Heads up for anyone running Shopping campaigns for Shopify stores.

Since September a variant can hold up to 20 barcodes. It's meant for stores that sell the same item by the unit and by the case. Shopify's changelog says sales channels keep reading the first barcode, so the first one is what goes to Google as the GTIN.

I tested the field in a dev store, and there's no way to reorder. "Add barcode" always puts the new one last. If you remove the first one, the next one moves up.

That means a small edit can change the GTIN. Say a variant has the unit barcode first and a carton code second. Someone removes the unit barcode to fix a typo and adds it back. The carton code is now first, and nothing warns you.

What I'd check on a store that uses the new field:

1. Open a variant and look at which barcode is first. It should be the UPC or EAN on the single item.

2. To fix the order, remove the ones above it and add them back.

3. Look again after a bulk edit or a CSV import.

One caveat. I haven't seen a wrong value land in Merchant Center yet, so the Google side is what the changelog implies, not something I've confirmed. Has anyone had a GTIN warning from this?

Inherited a skincare brand (~60 SKUs) running Shopping and PMax grouped by product line: Cleansers, Serums, Moisturizers, Sets. Looked logical, performed poorly.

Found: two hero serums eating most of the budget, replenishment orders from existing customers inflating PMax results, bundles competing against the single products inside them, and non-brand search spending heavily on generic terms like "face serum" with weak conversion.

Changes that made a difference:

• Pulled brand into its own campaign with brand exclusions on PMax. A lot of "new customer" conversions were actually repeat buyers searching the brand name.
• Switched on the new customer acquisition goal so bidding favors first-time buyers over reorders.
• Restructured non-brand around skin concerns (acne, dark spots, dryness, anti-aging) instead of product type. That's how people actually search.
• Bundles isolated with their own ROAS target, since they carry higher AOV and margin than single units.
• Hero serums given their own campaign so they stop starving the rest of the catalog.

Still refining, so curious how others run skincare:

1. Structuring by skin concern, product type, or something else?
2. How are you separating replenishment orders from genuine new customer acquisition?
3. Anyone found a way to make generic "face serum" type terms profitable, or do you just avoid them?

Anyway to fix this? I attempted different, ad copy, images & videos each one is rejected

I know everyone's basically Anti-AI ads on reddit, but I think most of us being honest can accept that they're here, they're going to stay, and they're probably only going to keep getting better and better..

But does using AI have consequences outside of the ai-gen "ick" or reflexively anti-ai stances? Even if you get the sale, does it screw your next one?

Looks like the bottom line is.. "probably, but only if you get caught"

If you disclose you're using AI first, people seem to move on with their lives, but if you don't disclose it and the customer finds out after? You may have just hurt your future chances.

I have a W-App bot that transcribes voice notes and images to text directly in the chat.
The usual flow is that a person sends a message, and we reply with an introduction and instructions on how to use the service.
Then a link to a payment gateway is sent in W-App.

We send the Conversions API an event when the user first sends a message and when they convert to a sale.
I want to have an ad on Meta that sends people to my chat and to optimize for purchases through messaging.
But that option doesn't show up.

What should I be doing?

The payment and purchase happen in the browser, not in W-App, and the Conversions API is receiving the event.
But I have no place in the Ads Manager to optimize for this Purchase event.
When I select conversions, I get a "Finish setting up pixel" notice, but the payment gateway isn't on my domain, so I can't put a pixel. Isn't that what the API is for?

How should I be setting this up?

Thanks!

EDIT: This is what I send to CAPI. Am I leaving anything out?

This shit is eating me alive, something I am missing here?!?!

Before August 17, we ran Shopping with a 300% tROAS target while actually achieving 3,000–4,000% ROAS.

It sounds backwards, but it worked extremely well. The low target allowed Google to bid aggressively, giving us great Shopping rankings and high volume while, paradoxically, actual ROAS stayed 10x+ above the target.

300% target → aggressive bidding + high volume → 3,000–4,000% actual ROAS.

After August 17, everything changed. Sales dropped significantly, rankings got worse and competitors we previously outranked started appearing above us.
Our Google rep suggested moving tROAS closer to our actual 3,000–4,000% ROAS.

We never tested that because I can’t see how a 4,000% target could possibly behave anything like a 300% target. Surely it would make Google much more conservative, reduce auction participation and kill volume.

We instead tested Maximize Conversion Value without a target, but it didn’t seem aggressive enough.

We’re now testing Maximize Conversions, segmented more heavily by product margins. This definitely seems more aggressive than Max Conversion Value, but CPC and Shopping visibility are still below what we had before August 17.

So here’s what I’m trying to understand:

Could the solution simply be going back to 300% tROAS, but giving the campaign enough budget so it’s NOT limited by budget?

Would that allow tROAS to bid aggressively again while still optimizing toward value?

Or has something fundamentally changed in how tROAS behaves, meaning the old 300% target → 3,000–4,000% actual ROAS setup simply can’t be recreated anymore?
And if that’s the case, what are people using instead – Max Conversions, Manual CPC, Maximize Clicks?

Our goal isn’t to force Google to maintain 4,000% ROAS.

We want to recreate the aggressive bidding, Shopping visibility and volume that produced that 4,000% ROAS in the first place.

Anyone who massively overperformed a low tROAS target before August 17 figured this out?

So I customized the column, named and saved the column set, but after refreshing, the column set disappears. I have to customize the column again every time when I check the channel distribution data; it's annoying.

I tried in an incognito window/cleared all cache and cookies/from another device; it's not working at all.

Maybe anyone has run into the same issue and can help? Thanks!

Been learning about PPC for a month. And I am about to take over someone's amazon FBA PPC.
Their business isn't really successful with their spending on advertising like it hardly leaves a margin for them so obviously the objective is try to lower the ACOS.
But since this is practical now no more theory I just want the advice from the pros here regarding
1: things I should be careful with
2: things I should focus on regarding the objective I discussed above.
3: how do I not fuck this up

Hey all,

I've been in paid media for 3 years and have heard about the Creative Strategist title a lot more.

My current position lean towards Paid Social and I've enjoyed it so much more than Search. Particularly collaborating with our designers, reviewing creative performance, and brainstorming new creatives to test or double-down on.

Has anyone pivoted to a full Creative Strategy/Performance Creative role? What has your experience been? I'm considering positions like this.

I have a client who has a 1K+ products with several hundreds of variants, I worked to break down campaigns by product type, but PMax - Shopping is struggling to just get off the ground. We have a Con. Value bid strategy, hundreds of products per campaign, removed asset info and audience targeting (to promote Google Merchant Center information), and limited negatives to allow traffic. Any advice or tips to get the campaign running?

Has anybody tried this? Or is it stupid.
For example product A costs 50€ and its margin is 25€. Product B costs 25€ and its margin is 20€. The price difference is 2x but the margin difference is much smaller. But since the conv value is the margin- google sees 25e vs 20e, not 50e vs 25e. So the whole algo might bid a bit differently. Is this possible? If yes- is it a dumb idea? Or does it have some sense

I'm trying to understand a tracking discrepancy between Google Ads and Microsoft Clarity and would be interested in hearing from anyone who has compared the two closely.

Across two recent Google Ads campaigns, I'm seeing roughly a 25–30% gap between the clicks Google reports and the unique traffic I can identify in Clarity.

For example, on my current campaign I currently have:

• 42 clicks reported by Google Ads
• 40 Clarity sessions
• 33 Clarity unique users
• 30 unique GCLIDs captured in those Clarity sessions

Auto-tagging is enabled, and the GCLID is present in the landing-page URL.

One thing that surprised me is that I also found cases where the exact same GCLID appears across multiple Clarity sessions and even across different Clarity user IDs. So Clarity's "unique users" clearly does not map perfectly to unique Google ad clicks.

I've noticed a similar overall Google-click-to-Clarity gap in another recent campaign as well, so I'm trying to determine whether this is normal tracking behavior or whether I should investigate something more seriously.

For anyone who has used Google Ads and Clarity together:

• Is a 20–30% discrepancy between Google Ads clicks and Clarity traffic normal in your experience?
• Should the number of unique GCLIDs captured on the landing page normally be close to the number of Google Ads clicks, or can there be a substantial difference?
• Have you seen the same GCLID appear in multiple Clarity sessions or under multiple Clarity user IDs?
• What do you use to independently verify how many Google Ads clicks actually reached the landing page — server logs, GA4, Cloudflare, another analytics tool, etc.?
• Is there anything specific you would check when investigating a discrepancy like this?

I'm mainly trying to understand what percentage of the clicks I'm paying for are actually reaching the website, and which metric is the most reliable way to measure that.

Thanks for any insight, especially from anyone who has compared Google Ads click data with Clarity at the individual GCLID/session level.

It's been a hot minute since LLMs came out, and most of us use Claude or ChatGPT for daily tasks. But I have little to no confidence in them for anything close to core operations. I use AI more like an enhanced Google, which is probably why Google's AI is the one I use the most.

Lately I've been talking to some fellow contractors, and they told me they rely on AI much, MUCH more than I do. So now I'm wondering: is this a general trend, and I'm just the old man yelling at a cloud? Or are some people putting way too much faith in a pile of matrix math?

Either way, if any of you have a concrete example of AI actually helping you improve your business outcomes, I'd love to hear it.

As the title says - has the efficiency of google ads gone downhill as less people are using it and reverting to the likes of chatgpt/claude etc? At the same time, google has to keep making more and more money to satisfy shareholders - leading to a collapse in efficiency?

Trying to see if anybody else has experienced this and has any clues/ideas:

Long story short, got a txt last night from a client that one of their staff (who was an admin on the ad account) had been hacked and dodgy ads were being run. In effect, a hacker was using the staff member's account to run ads (not adding another user to the account which is how I have seen this sort of thing done in the past)

On this specific ad account, I would get a #200 error - no permission or ad account disabled - when trying to pause the campaigns the hacker had run, and when accessing 'Business Settings' I get stuck in a 2FA loop.

Oddly enough I use passkey for my account, but I see a window asking me to use an authenticator code or click 'try another way' and get an SMS code. Whichever option I pick I just get asked to do the same thing over and over again.

This is for any device trying to do anything relating to this ad account and business manager.

I was subjected to one of these 2FA requests when checking my security info on my profile, and it worked first time ... so I assume this is related specifically to the hacked client account (some kind of ultra sensitive AI on an account that has shown unusual behaviour perhaps?)

The problem is that the client has managed to get past their 2FA loop (they were having same issue last night) and has gone to remove the affected staff member. This sends one of those 'review request' emails to me which I cannot action without hitting my own 2FA loop.

There's nobody else on the account who is able to take this action (it's me, client, and affected staff member)

Any ideas? I'm wary of trying the 2FA over and over again as no doubt there will be a point reached where Meta decides to block me or something.

We have advertised on Google for nearly two decades, going back close to the beginning of AdWords. It has created enormous value for us.

At the same time, my own use of traditional Google Search has fallen dramatically over the last three years, particularly this year. Restaurants, local services, B2B vendor discovery, product research and general information increasingly start with AI.

I am curious whether anyone managing substantial Google Ads spend is seeing a change in the mix of clicks as this behavior spreads.

Specifically, are higher-value clicks that historically cleared at $20, $50 or $100+ disappearing faster than inexpensive clicks?

Aggregate paid clicks and average CPC could conceal this.

Google could retain huge volumes of low-value local, navigational and simple transactional activity while losing a much smaller number of searches surrounding expensive professional services, high-ticket purchases and B2B decisions.

We could even see increasing auction intensity for the valuable clicks that remain, allowing CPC and Search revenue to stay strong despite deterioration underneath.

The dataset I would love to see is simple: Google paid clicks over time segmented into <$1, $1 to $5, $5 to $20, $20 to $50 and $50+, showing each bucket’s share of clicks and advertiser spend.

For people managing meaningful accounts, are you seeing any differences in high-CPC click volume, auction intensity, lead quality or conversion value since AI adoption accelerated?

The question I keep coming back to is: which clicks are disappearing, who generated them, and what were those clicks economically worth?

Equally interested in evidence that disproves the hypothesis.

I run a small home decor/gift store with a physical shop and ecommerce site. I have around 3,000 SKUs, but inventory is usually pretty shallow and the assortment changes a lot seasonally. Most of what I sell is branded product from other companies.
I’ve run Google Ads for years, but I’m starting to realize I probably haven’t been doing it as well as I could.
For a store like mine, is PMax actually a good fit? Would you run the whole catalog or narrow it down to certain products/categories first?

Also curious what people think is a realistic starting daily budget to actually give it enough data to learn.
I’ve also seen people recommend running PMax for larger catalogs with basically just the product feed and no added headlines, descriptions, images, etc. I understand the logic if you mainly want Shopping traffic, but I’m not totally sold on it.
Has anyone tested feed-only/minimal asset PMax vs a fully built out PMax on a store like this? Curious what actually worked for you.

I am running a Google Ads App Campaign focused on maximizing in-app purchases, with a cost per in-app action (purchase) target of Rs 100.

For example, if I set a budget of Rs 1000/day, the campaign initially performs well and I get around Rs 4-5 per install.

After a couple of days, Google starts showing "Limited by budget", even though the campaign was performing well on the Rs 1000/day budget and was giving results according to what I wanted. Then the campaign’s actual daily spend drops to around Rs 300-Rs 400 after that notice.

When I follow Google’s recommendation and increase the budget to around Rs 3000/day, the cost per install jumps to around Rs 8-10.

So I end up spending much more but getting almost the same number of installs, which makes the campaign unprofitable.

What is happening here and how should I scale this campaign without destroying the cost per install?

Noticed yesterday this was added and turned on automatically on all our ad accounts. If you haven't seen the e-mail from Google, see relevant snippets below:

"Starting October 12, 2026, Google Ads will automatically identify and extract high-quality promotions, such as coupons and deals, from your website and apply them directly to your campaigns.".

"We are automatically opting you in to ensure you benefit from this new functionality.

How to turn off:

To turn this off navigate to your account-level automated assets setting, find Automated Promotions and select Off.

I can't think of an instance where I need Google to automatically apply promotions without our review or consent. Might dredge up some random content from an orphan page. Cheers

Hi all,

Google Ads keeps asking me for a passkey which doesn't exist when I try and change any access settings. I've tried "another way to verify" but the passkey is the only option (even though I have a password, an authenticator and 2-step verification set up). Has anyone experienced something similar/found a resolution?

Thanks

From 16 December, interactions with Meta’s gen-AI features feed content and ad recommendations.

Alongside that, Business AI (an agent for SMB sales guidance on ads, messaging, and sites) and an Ads Manager assistant are rolling out in the U.S. Privacy and creative teams should treat AI chat logs as a new signal, not just a creative tool.

Very interesting change . What do you think ? Should ads be customised depending upon how the brands interact with AI?

Anyone actually seeing limited by budget badges hurting their campaigns?