Google Ads
Driving targeted website traffic from search queries, retargeting website visitors with display ads, promoting video content or product demos on YouTube
It's a powerful demand-capture tool, but you need a clear offer, a well-designed landing page, and a testing budget to find what works.
Building organic brand presence without ongoing spend, businesses with very niche/local audiences and limited budget
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FIRST-HAND READS
What people reported, in their own words. Every line links to where it was said.
“I did a small test with Google ads, but it was a disaster, with every click costing around $1, which would most likely lose me money with every purchase”
NEGATIVE · price · Hacker News · 2026-06-15
“Google ads where genuinely good and helpful to me. If you needed to buy something, and you didn't know who sold it or what it was called, the Google ad engine would yield better results than their search.”
MIXED · performance · Hacker News · 2026-05-21
“The service still doesn't show up on google with relevant search terms”
NEGATIVE · performance · Hacker News · 2026-04-29
“I'm glad to be rid of Google Ads, as they're full of many, many scammy advertisers.”
NEGATIVE · Hacker News · 2026-04-07
“my Google Ads account got permanently banned because I made the mistake of clicking on my own ad”
NEGATIVE · reliability · Hacker News · 2026-04-07
“Consent Mode v2 enforcement keeps breaking Google Ads attribution in silent ways, GA4 shows data, Ads conversions vanish, modeling fails”
NEGATIVE · reliability · Hacker News · 2026-02-24
“Google Ads, especially Google Maps, has tons of paid ads for local restaurants”
NEGATIVE · features · Hacker News · 2026-02-18
“Google Ads optimizes on what it can see. A form fill. A phone call. But it has no idea what happens after that. Did the lead actually show up? Did they have budget? Did they sign a contract? So the algorithm just keeps finding more people who fill out forms. Some of those people are great. A lot of them are garbage. And you're paying the same cost per click either way.”
NEGATIVE · performance · Hacker News · 2026-02-17
“I wasted about $500 on Google Ads trying to gather initial users, but it failed miserably with a near 100% bounce rate”
NEGATIVE · performance · Hacker News · 2026-01-16
“I hated when needed to see Google reports for ads. And be in a rush for SEO. This was a game of rats, no real knowledge, just attempts to satisfy an Algorithm that changed on weekly base. I quit Facebook / Instagram / Google ads 6 years ago. Why? Because my advertisement was feeding the system on who show concurrent advertisement, collecting habits of MY customers.”
NEGATIVE · Hacker News · 2025-12-30
“Google Ads started charging me $5 per click on low traffic search keywords this week”
NEGATIVE · price · Hacker News · 2025-12-29
“those generated texts sometimes were unprofessional / borderline ignorant. The worst thing is the impossibility to turn that junk generation off. It was the last time I seriously considered Google Ads because loosing control over sensitive narratives is more than uninspiring; it kills most of the benefits of advertisement for an advertiser.”
NEGATIVE · features · Hacker News · 2025-12-29
“dealing a lot with click fraud on Google Ads, and it's usually hard to detect it without special tools”
NEGATIVE · reliability · Hacker News · 2025-12-29
“Google ads have been dead for a long time. I found them hardly effective at all since maybe 2011.”
NEGATIVE · performance · Hacker News · 2025-12-29
“managed to get Google Ads suspended due to blocking Singapore”
NEGATIVE · Hacker News · 2025-10-17
“£300 might just not be enough budget to get enough volume for Google Ads to properly optimise or for you to even see consistent results”
LUKEWARM · performance · Reddit · 2025-05-19
“If you ever need support from Google, your campaign is cooked.”
NEGATIVE · support · Reddit · 2025-05-19
“Google's AI has gotten better over the years where it can pick up conversions that a seasoned media buyer can't always do”
MIXED · performance · Reddit · 2025-05-19
“C'est devenu extrêmement difficile de les rentabiliser. Sur ce type de comptes, j'ai de plus en plus tendance à rester en cpc manuel sur mots clés exacts (+mots clés négatifs ajoutés très fréquemment). Le passage en max conv fait flamber les CPC et les conversions supplémentaires ne compensent pas cette hausse (pour des comptes à petits budgets). Google compense manifestement sa perte de CA (du fait des moteurs IA) sur le dos des annonceurs”
NEGATIVE · performance · Reddit · 2025-05-19
“Je suis pareil avec les Google ads 😅 mais celui là me surprend moins que des gens cliquent”
NEGATIVE · performance · Reddit · 2025-05-19
“Google ads completely turned to shit for me in the last year or so”
NEGATIVE · performance · Reddit · 2025-05-19
“I've tried Google Ads, but I could not figure out a way for that to be profitable.”
NEGATIVE · performance · Reddit · 2025-05-18
“Google Ads have been solid for reaching specifically targeted audiences”
POSITIVE · performance · Reddit · 2025-05-18
“Google Ads have been solid for reaching specifically targeted audiences.”
POSITIVE · performance · Reddit · 2025-05-18
“retargeting with **Meta/Google ads** has been a game changer”
POSITIVE · performance · Reddit · 2025-05-18
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