5 Common Google Ads Mistakes That Drain Your Budget
Google Ads is an incredible tool for growing your business. It helps you reach potential customers, drive traffic to your website, and boost sales. However, without proper management, it can also become a money pit. Many advertisers, especially beginners, make common Google Ads mistakes that waste their budget without delivering results.
In this blog, we’ll go over five common Google Ads mistakes and how you can avoid them. By fixing these issues, you’ll make your campaigns more effective and get the most value for your money.
1. Poor Targeting: Casting Too Wide a Net
Imagine running ads for a local bakery, but showing them to people living super far away – not just a town or two over, but hours and hours from your location. Unless your bakery is incredibly famous, it’s unlikely that those far-away viewers travel just to visit it! This is what we’d classify as poor targeting.
Google Ads offers many targeting options, but if they aren’t set up properly, your budget could be wasted on people who aren’t your ideal customers.
How Poor Targeting Happens:
- Targeting too broad of an audience.
- Forgetting to set location preferences.
- Not excluding irrelevant audiences (e.g., people who aren’t in your service area).
How to Fix It:
- Set specific locations: If your business only serves Toronto, make sure your ads are targeted in Toronto. You don’t want to be paying for clicks for someone in Vancouver who can’t even visit your store.
- Refine audience targeting: Use Google’s audience tools to focus on age, interests, and behaviours relevant to your business. If you’re selling hockey gear, you might want to target sports enthusiasts rather than, say, knitting enthusiasts.
- Exclude audiences: For example, exclude regions or demographics where your product isn’t relevant. If you’re selling winter parkas, you must exclude tropical and hot regions.
Better targeting ensures your ads reach the right people, which means more clicks that actually matter.
2. Keyword Chaos: When Your Words Work Against You
Keywords are the backbone of Google Ads. Choosing the wrong ones can waste your budget quickly. For example, if you’re selling custom furniture but bid on a broader keyword like “furniture,” you might attract shoppers who are looking for cheap options or mass-produced items, etc.
How Irrelevant Keywords Drain Your Budget:
- Attracting clicks from people who aren’t interested in your product or service.
- Competing for expensive keywords that don’t align with your goals.
Here’s how to fix it:
- Get specific with your keywords: Think about exactly what your customers are searching for. Instead of just “furniture,” try “solid oak furniture” or “handmade wooden rocking chair”. Conduct keyword research to determine the most relevant keywords and use those.
- Use different match types: Phrase match or exact match can help control when your ads show up. This way, you’re not showing up for every search that includes general keywords.
- Regularly check your search terms report: It’s like a treasure map showing you what people actually type in to find your ad. You might discover some golden keywords you hadn’t thought of.
- Add negative keywords: This is one of the best ways to save your budget from irrelevant clicks. If you’re selling high-end furniture, you might want to add “cheap” or “discount” as negative keywords.
Relevant keywords drive the right traffic to your site, making every click count. It’s like making sure you’re using the right bait to catch the fish you actually want.
3. Lackluster Landing Pages: Where Good Clicks Go to Die
You’ve done all the hard work setting up your ad, chosen great keywords, and targeted the right audience. But when users click your ad and land on a poorly designed landing page, they’ll leave. This hurts your conversions and wastes your ad spend.
What Makes a Landing Page Low-Quality?
- It doesn’t match the ad’s message.
- It’s slow to load.
- It’s cluttered or hard to navigate.
- It doesn’t have a clear call to action (e.g., “Buy Now” or “Sign Up”).
To fix this, make sure your landing pages are:
- Directly related to your ad: If you’re advertising winter boots, send people to a page about winter boots, not your general shoe catalogue page. It’s like promising poutine and delivering plain fries – disappointing and borderline criminal. OK, perhaps that’s dramatic – but it is a waste of your budget.
- Fast loading: Test your page speed, optimize images and alt text. A slow page will increase bounce rate and your ad budget.
- Clear and focused: Have one main call-to-action. Want them to buy? Make that “Buy Now” button big and easy to spot.
- Mobile-friendly: These days more people are shopping on their phones than ever before. If your site looks glitchy on mobile, you’re in trouble. It should work smoothly on all devices.
A high-quality landing page increases your chances of turning clicks into customers faster.
4. Click Fraud: The Silent Budget Killer
Click fraud is when bots or competitors click on your ads to waste your budget. It’s a sneaky problem that can drain your funds without delivering any real results.
Signs of Click Fraud:
- A sudden spike in clicks without an increase in conversions.
- Multiple clicks from the same IP address.
- Strange activity during unusual hours.
So how do you protect yourself from this digital pickpocketing?
- Keep an eye on your click data: If you suddenly see a ton of clicks from one IP address, something fishy might be going on.
- Use click-fraud protection tools: There are services out there that can help spot and stop fraudulent clicks like ClickCease and Trafficguard. Think of it as a security system for your ads.
- Set up IP exclusions: If you notice clicks coming from suspicious sources, you can block those IP addresses.
- Use negative keywords wisely: Sometimes, broad keywords can attract bot traffic. Tightening up your keyword game can help. It’s like making sure you’re not accidentally inviting the whole town to your backyard barbecue!
By staying vigilant, you can minimize the impact of click fraud on your budget.
5. Ignoring Conversion Tracking: Flying Blind with Your Budget
If you’re not tracking conversions, you’re flying blind. Conversion tracking tells you which ads, keywords, and campaigns are driving sales or leads. Without this data, you might keep spending money on ads that aren’t working.
What Happens Without Conversion Tracking?
- You can’t measure your return on investment (ROI).
- You waste money on campaigns that aren’t effective.
- You miss opportunities to improve performance.
Fixing this is easier than you might think:
- Set up conversion tracking in your Google Ads account: It might seem techy, but Google has good guides to help you through it with simple steps to follow. It’s not as complicated as assembling IKEA furniture, I promise!!
- Define what counts as a conversion for your business: Is it a sale? A phone call? A form submission? Know what success and conversion is for you.
- Google Tag Manager: Use tools like Google Tag Manager to make sure you’re tracking everything correctly. It’s like having a good scoreboard at a hockey game.
- Conversion Metrics and KPIs: Regularly check your conversion data and use it to make decisions about your campaigns. It’s like reviewing game tapes to improve your strategy.
Tracking conversions helps you make smarter decisions and ensures your money is spent wisely.
BONUS ROUND: Ad Schedule Optimization: Timing is Everything
Running Google Ads without strategic scheduling is like leaving your store’s lights on 24/7 when most customers shop during specific hours. Ad scheduling allows you to maximize your budget by showing ads only when your target audience is most likely to convert.
How Poor Ad Scheduling Wastes Your Budget:
- Displaying ads during low-traffic hours.
- Spending money when your target audience isn’t active.
- Ignoring time zone differences.
- Not considering customer behavior patterns.
How to Fix Ad Scheduling:
- Analyze your conversion data: Use Google Ads analytics to identify peak performance times. Look for hours and days when you get the most conversions, clicks, and lowest cost-per-acquisition.
- Create custom ad schedules: Adjust your ad visibility to match your audience’s most active times. For example, if you’re a B2B service, focus on business hours. If you’re a restaurant, target lunch and dinner times.
- Use bid adjustments: Increase your bids during high-performing hours and decrease them during slower periods. This ensures you’re investing more when potential customers are most likely to engage.
- Consider time zones: If you’re targeting multiple regions, ensure your scheduling accounts for different time zones. A 9 a.m. in Toronto might not work the same way in Vancouver.
- Experiment and refine: Regularly review and adjust your ad schedule. Customer behaviours change, and so should your strategy.
Optimizing your ad schedule ensures you’re spending money when it matters most, turning every click into a potential opportunity. It’s like fishing during the best tide – you’re more likely to catch something valuable.
Avoid These Google Ads Mistakes
Running successful Google Ads campaigns requires careful planning and regular optimization. By avoiding these five common Google Ads mistakes – poor targeting, irrelevant keywords, low-quality landing pages, click fraud, and lack of conversion tracking plus ad scheduling – you can maximize your budget and achieve better results.
Google Ads isn’t a “set it and forget it” tool. Regular monitoring, testing, and adjustments are essential for long-term success. With the right strategies, you’ll avoid these Google Ads mistakes and see your investment pay off in the form of more leads, sales, and business growth.
If you’re unsure where to start or need expert help, TrafficSoda can guide you. We specialize in creating optimized, high-performing ad campaigns tailored to your business goals, helping you get the most out of your advertising budget.