Pamela Lund on Twitter described this scenario perfectly: “this is a nightmare come true. I cannot imagine waking up to find that in an account. That kind of spend in 1 day with only fake conversions could easily put a client out of business and into bankruptcy.”. Despite the fact that a Google Ads customer had their daily spend set to a maximum $500 per day budget, Google spent $225,000 (two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars) in one day.
Here are the particulars of David Konigsberg’s account being charged $225,000 in one day:
Target CPA $800.00
Conversions 282.00
Cost/Conversion $800.00
Ad Group Type Display
Clicks 10,988
Impressions 1,151,265
CTR 0.95%
Average CPC $20.53
Cost $225,600.00
That’s apparently for one day, one ad group, despite the fact that Mr. Konigsberg had the daily budget set to $500.00 per day. Mr. Konigsberg went on to show that he had set the daily budget to $500 per day.
As Tony Wright from Wright IMC said, it’s time to “lawyer up on this one. Not just for you but for everyone.” It’s actually good advice, as this particular situation should never ever happen, and Google should not be allowed to charge that much, especially when the budget is set to a maximum of $500 per day.
See the discussion on Twitter.