Most Google Ads accounts we review during a PPC audit have the same handful of problems. None of them are complicated to fix once you know what you're looking for. Here are the five we see most often.
1. Broad match keywords with no negative keyword list
Broad match can work well, but only when it's paired with a negative keyword list that's actively maintained. Without one, an account ends up paying for searches that have nothing to do with what's being sold: "free," "jobs," "DIY," "how to," and dozens of variations that were never going to convert. If nobody's checked the search terms report in the last month, this is usually where the leak is.
2. Conversions that were never real leads
A "conversion" set up to fire on every form view, every click of a phone number, or every page load isn't measuring leads: it's measuring traffic. When the reported cost-per-lead looks suspiciously good, it's often because the conversion action is counting things that were never genuine enquiries. Fixing this usually makes the numbers look worse before they get better, but it's the only way to make decisions on real data.
3. The same three ads have been running for months
Ad copy fatigues. Click-through rates decline, Quality Score drifts down, and cost-per-click creeps up, often without anyone noticing because nobody's actively testing new variations against the old ones. If the top-performing ad in an ad group was written more than three months ago, it's worth testing something new against it.
4. Budget split evenly across campaigns, regardless of performance
It's common to find budget allocated the way it was originally planned, not the way the account is actually performing. A campaign converting at half the cost of another should get more budget, not the same amount. This sounds obvious, but it's rarely actioned unless someone is in the account every week rather than reviewing a monthly report.
5. Every ad points to the homepage
Sending search traffic to a general homepage instead of a page that matches the specific offer or service being searched for is one of the simplest ways to quietly lower conversion rate. A visitor who searched for a specific service expects to land on a page about that service, not a page they have to navigate through to find it.
What to do next
None of these require a full account rebuild to fix, but they do require someone to actually be looking. If you're not sure whether your account has any of these issues, a free PPC audit will tell you exactly where budget is being wasted, in plain language, with no obligation to work together afterward.