If your Google Ads campaign isn’t performing as well as you’d like, there are some quick adjustments you can make right now that will improve your results.
These aren’t complicated strategies or advanced tactics. They’re simple fixes that most campaigns are missing. They can have a significant impact on your click-through rate, conversion rate, and cost per lead.
Today, I’m going to walk you through five quick changes you can make to your Google Ads campaign to boost performance and generate more leads.
If you would prefer to watch the video, you can find the video on Quick Fixes To Boost Your Google Ads Campaign Performance on this page above.
If you would prefer to read, you can see a summary of the content from that video below.
Let’s dive in.
1) Stop Using Broad Match Keywords
The first thing you need to check is if you’re using broad match keywords on your campaign.
For most local campaigns, broad match keywords send you a ton of irrelevant traffic that wastes your budget.
Don’t forget that Google is going to charge you for a click regardless of whether a click is from a good or a bad quality search.
Broad match keywords increase the chance that your ads show up for irrelevant searches, so that increases the chance that you’re going to be wasting budget on things that won’t drive leads.
What Are Match Types?
Match types tell Google how wide of a net you’re willing to cast when it comes to showing your ads.
There are three main match types:
[Exact Match] – Shows your ads for searches as closely related to your keyword as possible. You put brackets around the keyword.
“Phrase Match” – Opens things up a bit more, but still maintains relevance. You put quotes around the keyword.
Broad Match – Shows your ads very broadly for loosely related searches. No special characters around the keyword.
Why Broad Match Is A Problem
Broad match will show your ads for searches that are only loosely related to your keyword.
For example, if you bid on “pool service” as broad match, your ads could show for:
- Pool supplies
- Pool service jobs
- DIY pool maintenance tips
- Pool service manuals
- Completely unrelated searches
You’ll get clicks from people who aren’t looking for your services, and you’ll pay for every single one of those wasted clicks.
Broad match keywords pretty much hands a majority of the decision making over to Google when it comes to what searches your ads can show for.
At the end of the day, Google just wants to get clicks regardless of how good or bad they are.
If you end up handing all of that over to Google, there’s a very good chance that you’re just going to waste budget over the long run.
Use Exact Match and Phrase Match Instead
Go through your keywords and make sure every single one is either exact match or phrase match.
I use a combination of both on most campaigns and avoid broad match almost entirely.
You can run broad match if you have a massive negative keyword list (more on that in a minute), but for most campaigns, it’s not worth the risk.
Why this matters:
When your ads show for searches closely related to your keywords, and your ads actually talk about what people are searching for, you get:
- Higher click-through rates
- Better conversion rates
- Lower wasted spend
This one change can save you a ton of money and improve your overall campaign performance immediately.
2) Build A Massive Negative Keyword List
Negative keywords are one of the most important (and most overlooked) parts of Google Ads optimization.
Negative keywords tell Google what you DON’T want your ads showing up for.
Why Negative Keywords Matter
If your ads are showing up for irrelevant searches like competitor names, job searches, DIY queries, unrelated services then you’re wasting money.
Negative keywords help to filter out that irrelevant traffic so that your ads show up for better, more high intent/high converting traffic.
Every irrelevant click is money down the drain. And those clicks aren’t going to convert even if they make it to your landing page.
On many of my campaigns, the negative keyword lists I build end up getting into the 1,000s of negative keywords over time.
How To Build Your Negative Keyword List
The best way to find negative keywords is through your search terms report.
Here’s how:
Step 1: Go to Insights and Reports → Search Terms
This shows you every actual search query your ads appeared for.
Step 2: Look for irrelevant searches
As you scroll through, you’ll see searches that have nothing to do with your business:
- Competitor names (local and national)
- Job-related searches (“pool service jobs,” “pool service careers”)
- DIY searches (“how to clean pool myself”)
- Unrelated services
Step 3: Add them as negative keywords
You can either:
- Click the checkbox next to the search term → “Add as negative keyword” → Select “Campaign” → Save
- Copy the terms into a document, then go to Keywords → Negatives → Paste them in
I typically add negative keywords as phrase match to catch variations.
Do This Weekly
Check your search terms report at least once a week and add new negative keywords.
This is the single most important optimization task you can do on an ongoing basis.
The more negative keywords you add, the cleaner your traffic becomes, and the lower your cost per lead drops.
3) Structure Your Campaign Properly
A lot of people make the same mistake: They dump all their keywords into one ad group with generic ads.
This is killing your performance.
We want to make sure that our keywords are grouped into ad groups centered around keyword themes.
That helps our ads and landing pages be much more relevant to what someone searched, and that will help improve the performance on your campaign.
The Problem With Poor Structure
Let’s say you run a pool service company. You offer:
- General pool service
- Pool maintenance
- Pool pump repair
- Pool acid washing
- Pool equipment replacement
If you throw all those keywords into one ad group with a generic “Pool Services” ad, you’re missing out on relevance.
Someone searching for “pool pump repair” doesn’t want to see a generic pool service ad. They want to see an ad specifically about pool pump repair.
The Solution – Themed Ad Groups
Structure your campaign into themed ad groups with specific keywords and specific ads.
For example:
- Pool Service ad group – General pool service keywords with pool service ads
- Pool Maintenance ad group – Maintenance keywords with maintenance ads
- Pool Pump Repair ad group – Pump repair keywords with pump repair ads
- Phoenix Pool Service ad group – Location-specific keywords with location-specific ads
Within each ad group, the keywords should be relevant to the theme, and the ads should speak directly to that theme.
Why This Works
When someone searches for something specific and sees an ad that matches exactly what they searched for, they’re more likely to:
- Click on your ad (higher CTR)
- Convert into a lead (higher conversion rate)
This is what relevance is all about.
The more relevant your ads are to what someone is searching for, the better your campaign performs.
This is a simple adjustment that can have a massive impact on your click-through rate and conversion rate.
4) Adjust Your Device Bids
Here’s a quick optimization most people never do: adjusting device bids based on performance.
What I mean by this is increasing or decreasing how much you’re bidding on either desktop or mobile devices.
In some cases, I’ll even completely remove a device if it isn’t performing well.
This can help you pretty quickly cut down on cost per lead, or identify some issues with your landing page performance you can address with optimization.
How To Check Device Performance
Go to Insights and Reports → When and where ads showed → Devices
You’ll see how your campaign is performing across:
- Computers (desktop)
- Mobile devices
- Tablets
Look at your cost per lead for each device.
What To Do With This Information
Scenario 1: One device has a much higher cost per lead
If computers are converting at $100 per lead but mobile is converting at $40 per lead, you have options:
- Decrease your bid on computers by 20-30% to lower the cost per lead
- Or completely exclude computers if the performance is really bad
Scenario 2: One device is performing really well
If mobile is crushing it with a low cost per lead, increase your mobile bid adjustment by 10-20% to get more traffic from mobile devices.
Real Example
On one of my campaigns, I noticed computers had a higher cost per lead than mobile.
I decreased computer bids slightly to bring the cost per lead more in line with mobile, and I increased mobile bids to capture more of that high-performing traffic.
On other campaigns, I’ve seen computers just not convert at all. In those cases, I completely exclude computers from the campaign.
This one adjustment can instantly lower your cost per lead just by shifting budget away from underperforming devices and toward devices that actually convert.
5) Set Up All Your Assets (Especially Call Assets)
Assets (formerly called extensions) are add-ons that make your ads bigger and more clickable.
Most campaigns don’t have all their assets set up, and they’re missing out on leads because of it.
Which Assets Should You Set Up?
Must-have assets:
- Call Asset (most important)
- Sitelink Assets
- Callout Assets
- Image Asset
Optional but recommended:
- Structured Snippet Assets
- Business Name and Logo (if Google approves them)
- Price Assets (if relevant)
- Promotion Assets (if you have special offers)
Why Assets Matter
Assets help you:
- Take up more space in the search results
- Increase your click-through rate
- Get more conversions
When your ad takes up more real estate on the page, it’s more visible and more clickable.
And when your click-through rate improves, Google shows your ad more often, which means more traffic and more leads.
The Call Asset Is Critical
The call asset is the most important one by far.
This puts a clickable phone number directly on your ad that shows up in the search results.
Let me show you why this matters with real numbers.
On one of my campaigns, I pulled the last 90 days of data and the search campaign we were running generated another 45 additional leads directly from that call asset.
Those are 45 leads that would NOT have happened if I didn’t have the call asset set up.
Just by having that phone number on the ad, people can tap to call immediately without even visiting the landing page.
This is incredibly valuable, especially for local service businesses where people want to talk to someone right away.
How To Set Up Your Call Asset
Go to Campaigns → Assets → Call
Add your phone number and make sure it’s set to track as a conversion.
That’s it. This one asset can generate 10-20+ additional leads per month depending on your campaign volume.
If you only set up one asset, make it the call asset.
Quick Recap
These five fixes are simple but powerful:
- Stop using broad match keywords – Switch to exact match and phrase match only to eliminate wasted spend on irrelevant traffic.
- Build a massive negative keyword list – Check your search terms report weekly and add irrelevant searches as negatives. This is the most important ongoing optimization task.
- Structure your campaign properly – Group keywords into themed ad groups with relevant ads. Relevance drives higher CTR and conversion rates.
- Adjust your device bids – Look at which devices perform best and shift your budget accordingly. Exclude or decrease bids on devices with poor performance.
- 5. Set up all your assets – Especially the call asset. This alone can generate dozens of additional leads per month.
Need Help With Your Google Ads Campaign?
If you’re a business owner who needs help setting up or optimizing your Google Ads campaigns, I can help.
There’s a link below where you can apply for a free consultation. I’ll personally review your application, and if I think I can help, I’ll reach out to schedule a call.
For a full list of tools I use to manage campaigns, visit downeymarketing.com/tools.
Thanks for reading, and I hope these quick fixes help you boost your campaign performance and generate more leads.
Want to see more content? Check out this pool service Google Ads case study that goes over a successful campaign we ran for a client.
Recent Comments