Google Ads cannot fix every problem.
That might sound like a strange thing to say coming from a Google Ads coach who has built a career helping you solve your Google Ads challenges, but transparency matters. As proud as I am of my record helping more than 350 businesses across more than a 1,000 Google Ads coaching calls achieve better results from Google Ads—I think my five-star reviews on Google and my reputation in the industry speak for themselves—I do want to be clear that even I have not been able to help every single person who comes to me achieve their goals with Google Ads.
For today's episode, I want to share three specific examples of Google Ads coaching clients who I was not able to help solve their problems.
And I'm doing this so that you can understand what went wrong, what red flags to look out for, and whether you might have some unrealistic expectations about what Google Ads can achieve.
I'm your host Jyll Saskin Gales. I spent six years working for big brands at Google and now I work for you.
This is Inside Google Ads, Episode 146: Google Ads failures.
For my first example, this is a client who, we had three Google Ads coaching calls together. Really smart, really nice guy, works in-house at a company that is lead generation, B2C in a sensitive interest category. And I have helped many businesses in this category succeed. So I was really excited to start working together.
When he came to me, he was using manual bidding. He tried to use Smart bidding, but there was this issue. Although he understood the importance of Offline Conversion Tracking, the company he worked for was unwilling to implement a system that would allow for Offline Conversion Tracking. And what that means practically is the only conversions he could see in Google Ads were raw leads like form fills or phone calls, and a lot of those were things like job seekers.
And so although we tried some tactics to fight that, which I've spoken about on this podcast before - for example, implementing different things in the form, so if someone was a job seeker, they could pull that from the drop-down and then it wouldn't count as a conversion - tried that, didn't help. Or using audiences to just exclude people in-market for jobs, tried that, also didn't help. And to be fair, that also excludes a lot of people who would potentially be target customers as well.
And so what I said to him is, "Look, these are all band-aid-on-top solutions, but at the end of the day, we need a way to tell Google who is a qualified lead and who is not so that Smart bidding can bid towards qualified leads."
We did work through a lot of other things in the account over three coaching calls, but I was very clear with him after call one, and I said, "If you can't get Offline Conversion Tracking in place, there's not much more I can do to help you."
A little bit after our third call I received this email from the client. He said, "Thank you for your help, but since we cannot send valid conversion data back to Google, and my company does not want to switch to a tool that can do this, I am stuck with manual bidding. I know you did offer great insights and I'm glad I reached out. Will be listening to you :)”
So, thank you to this client, and I wanted to share this as an example. There's only so much we can do. If you don't build the foundation, then building a house on top is going to crumble, right? And he knew that, and I knew that. And unfortunately, it's something we were not able to overcome. So, I wasn't able to help them much beyond that.
For a second example, this is a Google Ads coaching client who came to me. He runs an e-commerce business also in a sensitive interest category. And when he came to me, he had been through a lot of agencies. No one was able to achieve the results he wanted, which is a seven ROAS. I didn't even need to check my notes before recording because it is burned in my brain that he wanted to achieve a seven ROAS.
And from the very first call where, you know, I looked at the account history with him, went through what was going on, I said, "Look, you have not achieved a seven ROAS in any kind of recent memory. I don't know that that's a realistic goal to achieve. So, if that's how you're going to measure success, I'm telling you right now, I don't know if I can help you get there."
And this guy, he's so friendly. I really like him personally. He was like, "Of course you can, Jyll. You're amazing." You know, he loved telling me how amazing I was and how special I was and how much he believed in me.
And I would repeat every single call (we had dozens of calls together over months), "Love that you believe in me so much. Please listen to my words. I do not think we can hit a seven ROAS."
"Of course you can."
Anyway, we started working together. The strategy that he had before that had not gotten the results he wanted was a lot of duplication. There was Performance Max, and there was Standard Shopping, and there was Search. And so I recommended, "Let's try something totally different to see if it can help.”
We started with some Standard Shopping and some Search campaigns and really focused on a narrow group of SKUs. And as we got going, you know, we have to give it some time. We have to be patient. It was a bit of the off-season, but still, never mind a seven ROAS, we were lucky if we hit like two, maybe three. It was just not working.
And a lot of signs pointed to the issue potentially being the website, because the click-through rate would be really good. The queries were all the exact queries he wanted, and they just weren't converting well. And he's like, "No, I've been through the website before," and eventually he did go to a conversion rate specialist. But I agreed with him like there was just something else going on that was not working here.
And so again, I said multiple times, I was like, "Look, I love meeting with you. I love working with you. Seven ROAS is not going to happen. The closest you got was about a five with this agency you worked with last year. Why don't you rehire this agency?"
"No, no, no, I don't want to do that. I won't do that."
Okay, fine. And so eventually, this relationship did come to an end because what happened was we met regularly and I broke a business boundary, which anytime I do that, I regret it.
I'm going to share with you what I did. Do not ask me to do this for you. I'm not going to do it for you. But what I did for this client because I liked him so much and we met so regularly is I got access to his Google Ads account.
And so usually on a Google Ads coaching call, I do not have access to your account. You share your screen with me, you drive, I guide you. We were meeting so frequently and he was getting so overwhelmed that I offered to have access to the account so I could take the reins and I would be the one implementing the changes we were discussing on a call.
And I think what happened because of that is he got the impression, even though I was very clear, that I was somehow managing his ads for him. I was not managing his ads for him. I do not do that for anyone. But we'd meet weekly and I'd make suggestions, and then we'd come back a week later and he'd say, "Okay, Jyll, what are we talking about?"
And I'm like, "Buddy, this is your business. I'm just here to consult."
He wasn't looking at the Google Ads at all. He thought that just because he was meeting with me regularly and I had access to the account that I was magically going to do things. Whereas I was very clear, "No, we have our coaching calls and on our call, sure, we’re looking at your account together. Otherwise, it's your business. It's your Google Ads. It's your investment."
So, he needed someone to manage the ads for him, when it finally sunk in for him that I was not actually doing ads management, which again, I was clear I was never going to do for him. And I couldn't refer him to anyone in my network. And I think that really hurt his feelings. And I do feel bad about that. But I knew he had completely unrealistic expectations about what Google Ads could achieve for him. He had churned through a whole bunch of agencies and freelancers before working with me. I was not going to then refer him on to someone I like and trust in the industry knowing he was probably just going to churn through them as well when they weren't able to hit a seven ROAS either.
So I told him, "I'm really sorry. I can't in good conscience refer you to someone I know for Google Ads management because they're not going to be able to get you that seven ROAS either, and you're going to churn and burn through them, and I'm not going to do that to my network."
So, we parted ways. I felt really disappointed about how that turned out. Partly because I really liked him personally and partly because I think I made a mistake in that relationship by breaking my boundary, by giving myself access to his account. I thought that doing that would be helpful to him. But in the end, I think that was even more detrimental to the relationship and to the results he needed to achieve.
So in this example, our working relationship did not work out and I was not able to help him because he had unrealistic expectations. He had never achieved seven ROAS in recent times. He would only be happy if he had a seven ROAS. I was very clear every single week that we were not getting to a seven ROAS and he didn't want to believe it. So that was that, unfortunately.
All right, this next one: a little bit wild. Final story for today. And it's funny, I went back to kind of check my facts before recording this episode and I saw the contact form when this person first reached out to me. Oh my goodness, it should have been a red flag. So, here it is. It's on screen for those who are watching.
They said, "I need help with my PPC campaigns. Too much money invested to pay for help that turned into no profit. Just scammed out of my money for years."
The irony, because this person ended up scamming me.
But anyway, we went back and forth a few times. He did book a call with me. We got on the call and right away, I could see there was no conversion tracking in place at all and he was using manual bidding. And look, if you have ever paid attention to any of my content—my newsletter, my LinkedIn posts, speaking at conferences, this podcast, anything—you know I'm an advocate for Smart bidding. And so he knew that before booking the call with me. And he didn't have conversion tracking in place.
What I did, which I do occasionally when it makes sense, I said, "Look, I know you booked the full hour with me. We are 15 minutes into this call right now. There's not much more I can do for you without conversion tracking. So why don't we pause the call here? I can refer you to someone who can help you get conversion tracking set up or you can set it up on your own and then reach out to me when you have conversion tracking and we can have the remaining 45 minutes of our call together."
And for reference, I've probably done this with clients 15 to 20 times, okay, over the last five, six years. If someone doesn't have conversion tracking in place, I don't want to waste their whole hour with advice that's not going to be helpful.
Anyway, I sent him away, sent him a referral. He did not want to pay the rates of the person I referred him to. Fair. But then he also was not willing to implement it himself, but he wanted to just hop back on the call together and see what we can do.
And so I said to him again, "Look, without conversion tracking, there's not much more we can do. We're looking at your search terms. We're looking at your CPCs. We're looking at your ad copy. We don't know if any of it's working. All you can do is manual bid. But sure, let's hop back on the call together."
And then he ghosted me and filed a chargeback.
And for those who don't know what a chargeback means, basically he told his credit card provider that the charge that he paid for the coaching call with me was fraud, which is absolutely wild! Again, he just scammed me after complaining that he had been scammed out of his money getting help before!
You know, fighting chargebacks is a huge challenge. I just let it go. I wanted this guy out of my life. So that is the third example where I wasn't able to help him. He was unwilling to implement conversion tracking. And then as I said in the first example today, what are you supposed to do in Google Ads if Google Ads has no idea and you have no idea what's working and what's not?
My takeaway from this third situation is that I'm going to keep doing what I do. If someone doesn't have conversion tracking in place and there's an opportunity for them to do that, I like continuing to make some exceptions, letting people pause the call and come back later when they have things in place. Because I've done that, as I mentioned, for many other clients and it's worked out very well. They're so grateful that when they're using this time they paid for with me, we can use most of that time productively with conversion tracking in place.
So, in this instance, I'm not letting one bad apple spoil the bunch, but it is a good warning sign for me that if someone first reaches out to me and mentions they've been scammed in the past, while it's absolutely possible that they have been scammed in the past, there are bad actors in this industry and I need to approach those ones with a bit more caution.
Live and learn.
So, what's the common thread across all three of these Google Ads coaching client situations where Google Ads didn't work out?
Google Ads is an amplifier.
If you already have product market fit and a solid offer and realistic expectations, then paid traffic can scale your revenue efficiently. But if that foundation underneath is not solid, if your expectations are not aligned with reality, ads won't fix that. They will just amplify that shaky foundation.
If you reach out to me before booking a call, share a bit of context about your business, and I don't think I'll be able to help you, then I'll tell you not to book a call with me. And I've done that before. I've had some people reach out to me for help with app campaigns, and app campaigns are not my specialty. So, I say, "Look, I'll help you as best I can, but app campaigns are not my specialty. You might not want to book a call with me."
Or someone else reached out to me recently. I won't give away the total specifics of their business, but they wanted to sell a $30 ticket to something. And what I wrote to them was, "While it's absolutely possible that Google Ads could work for your business, I can't guarantee that they would be cost-effective for you. $30 doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room, and it could take months of experimentation and effort to make this work or to find out that it doesn't work. Usually, success with Google Ads depends more on your website and whether the offer resonates with your target audience rather than the ads themselves. You are welcome to book a call with me to explore this further, but I do want to be fully candid that the only way to know whether Google Ads can work for your business is to run Google Ads for your business, and I cannot guarantee results."
That's what I actually wrote to them, and they wrote back to me with a follow-up question.
And then what I said back is this: "In full honesty, if I were in your shoes, I probably would not spend my own money on Google Ads for this business. I think that organic marketing strategies and possibly Meta ads, given that you have an Instagram and Facebook page already, are more likely to produce results than Google Ads. I would love to be proven wrong, but at this time, that's my professional opinion."
I'm not sharing these stories or writing emails like that to discourage you from running Google Ads. I love Google Ads! It's because I believe you deserve honest advice before spending your hard-earned budget on ads or on advice from someone to help you with those ads.
If you're looking at your Google Ads account and you're not sure whether you're dealing with a fixable problem or one of these core foundational ones, that's exactly what we can figure out in a one-on-one Google Ads coaching call together. We'll look at the data, figure out what's happening, and if Google Ads is not the right fit for you or is not going to work within the parameters you need, I'll be the first person to tell you that.
You can book a call with me via my website, jyll.ca. That's J-Y-L-L dot C-A.
And while you're there, you can also peruse the dozens and dozens of excellent reviews of all the people I have been able to help.
And for more success stories about how we've been able to make Google Ads work, you can check out my free Google Ads newsletter, The Insider, at free.jyll.ca. That's free dot J-Y-L-L dot C-A.
I'm Jyll Saskin Gales and I'll see you next time inside Google Ads.