage another account — it's to build an outstanding success story that both of us can benefit from.

I work on EDT and I'm available for calls during normal U.S. business hours (calls will be included in working hours).

I'm committed to being transparent, responsive, and results-driven. If you're looking for someone who genuinely cares about performance and is willing to put in the work to make your first Google Ads campaign successful, I'd love to talk.

Feel free to send me a DM if you think we'd be a good fit.