Small business owner
Small business owner — spent ~$1,000, got zero leads I run a one-person personal training business and tried Google Ads on a lean budget. Over several months I spent close to $1,000 and did not receive a single lead. The problems weren't on my end: an unauthorized third party had installed fake conversion actions in my account, which trained the system on phantom data. An outsourced support rep then misconfigured a campaign and broke my conversion tracking. Dozens of "recommendations" were auto-applied without my consent, and there were repeated billing-profile errors. My actual click costs were strong (~$1.56/click) — the account setup was simply never functional enough to deliver a real inquiry. I'm currently disputing the spend. I'd urge other small businesses to be extremely cautious, monitor who has access to your account, and turn off auto-apply recommendations from day one.