Sanity check your Google Ads

Published August 2024. Last updated July 2026.

I consulted on a Google Ads account for a clean room contractor.

If you don't already know, a clean room is designed to be free of dust, contaminants and pollutants. They're used in manufacturing, research, packaging and other fields where microscopic particles can cause problems.

As you can imagine this is a specialist business. The contractor only builds a handful of these facilities every year.

One of Google's reps had helped them set up their account. They were getting more than 10 000 clicks a month, but they hardly ever got a quality lead.

They thought the landing page was the problem till I asked how likely it was that 10 000 people in their area wanted to build a clean room every month.

We dug into the account and found that they'd been showing ads to people who wanted a tidy house. The rep hadn't thought about the difference between a clean room and a clean bedroom or clean bathroom. 99 of every 100 people who clicked their ads weren't into advanced manufacturing. They were looking for tidying tips.

It's always worth doing a quick sanity check to make sure that the numbers in your Google Ads account line up with what you know about your industry.

Most Google Ads Problems Aren't Google Ads Problems
Pete holding his book
If my writing resonates with you, I'd like to give you a copy of my book, Profitable Google Ads. The book was written for business owners, but many PPC professionals have found it valuable too.
Before you download it, what describes you best?

Related articles

Advertising is expensive. Do as little of it as you can.

It is almost always cheaper to get a happy customer to return than to win another one through advertising.

Map every route a Google Ads lead can take into your business

I trace every route from the ad to the CRM to find leads and tracking data that go missing.

What happens after a Google Ads lead arrives?

A neat sales funnel can hide where leads go missing, follow-up breaks down and the evidence needed to improve your ads gets lost.

Is your conversion tracking teaching Google the right lessons?

If every enquiry looks equally valuable, Google will chase quantity. Does it ever learn which leads actually become customers?

Are you making Google Ads decisions with the right evidence?

The ad account says the leads are good. The sales team says they aren’t. Who has the evidence needed to decide?

How I decide which Google Ads evidence gaps matter most

Finding problems is easy. The difficult part is identifying the few evidence gaps that could materially affect leads, decisions and profitability.

Topics you'll find on this site

Agency insights

Thoughts and lessons on client selection, burnout, pricing, and modernising legacy accounts, from someone who's run a Google Ads for years.

Conversion tracking

Understand what happens after someone clicks your advert. Subjects include offline conversions, CRM integration, attribution, auditability and marketing instrumentation.

Essays and thinking

Articles about marketing, engineering, AI and problem solving that don't fit neatly into the other topics. These are some of the ideas and experiences that have shaped how I think.

Google Ads for lead generation

Learn how to use Google Ads to generate profitable leads. Subjects include campaign strategy, bidding, targeting, optimisation and the challenges of running lead generation campaigns.

Landing pages

Things I've learned about high-converting landing pages. Subjects include copywriting, page structure, forms, trust, conversion rate optimisation and user experience.

Sales Process

What happens after a lead has been generated determines if Google Ads is profitable. Subjects include first contact, follow-up, quoting, lead nurturing and turning more enquiries into customers.

© 2026 Pete Bowen