Where Your Google Ads Budget Is Actually Going (And How to Stop the Waste)

Here's what's probably happening in your account right now: your campaigns are running broad match keywords, and Google is interpreting those keywords extremely liberally.

If you're a solicitor bidding on “employment lawyer London,” broad match might show your ads for “employment law degree courses,” “free legal advice employment,” or “HR software for small businesses.” None of those people will ever become your client. But you pay for every click.

Google made broad match the default keyword type in 2021 and has been pushing it aggressively ever since. Their reps recommend it. Their automated campaigns use it. The optimisation score penalises you for not using it. Why? Because broad match generates more clicks, and more clicks means more revenue for Google.

This isn't a conspiracy theory. It's their business model. Google's incentive is to maximise the number of clicks you pay for. Your incentive is to get leads that convert into revenue. These are fundamentally different objectives — and if you don't actively manage the gap, your budget pays for it.

For a deeper dive into how broad match specifically drains budgets, read our guide on broad match waste and how to take back control.

This is the single most impactful thing you can do in your Google Ads account today. It takes 15 minutes and will show you exactly where your money is going.

1. Open Google Ads and navigate to Insights & Reports → Search Terms.
2. Filter the last 30 days. Sort by cost (highest first).
3. Read through the actual searches that triggered your ads. Ask yourself: “Would I pay for this click?” For each search, the answer should be obviously yes. If you're hesitating, it's probably waste.
4. Mark irrelevant terms. You'll likely find searches for jobs in your industry, competitors' brand names, DIY solutions, free alternatives, educational queries, and completely unrelated services.
5. Add them as negative keywords immediately. This stops your ads from showing for those searches from today onwards.

I audit accounts weekly and this is the single biggest source of waste I find. Most businesses are losing 20-40% of their budget to this. The first time you do it, expect to be shocked by what you find.

Need a starting point? Our free negative keyword list gives you 500+ pre-built negatives organised by industry.

After cleaning up your search terms, the next step is switching your highest-spend keywords from broad match to phrase match or exact match.

Here's the practical difference:

• Broad match “employment lawyer” → triggers for “HR consultant near me,” “employment law degree,” “workplace rights advice free”
• Phrase match “employment lawyer” → triggers for “employment lawyer London,” “best employment lawyer near me,” “employment lawyer cost”
• Exact match [employment lawyer] → triggers for “employment lawyer,” “employment lawyers,” “employment attorney” (close variants only)

Start with your top 10 highest-spend keywords. Check their match type. If they're broad match, create new phrase match or exact match versions and pause the broad match keywords. You'll see fewer clicks but dramatically better quality traffic.

Don't listen to Google's reps when they tell you broad match “uses AI to find the right audiences.” The data in your search terms report will tell you whether that's actually happening in your account.

Beyond keyword waste, there are three common ways budgets get misallocated:

1. Spreading budget too thin. If you're spending £30/day across 8 campaigns, each campaign gets less than £4. That's not enough for Google's algorithms to learn, and not enough for you to gather statistically meaningful data. Consolidate your budget into your 2-3 best-performing campaigns.

2. Running out of budget mid-day. If your daily budget runs out by 2pm, you're missing every afternoon and evening search. Check your campaign status — if you see “Limited by budget,” either increase the budget for that campaign or pause lower-performing campaigns to redirect spend.

3. Display Network spending. If your Search campaigns have the Display Network enabled (it's on by default), a chunk of your budget is going to banner ads on random websites. For most businesses, this is pure waste. Check your campaign settings and turn off Display Network opt-in for every Search campaign.

Do these five things this week and you'll stop the biggest leaks in your account:

1. Audit your Search Terms report — 30 days, sorted by cost. Add every irrelevant term as a negative keyword.
2. Switch top keywords to phrase or exact match — start with the 10 keywords eating the most budget.
3. Turn off Display Network on all Search campaigns — check campaign settings → Networks.
4. Check location targeting — switch from “People in, or who show interest in” to “People in or regularly in” your target locations.
5. Review Google's auto-applied recommendations — go to Recommendations → Auto-apply history and turn off anything that's expanding your targeting or raising bids without your approval.

Want to know exactly how much you're wasting? Use our free Waste Calculator to estimate your wasted spend, or request a free Wasted Spend Analysis and we'll audit your account personally.

Budget waste isn't a one-time fix. Google constantly changes how broad match works, pushes new automation features, and auto-applies recommendations to your account. If you clean up your account today and don't check it for three months, the waste will creep back.

The businesses that consistently get good results from Google Ads are the ones that review their search terms weekly, maintain their negative keyword lists, and don't blindly accept Google's recommendations. It's not glamorous work, but it's the difference between a profitable ad account and a money pit.

If you don't have time to do this yourself — or if you suspect your agency isn't doing it — that's exactly what we do. Every client account gets a weekly search terms audit as standard. No waste builds up because we catch it before it compounds.