How to Diagnose a Google Ads Campaign Not Hitting Budget

Sometimes, you have a hard time hitting your Google Ads budget. No matter what you do, you can’t seem to reach your spend level!

But you don’t want to spend just to spend, to waste money on irrelevant keywords or display ads that won’t perform as well as your search terms.

So how do you diagnose an under-spending campaign?

[1:03] Step 1: Check Search Impression Share

Search impression share is the percentage of impressions that your Google Ads receive compared to the total number of impressions your ads could possibly receive based on your geographic targeting.

To see your impression share, you:

• Modify your column settings in the editor.
• Then add the “Search Impression share” column from “Competitive metrics,”
• And then you can view the “Search Impression share” column for campaigns, ad groups, and keywords.

If your search impression share is indeed low and you want to increase your spend, you can either increase bids or improve ad quality.

On the other hand, if impression share is high, you’re getting close to market saturation and, if possible, you might want to expand your geographic settings, so you have a broader reach.

[1:47] Step 2: Check Keyword Matching

If your keyword matching is too specific, you might be losing traffic.

So, how do you check if your keyword matching is too specific?

Are you focusing too much on exact match, when you should be including phrase and modified broad match?

If you only have exact matches or very long match phrases, you might be targeting a market that’s too specific.

To remedy this, consider using phrase or modified broad to increase your search traffic.

[2:17] Step 3: Check Keyword Bids

You might be bidding too low, and you won’t show.

If you find that your bid is lower than the “estimated top page bid,” then many people won’t see your ads.

You can find out if you’re not getting to the top by looking at the average position metric.

If you’re position is 3 or below then you’re generally showing at the top of the page.

Remember, position one is the very top of the search results, and position 3, or sometimes 4, is the last ad someone sees before they see organic results.

If you’re 3+, you’re often near the bottom of the page with little visibility.

[2:50] Step 4: Check Click-through-rate

Maybe your Google Ads are showing up a lot, but people aren’t clicking on it. This will result in a lower click-through rate, meaning you’re losing clicks.

If your CTR is around 1% or lower, you may want to revamp your ad copy and messaging to increase clicks.

Good ad copy and consistent messaging entices people to click on it and allows you to generate more traffic.

[3:10] Step 5: Geographic Targeting

It could be that the geographic targeting parameters you’ve set are too limited.

If the search impression share is high, and your keyword matching is broad enough, there may not be enough traffic to support your budget.

Some markets have limited search traffic, and it becomes even more limited by geography.

If this is the case, you might want to consider expanding your geographic reach in the campaign settings.

If, after going through these five steps, you’ve checked everything and you’re still under budget, then you might consider expanding your ad campaign from just Google Ads.

This can include Bing ads, display ads, Facebook, re-targeting ads, and so on.

If you’re having trouble with a Google Ads campaign that’s under-spending, reach out to us for help!