March 12, 2025
How to tell if your Google Ads budget is actually working
Cost per click and impression share tell you almost nothing. Here are four checks that show whether paid search is buying revenue or buying noise.
Start with search terms, not keywords
The keywords you bought and the searches you actually paid for are two different lists. Pull the search terms report for the last ninety days and read it properly. In most accounts, a quarter of spend is going to searches you would never have chosen, and nobody has looked in months.
Separate brand from non-brand
Brand search converts beautifully because those people were already coming. Blending it into your headline numbers hides how your real acquisition is performing. Split the two and look at them separately. The non-brand numbers are the honest ones.
Follow the lead past the form
A cheap cost per lead means nothing if those leads never buy. Push conversion data back from your CRM so you can see cost per qualified lead and cost per customer by campaign. That single change usually reorders which campaigns you think are winning.
Check what the landing page is doing
Ads rarely fail on their own. If a campaign has a strong click-through rate and a weak conversion rate, the problem is after the click. Fix the page before you touch the bids.
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