Google Ads can be one of the fastest ways to generate leads — or one of the fastest ways to burn through a budget with nothing to show for it. These seven mistakes are responsible for the majority of wasted ad spend we see when auditing new client accounts.
1. Broad Match Keywords Without Negatives
Running broad match keywords without a negative keyword list is like putting a billboard in the wrong city. Broad match will trigger your ad for searches you never intended — irrelevant queries that drain budget. Build a negative keyword list from day one and review your Search Terms report weekly to add new negatives.
2. Sending Ads to Your Homepage
Your homepage is designed to introduce your business. An ad landing page needs to do one specific thing: convert a visitor who searched for exactly what you offer. Sending paid traffic to your homepage almost always results in poor Quality Scores and wasted spend. Build dedicated landing pages for each campaign.
Rule of thumb: The keyword in your ad should match the headline on your landing page. If they don't match, you're losing money.
3. Ignoring Quality Score
Quality Score is Google's rating of how relevant your keywords, ads, and landing pages are to each other and to the search query. A low Quality Score means you pay more per click than competitors with better scores. Improving relevance — by tightening ad groups and improving landing pages — directly reduces your cost per click.
4. Not Using Ad Extensions
Ad extensions (now called "assets") — sitelinks, callouts, call extensions, structured snippets — are free additions that increase your ad's size, visibility, and click-through rate. Not using them leaves value on the table. Every campaign should have at minimum: sitelinks, callouts, and a call extension if you take phone enquiries.
5. Set-and-Forget Campaigns
Google Ads requires ongoing management. Bids need adjusting, new search terms need reviewing, underperforming ads need pausing, and budgets need redistributing toward what's working. A campaign left alone for months will almost always deteriorate — either through rising CPCs, algorithm changes, or shifting competition.
6. No Conversion Tracking
If you don't know which clicks are turning into leads or sales, you can't optimise your campaigns. Conversion tracking — set up via Google Tag Manager — tells you which keywords, ads, and landing pages are actually driving business. Without it, you're flying blind.
7. Targeting Too Wide an Area
Many businesses target an entire country when their customers are local. For most service businesses, radius targeting around your location — or specific city/region targeting — will dramatically improve results by focusing budget where your customers actually are.
Our Google Ads management service includes full account audits, landing page creation, and ongoing optimisation. Book a free audit to see exactly what your current campaigns are missing.