If you’ve ever thought, “I’ll just set up my own Google Ads account this afternoon,” you’re not the only one. Google makes it sound super easy. Just create an account, answer a few questions, enter your payment details and you’re ready to go. And sometimes that works.

But sometimes… it doesn’t.

Most Google Ads account setups go smoothly. Every now and then, though, the platform throws up an unexpected issue that has nothing to do with your campaign or how it’s been set up. That’s exactly what happened to me recently.

When Google Ads doesn’t cooperate

I  was setting up a new Google Ads account for a client recently. I drafted the campaign so that was all ready to copy into the new account. Everything seemed to be going well until I reached the conversion goals section. Then the page simply kept loading. The only message I received was to wait while it loaded. It never did. I did a hard refresh of the page and that didn’t work. I cancelled the campaign creation and tried again. Same thing, nothing was appearing in the Goals section. Because of the way Google Ads is set up, I literally couldn’t move to the next step or complete the campaign setup.

I tried different browsers, different devices and different troubleshooting steps, but nothing worked. In the end, I had to contact a Google Ads consultant, who helped work around the issue so I could continue setting up the account. The campaign wasn’t the problem. Google’s platform was. It’s not me – it’s you, Google Ads!

Time you won’t get back

As someone who manages Google Ads regularly, I know who to contact and how to work through these situations. And even then, it is still a challenge and is really time consuming and very frustrating! Even after years of managing Google Ads, moments like this still test my patience. Thankfully, I’m persistent and I know where to go when I need help. This is time that I don’t charge my client for. It’s all included in my fixed setup fee because getting a campaign live is my responsibility.

Imagine you’re a business owner trying to do this yourself.  Instead of working in your business, you could easily lose those hours trying to solve a problem that has nothing to do with your business or your marketing strategy.

Google Ads is more than pressing “Publish”

People often think Google Ads management is simply choosing keywords and writing a few ads. In reality, there’s much more happening behind the scenes. There are account setup issues, advertiser verification, conversion tracking, billing, policy reviews, unexpected errors and platform changes that can appear without warning.
Most of the time, they can be resolved. The challenge is knowing where to look and who to contact.

Google Ads can look straightforward on the surface, but there are many layers behind a successful campaign. From campaign structure and targeting to exclusions, tracking and optimisation, it’s about much more than simply getting an ad online. Google will happily spend your budget either way. The goal is to spend it attracting relevant enquiries, not paying for clicks that never turn into customers.

Google Ads should help your business, not slow it down

No marketing platform is perfect. Google Ads has its moments, which can be frustrating. When you work with someone who manages Google Ads every day, it becomes their problem – not yours, to solve.

I spend my time solving the problems and optimising your Google Ads so you can spend your time running your business.

If you’re ready to take Google Ads off your to-do-list, get in touch.