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- Feb 5
- 3 min read

PPC | PAID SEARCH | 6 steps to improve your Google Ads campaigns

Article by Andrew Wirtz

Looking to fine-tune your PPC approach and maximize results? Unlock the potential of your Google Ads campaigns with these actionable steps.

Struggling to boost your Google Ads campaign performance?

Whether it’s dwindling impressions, rising CPCs, or a drop in conversions, this article outlines six key steps to diagnose issues and unlock opportunities for improvement.

From checking conversion tracking setup and bid strategies to evaluating ad groups and search terms, these actionable tips will help refine your PPC approach to drive better results.

1. Ensure conversion setup is accurate

When figuring out why a Google Ads campaign isn’t doing well, start by checking how conversions are set up. Clear and accurate conversion tracking is crucial for assessing your campaign’s effectiveness.

Ensure the conversion tracking is properly configured to capture essential actions, such as form submissions, purchases, or whatever goal you set up.

Check if you have existing conversion values or if you can apply them to signal the value of each conversion action to Google.

If conversions are low, troubleshoot the tracking code and contact Google support for tag setup help. Accurate tracking and aligned values are crucial for improving campaign performance and getting precise ROAS and conversion data.

2. Check your bid strategy

If you have an unattainable goal, Google may have a status on your campaign that is “Limited by bidding strategy.”

If your bid strategy is limited, you can upgrade it to a fully automated bidding strategy, which will help you get more conversions at a similar CPA or higher conversion value at a similar ROAS.

Other common limitations may be bid limits below the average for your keywords. Increase your max CPCs, or if you are using smart bidding, increase your tCPA or decrease your tROAS.

Search impression share indicates the percentage of total impressions an ad receives compared to the total number it could receive.

If you have a campaign that is struggling to spend, this is a great metric to look at. A lower search impression share suggests missed opportunities for visibility. This could involve:

Refining keyword targeting.
Adjusting bid strategies to have a lower ROAS target or higher cost per acquisition.
Improving ad relevance.
Expanding the budget in competitive auctions.

There are two other metrics to add to your report:

Search lost IS (rank): Search impression share lost to rank.
Search lost IS (budget): Search impression share to budget.

If you see a high percentage for rank, you should improve your landing page, ad copy, and keyword targeting. If you see a high percentage lost to budget, you’ll want to dedicate more spending to be competitive.

If you have a search impression share greater than 10%, you may also see competitive metrics in the Auction Insights report. This will show you other advertisers bidding on the keywords in that campaign.

If your impression share is much lower, you may want to expand your budget and make bid strategy adjustments to be less restrictive.

Regularly monitoring and optimizing search impression share is a proactive strategy to fine-tune campaigns and maximize a campaign’s reach.

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