Wasted Spend

The term “wasted spend” is mainly used in PPC campaigns. Whether it’s Google Ads or another platform, you certainly don’t want to see this term in practice.

This is a credit that has been overdrawn but there have been no conversions. In this case, you need to look at your campaigns to see where the error might be.

How to find wasted spend in Google Ads?

Open your keywords and click on “filter”. Create filter Converted clicks = 0.

You should now see your campaign, which had no converted clicks. That’s where the mistake was.

How to analyze wasted spend in Google Ads?

Focus on high impressions but low clicks first. This may indicate irrelevant search terms because they have high visibility but are not clicked on.

Remember to focus on working campaigns as well. While this campaign may benefit you, it could do more. You need to find out when it is most effective and just let it go, maybe for more credit, and turn it off when it has the worst results.

You also need to examine specific search terms and keywords. It can give you insight into how search terms match a particular keyword, so you can add negative keywords or re-evaluate keyword match types.

Why is there so much wasted spend on ads?

Let’s take a pretty normal situation:

A small business hires Jamie, the freelancer. Jamie is great, and she’s managing just a small handful of PPC clients–5 in total. Jamie crosses her T’s and dots her I’s whenever she can. She adds plenty of negative keywords and tries to keep conversions high. Things are going great, and her account is now growing.

What was once a small account of maybe 100 keywords, is now a massive account with 10 different kinds of campaigns. She’s got search campaigns, display campaigns, RLSA campaigns, product listing ad campaigns, and the list goes on and on. To top it all off, she’s now suppose to optimize 5,000 keywords!

So things start to fall by the wayside. While she hits the big pieces, there is a hidden “dead weight” slipping under the radar.

How to find all the wasted spend in your Adwords Account

Step 1: Turn on a filter

Go to the keyword tab, and click “filter”. Create a filter to show you all keywords with zero conversions. Image below:

Create a keyword filter for no conversions

Step 2: Run for the hills!

If your account hasn’t been properly managed, you may see something like this.

Overspending happens all the time. And it’s normal.