As someone who's spent over 20,000 hours building, ranking, and refining websites and ad campaigns, I keep encountering the same costly mistakes in Google Ads accounts. From setup to keyword strategy and landing page design, these pitfalls are too common and can drain a budget quickly. I aim to share my strategies to avoid wasted spending and make Google Ads work effectively, even in a crowded market.
Understanding Google's Revenue-Driven Defaults and Customizing Settings
One of the biggest initial challenges for any advertiser is recognising that Google's default ad settings often work against your interests. Every new account I audit is usually set up to benefit Google's bottom line with pre-checked settings that maximise their revenue rather than your campaign's effectiveness. For example, the "Search Partners" option – enabled by default – can result in low-quality clicks from sites that don't align with your campaign's goals.
Similarly, Google's location targeting defaults to show ads to users "interested in" your location rather than those in it. This can waste your budget on clicks from outside your service area, so it's critical to manually adjust these settings to ensure each click has the highest chance of converting.
Fine-Tuning Your Keyword Strategy to Focus on Intent
Selecting keywords may seem straightforward, but it's one of the trickiest parts of building a high-performing Google Ads campaign. Many new advertisers are drawn to broad, high-volume keywords that describe their service or product, but these often capture traffic from users simply browsing for information. For example, a keyword like "heel pain" will attract much search interest, but many users are likely seeking general information, not treatment options. Focusing on more intent-driven keywords like "heel pain treatment in Sydney" increases the chances of reaching users actively seeking your services.
When building ad groups, I recommend creating multiple variations within each group to test which messaging resonates most with your target audience. Each ad should closely match the keywords in the group to ensure it aligns with user intent. Misaligned ads can result in irrelevant clicks, which wastes your budget and can harm your quality score, making your ads more expensive.
Optimising Ad Copy and Crafting Relevant Ad Extensions
Strong ad copy can make a difference in your ad's click-through rate (CTR) and relevance score. The best-performing ads use clear language that directly addresses the user's query. In addition, ad extensions – like callouts, structured snippets, and site links – can enhance your ad's visibility and provide additional information that encourages clicks. For example, a call extension could offer a phone number for users ready to inquire, while structured snippets can showcase specific services, like "orthopedic consultations," making it easy for users to identify if your business meets their needs.
Landing Pages: The Often-Overlooked Key to Conversions
Landing pages bridge your ad and the conversion, so they must be user-friendly and optimised for Google's algorithm. Unfortunately, many ad campaigns direct users to generic or cluttered landing pages that lack trust signals or relevant content, leading to high bounce rates and wasted budget. A well-optimised landing page should have a clear, relevant H1 and H2 tag structure that reflects the advertised service and instils confidence in potential customers.
Trust signals, like client testimonials, Google reviews, and case studies, are essential for building credibility. Remember, if a user clicks on an ad expecting to find treatment options for a specific condition, the landing page should provide immediate reassurance that they're in the right place, ideally with a call to action that makes the next step easy and seamless.
Conversion Tracking and Attribution
Accurate tracking is essential for understanding which ads and keywords drive the most valuable leads. Yet, I still see ad accounts without proper attribution setups, making it nearly impossible to gauge success. To address this, I use unique phone numbers, dedicated landing pages, and specialised contact forms for each campaign. This lets me track which clicks turn into inquiries, allowing me to refine my strategy with data-backed insights.
Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager are also invaluable for tracking user behaviour on your landing pages. By monitoring actions like button clicks, form submissions, and time spent on the page, I can adjust campaigns based on actual engagement data, fine-tuning my strategy over time for better results.
Effective Budget Allocation and the Importance of Testing
Setting the right budget for your Google Ads campaign is crucial, and I recommend dividing it across your campaign stages. Start with a testing phase to understand your ads' performance across different keywords and demographics. In this phase, be prepared to gather data, even if it means burning some budget initially. Google Ads may require some upfront investment to identify which keywords and ads convert best, but this information is invaluable for making strategic adjustments.
You can allocate more of your budget once you identify your top-performing keywords and ads. Continuous testing remains essential throughout the life of your campaign as user behaviour and competitive landscapes change over time. Regular A/B testing of ad copy and extensions ensures your ads remain relevant and competitive, optimising your budget and results.
Monitoring Search Terms and Adding Negative Keywords
Monitoring the search terms closely reported in your ad account is essential to see which queries are triggering your ads. Negative keywords help prevent your ads from showing up in irrelevant searches. For example, if users search for "free" or "DIY" solutions, those terms likely indicate they're not interested in paid services, so adding them as negative keywords can prevent wasted spend.
Google Ads has restricted access to search term data in recent years, making it harder to control where your budget goes fully. However, closely reviewing this data can help refine your targeting, reduce irrelevant clicks, and improve your ad quality score.
Tracking Quality Score and Adjusting for Ad Relevance
The quality score of your ads directly influences how much you pay per click, so optimising for relevance is important. This score is affected by factors like CTR, ad relevance, and landing page experience. A high-quality score can lead to lower costs per click and better ad placements, even when competing with high-budget advertisers. Regularly reviewing and optimising your quality score is one of the best ways to ensure your campaign remains cost-effective.
Align your ad copy and landing page content with your bidding keywords to improve ad relevance. Google's algorithm favours ads that directly address user queries, so make sure your ad language, landing page titles, and CTAs reflect the keywords in your campaign.
Final Thoughts
Navigating Google Ads successfully is about creating alignment across every campaign element, from keyword choice to ad copy and landing page design. By customising your ad settings, focusing on intent-driven keywords, and creating seamless ad-to-landing page experiences, you can avoid common pitfalls and maximise ROI. Google Ads can yield powerful results and high-quality leads if you set it up with a clear, strategic approach.
