Hi all,First time posting here. Wanted to share my first experience venturing out on my own and the trouble I have had dealing with Google so far. Hoping for a resolution/suggestions if possible, but it will be therapeutic to rant anyway.About 3 months ago I decided to start up my first ever side hustle/solo venture. Nothing ground-breaking - just bulk ordering from Alibaba and then retailing online and fulfilling the orders myself (no drop shipping, because I don't believe it's sustainable thanks to FakeGurus online). I dedicated the time and built a nicely polished website with Wix, ordered the stock from China (400+ SKUs), and once everything arrived and was ready, I started advertising with GoogleAds.The initial numbers were better than I could have imagined. In my first week of sales I generated over £900 in revenue on a tiny £50/day ad budget. I was running at 85% gross margins, 40% net margins initially and was forecasting 20% net margins at scale (VAT kicks in when you get above £85k turnover here in the UK). Instead of just a side hustle, I thought this could actually become a full time job for me and double or triple my existing income if I scaled the ad budget and expanded into more product lines/stores.A GoogleAds rep reached out and wanted to help me optimise my ads and I accepted. We set up a new campaign and all was well. The ad campaign was performing.2 days later I received a suspension on my GoogleAds account for violations of their 'circumventing systems policy'. What? I did a bit of research and apparently this is one of the worst things you can do on GoogleAds, but my exact violation was unclear and the policy was very broad ranging from redirecting landing pages, to false advertising, to outright malware. I had a read and couldn't figure out what the hell my specific violation was.I submitted an appeal via the online form and was told to wait 5 days for a response. I also got in touch with my GoogleAds account manager and let her know - she responded telling me she had elevated the case to her manager and was in touch with the suspensions team.I waited patiently and let the process run. I thought this must be a mistake, my ads were clear, honest and my intentions pure - this problem would be fixed shortly and I would be back on my business journey.One week passed with no response so I politely followed up with my account manager. She assured me the case was being dealt with. I repeated this process, following up once per week for five weeks. Every time I was assured the feedback from the appeals team was just around the corner "Next week! Tomorrow, hopefully! Within 24hrs! Tomorrow morning!"Come the beginning of week 6 (last Monday) I was pissed - I had kept my cool until now, but after false promise after false promise I felt like I was being strung along. It's approaching November/December, obviously a critical time, I've got £3k of inventory burning a whole in my pocket and I'm not making any sales, and the support from Google is shocking.I start emailing every day now. Yesterday my account manager assured me that the final feedback would be available by this morning (26 October 2021) at the latest, so I wait. It gets to 1pm - nothing. I email my account manager for what must be the 20th time, "Jill, I haven't received any feedback this morning as promised and I am starting to lose faith in this process." Her response half an hour later is as follows:-"Thank you for your patience and understanding. Please be informed that we received feedback from the team in charge of the suspension and much to our regret that your account remains suspended. This is after a series of our efforts in trying to fix issues that also prolonged the feedback. I hope you understand that this is also a loss on our part."Huh? What kind of feedback is that? No reason for the suspension, no actionable steps in order to get my account back online - just a brick wall. What was the feedback you received????Has anyone else experienced this with Google? My research online told me this would be more of a back-and-forth process of amending whatever errors with my website/ad campaign (if any) were causing the account to be in violating of their ad policy and ultimately remove the suspension, but apparently not!I've been knocked down at the first hurdle, but I won't be staying down. I have some original photography in progress and my next step is to attempt organic and paid Facebook/Instagram marketing.I know running a business isn't supposed to be easy, but this just seems like a total joke from Google. They are a behemoth company and the support has been absolutely shocking so far. Feeling very deflated/angry at having lost out on 6 weeks of potential sales, but my feet are itching to get started again.If anyone has any troubleshooting tips, or suggestions for alternative ways to market going forward I am all ears. Looking forward to what the future has to hold and to be a part of this community.- Scott see hubwealthy.com/wealthy
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