Advertisers Beware: Google’s New Moves Can Cost You Double
Google's Record Revenue Number Comes with a Cost to Advertisers
In its latest earnings report, Alphabet (Google's parent company) announced an eye-popping $90.23 billion in revenue for Q1 2025, fueled largely by over 20% growth in advertising revenue (New York Times). While these results thrilled Wall Street, they also shine the light on an uncomfortable truth for the average business owner: Google Ads is increasingly engineered to maximize Google's revenue — often at the advertiser's expense. If you’ve noticed less control, more aggressive spending, and confusing targeting lately, you’re not alone. Let's break down the key changes hurting advertiser control.
Budget Overspend: Up to 100% Without Warning
Google’s budget policy allows campaigns to spend up to double your set daily budget on any given day. That means if you set a $100/day budget, Google can legally spend $200/day without notification or warning. While Google claims it will “balance” this spend over the course of the month, in practice, that doesn’t always happen — especially for small to mid-sized advertisers.
Loosened Geo-Targeting Settings
In recent years, Google adjusted location targeting defaults to target "people interested in" your targeted locations, not just people physically presents. This subtle but crucial change means:
Your ads may show to users outside your intended geographic area.
You may pay for impressions and clicks from users unlikely to convert.
Advertisers must now manually adjust settings to "Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations" to ensure tighter control — something Google does not proactively highlight. (Pink Paradigm also suggests excluding markets outside of your targeted area.)
The Rise of Automation Over Transparency
Newer campaign types like Performance Max and Demand Gen give Google nearly complete control over where ads appear, how budget is allocated, and even what audiences are targeted. While promoted as "simplifying" ad management, these campaigns:
Limit visibility into search terms and placements.
Restrict advertiser ability to opt-out of underperforming inventory.
Prioritize broader reach over precise relevance.
Translation? Advertisers lose oversight while Google optimizes primarily for its own revenue outcomes.
How Advertisers Can Protect Themselves
At Pink Paradigm, we believe preparation is salvation. Here’s how to defend your campaigns:
Set stricter geo-targeting settings manually exclude any regions not in your targeted area
Use automated rules to pause or adjust bids when daily spend creeps too high.
Avoid blind adoption of "smart" campaign types without clear performance objectives.
Leverage third-party scripts for independent spend monitoring and control.
Meet Spender Defender: Your Secret Weapon Against Overspend
In response to these growing challenges, Pink Paradigm created Spender Defender — a proprietary script that acts as your budget watchdog.
Spender Defender automatically:
Monitors real-time spend.
Pauses campaigns before they exceed your set thresholds.
Sends customizable alerts to keep you informed.
Free for all Pink Paradigm clients and available for standalone purchase, Spender Defender keeps you in control — no matter how aggressive Google’s revenue tactics become.
Google's latest financial success tells a larger story: advertisers are paying the price for a system increasingly skewed toward corporate profits. But knowledge, preparation, and the right tools can put power back in your hands. Need help auditing or protecting your ad account? Book a consultation with Pink Paradigm today — because good grows good, but only when your resources are protected.
