Google Ads management: where the budget actually goes

When a business tells us Google Ads "does not work for us", the account usually tells a more specific story. The ads work; the budget goes somewhere nobody looked. Here is where it tends to go, how to check your own account, and what to expect from whoever manages it.

1. Conversion tracking that counts the wrong thing

Every automated bidding strategy optimises towards whatever you tell it a conversion is. If that is a page view, a click on the phone number, or a form that fires twice, Google will happily find you more of those — and fewer customers. Before touching a single bid, check:

• Each conversion action matches something that actually makes money: an order, a qualified enquiry, a booked call.
• Primary and secondary conversions are set deliberately, so bidding uses only the ones that matter.
• Values are passed for e-commerce, so the system can tell a large order from a small one.
• Enquiries can be matched back to sales, even manually, so you know which campaigns bring buyers rather than browsers.

2. Search terms nobody reads

Keywords are what you bid on; search terms are what people actually typed. Broad matching is useful, but left alone it spends money on jobs, free versions, competitor support numbers and how-to questions. Open the search terms report, sort by cost, and read the top hundred. Most accounts find wasted spend in the first ten minutes. Add negatives weekly until the report gets boring.

3. Landing pages that undo the ad

An ad that promises a specific service and lands on the homepage pays for the click and loses the visitor. Each campaign theme deserves a page that matches the search: the same words, the price or range if you publish one, proof, and one obvious next step. Speed matters as much as copy — a page that takes five seconds on mobile data loses people before it can persuade them (Core Web Vitals explains why).

4. Budget spread too thin

Ten campaigns on a small budget means none of them gathers enough data to learn. Fewer campaigns with more budget each will outperform a sprawling structure almost every time. Start with the services or products that earn the most, prove them, then expand.

5. Judging on clicks instead of return

Click-through rate and cost per click describe the auction, not the business. The numbers that matter are cost per qualified lead or cost per sale, and the revenue that came back. If a report leads with impressions, ask what it is hiding.

What a monthly report should show

1. Spend, conversions and cost per conversion, by campaign, against last month and the same month last year.
2. Revenue or lead value where it can be measured, and the return on spend.
3. The search terms added as negatives, and why.
4. What was tested — ads, pages, bids — and what was learned.
5. What will change next month, in plain words.

Paid and organic together

Paid search buys you the click today; SEO earns it for free later, and each tells the other which searches convert. Run them as one plan and share the data. For brands that sell visually, the same applies to social ads — see what moves product on social, and the animated digital ads we made for Ladeena.

If you want an account audited or run properly, that is our paid media work. Tell us what you spend and what you need back.