You’ve set up your Google Ads campaign. The keywords are researched, the ads are written, and the budget is ready to roll. The campaign goes live, and you start to see the clicks coming in. For a moment, it feels like everything’s working.
But then you check the numbers.
The conversions aren’t what you expected. Your cost per click is higher than you planned, and somehow, despite all your effort, the return on ad spend (ROAS) doesn’t feel worth it. You start to wonder?what went wrong?
All too often, we see brands falling into common traps like sending traffic to irrelevant landing pages, ignoring seasonality trends, or failing to leverage first-party data. These missteps can quietly eat into your budget, leaving you frustrated and questioning whether Google Ads is worth it.
Here’s the truth: every one of these mistakes is avoidable.
In this blog, we’re breaking down the 10 Google Ad mistakes that could be holding your campaigns back and sharing proven strategies to fix them. If you’ve ever felt like your campaigns aren’t delivering the results you deserve, this guide will help you turn things around.
10 Google Ads Mistakes & How to Avoid Them?
1. Not running enough AB tests?
Amazon runs over 12,000 experiments a year, and Booking.com surpasses 25,000 tests annually and it’s no coincidence these companies are leaders in their industries. A/B testing is crucial for making data-driven decisions, yet many brands either don’t test enough or fail to test the right things.Testing helps eliminate guesswork, giving you insights into what truly works, but it’s only effective when done consistently.
Running too many tests can waste resources without much value, while running too few can miss out on optimization opportunities.
How much is enough? It depends on your budget, campaign size, and goals. As a general rule, you should always have at least one test running per campaign, focusing on one variable at a time like ad copy, creative, or audience targeting. Key areas to test include headlines, visuals, audience segments, and even landing pages to optimize post-click performance.
Google recommends running A/B tests for at least two weeks, or three conversion cycles if that’s longer.
2. Not adding new negative keywords to the campaigns/account on a regular basis?
Negative keywords are your best defense against wasting ad spend on irrelevant traffic. But many brands set them up once and forget about them, missing out on opportunities to optimize.
How regularly should you be checking your keywords? Review your search term reports at least once a week, especially in high-traffic campaigns, to identify irrelevant queries that are costing you money.
For example:
If you’re selling premium running shoes, you don’t want to pay for clicks on “workman boots” or “formal shoes” Add negative keywords for unrelated searches like “best formal shoes” or “boots”.
By continuously updating your negative keywords, you can refine your targeting and ensure your budget is spent on high-intent users.
3. Sending people to irrelevant landing pages
Imagine clicking on an ad for 50% off running shoes and landing on a generic homepage. Frustrating, right? This disconnect is a common mistake brands make, and it costs conversions. Your landing page should match the ad’s promise, providing users with exactly what they’re looking for.
However, creating a dedicated landing page for every ad might not always be possible or practical especially for brands with large catalogs. In such cases, you can leverage your website’s search filter functionality. For example, instead of sending users to a broad collection page, direct them to a pre-filtered search result for the exact category, product type, or offer mentioned in your ad.
This approach ensures that users land on relevant pages without the need for a fully custom landing page every time. It’s a quick win that can reduce bounce rates, improve your Quality Score, and boost conversions.
4. Not taking advantage of Seasonality Adjustments?
Say you run an online store specializing in tech accessories. Every year during Black Friday, your sales skyrocket as shoppers hunt for deals on everything from phone cases to wireless chargers. It’s your biggest week of the year, and you know demand will peak.
With Seasonality Adjustments, you can tell Google to anticipate an increase in your conversion rates during the Black Friday week. This prompts Google to bid more aggressively, ensuring your ads stay competitive and visible when shoppers are most active.
Without Seasonality Adjustments in Google Ads, your campaigns might not be ready to handle the surge. Google’s automated bidding strategies typically rely on 30-day performance trends, meaning they might not react quickly enough to a sudden influx of searches. This can leave your ads underperforming, resulting in missed impressions, lower clicks, and lost revenue.
On the flip side, if you expect a slowdown after Black Friday like during the post-holiday lull you can set a negative seasonality adjustment to conserve your budget. This ensures you’re not wasting money chasing traffic that’s unlikely to convert.
This tool is designed for short-term events typically no more than a week. For longer periods, like a month-long holiday sale, rely on smart bidding strategies that adapt more effectively over time.
5. Not Segmenting Your Keywords into the Right Ad Groups
One of the biggest mistakes in Google Ads is failing to properly segment your keywords into thematic ad groups. Some brands lump all their keywords like “running shoes”, “women’s sneakers”, and “Black Friday shoe deals” into a single ad group, resulting in generic ads and irrelevant landing pages. This approach creates a poor user experience; after all, you don’t want ads for women?s sneakers showing up when someone is searching for men’s running shoes!
Instead of overly broad ad groups or outdated Single Keyword Ad Groups (SKAGs), it’s far more effective to use Single-Theme Ad Groups (STAGs). STAGs focus on grouping keywords by theme or intent, ensuring that your ads are hyper-relevant to the user’s search intent. For example, if you’re running a Black Friday campaign for your shoe brand, you could have one ad group for Black Friday Running Shoes with keywords like “discount running shoes” and “marathon shoe deals”. Another ad group could focus on Black Friday Dress Shoes, targeting keywords like “formal men’s shoe Black Friday sale”.
With this approach, each ad group can have specific ad copy tailored to its theme. For instance, your Black Friday Running Shoes ad could say, ?Run Into Savings?Black Friday Deals on Running Shoes, and direct users to a dedicated landing page for running shoes.
To keep your campaigns manageable, each ad group should contain 10-20 closely related keywords and ideally a single ad per ad group. You can add up to 15 different headlines and 4 descriptions to each ad if you’d like to test different variations.
A single campaign should ideally have no more than 7-8 ad groups to ensure simplicity and focus. This structure not only improves ad relevance but also simplifies management, allowing you to optimize performance more effectively. Proper segmentation with STAGs ensures your ads are aligned with search intent, reduces wasted clicks, and increases your Quality Score ultimately driving down your cost-per-click (CPC) and maximizing your return on investment.
6. Ignoring Advanced Retargeting Opportunities
Your audience has seen your product before, so how do you keep their attention and nudge them toward conversion? The answer lies in layering your retargeting strategy to create a dynamic, multi-touch experience that keeps your brand fresh and engaging.
For example, imagine someone visits your shoe brand’s website and browses a pair of leather Chelsea boots but doesn’t make a purchase. A basic retargeting ad might show them the exact product they viewed “but why stop there” Instead, you can craft a sequence of ads that move them through the funnel:
- First Touchpoint – Product Ad: Show them the exact boots they viewed with a simple reminder like, “Your next pair of boots is waiting”.
- Second Touchpoint – UGC Ad: A few days later, retarget them with a user-generated content (UGC) ad featuring a happy customer styling the boots, adding social proof and relatability.
- Third Touchpoint – Value Proposition Ad: Follow up with an ad highlighting your brand’s unique selling points, like “Handcrafted for Durability and Style Free Shipping & Easy Returns”.
- Final Touchpoint – Offer Ad: For those still undecided, hit them with a time-sensitive incentive, like 10% Off Ends Tonight “Step Into Style Today!”
This multi-step retargeting strategy ensures you’re not bombarding potential customers with the same message repeatedly. Instead, you’re showing them different facets of your product and brand, keeping their interest alive and moving them closer to purchase.
7. Chasing ROAS Instead of LTV
One of the biggest mistakes even large brands make is focusing solely on Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) without considering the bigger picture?Lifetime Value (LTV). While ROAS measures the immediate return on your ad spend, it doesn’t account for the value a customer brings to your brand over time.
For a shoe brand, a campaign with a 4x ROAS may look like a win, but if it’s attracting one-time buyers who never return, is it truly driving sustainable growth? Instead, shifting your focus to LTV-based metrics allows you to prioritize customers who are more likely to make repeat purchases, such as loyal shoppers who return every season for new arrivals or those who invest in complementary products like shoe care kits.
How to Approach LTV-Based Strategies
- Segment Customers by LTV: Look at customer behavior over different time periods, such as LTV-90 Days or LTV-1 Year. For example, if your high-value customers typically return within six months to buy another pair of shoes, prioritize campaigns that attract similar profiles.
- Analyze Product Trends: Identify which products bring in repeat buyers. For example, if customers who purchase premium leather boots often come back for matching accessories like leather care products, create campaigns that promote bundles or cross-sell opportunities.
- Incorporate Retargeting: Use retargeting not just to close a sale but to re-engage existing customers. Show ads for new arrivals or exclusive offers tailored to their previous purchases, ensuring they stay engaged with your brand over the long term.
- Prioritize Loyalty Programs: Create ads encouraging customers to join your loyalty program, offering points for purchases, referrals, and social engagement. This not only increases LTV but also strengthens brand loyalty.
ROAS is a short-term metric, but LTV drives sustainable growth. By targeting high-value customers and creating strategies to keep them engaged, you’re not just making one-off sales you’re building a customer base that consistently contributes to your revenue over time.
8. Not Optimizing Merchant Center Product Titles
For brands using Google Shopping, product titles are one of the most critical elements for success. Your product title is the first thing customers see in shopping ads, and it heavily influences whether your products show up for the right searches. Yet, many brands fail to optimize their titles, either by keeping them too generic or neglecting to include important keywords.
Imagine your shoe brand has a product listed as “Men’s Shoes”. This title is vague and fails to highlight what makes the product unique. Instead, an optimized title like “Men’s Leather Chelsea Boots – Black, Size 9, Comfortable and Durable” includes key details like material, style, color, and size, making it more likely to appear in relevant searches like “black leather Chelsea boots size 9”.
How to Optimize Product Titles for Success
- Include Relevant Keywords: Think about what your customers are searching for and include terms like “leather”, “running”, ?sneakers”, or “high heels” to make your product more searchable.
- Be Descriptive: Use specific details such as material, color, size, or fit. For example, “Women’s Running Shoes – Lightweight, Pink, Size 8”.
- Prioritize Important Details: Place the most critical information (e.g., “Men’s Leather Boots”) at the beginning of the title, as longer titles may get truncated in search results.
- Avoid Keyword Stuffing: While it’s important to include relevant terms, overloading your title with keywords can make it look spammy and turn off potential buyers.
A well-optimized title improves your visibility, relevance, and chances of converting high-intent shoppers.
9. Not Excluding Branded Traffic from Performance Max (PMax) Campaigns
Performance Max (PMax) campaigns are a powerful tool for driving conversions across multiple Google channels, but one of the biggest mistakes brands make is failing to exclude branded traffic. While branded keywords (e.g., “Nike running shoes” or your own brand name) tend to convert well, including them in PMax campaigns can skew your data and give you a false sense of success.
For example, if someone searches for your shoe brand directly like “SwiftStep running shoes” they’re likely already familiar with your brand and would have converted regardless of the ad. When PMax takes credit for these conversions, it overinflates the campaign’s performance, making it look more effective than it actually is.
Why Excluding Branded Traffic Matters
- Accurate Performance Insights: Excluding branded traffic ensures your PMax campaign focuses on acquiring new customers rather than cannibalizing conversions that would have occurred organically or through other channels.
- Better Budget Allocation: PMax campaigns are designed to reach new audiences. By excluding branded traffic, you allow the campaign to focus on potential customers who are unfamiliar with your brand, maximizing your ROI.
- Clean Data: If branded traffic is included, it becomes difficult to measure the true effectiveness of your PMax campaigns in driving incremental revenue.
Without excluding branded keywords, your campaign data will be skewed. PMax will focus on converting easy, low-funnel branded traffic instead of reaching new customers, which limits growth potential and leads to wasted ad spend.
PMax campaigns don’t allow negative keywords to be added directly, but you can add brand exclusions to the PMax campaign, if the brand name is available there, this will include misspellings as well. Alternatively, you can also request Google Support to apply the list to your PMax campaigns!
10. Not Leveraging First-Party Data
For large e-commerce brands, first-party data is a goldmine that’s often underutilized. This data includes customer emails, purchase history, website behavior, and other insights collected directly from your audience. If you’re not using it to inform and improve your campaigns, you’re leaving money on the table.
For instance, as a shoe brand, you can use first-party data to create highly targeted campaigns. Upload your customer email list to Google Ads and create a Customer Match audience to target shoppers who’ve already purchased from you.
3 Ways to Leverage First-Party Data:
- Retargeting: Show ads for complementary products like shoe care kits to customers who purchased leather boots.
- Segmented Campaigns: Target high-value customers with exclusive deals or early access to sales.
- Using customer match lists in PMax campaigns as signals: You can upload a list of existing customer emails to indicate to Google that you’re looking for users similar to these. Additionally, you can add these customer lists to search campaigns as audiences and apply bid adjustments to prioritize them.
For example, you might choose to bid 50% higher for users who are on your customer list and searching for a keyword like “leather formal shoes”. This combination of feed optimization and leveraging customer match lists ensures your ads are shown to the most relevant audience while maximizing your visibility for high-intent users.
First-party data isn’t just about retargeting; it’s about creating smarter, more targeted, and efficient campaigns that convert better. For 7-8 figure brands, this level of personalization and targeting can unlock new growth opportunities while maximizing the value of every dollar spent.
Wrapping Up
Google Ads can be one of the most powerful growth tools for your business if you get the strategy right. To help you achieve this, we’ve put together a free 4-hour Google Ads Mini Course which covers the A-Z of Google Ads. Click here to watch the mini-course.
Want to know if your current setup is actually working for you? If your store generates over $100K a month, you can book a free strategy call with me. During this call, we’ll conduct a comprehensive audit of your Google Ads, Meta Ads, and retention marketing setup. Together, we’ll identify what’s working, what needs improvement, and how you can scale smarter. Click here to book your free strategy call.?
