One account, the same $2 a day, 4 weeks before and after 3 fixes
Most of the small business Google Ads accounts I open have at least one of these Google Ads mistakes. Google doesn’t flag any of them. The ads show as approved and the keywords as eligible, so the account looks healthy while the budget goes on the wrong clicks.
Every example is from an account I worked on this year, with that account’s own numbers. I’ve left out the business names and their keywords. At the end of each section I say where to look in your own account.
1. Conversion tracking that counts the wrong thing
Google Ads bids on what your tell it is working. When the count is wrong, so is every cost per lead in the account, and automated bidding goes after more of whatever was miscounted.
On one account, the “phone click” conversion was set on the whole website header instead of the phone number, so a click on the logo or the menu was recorded as a call.
On another, I checked the tracking before the campaigns went live and found a rule that counted any click on a link to the jobs page as an application. The home page had 7 of those links and no apply button. In a month the rule recorded 202 “applications”, and 142 of them were clicks on those links.
A third account had the opposite problem. Its call conversion recorded 0 in 13 months, while Google’s own call log showed 5 calls from the ads. I think the minimum call length set on the conversion is why. I haven’t confirmed it yet.
- Where to look. Goals, then Conversions, then Summary.
- What to check. Can you say what each counts? If not, or it recorded nothing in 90 days, send your own test form or call and look for it the next day.
2. Automated bidding with nothing to learn from
Maximize conversions is a strategy. Google sets every bid from the conversions the account has recorded.
One account had run it for 12 months on $2 a day and recorded 0 conversions in that time, so every bid was set from nothing, and nothing in the account warned about it. I switched it to until real conversions come in. You’ll see what happened to its clicks in mistake 4.
To check yours, open Campaigns and look at the Bid strategy type column next to Conversions for the last 90 days. If a strategy with “conversions” in its name sits next to a 0, use Maximize clicks until real conversions come in.
3. Broad keywords that buy the wrong searches
lets Google show your ad for searches it treats as related to your keyword, even when they don’t contain your words. On a small budget, a single loose broad keyword can take most of the clicks.
On one account, a generic two-word broad keyword, the kind shoppers type, took 49 of the 74 keyword clicks. The keyword for the business’s main service got 1.
On another account, one broad “near me” keyword with no town in it took 54% of the keyword spend over 12 months, $375.02 of $694, for 236 clicks and 0 conversions.
I went through a year of that account’s and added 147 . Had they been in place all year, they would have blocked $349.94 of the $505.72 spent on searches that never converted, and none of the searches that did convert.
None of the blocked searches had ever led to a conversion.
- Where to look. Insights and reports, then Search terms. Last 90 days, sorted by Cost.
- What to check. Read the top 50. Any search you wouldn’t pay for again becomes a negative keyword. Negatives don’t cover plurals or close variants, so add those too.
4. A location setting that hides you from buyers
Every campaign has . Presence shows your ads only to people who are in, or regularly in, your area. Presence or interest also reaches people searching about your area from somewhere else.
One business I work with gets many of its customers from people who live elsewhere and search before they arrive. Its campaign was set to Presence, so the ads never showed to them, and the ad group written for those people got 15 impressions in 8 days.
On 22 September I changed the setting to Presence or interest, switched search partners off (mistake 6) and rewrote the ads. In the next 4 weeks the same $2 a day bought 174 clicks at $0.32 each, against 55 clicks at $1.03 in the 4 weeks before. Those are the numbers in the table at the top. I made all 3 changes at once, so I can’t tell you how much came from the location setting alone.
Spend was $59.71 to $62.70 a month from November to September, and $80.51 in October. The cost of a click went from $1.52 in August to $0.33 in October.
If all your customers are local, Presence is the right setting. To check yours, open the campaign’s Settings, then Locations, then Location options, and think about where your buyers are when they search for you.
5. A bid limit below what your searches cost
A caps what you’ll pay for a click. If it’s lower than what your main searches cost, the ads mostly stop showing for those searches.
On one account I took over, the limit was $7.50 on a $10 a day budget. Its main searches cost $6 to $10 a click, so the limit was in the middle of the range. In 14 days the account got 17 clicks at $6.54 each, and lost 37.7% of its chances to show to higher bids.
On another account, a $2 budget with a $3.50 limit left the 2 most valuable ad groups with 1 and 0 impressions in 15 days. Google’s Keyword Planner put a top-of-page click for those searches at $5.57 to $16.98. The ads were approved and the keywords eligible, so nothing on screen said anything was wrong.
Every search to the right of the limit is one the ads could not win. Both limits came with accounts I took over.
- Where to look. Ad groups, then the Impressions column, one ad group at a time.
- What to check. An ad group with 0 impressions while its ads are approved and its keywords eligible is priced out. Compare your limit with the top-of-page bid Keyword Planner shows for its main searches.
6. Search partners that fill the report and bring no clicks
are websites other than Google that show your search ads. A new campaign includes them unless you switch them off.
On one account, search partners made 71% of the campaign’s impressions over 4 weeks (2,486 of 3,512) and brought 3 of its 55 clicks. That pulled the campaign’s down to 1.6%, when on Google Search alone it was 5.1%.
Search campaign, 24 Aug to 20 Sep 2026, from the account’s own data, segmented by network.
With partners off and the rewritten ads running, the click-through rate went from 1.6% to 10.4% in the next 4 weeks.
- Where to look. Campaigns, then Segment, then Network (with search partners).
- What to check. If partners bring impressions but few clicks and no conversions, untick them in the campaign’s Networks setting.
7. Raising the budget when rank is the problem
When ads don’t show enough, most people’s first move is a bigger budget. tells you whether the budget is what’s holding them back.
On one account the ads showed for 17.3% of the searches they were eligible for. They missed 59.1% on ad rank, which Google works out from the bid, the ad and the landing page, and 23.6% on budget.
So more budget could win back 23.6% at most. The 59.1% was the bigger share, and better ads and a faster landing page cost nothing extra a day. I run this check on every account before I change anything, as part of my read-only Google Ads baseline.
- Where to look. Campaigns, then Columns, then Competitive metrics.
- What to check. Add Search impr. share, Search lost IS (rank) and Search lost IS (budget). Raise the budget only when the budget number is the big one.
Check your account for these Google Ads mistakes in 15 minutes
- Conversions. Goals, Conversions, Summary. Every primary action counts something you can name, and recorded something in 90 days.
- Bid strategy. A conversion strategy needs conversions. If the column says 0, use Maximize clicks for now.
- Search terms. 90 days, sorted by cost. Add negatives for anything you wouldn’t pay for again.
- Location options. Presence for buyers who are nearby, Presence or interest for buyers who search from elsewhere.
- Impressions per ad group. 0 impressions with approved ads and eligible keywords means the bid limit is too low for those searches.
- Networks. Segment by network and switch search partners off if they bring no clicks.
- Impression share. See whether rank or budget loses you more, and fix that one first.
Where these numbers come from
- Real client accounts, 2026. Small local businesses on budgets of $2 to $10 a day. Every figure comes from the account’s own Google Ads data, read through the Google Ads API, for the dates given.
- No business is named. I don’t give names, business types, towns or keywords that would point to a client, so no figure here can be matched to one of my case studies.
- Search campaigns only. Local Services Ads, Performance Max and Shopping campaigns have problems of their own.
- A click is a visit. More clicks for the same budget is a better start, not proof of more enquiries.
FAQ
Questions people ask
It can be, when people search for what you sell in your area and the account counts real enquiries. On a few dollars a day, a campaign gets a handful of clicks, so every click has to come from a search that can become a customer. Fix the tracking first, then judge the results.
Start with conversion tracking: if it counts the wrong thing, the account can’t tell what works. Then read the search terms report for searches you would never pay for, and check the location option and the bid limit. Those 4 checks cover most of the accounts I see.
Check the basics first: approved ads, eligible keywords and budget left for the day. If they are all fine, look at impression share lost to rank and at your bid limit. A limit below what your searches cost stops the ads showing for them.
Google reviews most new ads within 1 business day, and clicks can start the same day. Whether they bring customers takes longer to judge. On a few dollars a day, check that conversions are counted properly, then give it 4 weeks before you change much. For the account in mistake 4, I compared the 4 weeks after my changes with the 4 weeks before.
Divide your daily budget by what a click costs for your main searches, which Keyword Planner shows. If the answer is 1 or 2 clicks a day, the campaign can’t learn much, so put the budget behind fewer keywords rather than spreading it thin.
How this post was made
Every number comes from a client account I worked on, and I checked each one against my account notes on 3 November 2026. I drafted the post with help from AI, then edited it.
