PPC Expert Witness: What a Paid-Search Account Proves
Before you retain anyone, the question worth answering is whether the dispute turns on something the advertising data holds — because a great deal of it does not. This site says which is which: 6 pages on the disputes and what each one turns on, 6 on where the record lives and how long it survives, and 5 guides. Every page names something the data will not establish.
Paid-search evidence does not sit and wait. Google Ads keeps change history for about two years, and the API that exports it in bulk returns a far shorter window than the interface displays. Microsoft Advertising documents six months on its reporting API. Server logs are usually the shortest clock of all, and nobody controls them but the advertiser. An attorney who learns the retention window after filing has already lost part of the record — so every page on this site names the window, with the source and the date it was read.
Two questions, in this order
What the dispute turns on decides whether an expert is any use. Where the record lives decides whether the answer can still be got. Most of the trouble I am asked to fix came from answering the second question before the first — a preservation letter that named a system nobody had access to, a damages figure built on a conversion count the platform modeled rather than measured, a discovery demand served after the window closed.
What It Turns On
6 pages on the disputes — fraud, contract and conduct — each labeled with what decides it: the account record on its own, the record plus discovery, or something no expert settles because it turns on the agreement or on intent.
Where the Data Lives
6 pages on the evidence — platform records, measurement and quantum — each labeled with where it actually sits: in the account and exportable, reconstructable from logs and billing, or modeled and never measured at all.
The disputes attorneys arrive asking about
Three things that decide how far the data goes
These are written to be useful to an attorney who never makes contact. A record that was not exported before access was lost, an account nobody established the ownership of, and a conversion count treated as a measurement when it was an estimate — those three decide more outcomes than any opinion does, and all three are cheap to get right early.
How this work actually runs
The retention window first, then access, then preservation, then the analysis. Every figure quoted with its source and the date it was read.
The six groups everything sits in
Fraud and Invalid Traffic
2 pagesWhere the spend bought something other than what it was billed for.
Contract and Account Disputes
2 pagesWho owned the account, who controlled the spend, and what the agreement actually required.
Conduct and Standard of Care
2 pagesWhat a competitor did, and what a reasonable manager of a paid-search account would have done.
The Platform Record
2 pagesWhat Google and Microsoft hold, what they export, and how long they keep it.
Measurement and Attribution
2 pagesWhere the reported numbers come from, and how much of a conversion figure was measured rather than modeled.
Quantum and Preservation
2 pagesTurning a disrupted account into a number, and keeping the record alive long enough to use it.
If you want me to look at the account
I work with attorneys on disputes involving paid search, Google Ads, click fraud, agency conduct and what the advertising record shows. I am not an attorney and I do not give legal advice. Tell me what the dispute turns on and what access still exists, and I will tell you what the data can and cannot establish before anything else.