The average small local business wastes between 40% and 60% of their Google Ads budget on clicks that will never convert. I've audited hundreds of local campaigns, and the same seven mistakes show up every single time — whether it's a $300/month HVAC company or a $5,000/month dental group.
When you add a keyword like plumber on broad match, Google is free to show your ad for searches like "plumber salary," "plumber licensing school," and "how to become a licensed plumber." You'll pay for every click — and none of those visitors want to hire you.
The fix: Audit your Search Terms report (Reports → Search terms in your Google Ads account). Look for the last 30 days of actual queries triggering your ads. Any term that isn't a genuine buying signal gets added as a negative keyword.
A plumbing company in Denver I worked with was spending $800/month. After an hour auditing search terms, we found 34% of their budget was going to informational queries. Switching those keywords to phrase match and adding 47 negatives dropped their cost-per-lead from $94 to $41 — same budget, more than double the leads.
Do this today: Open Search Terms, filter for last 30 days, add at minimum these negatives right now: "free," "DIY," "how to," "jobs," "salary," "school," "training," "near me" (counterintuitively, if you're already using geo-targeting, you don't want to also pay a higher CPC for "near me" searches that duplicate it).
This one is subtle and extremely expensive. By default, Google Ads targets users "in, or interested in, your target location." That sounds reasonable. It isn't.
📅 Published Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2026 10:26:33 +0000
🔗 Original Source: Read on original site
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