summary You’re running Google Ads campaigns (likely using Target CPA bidding) that: - Have daily budgets around $33–$35. - Previously spent and got some conversions (e.g., a few conversions in the $11–$23 CPA range). - Then completely stalled out and stopped spending despite having budget available. - One ad group/campaign (“motivated search queries”) found a few good conversions, but after that Google stopped serving it. You suspect: - The Target CPA may be set too low or is constraining the system, so once it finds some cheap conversions and can’t find more at that price, it just stops showing. - You’re considering either removing Target CPA altogether (switching to a less constrained bidding strategy) or raising the Target CPA and waiting a few days to see if spending resumes. - You’re also feeling some urgency (“I need some leads now”), which makes you lean toward removing the Target CPA to get traffic flowing again. Your main questions 1. Why did the campaigns stall out and stop spending, even though the daily budget isn’t fully used? 2. Is your theory correct that Google found some cheap conversions, couldn’t find more at that CPA, and so it stopped serving? 3. What should you do now? Specifically: Should you remove the Target CPA and let the campaign run unconstrained? Or should you increase the Target CPA (e.g., to $40 or higher) and wait a few days? 4. If you were in this situation, what would you do to get leads coming in again without wrecking performance?

@Ian Henman Is it having one ad and then adding the different videos to that one ad up to a maximum of five, or is it okay just to simply duplicate that ad and have all the videos individually? example 1 Adgroup ad 1 - with 5 videos or Adgroup ad 1 ad 2 ad 3 etc I asked because if I wanted to include more than five videos, I can't, but that also begs the question of whether that's too many videos to include in one ad group. My thought process would be to include all the different avatars for my target audience, i.e., repairs, inherited, divorce, foreclosure, etc.

The majority of our clients have a lower budget. Spending $500 a day is way too much for them. Many times they're at $35 a day. Currently, I'll launch short and in-stream campaigns in a separate campaign at lower budgets to try and get one of them to start producing leads within 48 hours. What will end up happening is that one or two will produce leads, the other one I'll pause, and I'll continue the ones that do produce leads. Those tend to stay consistent. But this approach is a little bit haphazard and not consistent. So I'm curious to know what you think would be the best way to approach this. Here's what I was thinking about doing: Rather than segregating shorts and in-stream, I was going to go ahead and put them together in the same campaign to give a better opportunity for Google to find the right prospect. I have four different ad groups, each of them with the best audiences that have yielded conversions. Each ad group has one audience. Alternatively, I could create just one adgroup and stack the audiences. and perhaps another adgroup just broad. I'm not sure if having that many adgroup with a small budget is just too much vs. just having one adgroup, either broad or stacked. @Ian Henman

An update on a few things we're doing here Main topics covered: - Higher CPMs & Lower CTRs: Costs are climbing, especially in financial niches where messaging is restricted. - Device Targeting Adjustments: In some campaigns, disabling mobile and focusing on desktop + connected TVis maintaining CPAs—even if volume drops. - Phone Number Policy Issues: Ads with tracking numbers (CallRail, Twilio, GHL, etc.) can trigger policy flags—especially if the number’s history is poor. - Audience Targeting Updates: Testing mixed audience stacks (3–5 in-market/affinity segments + keyword custom segment + 5% lookalike of Google engaged audience) is currently outperforming pure broad targeting. - False Negatives in Ad Tests: Great ads can fail early due to randomization. Duplicating test campaigns (2–3 clones) often reveals winners hidden by bad test luck. - Ad Style That’s Working: Desktop/TV ads using AI avatars cut on green screen with clear offer overlays perform well. Google now auto-generates QR codes on Demand Gen conversion campaigns—use them. - AI Short-Form Content Strategy: Building 3–5 AI-generated short videos per day (100–150/month) across TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and IG to gather engagement data. Run small paid boosts to identify which hooks, styles, or avatars attract the right audience. - Evolving Funnel Approach: Moving toward a two-step system — first run short “educational/top-of-funnel” AI videos to build video-view audiences, then retarget those with conversion ads. This builds first-party data inside each platform, protecting against tracking and policy changes. - Community Update: Weekly live calls are paused. Members should post questions in the group; Ian will reply with Loom videos or detailed responses asynchronously. https://www.loom.com/share/0b83fef9a7704c618dc6d1edaf126a73