I have tried Google Ads a number of times with absolutely zero sales. Granted I didn’t pour thousands and thousands of dollars into it, but I did spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars - again, with ZERO SALES! Why would I want to waste thousands of dollars just to lose it all and get nothing in return? Who can afford to do that???
Topic summary
A user expresses frustration after spending hundreds of dollars on Google Ads without generating any sales, questioning why they should invest more when results have been zero.
Key challenges identified:
- Difficulty navigating analytics and technical tools without IT expertise
- Cannot afford to hire professionals without existing revenue
- Intense competition makes it nearly impossible for small businesses to compete against larger advertisers with bigger budgets
Advice offered:
- Set up advanced standard shopping campaigns for better control
- Improve product feed quality to increase rankings and lower cost-per-click
- Consider that high competition for identical products limits visibility opportunities
Alternative approach suggested:
Focus on organic search optimization instead, though this requires approximately 2 years of sustained effort to gain traction.
The discussion remains unresolved, with the original poster deciding not to invest further in Google Ads until the platform becomes more accessible for smaller budgets.
1 Like
Hello Nobudgetleft, great question and sorry to hear you have wasted your investment.
Advertising is very difficult, and this is for everyone, there is no magic wand. So what you need to do depends on what you are selling.
For example if you are selling branded products, then setting up an advanced standard shopping campaign is a great start, have a look at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiRIDzRrHno
You could also use this campaign if you are selling generic products, so you have more control, but it’s a lot of work to maintain this.
I recommend to also improve your data feed quality, as this will increase your ranking and lower your CPC, follow the requirements and recommendations here: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/7052112
It’s also very important what you sell. For example if you are selling something where thousands of other merchants are selling the same exact thing, then think about it logically. The first page has x amount of products that can be listed. If you have thousands of merchants, all competing for the first page, that is impossible to have all thousands of merchants to get listed. There is only space for so many.
Thanks for the reply and the tips. I’ll check those out. Part of the
reason Google Ads have been a waste of money for me is, although I’m not a
stupid person, I’m not an IT expert either. A lot of the analytics and
other features/tools are simply too hard to follow or make use of. Hiring
someone to do it for me is also not feasible when you have no sales yet,
thus no money to work with.
Your last point about all the competition online these days is the main
reason why Google Ads are a waste of money for most of us “little guys”. It
seems like you have to have a huge advertising budget to have any chance of
competing for the best keywords with the big dogs. Until Google makes it
fair for all budgets, I won’t waste another penny.
It’s indeed horible, the costs for Google shopping 15 years ago, was so cheap. Now you have to pay a lot.
I recommend you focus on organic side of things, but please note, this is a lot of hard work, and it take 2 years of effort to get any traction.
So that in itself is also costly.
I hope you succeed in the future.