Your ads are probably failing to convert because of a mismatch between intent and landing page — or because your tracking is broken and you're flying blind. Check your search term report and conversion setup before changing anything else.
Get in TouchBefore you change a single bid, headline or landing page, confirm that your tracking is actually working. I’ve seen accounts where conversion data was missing entirely — not because ads were failing, but because the tracking pixel had stopped firing.
Without accurate data, every decision you make is a guess. You need four numbers at minimum to diagnose a conversion problem properly.
A macro conversion is what you actually want: a purchase, a phone call, a contact form submission — money in the bank.
A micro conversion isn’t a sale, but it’s a signal of intent. Did someone scroll to the bottom of your page? Start filling out a form but not submit it? Read three of your articles? Add something to a basket?
These behaviours tell you who is genuinely interested. That matters because once you can identify that behaviour, you can attach it to an anonymised user profile and retarget them — in search, on display, or across social channels. Someone who nearly converted once is far more likely to convert the second time you show them your offer.
In mid-June 2020 I was reviewing spend across a campaign and noticed the CPA on several ad groups had jumped sharply. Nothing had changed on my end, so I pulled the search term report.
My keyword targeting was modified broad match: +Brand +Model-Name +Product. Using a pushbike analogy, imagine I was targeting +Brompton +ML6 +Electric+Bike with a landing page for that specific model. Tight, intent-led targeting.
But Google had started showing my ads under ‘close variants’ for searches like “Brompton bikes” and in some cases just “Brompton”. Those searches sit at the research phase of the buying funnel — people browsing, not buying. My landing page was built for people who already knew what they wanted and were comparing prices or ready to purchase. The intent gap was enormous, and it was destroying my CPA.
This wasn’t a campaign management failure. It was a platform change that required active monitoring to catch. The search term report is your early warning system — check it regularly.
Ads convert when the right person sees the right message at the right stage of their buying journey, then lands on a page that matches what they expected. Break any one of those links and conversion rates drop. The diagnostic process is about finding which link is broken — not guessing and changing everything at once.
The most common causes are a mismatch between search intent and landing page, broken conversion tracking, poor landing page trust signals, or Google showing your ads for loosely related queries via broad match or close variants. Start by pulling your search term report and checking your tracking setup.
It depends heavily on industry and conversion type. Lead generation campaigns typically see anywhere from 3% to 10%+, whilst e-commerce is often lower. Rather than chasing a benchmark, focus on your own trend over time and compare against your cost per acquisition target.
Check bounce rate and dwell time alongside conversion rate. If people are arriving and leaving immediately, the page isn’t matching their expectation. Test whether the landing page headline directly reflects the ad they clicked, and whether the page loads quickly on mobile.
Click fraud is when bots or competitors click your ads without any intention of converting, inflating your costs. Google automatically filters a portion of invalid clicks, but it doesn’t catch everything. In highly competitive niches it’s worth monitoring for unusual patterns in your traffic data.
Micro conversions are smaller actions that signal interest — scrolling to the bottom of a page, starting (but not completing) a form, reading multiple articles, or adding something to a basket. They help you identify warm audiences for retargeting and can reveal where users are dropping off in your funnel.
Yes. Google periodically expands how it interprets keywords — close variant matching being a notable example. This can result in your ads showing for queries that look related but carry completely different intent. Check your search term report regularly and add negative keywords to maintain targeting precision.
If your ads are spending but not converting, there's usually a specific reason — and it's nearly always findable. I work with a small number of clients on a management-only basis, from £300/month. Get in touch and I'll tell you honestly whether I can help.
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