Google Ads shopping ads bug results in huge CPC increased; issue now resolved

Google has confirmed a bug with its Google Shopping Ads product where the cost per click (CPC) prices spiked from 50% to over 200% over the weekend. The issue happened last night, Friday, November 12th between 9pm EST (6pm PST) through this morning, Saturday, November 13th at 12am EST (3am PST).

Confirmation. Google confirmed the issue after 1pm EST today, November 13th on Twitter saying “The Google Ads system encountered an unexpected issue between 6pm PST on Friday Nov 12 – 3am PST Saturday, Nov 13 that affected Shopping Ads. We identified and fixed the issue. Everything is working as expected now.”

What’s next. It appears that if you were impacted, a Google Ads representative will be in touch with more details. Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison from Google wrote on Twitter “impacted advertisers will be notified with more details.” Of course, it doesn’t hurt for you to check your Google Ads reporting and see if you were impacted and then to proactively reach out to Google for help and refunds.

How bad was it. Well, look at this chart from one Google Ads advertser:

Why we care. If you have any Google shopping campaigns in Google Ads, you will want to check to ensure your ads were not impacted. If they were, make sure to reach out to Google for some sort of remedy so that you are not over-billed and your ad campaigns do not suffer in other ways.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry’s personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.

https://searchengineland.com/google-ads-shopping-ads-bug-results-in-huge-cpc-increased-issue-now-resolved-376023