Google Ads best practices: how to spend your ad budget more wisely

Author: Mariliis Uibomäe · Published: 2026-09-02 · Last updated: 2026-10-06

Google Ads is still the fastest way to capture demand, but the share of automation has grown, which means mistakes get expensive faster than before. These are the principles I use to build and optimise accounts.

1. Measurement before budget

If conversion measurement isn't set up properly, Google optimises towards the wrong goal.

• Set up GA4, Google Tag Manager and Consent Mode
• Define one primary conversion that matters to the business, not every single button click
• Use enhanced conversions and, where possible, offline conversions so the system sees actual sales
• Give different conversions different values

2. A simple account structure

• Fewer campaigns with more data each perform better than ten tiny campaigns
• Separate brand and non-brand, otherwise the report shows a pretty result you would have gotten without ads anyway
• Keep separate campaigns per market and language
• Avoid overly narrow ad groups where data never accumulates

3. Performance Max needs active management

• Provide quality signals: a good product feed, audience signals and complete asset groups
• Use campaign exclusions, including excluding brand keywords, if you want to see genuinely new demand
• Regularly check search terms and placement reports
• Split asset groups by product category rather than lumping everything together

4. Search campaigns and keywords

• Exact and phrase match remain important for control, broad match only works with strong measurement and smart bidding
• Review negative keywords at least once a month
• Test at least three ad variants per ad group and monitor the asset-level report
• Use all relevant extensions, since they improve visibility at no extra cost

5. The landing page is half the result

The most common reason a campaign underperforms isn't the ad, it's the page. The message must match the ad, the page must load fast, and the action must be clear.

6. Common mistakes

• Changing campaign settings every couple of days, which never lets the learning phase finish
• Judging ROAS only by Google's own report, without business data
• Blindly applying automated recommendations
• Counting brand traffic as new demand

Where to start

If an account already exists, start with an audit: measurement, structure, search terms and landing pages. If you're starting from scratch, build solid measurement first, run one clear campaign, and only then expand.