Google Ads triage nightmare - need help now

paperclick

I took on Google Ads for a trade-based service client (electrical) thinking my Meta background would carry over. It didn't. I'm bleeding cash and need a straight answer before I lose the client.

setup: 3 campaigns for 3 locations. Budget $80-$150/day each. bidding on Max Conversions. 20-mile radius. Switched back to 100% broad match yesterday after phrase/exact killed all volume. No tracking pixel - just trying to track calls via the call button.

Campaign 1 (the only one moving): 2.5k impressions, $188 spent, 3 phone calls.

Campaign 2 (the money pit): 107 impressions, 5 clicks, $198 spent. Google UI shows a 'Detected issues' warning. That's $40 CPC on local residential trades.

Campaign 3 (flatline): 0 everything, $0 spend. Google says 'Conversion tracking setup is incomplete' - but the other two are spending fine. Settings must be different somewhere.

At launch it actually pulled in a few calls a day. Then I tried to optimise with phrase/exact and choked everything for a week. panicked, switched back to broad yesterday, and now I get this.

a few questions:

How can Max Conversions function with no pixel or historical data? Should I drop to Max Clicks to reset?
What causes $40 CPC with a 'Detected issues' flag? Low QS from broad match?
why is one campaign blocked by that tracking error while the others run? How do I bypass it if we're only using call extensions?

Also, where should I go to learn proper Google Ads best practices? AI is useless for this.

buggedout

i'd pause everything and fix conversion tracking before touching any bidding strategy. max Conversions without reliable conversion data is like flying blind.

For Campaign 2, dig into search terms and location settings first. $40 CPCs usually mean you're matching into some expensive long-tail queries that should be negative'd out.

for Campaign 3, run a side-by-side comparison of every setting against Campaign 1 - ad rotation, network targeting, device bid adjustments. nine times out of ten it's something simple blocking delivery. No point burning budget until tracking is solid

brandvoice

Oh, I've been exactly where you are. That gut-punch feeling when campaigns just spiral. It's not you - the platform does this to all of us.

A few things that helped me when I was stuck in that loop:

First, pause broad match for now. Go phrase and exact, high intent keywords only. Broad match without clean conversion data is basically setting money on fire.

Second - and I cannot stress this enough - get proper call tracking in place. Not just extensions, actual tracking with a duration threshold (60-90 seconds). Without that signal, you're guessing, not optimising.

Third, dive into your search term report. I'm betting that's where the real bleed is. Fourth, for Campaign 3, duplicate a working campaign and just swap the geo. Way fewer hidden settings to mess up.

And whatever you do, ignore Google's own recommendations until you've got decent data flowing. Their advice only works once the account has history. Not on a fresh, messy local setup.

Your bidding isn't the core problem. It's the data pipeline. Fix that first.

wordweaver

Oh honey, "too broad" is putting it mildly. Those keywords are basically a black hole for your budget. Trade services thrive on intent, not hope.

ppcnerd

The tracking issue isn't just a problem-it's the root of the entire mess. Maximise conversions without a conversion pixel is like trying to navigate London with a map that only shows roads you've already driven down. You're asking Google to optimise for a signal it can't see. Swap to maximise clicks immediately, and only think about switching back once you've got proper call tracking in place. A decent platform will give you duration, caller details, and real attribution. Relying solely on the call button is guessing, not measuring.

That £40 CPC on campaign 2? Almost certainly broad match pulling in junk. Pull the search terms report and you'll likely see "electrician near me" lumped in with "electrical contractor for large commercial projects" or random service queries that don't match your trade work. Prune them hard. Campaign 3 being completely blocked is odd, but compare every setting line by line to campaign 1-location radius, ad schedule, device targeting, bid adjustments. It's nearly always a tiny toggle that got flipped differently.

But honestly, stop optimising the bidding and keywords until tracking is sorted. You're flying blind, and every change you make is just adding noise on top of bad data. Right now, you're optimising the dashboard, not the outcome.

weekendhustle

I'd steer clear of optimising for calls from ads - honestly, they tend to be terrible quality. much better to optimise for calls from your website instead. You'll need a tracking tag set up, but the conversion quality is way higher. Hope that helps!! 😊

paperclick

Honestly, I've been down that road. LSAs can work if you've got the budget and local intent, but they're not a magic fix for broken campaign fundamentals. seen plenty of people swap one set of headaches for another. You fixed the tracking yet?

ppcnerd

it's a point worth sitting with-call tracking is one of those things that looks solved on paper but gets buried in execution. i've seen setups where everything is in place, yet conversion data stays an empty black box, and you're left guessing which ads actually pull weight. the issue is usually that third-party platforms sit apart from Google's ecosystem, they're logging calls but not feeding them directly into the conversion pipeline. Max Conversion bidding needs that signal to learn. If you're already triaging performance, take the extra ten minutes to wire up native call conversion tracking inside Ads. otherwise you're sending the algorithm in blind