We've audited hundreds of Google Ads accounts. The pattern is almost always the same: 20-40% of spend is wasted on search terms that will never convert, campaigns are structured in ways that confuse Google's algorithms, and auto-applied recommendations have been slowly degrading performance for months.
The good news is that most of these issues are fixable — often within days. Here's what to check.
1. Check Your Search Terms Report (Not Just Keywords)
The single most revealing report in Google Ads is the Search Terms report. This shows you what people actually typed before clicking your ad — not the keywords you're bidding on, but the real queries triggering your ads.
Go to Insights & Reports → Search Terms for the last 90 days. Sort by cost, highest first. You will almost certainly find queries that have nothing to do with your business eating through your budget. A law firm bidding on 'injury solicitor' might be paying for clicks on 'injury solicitor jobs' or 'how to become a solicitor.' An ecommerce brand bidding on 'running shoes' might be paying for 'running shoes second hand' or 'running shoes repair.'
Every irrelevant search term you find should be added as a negative keyword. In most accounts we audit, this single action recovers 10-20% of wasted spend immediately.
2. Review Your Match Types
Google has been aggressively pushing broad match keywords combined with Smart Bidding. In theory, this allows Google's AI to find converting searches you might have missed. In practice, especially for accounts spending under £50K/month, it often means Google is spending your money on loosely related searches that don't convert.
Check what percentage of your keywords are broad match versus phrase match and exact match. If everything is broad match, you're giving Google maximum freedom with minimum control. That's fine if your conversion data is rock solid and your budgets are large. For most accounts, a mix of phrase and exact match keywords gives you much better control over where your money goes.
We typically structure accounts with exact match for proven high-performers, phrase match for testing adjacent terms, and broad match only in campaigns with very strong conversion signals and adequate budget.
3. Look at Campaign Structure
A common mistake is having too many campaigns with too little budget each. Google's Smart Bidding algorithms need data to optimise — roughly 30-50 conversions per month per campaign to work well. If you have 15 campaigns each getting 2 conversions per month, the algorithm has nothing to work with.
Conversely, some accounts have everything lumped into one or two campaigns, making it impossible to allocate budget strategically or understand what's working.
The right structure depends on your business, but as a rule: group by product/service theme, ensure each campaign gets enough conversion volume for the bidding strategy to learn, and separate branded from non-branded search so you can see true acquisition performance.
4. Check Auto-Applied Recommendations
Go to Settings → Auto-applied recommendations. Google may be making changes to your account without your knowledge. Common auto-applied changes include adding broad match versions of your keywords, raising budgets, adding audiences, and enabling ad suggestions.
Some of these can be beneficial, but many are not. Google's recommendations are designed to increase spend, which is in Google's interest — not necessarily yours. We've seen accounts where auto-applied broad match keywords were responsible for 30% of total spend on completely irrelevant traffic.
Turn off all auto-applied recommendations and review them manually. Apply the ones that make sense. Dismiss the rest.
5. Audit Your Conversion Tracking
Your entire Google Ads strategy is only as good as your conversion tracking. If you're tracking the wrong actions, or tracking inaccurately, every bidding decision Google makes will be based on bad data.
Check which conversion actions are included in 'Conversions' (the column Google's bidding algorithms optimise toward). We often find accounts counting page views, newsletter signups, and phone number clicks as primary conversions alongside actual purchases or form submissions. This inflates conversion numbers and tells Google's algorithm that low-value actions are just as important as sales.
Set your primary conversion actions to revenue-generating events only. Everything else should be set to 'observation' so you can see the data without it influencing bidding.
6. Review Performance Max Campaigns
If you're running Performance Max campaigns, check what proportion of your traffic and conversions are coming from branded search. PMax campaigns are notorious for cannibalising branded traffic — people who were going to buy anyway get attributed to PMax, making the campaign look far more effective than it actually is.
Add brand term exclusions to your PMax campaigns. Then look at the performance again. If your PMax ROAS drops significantly after excluding brand terms, the campaign was being propped up by branded traffic and needs restructuring.
What to Do Next
If you've worked through this checklist and found issues, you're not alone. The majority of Google Ads accounts have structural problems that are quietly draining budget. The difference between a well-managed account and a poorly managed one is often the difference between 2x and 6x ROAS.
We offer free Google Ads audits. No obligation, no pitch — just a clear breakdown of where your account stands, what's being wasted, and what can be improved. If you want one, get in touch.