Most ad accounts we audit are not short on data. They are short on data they can trust. When tracking is broken or campaigns quietly compete with each other, every decision made on top of those numbers drifts further from reality.
These are the three issues we check first, and why each one matters.
1. Your conversion tracking is counting the wrong things
Duplicate tags, page views counted as leads, or a form that fires twice can make a campaign look far better than it is. The fix starts with listing every conversion action and checking that each one maps to something that actually earns you money.
Compare the leads Google Ads reports for last month against the leads your team actually received. If the numbers don't match, start here.
2. Geo-modifiers are eating your reach
Location settings and keywords with place names can quietly narrow who sees your ads, or show them to people outside the area you serve. Both waste budget and make performance hard to read.
- Check whether you target people in your area or people interested in it.
- Review search terms for locations you don't serve.
- Keep city-specific keywords in their own ad groups.
3. Your keywords are competing against each other
When several ad groups can match the same search, you end up bidding against yourself and splitting the data. Negative keyword lists by category and ad groups split by search intent keep each search going to one clear place.
“Clean data first. Every decision made on bad numbers takes you further from the result you want.”
What to do next
Fix the data before you change the strategy. Once tracking is clean and campaigns stop overlapping, hold changes steady long enough to read them properly, then move budget toward what converts.
Not sure where your account stands? Our free audit checks all three, and we send you the findings whether you hire us or not.
Mountics is a digital marketing agency in Kathmandu, Nepal. We write about the paid ads, SEO, social and conversion work we do in client accounts every week.