Google Ads work. Underperforming Google Ads accounts almost always fail for the same short list of reasons, and none of them are the algorithm. If your ads are spending and the phone is not ringing, one of these is usually why. Here is the list, and the fix for each.
You are paying for the wrong searches
Without negative keywords, Google shows your ad on searches you never wanted. A roofing company pays for searches like roofing jobs hiring and how to roof a shed. A lawyer pays for free legal advice. Every one of those clicks costs money and none of them call. Negative keywords tell Google what to ignore, and a real account gets them reviewed every week. Skip it and you fund a steady stream of clicks that were never going to convert.
The ad sends people to the wrong page
A strong ad pointed at a weak page still loses. If someone clicks an ad for kitchen renovation Kelowna and lands on your generic homepage, they have to hunt for what they came for, and most will not. The ad and the landing page have to match. A focused page that answers the exact search, loads fast on a phone, and offers one clear next step will out-convert your homepage every time, on the same spend.
Nothing is being tracked
This is the big one. If conversion tracking is not set up, you are flying blind. You can see clicks and spend, but not which clicks became calls, forms, or bookings. That means you cannot tell a winning campaign from a losing one, so you cannot cut the waste or feed the winner. A large share of the wasted spend I see comes down to this single missing piece. Tracking comes before the first dollar, not after.
The budget is spread too thin
Trying to show up for everything means showing up strongly for nothing. A small budget split across ten services and five towns gets buried in all of them. Focus the spend on your highest-value service and your core area first, win there, then expand. A concentrated budget that dominates one search beats a thin one that whispers across twenty.
Nobody is actually watching it
Google Ads is not set and forget. Costs shift, competitors change their bids, some ads pull ahead and others fade. An account left alone drifts toward spending more for less. The accounts that get cheaper over time are the ones where someone reviews the search terms, pauses the losers, and pushes budget to the winners every week. That ongoing attention is the whole job, and it is the difference between an ad budget that compounds and one that leaks.
If your Google Ads are spending without ringing the phone, the fix is usually one or two of these leaks, not a bigger budget. I will audit what is running and tell you straight what is wrong. I manage Google Ads for Kelowna and Okanagan businesses. Book a free thirty-minute call at bryceelliot.com/contact or text 604-817-1069.
