The Hidden Cost of "Good Enough" Campaigns
Most businesses running Google Ads are leaving money on the table — not because the platform doesn't work, but because small structural mistakes compound into massive inefficiency over time.
After managing over $250 million in ad spend across dozens of industries, we've seen the same five mistakes again and again. Each one quietly inflates your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) while making your campaigns look like they're performing.
Here's what to look for — and how to fix it.
1. Broad Match Keywords Without Guardrails
Broad match can be powerful when paired with smart bidding and strong negative keyword lists. But most accounts use it as a default without either.
The result? Your ads show for searches that are tangentially related at best. You pay for clicks from people who will never convert, and your CAC balloons without any obvious red flag in the dashboard.
The fix: Start with phrase match and exact match for your highest-intent keywords. Only expand to broad match once you have conversion data flowing and a robust negative keyword list built from actual search term reports. Review search terms weekly, not monthly.
2. Sending All Traffic to Your Homepage
Your homepage is designed to serve everyone — which means it's optimized for no one. When you send paid traffic to a generic page, you're asking visitors to do the work of finding what they need.
They won't. They'll bounce. And you'll pay for every one of those bounces.
The fix: Build dedicated landing pages for each campaign theme. If you're running ads for "commercial concrete services," that click should land on a page specifically about commercial concrete — with a clear CTA, relevant proof points, and zero navigation distractions. We've seen this single change reduce CAC by 30-40% for clients.
3. Ignoring Conversion Tracking Gaps
If your conversion tracking isn't airtight, you're optimizing in the dark. Google's smart bidding algorithms need accurate data to work. Feed them bad data, and they'll optimize for the wrong outcomes.
Common gaps we see:
- Tracking page views as conversions instead of actual form submissions
- Missing phone call tracking entirely
- Not distinguishing between high-value and low-value conversions
- Failing to account for cross-device conversions
The fix: Audit your conversion tracking setup quarterly. Use Google Tag Manager to track specific form submissions, phone calls, and key engagement events. Set up offline conversion imports if you have a sales team closing leads — this tells Google which clicks actually turned into revenue, not just which ones turned into form fills.
4. Set-It-and-Forget-It Bidding
Smart bidding strategies like Target CPA and Maximize Conversions are powerful, but they're not autonomous. They need regular recalibration as your market, competition, and conversion rates shift.
We frequently audit accounts where a Target CPA was set six months ago and never revisited. Meanwhile, the competitive landscape shifted, landing pages changed, and the algorithm is chasing an outdated goal.
The fix: Review bidding strategies every two weeks. Adjust targets based on actual performance data, not aspirational goals. If your Target CPA is $50 but your actual CPA has been $75 for three weeks, you're just telling Google to limit spend — not to find cheaper conversions. Meet the algorithm where the data is, then optimize incrementally.
5. No Negative Keyword Strategy
This is the most common and most expensive mistake. Without a deliberate negative keyword strategy, you're paying for irrelevant clicks every single day.
We've audited accounts spending $20,000/month where 15-20% of spend went to completely irrelevant search terms — job seekers, competitors' branded terms, informational queries with zero purchase intent.
The fix: Build a negative keyword list before you launch. Include obvious exclusions (jobs, careers, free, DIY, salary, reviews) and refine weekly based on search term reports. Create shared negative keyword lists across campaigns for efficiency. This is unsexy work, but it's the highest-ROI optimization you can make.
The Compound Effect of Getting It Right
None of these fixes are revolutionary on their own. But stacked together, they compound. We've seen total CAC reductions of 40-60% just by systematically addressing these five areas — no increase in budget required.
The difference between a good Google Ads account and a great one isn't creative genius. It's disciplined execution of the fundamentals, reviewed and refined consistently.
If your CAC feels too high, it probably is. And the fix is likely sitting in one of these five areas.
