Google Ads costing more than they bring in? Start here.
When ads stop paying their way, the cause is usually tracking, targeting or the page people land on, not the platform itself. These are the checks we run first.
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Check 1: can you trust the numbers?
Before judging a campaign, make sure conversions are tracked properly. Is a form submission counted once, not three times? Are phone calls counted? Is a newsletter sign-up being treated like a sales enquiry? Many accounts that look unprofitable are really mis-measured, in either direction.
Check 2: what are you actually paying for?
Open the search terms report and read what people typed before clicking. Common problems:
- Broad matching that pays for loosely related searches, including job seekers and students.
- Your own brand name eating budget that would have come to you anyway.
- Locations set wider than you serve, or “interest in” locations switched on.
- Display or partner networks switched on by default in a search campaign.
- Automated bidding running on poor conversion data, so it optimises for the wrong thing.
Check 3: where do clicks land?
Also check the ads themselves: does each ad say what the page delivers, in the searcher’s words, with a reason to choose you? Sending every ad to the home page is one of the most common leaks. Someone who searched for one specific service should land on a page about that service, with one clear next step. If the page is slow on mobile or the form is long, good clicks are wasted.
Every tap counts
Most enquiries now start on a phone
Fast pages, one clear next step and proper tracking turn those taps into real conversations with your team.
Check 4: is the maths possible?
Work out what a new client is worth to you over time, how many enquiries turn into clients, and therefore the most you can afford to pay per enquiry. If the cost per click in your market makes that impossible, no amount of tweaking will fix it, and you should put the budget elsewhere. Better to know now.
How we can help
Our free 60-minute Growth Audit includes a review of your paid spend and tracking, so you leave knowing whether to pause, fix or grow. Ongoing management sits in our Paid Growth Retainer, from £750 a month +VAT plus your ad spend, with transparent weekly reporting.
Last updated 27 October 2026. Prices exclude VAT.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you cannot trust the tracking, pause the worst campaigns while you fix it, rather than everything. Turning all ads off can hide what was working.
For an audit, read-only access is enough. You keep ownership of your account and data whether or not you work with us.
No. Some markets are too expensive per click for the value of a client. We will say so if that is what the numbers show.
Cost per genuine enquiry, and if you can, cost per new client. Click-through rate and cost per click are useful clues, but they do not tell you whether the ads make money.
Paid search can produce enquiries within days of a well-built campaign going live, but it takes a few weeks of data to know which searches are profitable.