If PPC is set up incorrectly, you can burn through budget fast while attracting the wrong clicks, missing real leads, or even triggering ad disapprovals and account suspensions.
The most common failure is paying for traffic that was never a fit. That happens when keywords are too broad, match types are too loose, and negative keywords are missing, so a dentist in Orlando ends up paying for “free,” “school,” “salary,” “DIY,” or “cheap” searches that rarely book. Another big one is location targeting errors, where your ads show to people outside your service area (or to people who were just “interested” in Orlando), which is brutal for local services like HVAC, pest control, and law firms.
Tracking mistakes are just as expensive because they hide the truth. If conversions are not set up correctly (forms, calls, bookings), you may scale the campaign that looks good in the account but is not producing revenue. Common symptoms are “lots of clicks, no calls,” leads that do not match what you sell, or numbers that do not line up between your CRM and your ad platform. We build every PPC launch around clean conversion events and call tracking so you are not guessing; that’s baked into our PPC management service.
Bad structure can also create internal competition and wasted spend. Examples: overlapping keywords across multiple ad groups, sending every ad to the homepage instead of a focused page, or mixing branded and non-branded traffic in one campaign so reporting gets muddy. If you want a quick sanity check on whether your ads are going to the right place, our FAQ on website vs. webpage vs. landing page explains what a landing page is supposed to do in plain English.
Then there’s the “silent” damage: poor click-through rates and low Quality Score signals can push your costs up over time, especially in competitive categories like medical, legal, and emergency services. A slow page, confusing mobile layout, or broken form can turn paid clicks into nothing. If you suspect speed is part of the problem, our FAQ on the 3-second rule for website speed is a practical benchmark we use when diagnosing lead drop-offs.
Finally, policy and compliance issues can shut you down. Google Ads has strict policies around misleading claims, unclear billing or business identity, and certain restricted categories. Serious violations can lead to suspension without warning, which means your ads stop immediately and reinstatement can take time. For regulated industries, your ad copy and landing pages also need to stay truthful and not misleading under FTC truth-in-advertising rules, especially when you mention results, pricing, “guarantees,” or testimonials.
| What goes wrong | What you’ll notice | What we fix first |
|---|---|---|
| Wrong keywords or no negatives | High spend, low-quality leads | Tight keyword list, negatives, cleaner ad groups |
| Bad geo settings | Calls from outside your service area | Target people in your service area, exclude noise locations |
| Broken or missing conversion tracking | Clicks look good, revenue does not | Forms, calls, bookings tracked end to end |
| Landing page mismatch or poor mobile UX | Low conversion rate, high bounce | Message match, faster load, clearer next step |
| Policy violations | Ads disapproved or account paused | Claims cleanup, business info clarity, compliant setup |
If you want, we can review your current Google Ads setup and tell you exactly where budget is leaking (keywords, location, tracking, or landing page). If the site is the bottleneck, we also support conversion-focused fixes through our web design service so your paid traffic has a better shot at turning into booked jobs.
