Finding 1: Conversion Tracking Errors
Found in: ~40% of accounts
Typical cost: 15-30% of total spend (indirectly)
This is the finding that makes everything else unreliable. When conversion tracking is wrong, every metric in the dashboard is suspect. Your CPA might look great while your actual CPA is twice as high.
The most common tracking errors we find:
- Duplicate conversion actions (both marked as Primary)
- Conversion tags firing on wrong pages
- Google Ads and GA4 numbers diverging by more than 25%
- Missing offline conversion imports for long sales cycles
The cost isn't just wasted money on bad data. It's every decision made based on wrong numbers. An account that thinks its CPA is $25 when it's actually $50 will set targets, budgets, and growth plans based on fiction.
For a deeper look at red flags that signal tracking issues, we covered the warning signs in detail.
Finding 2: Search Term Waste
Found in: ~80% of accounts
Typical cost: 15-25% of search campaign spend
This is the most common finding by far. Pull up any search terms report and sort by cost, and you'll almost always find terms that shouldn't be there. Irrelevant queries, informational searches, and competitor brand names eating budget.
On a $10K/month search spend, 20% waste is $2,000/month or $24,000/year. The fix is straightforward: build negative keyword lists and review search terms every week or two.
Finding 3: Bid Strategy Mismatch
Found in: ~55% of accounts
Typical cost: 10-20% of affected campaign spend
The wrong bid strategy for a campaign's data volume is surprisingly common. A campaign with 12 conversions per month running Target CPA doesn't have enough data for the algorithm to make informed decisions. With that volume, it's basically guessing.
Low-volume campaigns should use Maximize Conversions (without a target) until they build data. Set targets based on actual recent performance, not aspirational goals.
Finding 4: Missing Ad Extensions
Found in: ~65% of accounts
Typical cost: 5-15% higher CPCs
Missing sitelinks, callouts, and structured snippets means your ads take up less space. Smaller ads get fewer clicks. Adding extensions is free, takes 15 minutes, and every account should have at minimum 4 sitelinks, 4 callouts, structured snippets, and call extensions.
Google uses extensions in Quality Score calculations, so missing extensions also indirectly raise CPCs.
Finding 5: Audience Overlap and Cannibalization
Found in: ~50% of accounts
Typical cost: 10-25% higher CPMs/CPCs
On Google, it's Search and Performance Max campaigns targeting the same keywords. On Meta, it's multiple ad sets reaching the same people. Either way, you're bidding against yourself.
Check for campaign overlap using our audit guide. On Meta, use the Audience Overlap tool for ad sets with more than 30% overlap.
Finding 6: Creative Fatigue
Found in: ~60% of accounts
Typical cost: 15-30% higher CPMs over time
Running the same creative too long leads to declining engagement and higher costs. The symptoms: increasing CPMs, declining CTRs, and frequency above 3x for prospecting. The fix is introducing 2-3 new creative variations every 2-4 weeks.
Putting It All Together
On a $20K/month account with 3-4 of these issues, it's reasonable to estimate $4,000-6,000/month in wasted spend. The good news: most are fixable. Tracking takes a day, negative keywords an afternoon, extensions 15 minutes.
Run our free audit to see which findings apply to your account, or use our 30-minute audit guide for the DIY approach.
Frequently Asked Questions
Broken conversion tracking is almost always the most costly. It corrupts the data every other decision is based on.
About 70% of accounts have at least 3 of these 6 issues. Search term waste is the most common at roughly 80%.
You can find most of them with a careful self-audit. Search term waste and missing extensions are easy to spot. Tracking issues are harder to diagnose on your own.
See Which Findings Apply to You
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