Wasted Google Ads spend rarely sits in the ad itself. In the accounts founders hand us, it hides in five places: broad match keywords nobody is managing, search partners and the Display Network, auto-applied recommendations, conversion goals that reward page views instead of sales, and the same sale counted twice. The search terms report shows you the first leak in minutes. It is the list of what you actually paid for.
How we run search for founders is on our Google Ads page. This post is the part you can check yourself today.
Why the leaks are hard to see
The algorithm only does what it is told. If an account is told to chase clicks, it will find clicks, and the dashboard will look busy.
That is why we never start with the ads. We start with what the business is trying to do: what a customer is worth over their lifetime, what the margin allows, which sale or lead actually matters. Then we check whether the account has been built to find that person, or built to find people who click.
Leak 1: broad match keywords nobody manages
Your keyword list is what you asked for. The search terms report is what you paid for. Those are often two very different lists.
Unmanaged broad match lets Google decide which searches are close enough to your keyword. Open the search terms report and it immediately shows how much budget is being set on fire.
What to do:
Sort the search terms by cost, highest first.
Read down the list and mark every search no customer of yours would type.
Note which keyword triggered each one. That tells you which keywords need tighter match types.
Add the bad searches as negative keywords.
Come back to it as a habit. New leaks appear as the account learns.
Broad match is not the problem on its own. Broad match that nobody reads is.
Leak 2: search partners and the Display Network
By default, Google Ads can push a search campaign out to search partner sites and the Display Network. In our experience they almost always deliver low-intent, low-converting traffic.
What to do:
Open the network settings on every search campaign.
Segment results by network to see what the partner and display traffic cost, and what it returned.
If it spends and does not convert, switch it off.
Leak 3: recommendations that apply themselves
Google's automated recommendations are designed to increase Google's revenue. That rarely lines up with what a founder is trying to do.
What to do:
Turn off auto-apply recommendations.
Turn off auto-applied broad match expansion in particular.
Keep reading the recommendations. Apply the useful ones by hand, on purpose.
Leak 4: the account is optimising for the wrong thing
Look at what the account counts as a conversion. If page views or time on site are in there, smart bidding is being paid to find people who browse.
What you want it to chase are business results: purchases and qualified leads. Change what you measure and you change who the algorithm goes looking for.
Leak 5: the same sale counted twice
This one makes an account look better than it is. If GA4 transactions and Google's own conversion tag are both counting the same purchase, your reported return on ad spend can be artificially doubled.
The result is worse than a flattering report. The bidding learns from inflated numbers, and budget gets moved towards campaigns that only look like winners. Compare what Google Ads reports with what your shop or CRM recorded for the same period.
The leak outside the account
Some of the most expensive leaks are not in Google Ads at all. We look at every touch point: how many people you lose at checkout, your offers and sign-up offers, your email, your margins. Elaine calls it the leaky bucket. More traffic into a bucket with holes in it is still wasted spend.
If you are deciding whether paid search or organic should come first while you fix it, our post on Google Ads or SEO first covers that call.
What not to switch off
Finding waste makes people want to change everything at once. Don't.
Keep the ugly winner. Never pause a high-spending, high-converting ad because the creative looks unpolished. If it drives the lowest cost per acquisition in the account, it is doing its job.
Protect the core engine. In a first audit we make no budget change bigger than 15 to 20%, and we do not edit the targeting of the best-performing campaigns.
Go step by step. Fix one leak, read the result, then fix the next.
FAQ
How do I find wasted spend in Google Ads?
Open the search terms report, sort by cost and read it. It shows the searches you actually paid for. Then check network settings, auto-apply recommendations and what the account counts as a conversion.
Should I turn off search partners in Google Ads?
Check what they cost and what they returned first. In our experience search partners and the Display Network almost always bring low-intent, low-converting traffic to a search campaign.
Should I let Google auto-apply recommendations?
We turn auto-apply off. The recommendations are designed to grow Google's revenue, so read them and apply the useful ones yourself.
Is broad match always a waste of money?
No. Unmanaged broad match is the waste. If someone reads the search terms report and adds negatives, broad match can work.
Next step
Want a senior read on where your budget is going? See how we run search on our Google Ads page, or get in touch.
Book a free Growth Plan. Thirty minutes with the person who would do the work. No deck, no pitch.