Running Google Ads for an Australian small business means competing against enterprises with dedicated marketing teams. You can't match their budget, but you can avoid the mistakes that waste whatever budget you have.
1. Trusting the Default Settings
Google's default campaign settings optimise for Google's revenue, not yours. The search network plus display network option, broad match keywords, and "maximise clicks" bidding are all defaults that spend money quickly without necessarily generating results.
Every setting exists for a reason. If you don't understand why a setting is configured a particular way, it's probably costing you money.
2. Ignoring Negative Keywords
Negative keywords prevent your ads from showing for irrelevant searches. Without them, you'll pay for clicks from people searching for jobs at your company, free versions of your products, or completely unrelated terms that happen to share a word with your business.
Check your search terms report weekly. Add negatives for anything that doesn't represent a potential customer. This single habit can cut wasted spend by 20% or more.
3. Broken Conversion Tracking
If your conversion tracking is inaccurate, every optimisation decision you make is based on false data. Common issues include tracking page views as conversions, missing mobile conversions, or counting the same conversion multiple times.
Test your tracking regularly. Submit your own forms, make test purchases, and verify that conversions appear correctly in your Google Ads account. The viaCMO accountability platform checks conversion tracking as part of every account assessment.
4. Set and Forget Mentality
Google Ads is not a billboard. Campaigns require ongoing attention as competitors adjust their strategies, seasonal trends shift, and Google's algorithms evolve. An account left untouched for months will almost certainly underperform.
If you don't have time for weekly optimisation, you need either automated rules, a management tool, or an agency. Doing nothing is the most expensive option.
5. Bidding Against Yourself
Many businesses run multiple campaigns that target the same keywords, essentially competing against themselves in the auction. This inflates CPCs without increasing total impressions.
Audit your keyword overlap. Use negative keywords at the campaign level to ensure each search query matches exactly one campaign.
6. Landing Pages That Don't Convert
Great ads driving traffic to mediocre landing pages waste money. If your landing page loads slowly, looks different from your ad, or makes it hard to take the next step, you're paying full price for clicks that never become customers.
Match your landing page to your ad's promise. Remove distractions. Make the desired action obvious. Test different versions to find what converts best.
7. No Accountability
The biggest mistake isn't tactical—it's structural. When no one is responsible for results, problems persist indefinitely. Whether you manage ads yourself, use an agency, or have an in-house team, someone needs to own the outcomes.
Independent accountability means measuring performance against objective standards, not just activity metrics. See how viaCMO approaches accountability for Google Ads management.
Avoiding these mistakes won't guarantee success, but it will stop you from wasting money on errors that are entirely preventable. The free 25-point health check flags which of these are present in your account in 60 seconds, and the full 100-point Google Ads audit goes deeper across structural and performance criteria. Start with an honest assessment of your current account—get your free account grade to see where you stand.