When Google Ads CPC jumps, start with what changed on your side in the last week, because that is the cause you can reverse. The five ranked causes are a Quality Score drop after an ad or landing page change, Search partners traffic that costs more than it returns, a new competitor in Auction insights, a bid strategy in Learning, and pressure across the whole market.
The four questions and five causes below are the same playbook the free campaign troubleshooter runs. Here each cause also names the PaidSync tool that checks it in your own account and the change you can preview before anything is applied.
Answer yes or no to each. Every cause below says which answer points to it.
Points here when you answer Yes to question 1.
Quality Score is built from expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience, so a new ad or a new landing page changes two of its three parts. Compare Quality Score and its parts before and after the change date. If they fell, restore the prior version, or run the old and new versions side by side and pause the old one only once the new one matches it.
get_change_history, get_quality_score_report, get_ad_performance
Ask your assistant: “What changed in my Google Ads account in the last 14 days, and did Quality Score or its parts fall for my top keywords after that?”
enable_ad and pause_ad default to dry_run, so you see which ad would be switched back on and which would be paused. The live pause also needs confirm_destructive.
Points here when you answer Yes to question 2.
Segment the campaign by network and compare cost per conversion on Search partners with Google Search. If Search partners cost more for each conversion, open Campaign settings, Networks, and clear Include Google search partners.
get_campaign_details, run_gaql_query
Ask your assistant: “Is Search partners on for this campaign? Compare cost per conversion on Search partners with Google Search over the last 30 days.”
update_campaign with include_search_partners set to false defaults to dry_run and returns the setting change before it is applied.
Points here when you answer Yes to question 3.
Open Auction insights for the campaign and find the domain whose impression share or overlap rate rose when your CPC rose. If it now outranks you on the terms that convert, decide whether those terms earn a higher bid. If they do not, move budget to longer, more specific keywords where you do not meet it head on.
get_auction_insights, get_keyword_performance
Ask your assistant: “Show auction insights for this campaign for the last 30 days against the 30 days before. Which domain gained impression share or overlap?”
add_keywords defaults to dry_run and lists the longer, more specific keywords it would add before anything changes.
Points here when you answer Yes to question 4.
Google says a bid strategy can take up to around 50 conversion events or 3 conversion cycles to calibrate after a new strategy, a settings change or a composition change. While the status shows Learning, judge cost per conversion rather than CPC, and hold further strategy settings changes, since each one can restart Learning.
get_campaign_details, list_bidding_strategies, run_gaql_query
Ask your assistant: “Which bid strategy does this campaign use, and does its status show Learning?”
The fix here is to hold steady, so there is nothing to preview. get_change_history confirms whether anything else changed while the strategy was learning.
Points here when you answer No to all four questions and the causes above are ruled out.
Compare this period with the same weeks last year and check Auction insights for a change in who you compete against. If CPC rose across most campaigns at once with no change on your side, the pressure is market-wide. If one campaign carries most of the rise, sort its keywords by cost and review the ones with a low Quality Score first.
detect_anomalies, get_spend_by_day, get_quality_score_report
Ask your assistant: “Did CPC rise across most campaigns at once or in one campaign? Then list that campaign's costliest keywords with a low Quality Score.”
pause_keyword defaults to dry_run and names each keyword it would pause. The live pause also needs confirm_destructive.
In the PaidSync workspace, by default, every write is approval-gated: it is held as a card before it runs, and an applied card gets a one-tap undo. On every path, Google Ads creates and most other creates are previewed with dry_run, destructive operations need confirm_destructive, and applied changes are logged, on a best-effort basis, with a 7-day before-and-after outcome. When your own assistant calls PaidSync over MCP, no card is written, so whether a person confirms first is set in your assistant.
The full model, including what is not built yet, is on the security page.
Run this check in Claude, Claude Code, Cursor or ChatGPT. Connect Google Ads once, then paste any of the questions above to your assistant.
Not sure which symptom fits? The free Google Ads audit tool scores wasted spend, structure, Quality Score and Performance Max, and the campaign troubleshooter runs its playbooks without an account.
Check what changed first. A new ad or landing page changes ad relevance and landing page experience, two of the three parts of Quality Score. A bid strategy change puts the strategy into Learning. If nothing changed on your side, Auction insights shows whether a competitor arrived, and a comparison with the same weeks last year shows seasonal pressure.
They can raise cost per conversion when partner clicks convert worse than Google Search clicks. Segment the campaign by network before turning them off, because in some accounts partners convert well. The setting is in Campaign settings, Networks, Include Google search partners.
Google says a bid strategy can take up to around 50 conversion events or 3 conversion cycles to calibrate after a new strategy, a settings change or a composition change. Changing only a target CPA or target ROAS does not trigger Learning.
Only on terms that convert profitably. Check which terms you share with the new competitor in Auction insights, then decide term by term. Longer, more specific keywords are where you can avoid meeting them head on.
In the PaidSync workspace, by default, every write is approval-gated: it is held as a card before it runs, and an applied card gets a one-tap undo. On every path, Google Ads creates and most other creates are previewed with dry_run, destructive operations need confirm_destructive, and applied changes are logged, on a best-effort basis, with a 7-day before-and-after outcome. When your own assistant calls PaidSync over MCP, no card is written, so whether a person confirms first is set in your assistant.