My $4,200 Google Ads campaign tanked because of one autopay mistake and I can't decide if the agency or I should eat the cost | Digital Marketing Strategy - Opinions Matter
My $4,200 Google Ads campaign tanked because of one autopay mistake and I can't decide if the agency or I should eat the cost
Three weeks ago I checked my client's ad account and saw $4,200 spent on a campaign I paused back in January. Turns out the agency's autopay kept the old budget running after I turned it off, and nobody flagged it because the invoices matched the wrong line item. Now the client wants a full refund and the agency says the pause never synced on their end, so each side is pointing at the other. Part of me thinks I should have double checked the billing screen myself instead of trusting the dashboard. Who's actually on the hook here, the person who clicked pause or the team that kept charging?
Oof, that billing gap is brutal. I had something close happen with a vendor who kept charging a card on file after we ended the contract, and what saved us was going straight to the client together instead of the two sides fighting it out. We split the loss and showed the client the fix, like new approval steps and a monthly billing check, so they knew it would not happen again. Honestly, the shop that kept charging owns the refund because their system kept the money moving, but the account person usually eats some blame too for not seeing it for three weeks. Have you tried getting both sides on one call so the client hears one story instead of two?