5 Google Ads Mistakes Australian Businesses Keep Making

Most Google Ads accounts we take over are bleeding money in the same five places: broad match with no negative keywords, conversion tracking that's missing or counting the wrong thing, ad groups stuffed with unrelated keywords, budget spread too thin across too many campaigns, and accounts left untouched for months at a time. None of these are exotic mistakes. They are basic account hygiene issues that compound the longer they go unfixed.

Jeremy has personally managed over 16,000 hours of Google Ads accounts, and these five mistakes show up in almost every account we audit for the first time. They are rarely caused by a business owner doing something stupid. They are caused by a campaign being set up once and never looked at again.

In this guide:

Mistake 1: Running Broad Match With No Negative Keywords

Google Ads mistakes: Australian small business owner reviewing a search terms report

This is the first, and the single most common, of the Google Ads mistakes we see when we open up a new account. Broad match can work well, but only with consistent negative keyword maintenance sitting underneath it. Without that, Google will happily spend your budget on searches that are loosely related to your business but were never going to turn into a job or a sale.

Take a plumber bidding on "plumber Sydney" in broad match with no negatives. That campaign will end up showing for searches like "plumbing apprenticeship Sydney" or "how to become a plumber". Real searches, real clicks, real spend, and zero chance of converting.

How we fix it

We review search term reports weekly for every account we manage and add negatives as patterns show up. It's not exciting work. It's also the difference between a campaign that gets sharper over time and one that quietly bleeds budget month after month. Google's own guide to negative keywords is a useful reference if you want to see the mechanics of how match types interact with negatives.

Mistake 2: Conversion Tracking That's Broken or Missing

A surprising number of small business accounts we inherit either have no conversion tracking at all, or have it set up incorrectly. We've seen accounts tracking page views instead of actual leads, double-counting the same form submission, or missing phone call tracking entirely.

Infographic showing the steps to set up correct Google Ads conversion tracking

If you can't see what's actually converting, you can't optimise anything with confidence. This matters even more if you're using a Smart Bidding strategy, since those rely entirely on accurate conversion data to make spending decisions. Feed Google bad data and it will optimise toward the wrong outcome, confidently and consistently.

If you haven't set this up properly yet, our step-by-step guide to Google Ads conversion tracking walks through exactly how to do it.

Mistake 3: Ad Groups With Too Many Unrelated Keywords

Tightly themed ad groups get better Quality Scores and let your ad copy speak directly to the search. We regularly open accounts with fifty or more keywords crammed into a single ad group, spanning completely different services and search intents.

If one ad group covers "emergency plumber", "bathroom renovation", and "hot water system installation" all at once, your ad copy can't be specific to any of them. It ends up generic, and generic ads convert worse and cost more per click.

What good structure looks like

  • One service per ad group. Keep the keywords inside it tightly related to that single offer.
  • Match the ad copy to the ad group. If the ad group is about emergency callouts, the headline should say so.
  • Split as you grow. Start broad if you have to, then split out ad groups once you have enough search volume to justify it.

Splitting overcrowded ad groups into focused ones is usually one of the fastest ways to see Quality Score, and therefore cost per click, improve.

Mistake 4: Spreading Budget Across Too Many Campaigns

Comparison infographic showing concentrated budget versus spread budget across Google Ads campaigns

We see this constantly with businesses trying to cover every service line, every location, and every match type as a separate campaign, each running on $10 to $20 a day. None of them ever get enough data to exit the learning phase properly, and none of them end up performing well.

It's almost always better to concentrate budget on fewer campaigns built around your highest-value services first, get those proven and profitable, then expand from there. Trying to do everything at once with a thin budget usually means doing nothing well.

Mistake 5: Setting It Up Once and Never Coming Back

This is the quiet one. A campaign that was built well in month one and then left untouched for six months will almost always decay. Costs creep up, irrelevant search terms accumulate, and competitors who are actively managing their accounts pull ahead while yours sits still.

One of our carpet cleaning clients on Sydney's Northshore dropped their cost per lead from $108 to $70 through nothing more dramatic than consistent weekly optimisation. No new strategy, no big rebuild. Just someone actually looking at the account every single week and clearing out what wasn't working.

If you're not confident you can keep that consistency up yourself, it's worth reading our guide on what ongoing Google Ads management actually involves.

Frequently Asked Questions About Google Ads Mistakes

How much does it cost to fix a broken Google Ads account?

There's no fixed cost, since it depends on the scale of the issues. Most of what's covered here, like negative keywords, conversion tracking, and ad group structure, costs time to fix rather than extra ad spend.

Can I fix these mistakes myself or do I need an agency?

A business owner with a few hours a week can fix most of these issues on their own. The harder part is usually staying consistent with it long term, which is where a lot of DIY accounts start to slip again.

How often should I be checking my Google Ads account?

Weekly at minimum for search term reports and budget pacing. A deeper monthly look at Quality Score, ad group structure, and overall trends is also worth building into a routine.

Will fixing these mistakes guarantee better results?

There are no guarantees with Google Ads, but fixing broken conversion tracking and tightening up unfocused ad groups are usually the two changes that move the needle fastest.

Want These Mistakes Fixed Before They Cost You More?

Most accounts we audit have at least three of these five Google Ads mistakes sitting in them. Our Sydney Northshore carpet cleaning client saw their cost per lead drop from $108 to $70 simply by having someone catch these issues early and keep fixing them every week. That kind of result rarely comes from a one-off setup. It comes from ongoing attention.

Talk to us about getting your Google Ads account properly managed.