Top Google Ads Mistakes to Avoid in Q4 (And How to Fix Them)

Most teams don’t realize how much budget is quietly leaking out of their Google Ads.

We’ve seen incoming accounts with default settings, automation drift, and broken tracking drain 25–30% of spend before campaigns even get off the ground. If you’re increasing the budget this year without fixing these leaks first, you’re likely paying for clicks that will never convert.

Our experts, David Dweck, EVP & GM, eCommerce at Go Fish, and Thomas Driver, Senior Director of Paid Media at Req, recently broke down the five most common Google Ads mistakes (plus a bonus half-leak) and how to fix them. Here’s what you need to know before heading into Q4.

Leak #1: Targeting Without Intent

One of the fastest ways budgets slip away in Google Ads is through targeting that doesn’t account for intent.

Broad match keywords and automation defaults often flood campaigns with irrelevant clicks, traffic that looks good on paper but has little chance of converting. The result is wasted spend, inflated bounce rates, and frustrated marketing teams trying to make sense of why performance lags.

The solution is twofold: build a disciplined negative keyword strategy and use tools like our Barracuda engram analysis to surface hidden patterns in search queries. This lets you quickly identify low-quality terms, pause or negate them, and reallocate spend to the searches that actually drive revenue. In practice, the impact can be dramatic.

One of our clients saw conversions spike within weeks of tightening their negative keyword strategy, even while running at a higher overall ad spend.

Leak #2: Campaign Structures That Don’t Map to Goals

Too many advertisers let Google’s defaults dictate how their campaigns are set up, and it almost always guarantees wasted spend.

Default settings prioritize Google’s objectives: more clicks, broader reach, and faster adoption of automation, not your business objectives. When that happens, campaigns may look like they’re performing on paper but fail to deliver the outcomes your leadership team actually cares about.

Build campaign structures around C-suite outcomes, not platform settings. Use keyword clustering aligned to funnel stages and discovery points. Apply semantic clustering with Barracuda to mirror how Google ranks queries and ensure ad copy relevance.

Do not confuse good-looking numbers with meaningful impact. A campaign can post strong CTRs or look efficient on branded search, but if it is not driving incremental revenue, it is not doing its job. The real measure of success is whether your campaign structure aligns performance metrics with business growth, not whether it satisfies Google’s reporting.

Leak #3: Wrong Bidding Strategies

Campaign objectives and bidding strategies are often mismatched.

For example, awareness campaigns set to “Maximize Clicks” can actually limit reach instead of increasing impressions. This kind of misalignment causes campaigns to underperform and makes it harder to prove real value to the business.

Match bidding strategy to campaign objective (awareness, conversion, loyalty). Audit for alignment across keywords, ad copy, and landing pages. Adjust bidding to reflect true goals, such as shifting to Target Impression Share when reach matters most.

A small adjustment in bidding strategy can unlock significant results. For one client, shifting from Maximize Clicks to Target Impression Share increased impressions and CTRs almost immediately. The key is ensuring every element of your campaign structure supports the outcome you want, not just the metric that is easiest to measure.

Leak #4: Broken or Missing Conversion Tracking

If Google Ads conversion tracking is not set up correctly, the platform receives the wrong signals and your budget quickly gets wasted. Bad data means Google will optimize toward the wrong actions, making it harder to scale campaigns and prove return on ad spend.

The first step is to audit your conversion setup in Google Ads by reviewing the “tracking status” column. From there, make sure you are piping in proxy signals such as cart adds, searches, and product views, not just final purchases. Finally, align Google’s reporting with your actual source of truth, whether that is Shopify or your CRM, so optimization is based on data that reflects real business outcomes.

One of our clients recovered $20,000 per month in misattributed conversions with a single tag fix.

Accurate Google Ads conversion tracking is not just a technical detail, it is the foundation of campaign performance. When Google is optimizing with clean, reliable data, campaigns move budget toward the actions that drive revenue instead of clicks that look good on paper.

Leak #5: The “Set and Forget” Trap

Even well-built campaigns degrade over time if they are left unchecked. Automation and machine learning are powerful tools, but they still require human oversight to stay effective.

Campaigns should be monitored on a weekly basis, whether by your internal team or an agency partner. Regular refreshes of ad copy, landing pages, and product feeds keep performance from stalling, while consistent reviews ensure that automation is serving your goals instead of drifting off course. Optimization is never a one-time setup, it is an ongoing process.

The strongest campaigns balance the efficiency of automation with the discipline of human oversight. By treating optimization as continuous rather than a set-and-forget exercise, you prevent wasted spend and keep campaigns aligned with your growth goals.

Leak #5.5: Ignoring Onsite SEO

Rising CPCs are not just a paid search problem. When onsite SEO is weak, quality scores suffer, costs climb, and paid campaigns lose efficiency.

The Fix

Strong SEO is not just about rankings, it is also one of the most effective levers for reducing paid search costs. When your site is optimized for relevance and structure, Google rewards you with lower CPCs and stronger ad performance.

What This Means for You

Heading into Q4, increasing spend without fixing these Google Ads mistakes is like pouring water into a bucket with holes. By addressing them now, you can recover 25–30% of wasted budget, improve quality scores, and turn ad spend into profitable growth.

Want to see exactly where your money is slipping away?

Request a free Google Ads audit today to get a full breakdown of savings opportunities.