AdWords Bullshit

 I’ve seen errors in Google Ads before. Surely you’ve noticed how the interface will say ‘this version of Google Ads is out of date, please refresh to get the latest version’. I assume that these near-continuous updates caused the errors in question, because they were typically minor and always disappeared without a trace, explanation or acknowledgment.

But some of the errors were significant enough to make me question my faith in the PPC gods. I remember looking over my campaign-level table for a date range in the past and seeing numbers in a column very clearly not add up to the purported total at the bottom. I looked and reloaded a few times, and got a coworker to come take a look too. My coworker confirmed that something was fishy, but when we reloaded again, the error was fixed, and all the numbers added up like they usually do. Is this in and of itself a big deal? No. But if the numbers we all rely on so heavily can be way off and then be retroactively changed, what’s to say the same can’t happen with the rest of our data? I refer to these instances as ‘AdWords bullshit’. If something doesn’t pass the smell test, take some screenshots or a video and check on it later. The problem will almost certainly have resolved, leaving behind no trace. You’ll be glad you documented it.