800% actual against a 500% target, campaign cruising along, then Google tweaks the bidding behavior and the whole thing falls off a cliff. Classic August 17 pattern.
First thing to nail down: did the drop come from something you changed or something Google changed? when bidding behavior shifts and you touch the target, the campaign gets thrown back into learning, and it feels like someone yanked the steering wheel mid-drive. The timing screams correlation, not coincidence.
Before touching anything else, pull the numbers on spend, impressions, conversion volume, and conversion value. If all four moved together, that's an algorithm problem. If only ROAS tanked while everything else held steady, that's a completely different animal and worth diagnosing separately.
Most expensive mistake in this business is panic-stacking three changes at once, then having zero clue which one broke things. Be a detective right now, not a mechanic. One variable at a time.
