Key takeaways
- Weekly search-term hygiene is the highest-return hour in the account
- Conversion definitions matter more than bid strategies
- Landing page mismatch is free to fix and routinely ignored
Google's defaults are optimised for spend, not for your margin. That is not a conspiracy, it is a business model. The work of managing an account is largely the work of repeatedly saying no.
Leak one: broad match drift
Broad match plus a smart bidding strategy will find conversions — and it will find them in searches you never intended to buy. The only defence is a weekly search-terms review with a real negative keyword list, built from what actually converts in your CRM rather than what converts in the platform.
If nobody has looked at the search terms report in thirty days, assume 15–25% of spend is going somewhere unintended.
Leak two: intent collapse
One ad group carrying six different intents means one ad trying to speak to six different buyers. "Emergency plumber" and "plumber cost" are not the same person, and a single landing page cannot serve both. Split by intent, then write one ad and one page per intent.
Leak three: conversion inflation
Every form fill counted as a conversion, including the newsletter signup and the careers page application. Bidding then optimises toward the easiest conversion, which is almost never the profitable one. Fix the definition first: a conversion is a qualified enquiry, with a value attached, ideally imported from the CRM.
Leak four: landing page mismatch
The ad promises a specific thing and the landing page describes the company. The fix costs nothing: the page should repeat the promise, prove it, and ask for one action. If your ads point at the homepage, you have already lost the argument.
Quick self-audit. Open the search terms report for the last thirty days, sort by cost, and read the top twenty. If more than four are irrelevant, you have found your next month's work.
What good management actually looks like
- Weekly: search terms, negatives, budget pacing, bid anomalies.
- Monthly: creative refresh, landing page review, cost-per-qualified-lead by campaign.
- Quarterly: structure review — is the account still shaped like the business.
None of that is exciting, which is why it is frequently replaced by a monthly call and a screenshot of impressions.
On fees
A percentage-of-spend fee aligns incentives only up to a point — it also rewards spending more. That is why the crossover matters: below roughly $3,750/month of spend, a flat fee is usually cheaper for you; above it, a percentage is fairer to the agency. Either way, the ad spend should go from your card to Google, never through the agency.
Want a second opinion on the account?
Google Ads audit — $600
