Google Ads Guide: Stop Wasting Money on Wrong Keywords

So you want to set up a Google Ads campaign. Most people think it's about picking some keywords, writing a quick ad, and waiting for the sales to roll in. That's also why most people end up burning through their budget with nothing to show for it except a higher credit card bill. The truth is, a succesful campaign is built on a foundation of solid maths and a deep understanding of your customer's mindset long before you even log into your Google account. Get that bit wrong, and nothing else matters.

The problem isn't the platform; it's the approach. People jump straight to the tactics without sorting the strategy first. They treat it like a slot machine, pulling levers and hoping for a jackpot, when it should be treated like an engineering project. Precision, planning, and a bit of brutal honesty about your own business are what make the difference between wasting money and building a predictable lead generation machine. Let's get into how you actually do that.

First things first, why are most Google Ad campaigns doomed before they even start?

Because nobody does the maths. They'll argue over ad copy for hours but have no idea what a customer is actually worth to them, or how much they can realy afford to spend to get one. This is the single most common failure point I see. If you don't know your numbers, you're not advertising; you're gambling. You cannot make smart decisions about bids, budgets, or performance if you don't know what a 'good' result even looks like for your buisness.

The question isn't "How low can my cost per lead be?" it's "How high a cost per lead can I afford to acquire a fantastic customer?" The answer is all in its counterpart: the Lifetime Value (LTV). Until you know this, you are flying completely blind.

Let's break it down for a typical service or SaaS business. You'll need a few numbers:

• -> Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What's the average you make from a customer each month?
• -> Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue after your cost of goods/service?
• -> Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of customers do you lose each month? Be honest here.

Once you have those, the calculation is simple. It tells you what each customer is worth to you in profit over their entire time with you.

So, in this scenario, each customer you acquire is worth £4,800 in gross margin. Now we can work backwards. A healthy LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio is at least 3:1. This means you can afford to spend up to £1,600 (£4,800 / 3) to acquire a single new customer and still have a very healthy buisness model. If your sales team closes 1 in 10 qualified leads, you can afford to pay up to £160 for each of those leads. Suddenly that £50 per click keyword doesn't seem so scary, does it? This is the maths that unlocks scale. Without it, you're just guessing.

Okay, I've done the maths. How do I find people who actually want to buy something?

This is where most people go wrong again. They target broad, popular keywords becuase they have high search volumes. Things like "business software" or "marketing advice". You might as well just set your money on fire. You're competing with everyone and reaching no one who is ready to buy.

You have to get inside your customer's head. What are they typing into Google in the exact moment of pain, when they need a solution now? That's what you need to target. We're talking about high-intent keywords. These people have their wallets out, metaphorically speaking. This is the difference between someone browsing for ideas and someone searching for an emergency plumber at 2 AM.

For a service business, this means targeting keywords that scream urgency and location. We run a campaign for an HVAC company, and their best leads don't come from "air conditioning"; they come from "emergency AC repair near me" or "24 hour heating engineer". For a software business, it's about targeting problem-aware searches. Don't target "project management", target "trello alternative for developers" or "software to fix salesforce data". You're targeting people who already know they have a problem and are actively shopping for the fix.

Here's a look at what I mean. Let's take an electrician as an example.

The left column is full of DIYers, students, and time-wasters. The right column is full of potential customers with an urgent need. You must also be ruthless with your negative keywords. If you sell high-end accounting software, you need to add "free", "cheap", "course", "job", "salary" to your negative keyword list immediately, otherwise you'll pay for clicks from people who will never, ever buy from you.

So I have my keywords. Do I just chuck them all into one campaign?

Please don't. This is another classic mistake that kills your perfomance. Google rewards relevance. If your keyword, ad, and landing page are all tightly aligned, Google gives you a higher Quality Score. This means you pay less per click and get better ad positions than your competitors, even if they're bidding more. It's the closest thing to a free lunch in paid advertising.

The way you achieve this is with a tightly themed campaign structure. Forget throwing 50 keywords into one ad group. You should be aiming for Single Keyword Ad Groups (SKAGs) or, at the very least, ad groups with a tiny, hyper-relevant handful of keywords. The goal is for your ad to look like it was written specifically for the person who just typed in that search query.

Let's go back to our HVAC company example. A messy structure would be one campaign called "HVAC Services" with all keywords thrown in. A smart structure looks more like this:

See how specific that is? When someone searches "emergency ac repair", they see an ad that says "Emergency AC Repair" and land on a page all about emergency AC repairs. The relevance is perfect. This boosts your Quality Score, drops your CPC, and makes your phone ring. Lumping it all together does the opposite.

How do I write an ad that people will actually click on?

Your ad has one job: to get the right person to click and to scare the wrong person away. It's a filter. It needs to speak directly to the pain point of the searcher and promise a clear, specific solution. Forget vague corporate slogans.

You need to use a copywriting framework. For a service business, the best one is Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS). You state the problem they have, poke the wound a little bit, and then present your service as the perfect solution.

For a B2B SaaS product, I prefer the Before-After-Bridge. You paint a picture of their current frustrating world (Before), show them the dream scenario (After), and position your product as the bridge to get them there.

Let's try it for a fictional B2B SaaS that helps with financial reporting:

This ad works because it qualifies the searcher. If you're not struggling with manual reporting, you won't click. If you are, this ad feels like it's reading your mind. Also, use ad extensions. Always. Sitelinks, call extensions, location extensions, callouts. They make your ad bigger, give users more ways to convert, and improve your Quality Score. It's free real estate, take it.

My ads are getting clicks, but no one's converting. What's wrong?

Tbh, it's probably your landing page. This is where more campaigns go to die. You can have the best keywords and ads in the world, but if you send that expensive, hard-won traffic to your generic website homepage, you're throwing money away. A homepage is designed for browsing; it has a dozen different links and distractions. A landing page should have one goal, and one goal only: to get the visitor to take a single, specific action.

And for the love of god, delete the "Request a Demo" button. It's the most arrogant, high-friction Call to Action in marketing. It screams "I want you to commit 30 minutes of your time to let my salesperson pitch you". No one wants that. Your offer needs to provide instant, undeniable value. It must solve a small piece of their problem for free, to earn you the right to solve the whole thing.

• -> For SaaS: Offer a free trial with no credit card. Let the product do the selling. We've seen this work time and time again for our SaaS clients, like one where we got over 5,000 trial sign-ups. The product becomes the salesperson.
• -> For an Agency/Consultant: Offer a free, automated tool or a resource. A free SEO audit, a free cash flow template, a 15-minute strategy review. Give away your expertise in a scalable way.
• -> For a Service Business: Offer a "Free, No-Obligation Quote" or a "Free Inspection". Make it frictionless.

Your landing page needs a headline that matches the ad they just clicked, clear copy that expands on the PAS or Before-After-Bridge framework, social proof like testimonials or case study logos, and a single, unmissable button with your low-friction offer. Remove the main navigation menu. Remove links to your blog. Remove everything that doesn't lead to a conversion. Your current website probably needs a lot of work, and that should be your priority before spending another pound on ads.

This is a lot. What's the main advice I need to follow?

It is a lot, and getting it right takes practice. But if you focus on getting these core pillars in place, you'll be ahead of 90% of your competition. It's a systematic process, not a creative guessing game. Each part builds on the last, from the foundational business maths to the final click on your landing page.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

Why can't I just figure this out myself?

You can try. Many people do. But the learning curve is steep and expensive. Every mistake you make costs you real money in wasted ad spend and lost opportunities. The principles I've laid out are the 'what', but the real value comes from the 'how' and 'why', which only comes from experience.

An expert has already made those mistakes on other people's budgets. They can look at an account and see the patterns instantly. They know which levers to pull and in what order. I remember one client, a medical job matching platform, who came to us with a £100 Cost Per User Acquisition. By implementing this exact kind of rigorous structure, optimising the funnel, and systematically testing, we reduced that to just £7. That's not a change you stumble upon by accident; it's the result of a deliberate, experienced process.

This is a complex system with a lot of moving parts. Getting it right can transform your business, but getting it wrong is a fast way to burn cash. If you've tried to set up campaigns and been frustrated with the results, it might be time to consider getting some professional help. We offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can look at your specific situation, review your strategy, and give you some actionable advice you can use straight away.

Hope that helps!