Why your Google Ads are not converting: the eight causes, in the order to check them
A diagnostic for Google Ads that spends without enquiries: search terms, tracking, targeting, match types, landing page, form, offer and too little data.
By Daniel Stoychev, Webso Digital · 4 September 2026 · 9 min read
An account that spends and does not convert usually has one of eight faults, and the first three are in the account rather than on the website: the searches you are paying for are not the searches you want, the conversion tracking counts the wrong thing or nothing, and the targeting settings are wider than the business. Check them in this order, because redesigning a landing page does nothing if the clicks are from people looking for a job.
1. The searches are wrong
Open the Search Terms report for the last ninety days and sort by cost. On most accounts brought to us, between a fifth and a third of the spend went to searches that could never have bought: jobs and salaries, courses, free and DIY, manuals and error codes, a product you do not stock, a town you do not serve. Those clicks cost the same as a buyer's and convert at zero, and every one of them drags the conversion rate the bidding is learning from. The fix is a negative keyword list, seeded from your sector and grown every week. Nothing else on this page matters until the report is clean.
2. The tracking is counting the wrong thing, or nothing
An account with no conversions recorded is not the same as an account with no conversions. Check the conversion actions: is there one for the form, one for calls, one for purchases, and is each set to count once? A tag that fires on the thank-you page counts a refresh as a lead; two tags for the same form count every lead twice; a call action with no minimum duration counts every misdial. And an account with conversions set up but never fired has usually had a website update that broke the tag, which nobody noticed because the ads kept running. Submit the form and make the call yourself, then look for them in the account the next day.
3. The targeting is wider than the business
The location setting has two options and the default is the wrong one for most businesses. Presence shows ads to people in the area. Presence or interest shows them to anyone anywhere who searched about the area, which is how a plumber in Chester pays for clicks from people in Spain looking for a plumber in Chester for their holiday flat. Check languages, check the ad schedule against the hours the phone is answered, and check whether search partners and display expansion are switched on, spending a share of the budget on sites that are not Google.
4. Broad match with no data and no negatives
Google's wizard and Google's recommendations both push broad match with Smart Bidding. On a mature account with thirty conversions a month and a long negative list that combination can find customers exact match misses. On a new account it spends the budget on whatever the algorithm guesses is related, learns from clicks that never convert, and reports a learning period that never ends. Look at the match type column in the Search Terms report; if broad match is spending most of the money and converting least, tighten it.
5. The page does not answer the search
Someone who searched boiler repair Chester and lands on a homepage about plumbing, heating, bathrooms and the company's history has to find the boiler repair page themselves, and on a phone most will not. The page an ad lands on should repeat the search in its headline, put the action at the top, and answer the two questions every buyer has: can you do this, and what happens next. Speed is part of this: a page that takes six seconds to become usable on 4G loses a share of visitors before it says anything, and landing page experience is a third of the Quality Score that sets your cost per click.
6. The form and the phone
A form with nine fields, a number that is text rather than a tap-to-call link, a phone that goes to voicemail in the hours the ads run, a chat widget that covers the button on a phone screen. Each is invisible in the account and obvious on the page. Fill in your own form on your own phone and ring the number at the times your ads show.
7. The offer loses the comparison
Sometimes everything above is right and the click still does not convert, because the searcher opened three ads and yours had no price, no reviews and no reason to choose it. Auction insights shows who else is in your auctions; open their pages and compare.
8. There is not enough data to judge
Twenty clicks and no enquiry is not a failure; it is a sample too small to read. An ad group needs at least a hundred clicks before a conversion rate means anything, and a Smart Bidding campaign needs around thirty conversions in a month before its target behaves. A budget that buys forty clicks a month cannot fail or succeed; it can only wait. If the budget cannot reach a hundred clicks per ad group in a month, the answer is fewer ad groups, not more months.
| What you see | Most likely cause | Where to look first |
|---|---|---|
| Spend steady, clicks steady, enquiries zero | Tracking broken, or the searches are wrong | Conversion actions; Search Terms sorted by cost |
| Enquiries in the account, none in the inbox | Tracking counts a page view or a refresh | Conversion action source and counting setting |
| Clicks from outside the area | Presence or interest | Location options; the user locations report |
| Many cheap clicks, no calls | Broad match, display expansion or search partners | Match type column; network segment |
| Good search terms, poor conversion rate | The landing page, the form or the phone hours | The page on a phone on 4G; the ad schedule |
| Everything clean, still losing | The offer, or too little data | Auction insights and competitor pages; clicks per ad group |
Why the order matters
Each cause hides the ones below it. Broken tracking makes a working page look broken. Wrong searches make a good page look poor. Fix the account first, because it is cheap and fast, then judge the page on clicks that could have converted, then judge the offer on a page that gave it a chance. An audit that starts with the website usually ends with an expensive redesign and the same Search Terms report.
The one-hour version: Search Terms sorted by cost, conversion actions checked by submitting your own form, location setting checked for presence, and your landing page loaded on your own phone on mobile data. Four checks, one hour, most of the answer.
Questions on this topic
My agency says the campaign is in a learning period. How long should that last?
About a week after a significant change, and it ends when the campaign has enough conversions to bid from. A learning period that lasts months means the campaign is not getting the conversions it needs, usually because the budget is too small or the tracking is not firing, and the phrase is being used as an excuse.
Should I pause the account while I fix these?
Pause the campaigns that are clearly wasting, such as one running on presence or interest or broad match with no negatives. Keep the rest running while you fix tracking, because you need the data. Then judge again after a fortnight.
How do I check the conversion tracking without a developer?
Fill in your own form and make a call to your own number from your phone, note the time, and look at the conversions column in the account the next day, segmented by conversion action. If nothing appears, or two appear for one form, the tracking is the problem.