Google Ads can be the fastest way to get in front of ready-to-buy customers. It can also be the fastest way to drain your marketing budget with nothing to show for it.
According to WordStream, the average small business wastes up to 25% of their Google Ads budget on irrelevant clicks. In practice, for many businesses without a dedicated PPC specialist, that number is far higher — sometimes 60–80%.
The difference between businesses that win on Google Ads and businesses that hemorrhage money isn’t budget size. It’s avoiding a handful of avoidable mistakes.
Here are the 9 most common Google Ads mistakes small businesses make — and what to do instead.
1. Not Using Negative Keywords
If there’s one mistake that single-handedly wastes more small business budget than any other, it’s ignoring negative keywords.
Negative keywords are the terms you tell Google not to show your ad for. Without them, Google will match your ads to all kinds of irrelevant searches. A plumber running ads for “pipe repair” might end up showing ads for “pipe repair video games” or “tobacco pipe repair” — paying for clicks from people who will never become customers.
According to Google’s own data, properly configured negative keyword lists can reduce wasted spend by 20–30% or more.
Start with obvious irrelevant terms: “free,” “DIY,” “jobs,” “career,” “review,” and competitor names you don’t want to appear for. Then check your Search Terms Report weekly in the first month and add anything irrelevant you find there.
Action: Before launching any campaign, build a negative keyword list of at least 20–30 terms relevant to your industry.
2. Sending Ad Traffic to Your Homepage
This is one of the most common — and costly — mistakes. A potential customer searches “emergency HVAC repair Columbus Ohio,” clicks your ad, and lands on your homepage. Now they have to hunt for the relevant service, your phone number, and a reason to trust you. Most won’t bother.
Unbounce research consistently shows that dedicated landing pages convert at 2–5x the rate of homepages for paid traffic. Your homepage is designed for exploration. A landing page is designed for one thing: conversion.
Every ad campaign — ideally every ad group — should have a matching landing page that mirrors the exact language of the search query, leads with the most relevant offer, and has a single clear call to action. No navigation menus, no distractions, no extra clicks between the visitor and your form or phone number.
Action: Create a dedicated landing page for each major campaign. Match the headline on the page to the headline in your ad.
3. Ignoring Match Types
Google Ads gives you three keyword match types: broad match, phrase match, and exact match. Many small businesses — and even some agencies — default to broad match for everything, which tells Google to show your ad for any search it deems “relevant.” The result is wildly unpredictable traffic.
Broad match in 2026 means Google’s AI decides what “relevant” looks like — and its definition is often much looser than yours. A broad match keyword like web design might trigger your ad for searches like “how to build a website myself” or “Squarespace templates,” both of which describe people who won’t hire you.
Search Engine Land recommends starting new campaigns with phrase match and exact match while you build data, then introducing broad match selectively once you have a robust negative keyword list in place.
Action: Audit your current keyword match types. Shift high-spend broad match keywords to phrase or exact while you build out your negative keyword list.
4. Running Ads 24/7 Without Checking Ad Scheduling
Most small businesses serve a specific geographic area during specific hours. A law firm that’s only open Monday–Friday 9–5 probably doesn’t need their ads running at 2am Sunday morning — but if you haven’t set ad scheduling, that’s exactly what’s happening.
Ad scheduling (also called dayparting) lets you specify which days and hours your ads run. It also lets you increase or decrease bids during your best-performing times. If your data shows that calls from Google Ads convert at 3x the rate on weekday mornings versus weekend evenings, you should be allocating more budget to those windows.
Check your campaign’s “Day & Time” performance report under the Dimensions tab. You may find that 30% of your budget is being spent during hours when your conversion rate is near zero.
Action: Review your day/hour performance data after the first 30 days. Set ad scheduling to reduce or pause spend during consistently underperforming hours.
5. Not Tracking Conversions Properly
You cannot manage what you cannot measure. Running Google Ads without conversion tracking is like running a business without a cash register — you have no idea what’s working.
Surprisingly, Disruptive Advertising found that a significant portion of small business ad accounts have either no conversion tracking or broken conversion tracking. Without it, you can’t see which keywords, ads, or campaigns are actually generating leads or sales. You’re just guessing.
At a minimum, you need to track: form submissions, phone call clicks (via Google’s call tracking), and for e-commerce, purchases. Google Ads conversion tracking integrates directly with Google Analytics 4, and setting it up correctly takes less than an hour using Google Tag Manager.
Action: Before spending another dollar, audit your conversion tracking in the Google Ads “Conversions” section. If you see “No recent conversions” or tracking that doesn’t look right, fix this first.
6. Writing Weak Ad Copy That Blends In
Most small business Google Ads look identical to every competitor: “Quality [Service] in [City] | Call Today!” That kind of generic copy means your ad has no reason to be clicked over the four other ads on the same page.
Nielsen research shows that ad recall and click-through rates are dramatically higher when ads address a specific pain point, include a number, or make a specific promise rather than a generic claim.
Instead of “Expert Plumbers in Denver | Available 24/7,” try “Denver Plumber — On-Site in 60 Min or It’s Free | Licensed, Insured.” The second version makes a specific promise, includes a guarantee, and gives a concrete time frame. It stands out because it’s specific.
Use your Responsive Search Ads to test 8–10 headline variations. Include numbers, specific offers, your unique differentiator, and local signals. Review your ad strength scores and pause the underperformers.
Action: Rewrite your weakest-performing ads with at least one specific number, one concrete benefit, and one element that differentiates you from competitors.
7. Overlooking Google’s Automated Bidding Traps
Google aggressively pushes automated bidding strategies like “Maximize Clicks” and “Target CPA.” These can work extremely well — but only after you’ve collected enough conversion data for Google’s algorithm to learn from. Before that, they often make things worse.
Search Engine Journal recommends waiting until you have at least 30–50 conversions in a 30-day period before switching to Target CPA or Target ROAS bidding. Before that threshold, the algorithm doesn’t have enough signal to optimize effectively, and you can end up paying far too much per click while Google “learns.”
Many small businesses switch to automated bidding too early, see poor results, and conclude that Google Ads doesn’t work — when the real issue is timing.
Action: If you have fewer than 30 conversions per month, use Manual CPC or Enhanced CPC. Revisit automated bidding once your data volume supports it.
8. Targeting Too Broad a Geographic Area
If you’re a local service business, geographic targeting is one of the most powerful levers you have — and one of the most misused. Many small businesses target their entire state or metro region, when in reality their profitable service radius is 15–20 miles.
Spreading your budget across a wide area means you’re competing in every zip code with equal intensity, even in areas where you’ve never gotten a customer or don’t want to serve. Meanwhile, your core profitable zones get the same share of budget as everywhere else.
Use the Location Report in Google Ads (under Locations) to see where your conversions are actually coming from. You may find that 80% of your converted customers come from 3–4 zip codes — but those zip codes are getting only a fraction of your total budget.
Action: Add location bid adjustments to boost bids in your highest-converting areas and reduce or exclude areas that consume budget without converting.
9. Not Testing Landing Pages
Even a great ad campaign can fail if it sends traffic to a landing page that doesn’t convert. Most small businesses set up one landing page and never touch it — leaving significant revenue on the table.
HubSpot research found that companies with 10–15 landing pages see 55% more leads than those with fewer than 10. The reason isn’t the number of pages — it’s the testing and iteration that produces better converting pages over time.
Start simple. Run two versions of your landing page headline: version A as your current control, version B with a more specific offer or benefit-driven headline. Use Google Optimize (or VWO) to split traffic 50/50. Wait until each version has at least 100 visitors, then check which one converts better.
Even a 10% improvement in landing page conversion rate means 10% more leads from the same ad spend — no budget increase required.
Action: Identify your highest-traffic landing page and set up a simple A/B test on the headline. Run it for 2–4 weeks before declaring a winner.
The Common Thread
Every one of these mistakes comes down to the same core problem: running Google Ads without enough data, structure, or intentionality. Google’s platform is sophisticated — but it will happily let you spend every dollar of your budget on irrelevant traffic if you don’t tell it otherwise.
The businesses that win at Google Ads aren’t necessarily spending more. They’re spending smarter — eliminating wasted spend, matching ads to the right intent, sending traffic to pages built to convert, and constantly iterating based on real data.
If you want a website that converts the Google Ads traffic you’re already paying for, let’s talk →. We build high-converting landing pages and sites designed to turn paid traffic into real customers.
Richard Kastl
Founder & Lead EngineerRichard Kastl has spent 14 years engineering websites that generate revenue. He combines expertise in web development, SEO, digital marketing, and conversion optimization to build sites that make the phone ring. His work has helped generate over $30M in pipeline for clients ranging from industrial manufacturers to SaaS companies.
