A real account, audited.
This is the report a B2B marketing consultancy got for its own account. The data is real, pulled read-only from the Google Ads API. Brand and competitor names are replaced with placeholders, search terms are translated to English and money is converted to US dollars.
spent in 90 days on searches with no chance of converting.
of the visible search-term spend was irrelevant.
account health score.
The ten most expensive mistakes
| Search term | Why it's waste | Clicks | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| tool | 1 | $52.35 | |
| off offer | 1 | $35.41 | |
| off offer | 3 | $34.73 | |
| competitor | 1 | $33.46 | |
| competitor | 2 | $32.98 | |
| competitor | 1 | $25.23 | |
| tool | 1 | $24.57 | |
| off offer | 1 | $22.58 | |
| tool | 2 | $19.24 | |
| tool | 2 | $19.09 |
Findings
F1 · You are paying for searches that can never become customers
76 named search terms ($964 in 90 days) had zero conversions and no relation to what you sell: other agencies' brand names, services you don't offer, software lookups and job searches. 60 of them were later excluded; 16 are still open. A further $603 went to 195 low-volume terms, most of them other companies' names.
F2 · 82% of your spend is invisible in the search terms report
Google showed search terms for only $2,125 of $11,595 spent. 96% of keyword spend runs on broad match, which matches you to long-tail queries Google withholds for privacy. You cannot negate what you cannot see.
F3 · Smart bidding is optimising for 9 different 'conversions'
9 conversion actions are set as primary, including 3 that are not leads (YouTube engagement, many-per-click contact events). 6 different lead/contact actions can fire for the same person. Maximize Conversions treats all of them as wins, so it learns to buy cheap engagement instead of qualified leads.
F4 · 1 campaign spent $374 with zero conversions
Search | Lead quality | Exact (manual CPC): $374, 92 clicks, 0 conversions.
F5 · Your best campaign is losing most auctions on rank, not budget
Search | Core services | Broad shows 21% impression share; 54% lost to Ad Rank and 25% to budget. 29 keywords have Quality Score ≤3 and absorbed $1,775. Raising the budget would buy more of the same weak traffic.
