Most wasted spend comes from a handful of settings: broad targeting, missing negatives, no conversion tracking and ads that send everyone to the homepage. Check these seven before you increase the budget.
When a Google Ads account underperforms, the instinct is to blame the channel or to add budget. In most accounts we audit, the problem is neither. It is a small number of settings and habits that let money drain away a few rials at a time. Here are the seven we see most, in the order we usually fix them.
1. Paying for the wrong searches.
Broad match keywords without a plan can show your ads for searches that have nothing to do with you: job seekers, free downloads, products you do not sell. Open your search terms report and read what people actually typed.
Fix: add negative keywords every week, use phrase and exact match for your most valuable terms and let broad match run only where conversion tracking can guide it.
2. Showing ads where you cannot serve.
The default location setting can include people who merely show interest in your area, not just people in it. For a clinic in Muscat or a showroom in Sohar, that means clicks from abroad you can never convert.
Fix: target the governorates or cities you serve, set the location option to presence only, and schedule ads for the hours someone can actually answer the phone or WhatsApp.
An ad that reaches someone you cannot serve is not reach. It is a refund you never get.
3. No conversion tracking, so nothing can learn.
Without conversions, Google optimises for clicks, and clicks are cheap to find. Your bidding, your reports and your decisions are all guessing.
Fix: track the actions that matter, such as form submissions, calls, WhatsApp taps and purchases, and import them from Google Analytics 4 or set them up directly. Only then switch to a bidding strategy based on conversions.
4. Every ad goes to the homepage.
Someone searches for “kitchen renovation Muscat”, clicks your ad and lands on a homepage about everything you do. They leave. Relevance between the search, the ad and the page is what keeps costs down and quality up.
Fix: send each ad group to a page about that specific service, in the language of the search, with one clear next step.
5. Ads written in one language for a bilingual market.
People in Oman search in Arabic, in English and in a mix of both. An English-only account misses Arabic searches entirely, while a translated ad often reads awkwardly.
Fix: build separate Arabic and English campaigns with keywords and ad copy written natively in each, pointing to pages in the matching language.
6. Nobody checks the search terms, ever.
Accounts often get set up carefully and then left alone. Meanwhile, search behaviour shifts, competitors appear and costs rise quietly.
Fix: a fifteen-minute weekly routine beats a quarterly overhaul.
- Read the search terms report and add negatives
- Pause ads and keywords with spend and no results
- Check that conversions are still being recorded
- Compare cost per result with last month
7. Judging too soon, or too late.
New campaigns need time for automated bidding to learn, usually a few weeks with steady conversions. Judging after three days leads to constant changes that reset the learning. Equally, leaving a campaign untouched for six months lets small problems compound.
Fix: agree a review rhythm in advance, with a clear number that defines success, such as cost per enquiry, and give each change enough time to show its effect.
Google’s own guidance on match types and location options is worth reading before changing any setting. ↗ Google Ads Help: keyword match types
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