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Hey Jessica,
I think you should try calling Google Adwords directly and getting an answer from them. They should be able to help you with PLAs and give you a more specific answer as to why your products are being rejected. I believe (this is just my opinion) that landing pages matter more than AdWords is willing to admit. How are your product pages performing technically? Is there any way they could be mistaken for anything that's not a scope?
Depending on your site, you will likely need to change the questions that you let the customer answer, and start assigning order IDs to things if you're not already, but this will just set you up to be a more efficient company.
If you aren't sure how to do this, I'm sure there is an ample number of consultants who would be willing to help set up analytics for you for your specific ecommerce needs. I'll definitely be looking into the tool mentioned above, but I think in the long and short term you will need to make ecommerce in GA your friend. Bypassing GA because it's a difficult task to do initially will set you up for several different types of failures later. I would rather see you get on the good side of GA than start using another tool when you're not fully functioning on this one.
I think you can pull down a secondary dimension in GA for AdGroup/Campaign ID, also.
As far as Google reports, there is no connection between links a page receives, what domain it's held on, and how the URL is constructed. You can definitely go with cheese.domain in the same campaign if that's where it's located --- I'm sure there are other SEO specific reasons that you wouldn't want to have a subdomain but I'm not that knowledgeable about them 
My experience backs up David's opinion. Google doesn't care if your NASA if you're trying to sell cheese & crackers. Since that's not what users are searching for it's not advantageous for Google to show people NASA ads. No one really wants astronaut cheese anyway (wait... is that string cheese? 
maybe they do)
Auction bids & quality score are based heavily on estimated click through rate, landing page experience, ad relevance, and ad formats. LP Experience can be measured in several ways and Google has always been really keen to keep that information under lock & key. There are theories that they look at time on site, bounce back rate, click through rate, conversion rates, etc. But there's no real answer - except that I am very confident that the specific page's authority is not a heavily weighted factor.
I know you came here for a customized response that's more in depth than static information on the web, but I'm going to direct you to this video anyway because it's seriously informative http://searchengineland.com/google-new-adwords-ad-rank-video-195049
It's legit. I see this happen every day.
There are many theories behind what goes into landing page relevance, but the authority of that page is insignificant. Thousands of companies use PPC specific landing pages that are excluded from robots.txt and have high QS.
I understand that 10% can make a huge difference when you're on the cusp of getting to an 8, 9, or 10, but overall there is more you will be able to do in the account that will impact QS than what you can do with your landing page. (that's not to say that CRO isn't beneficial, but that's CRO, not QSO - quality score optimisation)
I'd rather guide you in the direction of your negative keywords and keyword grouping techniques. the more specific your keywords are to your copy to your landing page the higher quality score you will receive. Note: I said specific. "Cheese" as a head term is not a specific query... "11 in bamboo cheese board" is a very specific query.
Got a little side tracked there. Hope this information is still useful to you!
I'm not familiar with any way that a shared library will be able to affect campaigns that it's not assigned to.
To remove them from campaigns, click on the name of the negative KW list, then scroll to the bottom and remove the campaigns you don't want. It's a little hidden from the normal way but it will still work!
Unless an angry client posted a proposal online, I don't know where you would be able to find proposal flow outside of a typical sales proposal sheet.
Typically the proposals I composed followed this vague outline:
But this is entirely separate from the SOW. Please consult your lawyer on this contract addendum.
There's significant value in finding friends in the industry who work at this level (hint, hint, hint, hint) because it's hard to get people to talk about their prices and proposal tactics in semi-anonymous forums.
But Good Luck!!!
Hey Dev Dan!
Sorry for the late response times on my end. I know that has to be really frustrating. I've not had the opportunity to oversee the issues with switching to GTM so I've asked that we find someone else who may be able to help you. Hang in there! Hopefully we have someone who has run into a similar issue.
Hey Christopher,
Unfortunately, I'm not sure there's anything you can do for the ad copy relevance. This is definitely the problem with all competitive advertising in PPC.
Something to try, if you're super set on this tactic, would be to use the competitor name in your descriptions by saying "An alternative to X". I've never seen that done before. Most people have TMs filed with Google so your copy will be denied, and typically as soon as they find that you are using their brand in your copy they will file it with Google so there's not much you can do.
Good Luck!
Competition does matter, and the landscape does change based on different keywords. Most head terms don't have significant amounts of competition because they are too vague. Something like Wedding Cakes is not a good PPC term when you are looking to make money on your money as fast as you can.
It's always best to try bidding on the term (especially on Broad Match Modified) to see how it performs for you, but it is highly likely you will receive a low QS and a low CTR and higher CPCs which make it not as important of a term when you are looking at everything from a returns or profits perspective.
As far as low v high volumes for keywords, it's not something that I take into significant consideration unless my client is trying to get close to a specific number or is very concerned about a specific keyword. PPC is about throwing out a wide net for low, mid and high volume keywords, bidding on all of them, and learning over time what creates good return for your particular niche. What works for my business might be a horrible strategy for your business.
There are different solutions for different issues. The one you have specifically referenced is a offline call tracking. I have used several different companies: IfByPhone, Invoca, Mongoose Metrics, Marchex, CallTrackingMetrics. Each one offers some level of call recording and all have caller ID. Some can integrate with Google AdWords directly to see where calls came from, and others may be able to merge with your CRM. They can get pricey depending on your needs, but it's good to review everything.
With call tracking, javascript replaces your phone number with a unique call number that associates itself to that keyword's GCLID (Google CLick ID). That information is then pinged in their system and will show up in their system or in several other areas depending on your chosen settings.
While I do agree that there are difficulties in explaining the value to clients, the most common reasons I have come up across are accounting & cash flow.
When I was managing agency side and I just wanted an additonal $1000/mo (which seems like nothing for most advertisers), there was significant push back. One reason is the client is not only footing the bill for their account, they are also footing the agency bill. There could be added costs when expanding budgets depending on the pricing structure, and everyone wants everything as cheap as they can get it. So if the added cost of the agency + the added cost on the business for the advertising is too much in comparison to the budget the business had put forward for the year, then there is no way they can plan on spending more.
In addition to this, if you are working with smaller businesses, they don't have the flexibility in their cash flow to spend more even when there is a proven opportunity. Not to mention, advertising is very likely not the only bill they are paying each month. They have all the costs associated from man power to tools & software internally to operational overhead. They might say their profit is $65/item but it might actually be more like $15 after everything else is accounted for. Which is poor planning and communication from your client.
If you are working with a larger or public company, accounting requires that you bring in X amount of money (because Stock Market or Parent Company, or Investors, etc). If you are advertising based on LTV (lifetime value) not New Sales, then the accounting team doesn't see the same return you are assuming you are getting. It appears to the accounting team that you are overspending and not getting the same value on more cost compared to previous years.
But, take your client out for a beer if you can. Get them to unload on you about the issues and tribulations that they are coming up across internally or if the company does have a cash flow issue. There are real business reasons behind not spending more, and it might be as minor as "we are exploring another channel that is proving to be quite costly right now" and wont' have anything to do with you or your work.
Good luck! This is the hard part of consulting