Is Your Google Ads Budget Working? 3 Signs Your Brisbane Business is Wasting Money on PPC

Google Ads is one of the most powerful tools for generating immediate leads for your Brisbane business. When done right, it's a direct line to customers who are actively searching for your exact product or service. But when done wrong, it can feel like a money pit.

Pouring your hard-earned budget into a campaign that isn't delivering results is a common and frustrating problem. The issue often isn't the platform; it's the strategy.

Are you worried your ad spend isn't working as hard as it should be? Here are three clear signs that your Brisbane business might be wasting money on PPC.

1. You're Getting Clicks, But No Customers

This is the most common symptom of a broken campaign. Your ads are showing, people are clicking, and your budget is being spent, but your phone isn't ringing and your inbox is empty.

The Likely Cause: A Conversion Problem. Traffic is only half the battle. If those clicks lead to a poor user experience, you'll lose the lead every time.

• You're sending traffic to your homepage: Your homepage is a general overview of your business. A user who clicked an ad for "emergency plumbing" needs to land on a page only about emergency plumbing, with a clear phone number at the top. Sending them to the homepage forces them to search for the information they need, and most won't bother.
• Your page is slow or not mobile-friendly: If your page takes more than three seconds to load on a phone, the user is gone.
• There's no clear call to action: The user lands on your page, but what are they supposed to do next? A successful campaign directs every click to a dedicated landing page built for one purpose: conversion.

2. Your Ads Show Up for Irrelevant Searches

Does your phone ring with enquiries for services you don't even offer? This is a classic sign of poor keyword targeting.

The Likely Cause: No Negative Keywords. Google's default settings are designed to show your ads to the broadest possible audience, which can include many irrelevant searches. For example, if you're a commercial electrician in Brisbane, you don't want your ads showing up for people searching "electrician training courses Brisbane" or "cheap electrician jobs."

Every time someone clicks your ad from an irrelevant search, you're paying for a lead that has zero chance of becoming a customer. A well-managed campaign uses an extensive list of "negative keywords" to block these wasteful clicks before they happen.

3. You Don't Actually Know if it's Working

If you ask your current provider "What's our ROI?" and you get a fuzzy answer about "clicks" and "impressions," you have a reporting problem.

The Likely Cause: No Conversion Tracking. Clicks and impressions are vanity metrics. The only metrics that truly matter are the ones that impact your bottom line. You should know, with certainty, the answers to these questions every month:

• How many leads (phone calls and form fills) did we get?
• What was our Cost Per Lead?
• What was our estimated Return On Ad Spend (ROAS)?

Without proper conversion tracking set up, you are flying blind. You're spending money without knowing which keywords, ads, or campaigns are actually making you money, and which are draining your budget.

Stop Guessing, Start Growing

A well-run Google Ads campaign should be a predictable and profitable growth engine for your Brisbane business, not a source of financial stress. If any of these signs feel familiar, it doesn't mean Google Ads doesn't work—it means your current strategy needs a serious overhaul.

Ready for a campaign that delivers real, measurable results? Get in touch with us for a free, no-obligation ad account audit. We'll show you exactly where your budget is going and how we can make it work harder for you.