If you’re currently using the Google Ads platform to run ads, read this urgent message:
Due to a recent budget pacing update, Google Ads has been extremely volatile this month.
It’s as if Google is completely ignoring Target CPA bids. 😳
Campaigns are spontaneously going rogue and blowing through money at a significantly higher than usual CPL – even those that have been stable for many months.
It’s happening across numerous accounts (but not all – at least not yet).
If your campaigns are going rogue as we speak, try this mitigation technique:
- Cut your Target CPA bids in half
- Set the campaigns’ daily budgets like this: Target CPA bid x 20 x number of ad groups.
- Allow the campaigns to crash down and stop spending by keeping the bid low.
We call this a controlled crash, and it’s much easier to scale back up from than an uncontrolled one (where your campaigns crash because the CPL suddenly becomes much higher than your typical bid). - Slowly start increasing the bids along with the daily budget every 24 hours (following the same formula), and treat the campaigns like they’re brand new until you scale them back up to the previous spend.
And keep a close eye on the campaigns, because what’s happening is quite strange and unusual.
You may have to decrease the bids again a couple more times if the campaigns start spending money quickly while seemingly disregarding your bids.
How To Know The Issue Is Fixed
You’ll know you’re on the right track once the campaigns enter correction mode and start generating conversions more efficiently than usual.
At that point, make sure to increase the bids daily (or less frequently if the spend is consistent or naturally increases) until you reach your target.
Depending on your funnel (particularly the conversion window for the action you’re optimizing for and the type of conversion), the resolution may take days or even weeks.
The alternative is a 2X higher CPL at high spend, leading to an uncontrolled crash. And then a much longer correction period, which means throttled spend and not scaling after wasted ad spend at scale.
Unfortunately, these things happen sometimes, but we’ll manage as usual.
Good luck out there! 🤝
– Vlad
