Conversion tracking, search terms, broad match, location options, partner networks, landing pages and assets: a checklist to run through your own account.
In most Google Ads accounts, budget doesn’t leak through one big mistake but through a handful of small settings nobody has looked at in a while. This checklist takes you through the usual suspects – from conversion tracking to assets – so you can work through your own account point by point.
You don’t need special access for this. Read access to the account and a bit of time will do.
1. Conversion tracking: are you counting the right things?
Everything else depends on this. If tracking is wrong, automated bidding optimises towards the wrong goals.
- Is tracking working at all? Under Goals → Conversions you’ll see the status of each conversion action. Check any action with no recent conversions or a warning.
- Are you double counting? A common case: the same enquiry is recorded once by the Google Ads tag and again as an import from Google Analytics – with both set as primary actions.
- Is the count setting right? For leads, “One” conversion per click usually makes sense; for purchases, “Every”.
- Are only real business goals primary? Page views, scroll depth or clicks on a phone number with no minimum call length are weak signals. If you keep them at all, make them secondary.
- Is Consent Mode set up correctly? For advertisers in the European Economic Area, it’s required if you want full use of the measurement and personalisation features.
2. Search terms without negative keywords
Keywords aren’t what people search for – they’re just what you bid on. The search terms report shows what was actually searched.
- Open the report regularly: sort by cost and look for queries that spend money without converting.
- Exclude irrelevant terms: typical candidates are “free”, “jobs”, “salary”, “training”, “second-hand” or place names you don’t serve – depending on what applies to your offer.
- Use negative keyword lists: they let you manage exclusions across several campaigns at once.
- Don’t overdo it: a negative on a word that’s too general can block good searches too.
3. Broad match without Smart Bidding
Broad match lets your ads show for searches that are only related to your keyword. Google explicitly recommends pairing it with Smart Bidding, because the bid strategy can then judge in each auction how valuable a search is likely to be.
- Broad match on manual CPC? Then that control is missing, and your reach can drift into irrelevant searches fast.
- Smart Bidding with too few conversions? That doesn’t work well either. With very little conversion data, tighter match types are often the safer choice.
- Do bid strategy and tracking fit together? A strategy like Maximise conversions is only as good as the conversion data from point 1.
4. Location options: “Presence or interest”
This is one of the least visible budget drains. In campaign settings under Locations → Location options there are two choices:
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Presence or interest: ads show to people in, regularly in, or who’ve shown interest in your target locations. This is the default.
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Presence: ads show only to people in or regularly in your target locations.
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Do you only serve one region? A plumber in Wels usually doesn’t need clicks from Germany just because someone there searched for “plumber Wels”. In that case, Presence is usually the better fit.
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Check the locations report: the “Where users were” view shows where clicks actually came from.
5. Display Network and Search Partners switched on by accident
When you create a Search campaign, the Display Network and Google search partners are often ticked by default.
- Display Network in Search campaigns: your text ads then also run on websites and in apps, where people behave very differently. If you want Display, give it its own campaign.
- Search partners: not bad in principle, but segment your data by network (with search partners) and check whether that traffic converts for you.
6. Weak landing pages
You’ve paid for the click the moment someone lands on your site. Whether it becomes an enquiry depends on the landing page.
- Does the page match the ad? Someone clicking on “bathroom renovation” shouldn’t land on your homepage.
- Is it fast on mobile? The Core Web Vitals thresholds (LCP 2.5 seconds or less, INP 200 milliseconds or less, CLS 0.1 or less) are a sensible yardstick.
- Is the next step obvious? A visible form, a phone number, a button – no hunting around.
- Does the form actually work? Sounds trivial, but it often goes untested after a website update.
7. Missing assets
Assets (formerly ad extensions) make your ads bigger and more informative.
- Sitelinks: links to important pages
- Callouts: short benefits such as service area or guarantee
- Structured snippets: for example a list of your services
- Call and location assets: especially important for local businesses
- Image assets, where available
- Responsive search ads properly filled: up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions are possible
8. Bonus: auto-applied recommendations
- Check under Recommendations whether auto-apply is switched on. Some of these can add keywords or change bid strategies without you consciously approving each change.
Bottom line
Most budget leaks can be found with read access and this list: tracking first, then search terms and settings, then landing pages and assets. If you’d like a second pair of eyes on your account, PAASKS is happy to run this audit for you.