Switch to Phrase Match and Exact Match Keywords
One of the most efficient ways to start improving the performance of your campaigns is by tightening your keyword matching strategy. Many businesses make the mistake of defaulting to broad match keywords. While this match type casts a wide net, it also attracts unqualified traffic that’s less likely to convert.
For instance, if your business sells vegan ice cream, using broad match terms like vegan ice cream could result in your ad being triggered for loosely related queries such as best dessert for summer or ice cream shop nearby. These clicks may come from users who have no intention of buying a vegan product online.
By switching to phrase match or exact match, your ads only show when a user types a specific query, such as “vegan ice cream delivery” or [vegan ice cream near me]. This level of precision allows you to reduce wasted impressions and attract searchers with stronger buying intent.
Phrase match allows some flexibility in word order and minor variations, while exact match targets only those searchers who enter a very specific phrase. While you may see fewer impressions, your click-through rate and conversion rate are likely to improve.
Pause Underperforming Keywords
Even the most carefully selected keyword list will include a few duds. Some keywords may drive traffic, but not conversions. Others may generate costly clicks that add nothing to your return on investment. That’s why it’s critical to review your keyword performance regularly.
Using your campaign reports, identify which keywords are underperforming. If a particular keyword is spending money without generating leads or sales, pause it. This will free up a budget that can be reallocated to higher-performing terms.
This isn’t a one-time exercise. Keyword performance shifts over time due to seasonality, competition, or changes in user behavior. Regular pruning of your keyword list ensures that only the most effective terms are active in your campaigns.
Add Negative Keywords to Block Irrelevant Searches
Adding negative keywords is one of the simplest ways to prevent your ads from showing up for irrelevant queries. This step alone can significantly reduce your wasted spend.
Let’s say you run an online store selling custom window shades. Without negative keywords, your ads could appear for search terms like lamp shades or sunglasses. These irrelevant clicks drain your budget and lower your campaign’s effectiveness.
To stay in control, monitor your search terms report closely. This report shows exactly what users typed before clicking on your ad. Look for patterns in irrelevant searches and add those terms to your negative keyword list.
The more you refine this list, the more accurate your targeting becomes. Negative keywords also improve your overall quality score, which can reduce your cost per click and improve ad rank.
Use Dynamic Search Ads for Broad Coverage
If your business offers a wide range of products or services, manually creating ads for each item can be time-consuming and inefficient. That’s where Dynamic Search Ads come in.
DSAs work by scanning the content of your website and automatically generating headlines and landing page URLs based on what’s most relevant to a user’s search. This makes them particularly useful for businesses with large inventories or frequently changing product lines.
For example, if a user searches for a ceramic baking dish and your website contains a product page with that phrase, the system will dynamically create a tailored ad that links directly to that product.
By leveraging your site’s content, DSAs expand your reach and often uncover new, high-performing keywords you hadn’t considered. Because the ads are tightly aligned with on-site content, they also tend to convert well.
It’s important to monitor performance and exclude any pages you don’t want promoted through DSAs. Over time, you’ll gather enough data to refine your strategy and scale the most successful combinations.
Adjust Bids Based on Device Performance
Every audience behaves differently depending on the device they use. Users browsing on mobile phones might click more frequently but convert less often than desktop users.
Your campaign performance data will reveal how each device contributes to your overall goals. If mobile traffic is high but conversions are low, it might make sense to reduce your mobile bid adjustments. You can then reallocate budget toward devices that convert more efficiently.
Sometimes, poor mobile performance isn’t just about the bid—it’s about the experience. Ensure your mobile landing pages are fully responsive, load quickly, and make it easy for users to complete their desired action.
Don’t assume that a single campaign should perform equally across devices. Tailor your strategy based on real user behavior. This will help you stretch your budget by avoiding overspending on low-performing segments.
Optimise Bids Based on Geographic Location
Not all locations offer the same return on investment. With location targeting in Google Ads, you can analyse which regions bring in the highest conversions or lowest cost per lead. Once you have that data, adjust your bids accordingly. Increase bids in high-performing locations to gain more visibility, and decrease them in areas with poor conversion rates.
For example, if your ad performs well in London but struggles in Newcastle, you can choose to shift more of your daily budget toward users in London. This allows you to double down where performance is strongest without increasing overall spend. Over time, these adjustments help you create a more cost-efficient campaign with improved targeting accuracy.
Experiment With Automated Bidding Strategies
Manual bidding can give you control, but it also demands constant attention. Google’s automated bidding strategies—especially Smart Bidding—can help you optimize performance more efficiently.
Smart Bidding uses machine learning to automatically set bids at auction-time based on a wide variety of signals, including device, location, time of day, and user behavior.
There are several Smart Bidding options available:
- Enhanced Cost-Per-Click (eCPC): Adjusts your manual bids based on the likelihood of conversion
- Maximise Conversions: Sets bids to get the most conversions within your budget
- Maximise Conversion Value: Focuses on achieving the highest total conversion value
- Target CPA: Aims to get as many conversions as possible at your set cost per acquisition
- Target ROAS: Targets a specific return on ad spend for each conversion
These strategies are particularly effective when your campaign has accumulated enough data for the system to learn from. Start by setting realistic goals. Avoid the temptation to set CPA targets too low in hopes of cutting costs quickly. This can reduce your impressions and hinder performance.
Instead, monitor how Smart Bidding impacts your results over time and adjust your targets gradually. When used correctly, automated bidding reduces manual work and ensures your ads appear in the right place, at the right time, for the right price.
Consider Smart Display Campaigns for Broader Reach
Display advertising often gets overlooked due to historically low conversion rates. However, Google’s Smart Display campaigns are designed to solve many of the inefficiencies of traditional display advertising. By combining automated bidding, audience targeting, and responsive ad creation, Smart Display campaigns simplify the process of reaching new users across the web.
All you need to do is provide a set of assets—such as images, logos, headlines, and descriptions. Google’s system then tests different combinations and delivers the highest-performing versions to the most relevant audiences. This approach reduces the time and resources required to run a successful display campaign. More importantly, Smart Display can work well as part of a remarketing or top-of-funnel strategy when you’re looking to nurture leads over time. Even if your main focus is on Search campaigns, adding Smart Display can help you stay visible across the entire customer journey.
Tactics for Smarter Spending and Stronger Conversions
Once you’ve refined your keyword targeting, optimised bidding strategies, and taken control of underperforming elements, the next step is to look beyond the ad itself. Efficient budget use isn’t just about the click—it’s also about what happens after that click.
From streamlining how you pay for ads to improving user experience on your site, these strategies help ensure that every pound you spend contributes meaningfully to your business goals.
Pay for Conversions, Not Clicks
One of the lesser-known options within Google Ads is the ability to pay only when someone converts, rather than every time they click. While this feature isn’t available to every advertiser, if your account has seen more than 100 conversions in the past 30 days, you may qualify to switch your Display campaigns to a “Pay for Conversions” model.
In this setup, you’re only charged when a user completes a desired action, such as a purchase or form submission. This fundamentally shifts the economics of your ad campaigns. Instead of budgeting based on guesswork about how many clicks will lead to a conversion, you’re paying directly for outcomes.
This model is especially helpful when your goal is lead generation or e-commerce sales. It also protects your budget from being consumed by casual clicks that never convert. It’s important, however, to set a realistic cost-per-acquisition target. Setting it too low might throttle your campaign, limiting impressions and reach. Start with a CPA that aligns with your actual customer acquisition costs, and adjust it as your campaign matures.
Avoid Unnecessary Payment Fees
Many businesses unknowingly reduce their available ad budget due to hidden payment fees. One of the most common issues is being charged extra when paying Google through international bank transfers. These fees can quietly accumulate month after month, eating into funds that could otherwise be used for acquiring new customers.
A better alternative is using a business account that supports multiple currencies or fee-free digital payment options. This enables you to send funds in the billing currency without triggering conversion charges. It’s a small operational shift, but over time, these savings add up—especially for companies spending several thousand pounds per month. By redirecting these savings back into your campaigns, you give your ads more room to perform.
Optimise Your Landing Pages for Higher Conversions
Clicks are only valuable when they lead to meaningful actions. That’s why your landing pages are just as important as your ads. Even the best-crafted ad won’t deliver ROI if the page it links to isn’t designed to convert.
Start by ensuring your landing pages are mobile-friendly. A growing percentage of Google Ads traffic comes from mobile devices, so your site must load quickly and render properly on smartphones and tablets. A slow or clunky mobile experience leads to instant drop-offs.
Next, make sure your landing pages have a clear call to action. Whether it’s filling out a form, making a purchase, or booking a call, the action should be obvious and easy to complete.
Avoid cluttering the page with unnecessary information. Stick to one primary goal and support it with persuasive content, compelling visuals, and trust-building elements like testimonials or guarantees.
A/B testing is another powerful tactic. By experimenting with different headlines, button colours, or form placements, you can find out which variations lead to better conversion rates. Over time, even small improvements in your conversion rate can have a significant impact on your cost per acquisition.
If your audience spans multiple countries, consider adapting your landing pages to offer prices and payment options in the local currency. Localisation reduces friction and builds trust, especially when users are making financial decisions.
Use Location-Specific Messaging in Your Ads
Tailoring your ad copy to reflect the user’s location is one of the most effective ways to increase engagement and conversion. People respond better to messaging that feels personal and locally relevant.
If your business offers delivery, installation, or in-person services, mention specific areas in your headlines or descriptions. For example, rather than saying free shipping available, you could say free next-day delivery in Manchester.
Localised messaging creates a sense of immediacy and relevance. It reassures the user that your business is available to serve their area and increases the likelihood of them clicking through and converting.
Even if you sell digital products, referencing the user’s country or city in your ads can help build familiarity. Dynamic keyword insertion tools allow you to automate this process by pulling in location data to customize your ads at scale.
Make sure your ad extensions also reflect regional information where applicable. Location extensions, callout extensions, and sitelinks can all be tailored to support your local messaging strategy.
Create Highly Targeted Ad Copy for Each Intent
Generic ad copy is one of the leading causes of wasted spend in paid search campaigns. When your messaging is too broad, it fails to resonate with specific user needs and invites irrelevant clicks.
To combat this, segment your campaigns into tightly themed ad groups based on intent. For example, a company selling accounting software might break their keywords into separate groups like freelance accounting tools, small business tax software, and VAT invoice software.
Each group should have its own customised ad copy that directly reflects the language and pain points of the user searching that term. This increases your ad relevance and quality score, which can lower your cost per click while boosting your position in the search results.
Include keywords from each group naturally within the headlines and descriptions. This reinforces to the user that your ad is exactly what they’re looking for and signals to Google that your content is highly relevant.
Ad copy should also address common objections or questions. Highlight benefits such as free trials, fast onboarding, or 24/7 support to remove friction and entice users to click. The more aligned your messaging is with the user’s search intent, the more efficiently your budget will be used.
Map Out and Enhance the Customer Journey
Not every user is ready to convert on the first interaction. Many buyers take time to research, compare, and evaluate before making a decision. That’s why it’s essential to have a customer journey strategy that captures leads at every stage. Begin by identifying what users might need during each phase of their journey—awareness, consideration, and decision. For example, someone at the top of the funnel may be looking for general information, while a bottom-funnel visitor is likely ready to make a purchase.
Offer valuable low-commitment options to users who aren’t ready to buy yet. This could include downloadable guides, free tools, webinar access, or email courses. These offers allow you to collect contact details and stay in touch through retargeting or email nurturing. By staying connected with potential buyers, you increase the likelihood of them returning and converting later—without needing to pay for a second click through search ads.
Use remarketing lists to show different messages to users based on their stage in the funnel. Someone who visited your pricing page might receive a discount offer, while someone who read a blog post could be shown a case study. Aligning your advertising strategy with the full customer journey helps you capture more value from your ad spend by extending the conversion window beyond a single session.
Make Use of Call Tracking and Attribution Tools
It’s difficult to reduce your CPA if you don’t know which campaigns are actually driving results. That’s why implementing conversion tracking and attribution tools is so important. Set up conversion tracking in Google Ads and Google Analytics to measure how users interact with your ads.
Beyond form submissions and online sales, you can also track phone calls, downloads, and other custom goals that reflect meaningful engagement. Call tracking software allows you to assign unique numbers to different ad campaigns. When someone calls after clicking your ad, you’ll know exactly which campaign, keyword, and device led to the conversion. With this data, you can reallocate your budget more accurately, reducing spend on underperforming areas and doubling down on the sources that bring in the most value.
Multi-touch attribution models also help you understand how different touchpoints contribute to a conversion over time. This gives you a fuller picture of how users interact with your brand and helps avoid overvaluing last-click conversions. Better tracking leads to better decisions—and more efficient ad spend.
Scaling Smart and Sustaining Long-Term Ad Performance
Once your campaigns are performing efficiently, the next step is to scale responsibly. Growth shouldn’t come at the cost of wasted spend or a spike in your cost per acquisition. With a clear framework for creative testing, performance monitoring, and budget control, you can grow your Google Ads account while maintaining a healthy return on investment.
Advanced yet practical tactics to help you squeeze more from every pound, including ad testing frameworks, performance expansion models, and techniques to maintain quality and control over the long term.
Use Smart Display Campaigns to Automate and Expand Reach
Smart Display campaigns are one of the most efficient ways to expand your reach without significantly increasing management overhead. These campaigns combine automated targeting, bidding, and creative testing into one streamlined format.
By uploading a variety of headlines, descriptions, images, and logos, Google automatically tests different combinations and serves the most effective ad based on user behavior. This allows your campaign to dynamically adapt to different audience segments and placements.
Smart Display campaigns are particularly useful for businesses entering new markets or trying to scale efficiently without micromanaging each component. These campaigns can be used to increase brand awareness, retarget previous visitors, or promote high-margin offers.
Start small and allow time for the machine learning algorithm to gather performance data. Over time, as you identify which creative elements and placements drive conversions, you can refine inputs or shift budgets accordingly.
Continuously Run A/B Tests on Ads and Landing Pages
Testing is at the heart of any sustainable Google Ads strategy. Without structured experimentation, your campaigns can stagnate—resulting in flat conversion rates and rising costs.
Within the Google Ads platform, run regular A/B tests on your headlines, descriptions, and display paths. Test different tones, value propositions, and call-to-action phrases. For example, try comparing urgency-based copy like sign up today with benefit-led copy like reduce your admin time.
Outside the ads themselves, run split tests on your landing pages using A/B testing platforms. Change one element at a time—such as your headline, CTA button placement, or trust signals—so you can measure the exact impact of each change.
Make testing a routine process. Allocate a portion of your traffic to experiments and continue promoting only those variations that outperform your current control. This cycle of testing and iteration is one of the most cost-effective ways to optimize performance over time.
Segment Campaigns by Intent to Improve Quality Scores
One of the most effective ways to stretch your ad budget is by improving your quality score. Higher scores often lead to lower cost-per-click rates and better ad placements.
To increase quality score, break your campaigns into tightly themed ad groups based on search intent. For example, segment keywords into categories like comparison shoppers, solution seekers, and ready-to-buy customers. Each group should have its own ad copy and landing page that closely matches the searcher’s intent.
By making each experience highly relevant—from keyword to ad to landing page—you improve user satisfaction and signal higher quality to Google’s algorithm. These improvements not only lower your CPC, but they can also increase your click-through and conversion rates, compounding your returns from the same budget.
Use Audience Targeting to Layer Intent and Interest
Keyword targeting alone can sometimes fall short in identifying the best-fit audience for your product or service. That’s where audience targeting adds additional control and precision. Use Google Ads audience segments to target people based on their demographics, interests, online behavior, or in-market activity. For example, if you sell project management tools, target people actively researching business productivity or SaaS subscriptions.
You can also combine keyword and audience targeting using observation mode. This allows you to track how different audience segments perform with your existing keyword targeting, without narrowing reach initially. Once you identify top-performing segments, you can then apply bid adjustments or isolate them into separate campaigns. This layered approach ensures your ads are shown not only to people searching the right terms, but to those who are more likely to engage and convert.
Monitor Search Term Reports and Expand Negative Keyword Lists
One of the most overlooked areas of budget waste is irrelevant search queries. Even with precise targeting, your ads may appear for terms that don’t align with your business goals. That’s why reviewing your search terms report is a weekly must-do. This report shows the actual queries that triggered your ads. Look for searches that are irrelevant, too generic, or show commercial intent that doesn’t match your offering.
Add these terms to your negative keyword list to prevent future budget waste. For instance, if you’re targeting invoice software and see clicks coming from free invoice template queries, block those unless you offer free tools. Regular negative keyword maintenance keeps your campaigns lean, ensuring your ads appear only for the most valuable queries.
Adjust Budgets and Bids Based on Seasonality and Trends
Spending the same amount across all weeks and months doesn’t always make sense. Seasonal trends, market shifts, and consumer behavior changes all affect performance and intent. Monitor your campaign performance by time period and look for patterns. Are conversions cheaper during certain months? Do weekdays perform better than weekends? Is there a spike in traffic during holiday seasons?
Use this data to create a bidding and budgeting calendar. Increase bids during high-converting seasons and scale back during lulls. This doesn’t mean pausing campaigns but rather shifting how and when budget is applied to maximise returns. Google Ads also allows you to schedule ads by day and hour. Use this feature to run your campaigns during peak engagement windows and limit exposure when performance typically drops.
Invest in High-Converting Offers and Retargeting
Not every click results in a sale, but many can be recaptured with a solid retargeting strategy. Retargeting allows you to re-engage users who have visited your website but didn’t convert. Segment your audience based on actions taken—such as visited product pages, abandoned carts, or downloaded a brochure—and create tailored ads for each group. These users are already familiar with your brand and are much more likely to convert with the right nudge.
You can also use remarketing to promote lower-barrier offers such as free demos, trial signups, or content downloads. This allows you to continue building trust while maintaining visibility during the user’s decision-making process. By spending budget on already-warmed-up audiences, you improve efficiency and lower your cost per acquisition.
Build Conversion-Based Lookalike Audiences
Once you’ve gathered enough conversion data, you can use it to create lookalikes or similar audiences. These are users who share characteristics and behavior with your existing customers but haven’t interacted with your brand yet. Google Ads allows you to build these audiences based on website activity, customer match lists, or YouTube engagement. When paired with your top-performing campaigns, they help you scale reach without diluting conversion rates.
Ensure that you’ve built a clean, consistent first-party data foundation. The more accurate your source list, the better your lookalike performance will be. Use different lookalike thresholds depending on your goals. Broader segments work well for top-of-funnel campaigns, while tighter similarities are better for lower-funnel retargeting or remarketing strategies.
Set Clear CPA and ROAS Goals as You Scale
Scaling your Google Ads doesn’t mean simply increasing your budget and hoping for the best. It requires goal-driven optimisation. Two of the most important metrics to monitor are cost per acquisition (CPA) and return on ad spend (ROAS).
As your campaigns grow, regularly compare performance against your target benchmarks. If your CPA starts to rise above profitable levels, pause new expansion and focus on tightening targeting or improving creativity. Similarly, if your ROAS drops below sustainable levels, review how your ad spend is distributed across campaigns, devices, locations, and audience segments.
Smart bidding strategies like Target CPA and Target ROAS help automate these adjustments. However, they work best when guided by realistic, data-backed performance goals. Avoid setting targets too low, or you may limit delivery and restrict learning potential. Continual monitoring ensures that your account remains efficient and scalable at the same time.
Consolidate High-Performing Campaigns and Retire Ineffective Ones
As your Google Ads account matures, you’ll likely end up with multiple campaigns, some of which may no longer contribute meaningfully. Running too many underperforming campaigns can dilute performance insights and scatter your budget.
Periodically audit your account and identify campaigns with consistent conversions, low CPAs, and high ROAS. Consolidate these into focused campaign structures that are easier to manage and optimise.
Retire campaigns that consistently underperform despite multiple adjustments. Holding onto them too long can waste resources and cloud your overall strategy. Simplicity leads to focus. The more streamlined your account, the easier it is to track progress, test improvements, and drive scalable results.
Automate Reporting and Performance Alerts
When managing ad spend across multiple campaigns, products, or regions, staying on top of performance manually can be overwhelming. Automation helps ensure that important trends or issues are never missed.
Use Google Ads’ built-in automated rules to trigger budget pauses, bid increases, or status changes based on performance metrics. For instance, you can pause keywords with high spend and no conversions after a certain threshold.
Custom dashboards and alerts in Google Analytics or Looker Studio (formerly Data Studio) can also help surface key insights in real time. Set up alerts for CPA spikes, conversion drops, or click-through rate changes. Automation doesn’t replace strategic thinking, but it allows you to spend more time optimising and less time checking numbers.
Final Thoughts
Maximising your Google Ads budget isn’t about cutting corners—it’s about applying strategic, data-informed decisions that refine your campaigns over time. From the early foundations of keyword targeting and bid adjustments to the more advanced practices of creative testing and automation, every tactic explored in this series is designed to help you spend smarter, not just less.
The reality is that most businesses waste significant ad spend due to poor structure, misaligned messaging, or lack of performance monitoring. But by taking a disciplined approach to campaign management, and consistently optimising based on clear goals like cost per acquisition or return on ad spend, you can turn a leaky budget into a powerful engine for growth.
Consistency is key. Google’s algorithm rewards campaigns that learn and improve over time—pausing, restarting, or constantly shifting strategy too quickly can interrupt that progress. Instead, give your campaigns the space to mature while maintaining tight oversight on performance metrics.
Ultimately, the brands that succeed with Google Ads are those that view it as a long-term investment. They don’t just focus on short-term wins but also invest in the customer journey, compelling creative, and sustainable targeting strategies. Whether you’re a startup trying to find your first 100 customers or a seasoned business looking to scale, the principles in this series will help you unlock more value from every pound spent.
So instead of asking how much budget you need to succeed on Google Ads, the better question is: how efficiently are you using the budget you already have? With the right strategies, the answer may surprise you.