Five Google Ads pitfalls to avoid when you’re just starting out

Google Ads looks straightforward: choose keywords, write ads and set a budget. But a lot of decisions stand between an impression and a valuable customer. In a new account, small settings can shape the quality of your traffic—and what you’ll be able to learn from the numbers later. These five pitfalls are worth checking before you scale a campaign.

1. Optimizing for the wrong conversion#

Suppose you want people to request quotes. In Google Ads, a visit to your contact page is set up as a conversion. The dashboard then shows plenty of ‘conversions’, but hardly any quote requests come in. The campaign may be doing exactly what you taught it to do—just not what your business needs.

Before you launch, decide which action has real value. For a service business, that might be a submitted quote request form; for an online store, a purchase. A click on a phone number can be useful to track, but it doesn’t necessarily mean a conversation took place.

Then check three things:

• Is the action recorded correctly? Submit a test form or make a test purchase and check that tracking works.
• Is the same action counted twice? A conversion tracked through Google Ads and an imported event could distort your results.
• Is the campaign using the right conversion goals? Not every tracked event needs to guide your bidding strategy. Separate primary actions you want to optimize for from secondary actions that mainly give you more insight.

Consider privacy settings and consent for tracking, too. Check with whoever manages your website that the setup fits your cookie banner and privacy policy. A measurement plan doesn’t have to be complicated, but without reliable tracking, it’s easy to mistake a cheap click for a good one.

2. Letting default settings decide who sees your ads#

When you’re setting up a campaign, it’s tempting to click quickly through the settings. Yet that’s where some consequential choices sit: locations, languages, ad networks and when your ads can appear.

Take a painter who works only in Utrecht and the surrounding area. Targeting ‘the Netherlands’ could bring in searchers the business can’t serve. Check how Google interprets a location, too. Depending on the option you choose, you may reach people who are in an area, regularly visit it or show interest in it. The right option depends on what you offer: an urgent local job calls for different targeting than a holiday home.

For any new search campaign, check at least these settings:

• Locations: does your targeting match the areas where you actually deliver or work?
• Languages: do they match your customers and ads?
• Networks: do you want to use search partners as well as Google Search? Assess their results separately where reporting allows.
• Schedule: can you follow up on inquiries when they come in?

Don’t narrow your reach without thinking it through. Someone outside your home city may still be looking for a service at an address within your service area. The aim isn’t to reach as few people as possible, but to choose deliberately which traffic is relevant.

3. Choosing keywords without considering search intent#

A keyword describes not just a topic, but a possible need. Someone searching for ‘how much does a heat pump cost’ may still be researching their options. Someone searching for ‘heat pump installer Amersfoort’ seems closer to making an inquiry. Both searches could be valuable, but they don’t necessarily call for the same ad and landing page.

Start with terms closely related to what you offer. Group related keywords so you can write specific ads. Keep the different keyword match types in mind. Broad match can reach many variations, but it also gives Google more room to decide which searches are relevant. Phrase match and exact match offer more control, without guaranteeing that an ad will appear only for the exact words you entered.

Once the campaign is running, check the search terms report regularly. It shows the available searches that triggered your ads. Not every search appears in the report, but it’s still an important source of ideas for improvement. Look for two kinds of signals:

1. Promising searches you could target more specifically in an ad group or ad copy.
2. Irrelevant searches you could block with negative keywords.

If you sell new office furniture, for example, ‘free office furniture’ might be a sensible negative keyword. Don’t add long lists of exclusions without thinking: you could block valuable traffic as well. Always check both the meaning and the match type of a negative keyword.

4. Setting a budget without a bidding strategy#

Entering a daily budget feels like financial control. But it doesn’t tell you what you’re willing to pay for. Google Ads may also spend more than your average daily budget on individual days, so assess spending over a longer period as well as day by day, and check the applicable spending limit.

Start with the business math. Roughly what is a new customer worth? What share of inquiries become customers? Given that, what can you afford to pay for an inquiry? You don’t need perfect figures from day one. A reasoned starting limit is more useful than chasing the lowest cost per click.

Then choose a bidding strategy that fits your goal and your tracking. Automated strategies can adjust bids using signals you can’t all see yourself. But if your main conversion goal is set up incorrectly, you’re mostly automating the wrong decision. Check whether a target CPA or target ROAS is realistic for your offer and the campaign data you have; a target that’s too restrictive can limit your reach.

Don’t change your budget, bidding target and keywords all at once every morning. That makes it hard to tell what caused a result. Record important changes, give results time to appear and allow for the delay between a click and an eventual inquiry or purchase.

5. Improving the ad but forgetting the landing page#

An ad can match a search perfectly and still deliver little value. After all, visitors don’t land on your ad; they land on a page. If that page is slow, confusing or irrelevant, you lose the attention you just paid for.

Test the whole journey yourself, preferably on a phone too. Search for a term you advertise on, read the ad and open the landing page. Is the promised product or named service immediately recognizable? Is it clear who the offer is for and what to do next? Do the forms and buttons actually work?

A general homepage isn’t necessarily wrong, but it often makes visitors search again. A focused page can give them the information faster: what you offer, where you work or deliver, which conditions matter and how to get in touch. Make claims in the ad that the page can back up; don’t promise a delivery time or benefit visitors can’t find there.

If results are disappointing, look beyond clicks and costs. Too few relevant impressions point to a different problem than plenty of relevant visits with no inquiries. Assess ads, search terms, conversion tracking and landing pages together, and you can make more targeted improvements. That’s the heart of good campaign management: not changing as many settings as possible, but finding the right cause before you change anything.