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AdWords Reviews Summary
The company's reputation is marred by significant customer dissatisfaction, primarily due to frustrating experiences with its advertising platform. Many users report complications in ad setup, ineffective campaigns, and a lack of transparency regarding costs and results. Customer service is frequently criticized for being unresponsive and scripted, leading to unresolved issues and a sense of abandonment. While some customers acknowledge that ads can be effective when functioning properly, the overwhelming sentiment is one of frustration and disillusionment, prompting many to seek alternatives to the service. Overall, the company faces a substantial challenge in restoring trust and improving user experience.
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Worse customer service ever, they are digging their own grave by offering zero customer service. They refuse to refund hundreds of dollars billed as a result of an unauthorized access to a long-time paying customer account. A hacker created a campaign that sent traffic to a porn website, they won't reason or offer any kind of help whatsoever. Stay away, their ads don't convert as they used to anyways.
Google has not provided me any support with my ad words. I have only received calls from actual wrong numbers and they are costing me about $62 a call. Total robbery. No one from Google will call me or even respond to my emails.
I never ever leave a bad review even for the WORST service! I am infuriated to say the very least. I set up a Google ads campaign back in November for what I had thought was a one time deal. Come to find out that I have been being charged an average $90 every single month since then An ad that I ran for the holidays. Absolutely insane! I Would never ever recommend Google ads. Calling them first thing in the morning to complain and get my ad removed. They make it impossible to cancel or remove your campaigns. I have been on Google ads over an hour trying to remove my ad that was placed over six months ago that should have ended after 30 days. Beyond PISSED that I did not realize this sooner. Plus they don't even send an invoice. They just keep it hidden in your google account. You Would never see the invoice if you did not go to your google account. Why the world would I go to google when I didn't think I'm running an ad. Noticed money missing in the bank and that is how I found out. Went to my Google account and sure enough they are still running an ad from November! Is this real?!
I have been using adwords for 12 years now I think. It used to work, but Google have got too greedy and now it is over complicated, slow, ineffective and too expensive. Diabolical customer support, wrapped up in that cheesy useless nice tone, with a 'is there anything else we can help you with'
Shame, it was so good for so many years.
AdWords seems to be scrambling for a quick cash grab - IT IS ALSO RIPPING ME OFF - I set my campaign to $20 a day, it regularly spent $50 per day! I set my MAX COST PER CLICK TO $4.50 - It has been charging me $9 - $17 PER CLICK - Seems Google has lost control of it's main advertising!
I used AdWords for about 6 months straight to promote teacher trainings I was leading in Costa Rica and California, USA. I spent THOUSANDS which not only yielded ZERO results, but when I cancelled my ad campaign due to events already started/concluded--they kept my ads running! When I realized I was still being charged is when the real nightmare began. The main page overview clearly showed that I had cancelled the ad. However, there was a backpage tucked away and not obvious to the eye that I had to scramble to find (WHY was this not on the overview page next to ALL ads?) which had an ad running. When I called customer service (after long holds) I dealt with RAJ who explained I still had this ad running. I was very upset as clearly, there was no need for this ad since the dates of advertisement were clearly expired. Regardless, they took my money. I was furious and went through step by step with RAJ to make sure ALL ads and payment data was deleted so I would never have to deal with them again. Next month--they frantically want to speak with me and won't stop calling and emailing me about my non-existent account. When I finally made time in my very over-extended schedule, they communed that I STILL owe them money. I explained over and over again to the point of fury but no one there cares or is listening. They just repeat over and over again what they are after. It is all to the point of harrassment and I have saved all of the emails. It is an egregious way... a shameful way to conduct business to take money wrongfully from small business owners who are struggling to get by. I will never use AdWords again.
Wide quality/price disparities between the online retailers from whom I purchase and the abysmal sites that appear on my screen (WaPo, New Yorker, NYTimes, etc) thanks to Google - clothing manufacturers exposed as fraudulent and "rip-offs" by British media are repeatedly "sold" to me by USA Google ad services. I can go in "reader mode" and eliminate all ad exposure BUT I do purchase from new ad resources (Embr, Flamingo, etc. got my business thanks to ads).
I have my account block, every time I call the support they say to call at business hours.
I´m calling at business hours. Their services don´t talk together, so Google admin does interfere. It is not business is just caos.
I had cancelled a campaign but because you don't get a confirmation. I later got an email regarding insights which made me realise it was running after I had already cancelled it. Customer service SUCKS - they read off a script and when I told them to elevate it they told me it would be the same thing. I got given credit at the start of my campaign but they said my ad had magically used that already and more. Waste of money - absolute thieves
I ran the campaign for few weeks without any success on my end. Once I found it on my phone clicked on it and it was about to dial some strange phone number. Emailed my the person from google who helped me set it up but he didn't respond. So after spending hundreds of dollars and not receiving one phone call or one email I'm done.
Tell me I'm being too paranoid. Because even if I'm wrong, Google Adwords should not be this clunky and difficult to use. On March 1 I tried to enable an ad campaign - just a cheap one to use as a test to see how it would go. But Google paused my campaign and sent me an email saying all my ads were paused. On March 21 Google sent another email saying that they were enabling customer support so that my ads would work for me. That same week my SEO dropped 40% and my click rate dropped 50%. And my ad was apparently enabled. At the end of the month I got an unexpected bill for the total ad campaign. And here I am sitting with a bill, an ad campaign that seems to have ruined my website's traffic, and I think Google did it on purpose. I think they want me to try to buy my way out of the problem they created. It's just too weird that my site tanked the same week they started to 'help' me.
Let me start by the 4,000 Keywords that were on my campaigns that I had no idea about. I was wondering why I would load my account and boom before the end of the day my balance would be at $0.00. The best part was I could not remove them and The call center in India could not either! They removed some of them and the rest they changed to inactive. So I start from scratch! I ran what I thought was a search engine ad with photos, turns out it was a display ad instead. I spent $300.00 to learn that I was running the Display ad instead of Search Engine ad. Topped off with Google could not even give 1 name of a Website my ad was on. Yep that's right they can only say it was on someone's website and not tell me who's website it was on, no proof. Finally $300 later support told me I was running the wrong ad.
If you have no need to ever contact support, you're fine. If you have to do anything, even as simple as getting an email changed through support, it is a miserable experience. I have tried via phone calls, emails and the chat function to get our billing email changed. I have been in contact with them via chat alone for over 6 hours in the last week. Every time they promise that it's a priority and that they'll get back to me that day, or within 24 hours. They haven't called or emailed once in over 2 weeks. You can never talk to the same person in the call center, never are allowed to speak to a supervisor and they are very unhelpful. The one thing they excel at, having the worst customer service of any company I've ever dealt with, worse than any phone company, cable company, any company. If you have any choice in your advertising, run far away from adwords.
Long ago... before 2009 Google ads was effective. I made money using G ads for almost a decade. Took a break and started back up again recently. It turns out, G ads has become a huge time and money suck! It is complicated, messy and brings in next to nothing. After spending thousands and getting next to nothing to show for it, I finally called it quits. Maybe, like yellow pages, Google ads has seen it's hay day and are now defunct.
Google ads is so expensive and ineffective that it may be the downfall of thousands, if not millions, of unwary small business dreamers on small budgets. Find another advertising medium.
Whoever directs or oversees Google Ads support and account management should be ashamed. Poorly trained reps at the 1-866 number, and the account managers are not much better.
How does a company of this stature not address this problem?
Over and over getting disapproved because - destination not working. However when calling being told over and over it's fine and will restart, then minutes later getting another notice of disapproval. The Indian call centre is useless. They might as well not be there. Quite often put on hold for over ten mins while they "look at my account?"
I use Adwords successfully, but have struggled for over 2 weeks to find out why a lot of my ads have been disapproved. All I can get (after 2 weeks of chasing) is the same copy & paste irrelevant paragraph(s) from the website. Having spent a mint on it over the past few years, I'm appalled. I've now complained twice.
It seems as though they make it confusing on purpose. The only thing that's easy is making your budget bigger. Also, they like to not charge you until it's a $500 charge. I've put $1,000 (not to mention the time spent on it) into it and received 1 phone call for something that I don't even do.
I asked for a refund or at least a partial one for all this wasted money and they hung up on me. Terrible
AdWords is very good at taking your money, with providing no new business from with them for over a one month period, the advertising with them useless unless you spend very large dollar amounts. Their customer service stinks big-time. I will never deal with them again. A huge waste of time and of money!
Ad words changed their interface. This somehow changed our $30/day advertising limit w/o our knowlege. After advertising for 7 years at about $300/month, adwords ran our card over $2,000 in a very short time. They refuse to refund it and take no responsibility. I believe a class action lawsuit is in order. They make their system incredibly hard to use for a small business who is not in advertising. We had it set as we wanted it FOR 7 YEARS! Then they changed the system, and are billing us more than we spend all year, in a few weeks. They will not return the $ and say there is no one we can call for help. This "commuity feedbck" thinkg is total BS. This comp[any needs reps you can call, and. Department who advocates for their clients. WE WILL NEVER USE GOOGLE ADS AGAIN. HORRIBLE PEOPLE. M
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- Sitejabber’s sole mission is to increase online transparency for buyers and businesses
- Sitejabber has helped over 200M buyers make better purchasing decisions online
- Suspicious reviews are flagged by our algorithms, moderators, and community members