Where the money leaks
Wasted spend is any click that could not become a customer. Five places cause most of it. Check them in this order.
| Leak | Where to look | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Searches that are lookups, job hunts or DIY | Search terms report, sorted by cost | Add them as negative keywords |
| Broad match keywords reaching loosely related searches | Keywords, "Match type" column | Use phrase or exact match until you can see which searches book |
| Ads on partner sites and display placements | Campaign settings, "Networks" | Untick search partners and Display expansion unless they bring leads |
| People outside your area who are "interested" in it | Campaign settings, "Locations" | Switch to "Presence" if you only serve locals |
| Changes Google applied for you | Recommendations, "Auto-apply" and "History" | Turn off the ones that widen reach |
None of this works if Google counts the wrong thing as a lead. If page views or short calls count as conversions, the system keeps buying more of them. Fix that first: tracking a lead to a booked job.
How to read the search terms report
The report shows the real searches that triggered your ads, not your keywords. Google's own advice:
"If a search term isn't relevant enough to the products or services you offer, add it as a negative keyword." (Google Ads Help: About the search terms report)
- Set the date range to the last 30 or 90 days.
- Sort by cost, highest first.
- For each term, ask: could this person hire me this week?
- Mark every "no" as a negative keyword.
Not every search appears. Google leaves out terms without enough volume for privacy and groups them as "other queries" (Google Ads Help). So the report shows the pattern, not every click.
Google Ads negative keywords list: how it matches
Negative keywords block searches, but they match more narrowly than normal keywords:
"you'll need to add synonyms and singular or plural versions if you want to exclude them. Negative keywords automatically account for casing and misspellings" (Google Ads Help: About negative keywords)
| Negative type | Blocks the search when | Example: negative "jobs" |
|---|---|---|
| Broad (jobs) | It contains all the negative's words, any order | Blocks "plumber jobs near me", not "plumber job" |
| Phrase ("jobs") | It contains the words in that order | Same here, since it is one word |
| Exact ([jobs]) | It is exactly those words, nothing more | Blocks only "jobs" |
Common negatives for a local service business: jobs, job, salary, hiring, course, training, certification, how to, DIY, template, PDF, free (unless you offer free quotes), and competitor names you don't want to pay for. Build your own list from your report; this is a starting point, not a rule.
Google warns that with too many negatives "your ads might reach fewer customers" (Google Ads Help: About negative keywords). Block searches, not whole topics.
Google Ads broad match vs phrase match vs exact
Broad match reaches the most searches and the least predictable ones. It is also the default.
| Match type | Google's definition | How you type it |
|---|---|---|
| Broad | "Ads may show on searches that are related to your keyword" | plumber |
| Phrase | "Ads may show on searches that include the meaning of your keyword" | "emergency plumber" |
| Exact | "Ads may show on searches that have the same meaning or same intent as the keyword" | [emergency plumber] |
Definitions quoted from Google Ads Help: About keyword matching options, which also says "Broad match is the default match type that all your keywords are assigned" and that "It's critical to use Smart Bidding with broad match."
Smart Bidding steers by your conversions. If your account records few real bookings, or counts the wrong ones, broad match has little to steer by. In that case phrase and exact keep spend on searches you chose.
Settings that spend without asking
Search partners. Google says "When you create a campaign for the Search Network, search partners are included by default" and warns that partner clicks "may not always reflect highly targeted traffic" (Google Ads Help: About the Google Search Network). Untick "Include Google search partners" if they bring no leads.
Auto-applied recommendations. Google can apply some recommendations on its own, including "Add broad match keywords", "Expand your reach with Google search partners" and "Use Display expansion" (Google Ads Help: About applying recommendations automatically). Check the "History" tab, then turn off the ones that widen reach.
Location "Presence or interest". By default, ads reach people in your area and people who have "shown interest" in it (Google Ads Help: About advanced location options). A plumber in Denver doesn't want clicks from people in Florida reading about Denver. Google suggests "Presence" when "You only want to target users in specific locations" (same page).
Performance Max: the same leak, less visible
Performance Max now has a search terms report under "Insights and reports". To block a search there, Google says to "apply negative keywords at the account or campaign level" (Google Ads Help: About the search terms report in Performance Max). Negatives don't reach its Display and video placements; for those, Google points to excluded content keywords (same page).
What wasted spend looked like at one firm
An accounting firm we run marketing for spent $3,748 on Google Ads from October 1 to November 3, 2026. It booked 8 new prospects and none paid. What the account showed, each measured:
- 47–56% of early spend went to topic keywords that matched people looking things up, not hiring.
- Only hire-intent ad groups ever produced serious leads. Topic keywords never did.
- The Display Network was switched on by auto-applied recommendations. In one morning it sent 296 junk-site visits, median 5 seconds, against 18 real search visits.
- The ads were rank-limited, not budget-limited: Quality Score 3, about 80% of eligible searches lost to rank, 0% to budget. Doubling the budget ($180 to $360 a day) bought 24% more clicks for 62% more spend.
Across Google, Meta and ChatGPT ads, the firm spent about $6,100 from October 1 to November 4 and earned $0 in new-client revenue. Every client who paid in that period came from ChatGPT answers or a Reddit comment, at no ad cost.
Example
A roofer bidding on "roof"
A roofer spends $2,000 a month on broad match "roof". The search terms report shows $500 went to "roof rack", "roofing jobs" and "how to fix a roof leak". Adding rack, jobs and how to as negatives stops paying for those searches.
A cleaner in one city
A house cleaner in Austin targets Austin with "Presence or interest". The location report shows 20% of clicks from outside Texas. Switching to "Presence" stops most of those clicks.
A clinic on Performance Max
A physio clinic runs Performance Max at $1,500 a month. The search terms report shows "physio assistant course" taking clicks. A campaign-level negative for course blocks it on Search.
Different for you?
- Ads run, but the phone doesn't ring: Google Ads not getting calls.
- You can't tell which clicks became paying jobs: tracking a lead to a booked job.
- Clicks are fine, but visitors leave: landing page for Google Ads.
- You're unsure how much to spend at all: small business marketing budget.
- You want someone to run and prune the account daily: Paid Ads.