How to find wasted spend in Google Ads in 15 minutes

You don’t need to be an expert to find the most common leaks in a Google Ads account. This checklist covers eight areas. Set the date range to the last 30 days, and give each item a couple of minutes.

Google’s menus move often. If you can’t find a setting, type its name into the Google Ads search bar.

1. Networks in Search campaigns

What to look at: Open a Search campaign’s settings and expand Networks. Check whether “Include Google search partners” and “Include Google Display Network” are turned on. Search partners are other sites that show Google search ads. The Display Network is websites and apps that show ads beside their content.

Then go to the campaigns table and use Segment by network. This splits cost and conversions by Google Search, Search partners and Display.

Red flag: A network that takes a real share of your cost but brings few or no conversions. Google’s help says search partners are on by default in new Search campaigns.

2. Performance Max channel mix

What to look at: Performance Max is a campaign type that runs across many Google channels at once, like Search, YouTube, Display and Maps. Google offers a channel performance report for these campaigns (if you can’t find it, search for “Channel performance” in the Google Ads search bar). It shows cost and conversions by channel.

Red flag: Most of the money going to a channel that rarely brings you customers. The report helps you spot problems, but Google still decides how to split the budget, so fixes usually mean changing your goals, assets or campaign type.

3. Location option

What to look at: In campaign settings, open Locations and then Location options. Google offers “Presence or interest” and “Presence.” Presence or interest is the default. It can include people who showed interest in your area but are not there.

Red flag: You serve only local customers, but your setting is Presence or interest. Also check the locations report to see where clicks really came from.

4. Search terms and negative keywords

What to look at: Open Search terms under Insights and reports. These are the real searches that triggered your ads. Sort by cost.

Red flag: Paid searches that have nothing to do with what you sell, like job seekers, free stuff, or a different service. Add them as negative keywords, which are words you never want to show for. Google’s help notes that negatives do not cover plurals or synonyms, so add those too.

5. Bidding strategy vs your goal

What to look at: Check each campaign’s bid strategy in the campaigns table or settings.

Red flag: Your goal is leads or sales, but the campaign uses Maximize Clicks. That strategy aims for as many clicks as possible, not for results. Another red flag is a conversion-based strategy with broken conversion tracking.

6. Conversion tracking health

What to look at: Open Goals and then Conversions (if you can’t find it, search for “Conversions” in the Google Ads search bar). A conversion is an action you count as valuable, like a call or a form. Look at the status of each conversion action and the recent numbers.

Red flag: A status warning, zero conversions when you know you had leads, or “conversions” that are really page views. Also check that only your real goals are set as primary, since bidding uses those.

7. Auto-applied recommendations

What to look at: Open Recommendations and then Auto-apply settings. See which recommendation types Google can apply for you. The History tab shows when each was turned on and last applied.

Red flag: Auto-apply turned on for things like keywords or bidding when you didn’t choose that, or you don’t know who turned it on. Change history can show who enrolled the account.

8. Automatically created assets

What to look at: Assets are pieces of your ads, like headlines, descriptions and links. Google can create some for you from your website. In Performance Max settings, look for the automatically created assets section. In Search campaigns, Google has moved this into AI Max as “text customization.”

Red flag: Ad text that makes claims you can’t back up, mentions services you don’t offer, or sends people to the wrong page. If you need tight control over wording, review or turn off these options.

After the audit

Write down every red flag you found. Fix the ones that cost the most first. Then check the same items again in two to four weeks to see if the changes helped. Not every red flag means waste. A network or setting with weak numbers may still work for your business, so judge it by your real leads and sales.