5 Google Ads Mistakes That Are Quietly Killing Your Performance (And How to Fix Them)

Wasted ad spend isn’t a rounding error, it’s a revenue leak. In fact, marketers lose up to 37% of their budgets each year on poorly targeted, underperforming ads. And for eCommerce brands running Google Ads, it’s one of the most common (and costly) traps.

Here are five silent killers of performance, and how to fix them fast.

1. Targeting the Wrong Keywords

Broad match is more powerful than ever, but also riskier.

With Google leaning heavily into AI, broad match now accounts for a significant percentage of impressions in many campaigns. It’s a discovery tool, but without the right structure, it becomes a budget vacuum.

What to do:

• Use broad or phrase match for keyword discovery, but layer in aggressive negative keywords to control spend.
  
• Use exact match for high-intent, proven converters.
  
• Don’t over-index on long-tail exact match terms, they often lack volume and stall your reach.
  
• Use dynamic search ads (DSAs) to mine intent, just make sure your site content is optimized, or Google may pull in irrelevant traffic.

Quick Win: Always separate branded and non-branded terms into different campaigns to preserve clean performance insights and scale non-brand growth.SEO is about being the answer, not just an option. 

2. Letting Your Shopping Feed Go Stale

Many eCommerce marketers haven’t touched their Merchant Center feed in 6+ months. If that’s you, you’re missing out.

Here’s why it matters:

• Google Shopping is algorithmically driven, your product titles, descriptions, and attributes directly impact visibility.
• Weak data feeds lead to irrelevant impressions, lower click-through rates, and missed conversions.
• Google gives you tools like price competitiveness reports, trending product insights, and attribute benchmarks, but they only work if your feed is current.
• Products with optimized titles and filled optional attributes perform significantly better in competitive auctions.

What to do:

• Update product titles with keywords your audience is searching for (e.g. “Men’s Waterproof Trail Running Shoes” instead of just “Running Shoes”).
• Add optional fields: size, gender, material, color, etc.
• Regularly check Merchant Center’s feed diagnostics and opportunities.

Try this: Search your own top product categories and compare your listings to competitors. If your ads look vague or generic, it’s time for a tune-up. 

3. Using the Wrong Bidding Strategy

Pro Tip: Test bidding strategies side-by-side. Run a 50/50 campaign experiment comparing Target ROAS vs. Max Clicks to see what drives real profit.

4. Letting Your Creative Go Stale

Structured data has always been important for traditional SEO, but with CIf your visuals haven’t been updated in 6 months, they’re likely underperforming.

In our experience, users tune out after seeing the same creative more than 10 times. Yet most brands keep running the same asset group in Performance Max for months.

What to do:

• Rotate new creative monthly, or quarterly at a minimum.
• Test across 3 creative types: lifestyle images, product-only visuals, and unexpected/UCG-inspired visuals.
• Don’t forget headlines and descriptions. Rewriting copy can refresh performance even if your visuals stay the same.

Bonus: Google now offers creative tools, including AI-generated image assistance, right in the ad builder. No design team? No problem.

5. Neglecting Audience Segmentation

Your remarketing isn’t broken, it’s just too broad.

Many advertisers lump all site visitors into a single retargeting list. That’s a waste. You need to segment based on behavior and recency.

Here’s a better way:

• Segment by cart abandoners (1, 3, 7-day) and high-intent page viewers.
• Build audiences based on session depth, time on site, or viewed products.
• Gradually lower bids as time since visit increases (e.g. 7 days > 14 days > 30 days).
• Exclude past purchasers from awareness campaigns to avoid wasted impressions.
• Use dynamic product ads + time-based offers to reengage cart abandoners without undercutting your margins across the board.d and surface in real shopping conversations. 

Final Takeaway: Don’t Blame Google, Blame the Setup

Google Ads has never been more powerful. But without the right structure, targeting, and creative, it’s also never been easier to waste money.

Fix these five mistakes and you won’t just stop the budget bleed, you’ll unlock more scale, more profit, and better return from every campaign.

Want a second opinion?

We run Google Ads audits for eCommerce brands ready to cut waste and scale smarter. If you want expert insights, get in touch here.