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You’re spending more than you want on Google Ads and it’s starting to feel like you’re just burning money. Every click costs more, your budget disappears faster than it should, and you’re not even sure if it’s all worth it. You’ve tried tweaking bids, adjusting keywords, maybe even paused a few campaigns… but nothing’s really moved the needle.
While Google Ads can be an effective way to drive traffic and conversions, managing costs efficiently is essential to get the best return on investment (ROI).
Fortunately, there are several strategies you can use to optimise your campaigns, reduce your cost per click (CPC), and ensure you’re getting the most value for your ad spend.
In this article, you’ll learn how to take control of your ad spend. You’ll get clear, proven strategies to cut costs, improve performance, and finally make Google Ads work for your bottom line.
Improve Your Quality Score
Google Ads uses a metric called Quality Score to measure how relevant and useful your ad is to users. The higher your Quality Score, the lower your CPC.
Quality Score is influenced by three key factors:
- Ad Relevance: Your ad needs to be highly relevant to the keywords you’re bidding on. If someone searches for “best running shoes” and your ad is about “high-quality running footwear,” it will have a high relevance score, which can lower your CPC.
- Landing Page Experience: Google wants to ensure that when a user clicks on your ad, they land on a relevant and easy-to-navigate page. A poor landing page experience can increase your CPC. Your landing page should be relevant to the ad and load quickly.
- Expected Click-Through Rate (CTR): Google estimates how likely it is that users will click on your ad based on historical performance. If your CTR is low, Google will increase your CPC to compensate for lower engagement.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of overly focusing on keyword optimisation, bidding and technical strategies. While these are important and have their place, I can’t stress enough that it’s all about the offer.
You can’t just throw up a generic ad and expect strong results. From the keyword to the ad copy to the landing page… everything has to line up.
For example, if someone searches for “affordable wedding venues,” your ad should speak to affordability, and your landing page should show venues with pricing front and centre. When your message is tightly aligned with what the person actually wants, your Quality Score goes up, your CPC goes down, and conversions get easier.
Look at the keyword you’re targeting, and try to make your ad directly speak to that keyword, and then add content to your landing page that someone searching that keyword would expect to see.
If you focus on this, you’ll likely reduce CPC, increase CTR, and reduce CPA.
2. Use Negative Keywords
One effective way to lower your costs is by using negative keywords. Negative keywords allow you to filter out irrelevant traffic, ensuring that your ads aren’t shown to people who are unlikely to convert.
For example, if you sell premium running shoes, you might want to add negative keywords like “cheap” or “discount” to prevent your ads from showing to people searching for low-cost alternatives. This will help you avoid wasting money on clicks that won’t lead to conversions.
Pro Tip: Navigate to ‘Insights and reports’ > ‘Search terms’ to see actual search queries you’re showing up for.
This will show you what users are actually searching when your ad pops up. This will be the best place to see which keywords you might want to add into your negative keyword list.
3. Use Ad Groups Strategically
If you’re cramming a dozen unrelated keywords into a single ad group, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Google’s system is built around relevance and that starts with how you structure your campaigns.
Each ad group should focus on one tight keyword theme. That way, your ad copy can speak directly to that intent, and your landing page can match it perfectly. This alignment tells Google, “Hey, this ad is exactly what the searcher wants,” which boosts your Quality Score and drives down costs.
Let’s say you’re a florist and you run one ad group with keywords like “wedding bouquets,” “funeral flowers,” and “Valentine’s Day roses.” Those are completely different customer intents. Now your ad copy has to be vague, or worse, irrelevant, and your landing page won’t hit the mark for anyone. This might result in low CTRs, high CPCs, and a lot of wasted spend.
Instead, split those into separate ad groups. One for wedding flowers. One for sympathy arrangements. One for Valentine’s specials. Then write ads and landing pages tailored to each. It takes a bit more effort up front, but your budget will stretch a lot further and your results will speak for themselves.
4. Don’t Change Things Too Often
One of the biggest mistakes advertisers make is fiddling with their campaigns too often. Change the budget one day, swap out headlines the next, pause a keyword here, rewrite an ad there… It might feel like you’re being proactive, but in reality, you’re just getting in your own way.
Every time you make a significant change, your campaign re-enters the learning phase. This is when Google’s system is trying to understand how your ads perform so it can optimise delivery. If you keep resetting that process, your campaign never gets enough stable data to improve. You’re essentially starting from scratch over and over again.
Yes, optimisation is important. But give your changes time to take effect. Let data accumulate. Watch trends over at least a week or two before making decisions. Think of your campaign like a plant… It needs consistency to grow. Constantly yanking it out to check the roots will only
So, What’s Next?
So here’s the real question: are you going to keep doing what everyone else is doing, throwing money at Google and hoping for the best, or are you finally ready to take control?
Because this isn’t just about saving a few pounds on your ad spend. It’s about building a system that actually works. One where every click counts. Where your messaging is dialled in. Where your budget isn’t just disappearing… it’s delivering.
If you’re really struggling with your Google Ads Account, you might be making some key crucial mistakes. Check out our article on the biggest mistakes to avoid when running Google Ads.
