Launching Google Ads is easy. Launching without wasting money and seeing a return on investment is the part where many business owners running ads fail.

Most “Google Ads isn’t working” problems are actually “we launched before the fundamentals were in place”. The fix is not more creative. It’s a tight pre-launch checklist you run every single time, before a cent leaves the account.

In auditing and managing Google Ads campaigns, we have seen a lot and you would be surprised that, at times, we have even seen large, highly regarded agencies still let basics fall through the cracks.

To ensure our team stays aligned and always has our accounts on point, we follow seven checks we treat as non-negotiables.

1) Confirm the strategy and funnel stage you are actually launching

Before you touch Google Ads, confirm what you are meant to be building… Yes, you need a strategy! Stop and ensure you understand each stage of the funnel, the purpose of your campaign and how it relates back to your goals. Once you have your plan, stick to it until you have data to make informed decisions to adjust your strategy.

If the strategy is MOF or BOF, do not drift into TOF because it feels safer or more familiar. Your campaign structure, keywords and landing pages need to match your user intent and goals.

Stop and review

• What is the intended funnel stage (TOF, MOF, BOF)?
• What is the single primary action you want users to take?

2) Make sure conversion tracking is set up and tested

If tracking is not working, you are flying blind. At a minimum, your key conversion actions should be implemented, verified and reported correctly. Fiona Trask Racket Agency’s Account Manager, who, along with her team, has audited a number of Google Ad accounts over her career, noted, “A common issue I see is duplicate conversion fires from overlapping events. Check for duplicates from day one.”

Stop and review

• Google Analytics is installed and receiving data
• Key conversion events are configured on Google Tag Manager
• The conversion action fires on a real test (not “it looks like it should”)

3) Define conversions that match the site type

Different sites need different success signals. If you only track “page views” or one generic form event, Google will optimise towards noise.

For lead gen sites, your process calls out tracking actions like form submissions, phone calls, email clicks, file downloads and other meaningful engagement events.

For e-commerce sites, you should be tracking the core purchase journey plus high-intent interactions like product views, add to cart, checkout and purchase.

Stop and review

• Lead gen: forms, calls, email clicks, downloads (as relevant) Google Ads process
• E-commerce: product view, add to cart, begin checkout, purchase Google Ads process

4) Build the keyword set with a budget reality check

A keyword list is not “good” because it is long. It is good because it is realistic. Chasing keywords with expensive CPCs on a small budget can kill performance before it starts.

Google has a great tool called Google Keyword Planner, and, as the name suggests, it lets you research and plan keywords for your campaign. It shows volume and CPCs, helping you decide which keywords are best for your campaign. We recommend you use this tool, it is free and has data directly from the source… Google!

Stop and review

• Are your keywords viable at your daily budget?
• Are you filtering out terms with negligible volume? Google Ads process
• Do keywords match the funnel stage you are targeting? Google Ads process

5) Add negative keywords before you launch, not after

Negatives are not “optimisation later”. They are how you stop junk clicks from day one. You should include proactive negatives, such as free, jobs, courses and competitor names (if not part of your strategy).

Now you may be thinking, why should I not target competitors’ names? Well, you can… It really depends on your strategy, budget and how aggressive you want to be. If you are budget-conscious, we recommend avoiding bidding on competitor keywords when they are running ads, as it can get expensive. Most of the time, people searching for your competitor want your competitor, not you, so conversions are harder and less likely.

“Before launch, we always ensure the team adds a proactive negative keyword list and blocks irrelevant Performance Max placements. It saves a lot of clean-ups later.” Says Fiona when asked about the importance of pre-launch negative keyword management.

Stop and review

• Add obvious intent blockers: free, cheap, DIY, template (use what fits your category) Google Ads process
• Exclude hiring intent: jobs, careers Google Ads process
  Exclude learning intent: course, training Google Ads process
• Exclude competitor names where appropriate Google Ads process

Tip: Keep a “starter negatives” list for your niche and reuse it every launch, then expand it based on search terms reports.

6) Lock in location targeting properly

This is one of the easiest ways to waste spend, especially for service businesses. If you target a location but leave the wrong presence setting on, Google can show ads to people who are “interested in” the location but not actually in it. Your process specifically calls out setting this to “Users in the location”.

In our conversation with Fiona, she notes that “The biggest wasted spend I see comes from location settings. I always check the targeting and confirm the presence option is set to ‘People in or regularly in your targeted locations’.” This reinforces the importance of this step, particularly for small businesses focused on making every ad dollar work its hardest.

Stop and review

• Location targeting is correct
• Presence setting is set to “Users in the location” Google Ads process

7) Confirm message and landing page alignment

Google Ads does not fix a mismatched journey. In fact, did you know, Google’s Quality Score is calculated using expected click-through rate, ad relevance (how closely your ad matches search intent) and landing page experience (how relevant and useful your landing page is). When your keywords, ads, and landing page do not align, you tend to hurt at least one of those three inputs.

Long story short, if your ads promise one thing and the landing page delivers another, you will burn budget, blame the channel and lose users or potential customers/clients. Your process needs to explicitly tie success to aligning keywords, ad messaging and landing pages.

Stop and review

• Each ad group maps to a specific landing page (or a tightly aligned set)
• The landing page headline matches the ad promise
• The CTA matches your conversion action

Download the one-page Google Ads Pre-Launch Checklist

Want the tick-box version you can save and reuse for every launch? Download our one-page Google Ads Pre-Launch Checklist.

Google Ads can work brilliantly for small businesses, but only if the basics are locked in before launch. When time and budget are tight, you do not want to pay for avoidable learning mistakes. We know how important every dollar is to a small business!

If you want a second set of eyes before you go live, Hoopla can help. We offer affordable Google Ads packages for small businesses and you can book a free Custom Performance Strategy Session to get a clear plan for what to fix, what to launch and what to ignore.