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Spent $15.9K on Google Ads, only got $7–8K return what went wrong?
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Were your keywords set to broad match? I ask because your CPC is too low for these type of leads generally. At that CPC if you are in the US you’ll get a lot of garbage. I run a company in a similar space and our CPC is much higher but our ad ROAS is between 5-8x.
Sounds like you may want to go to phrase match and then add in a lot of negative keywords.
Your budget also seems to be too broken up between campaigns. I would start with just a search campaign and give it a high budget to let Google learn. But if your offering and landing pages are good you should see conversions pretty quickly.
The lower the budget the less likely Google shows you during peak hours.
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Easy approach to understanding poor performance is to analyze search queries. Everything is there. If it is not aligned with what you offer, then your keywords need to be evaluated, and updated. If queries are not an issue, then your landing page is at fault. It is all about aligning expectations and delivering on those expectations.
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Looking at your numbers, the surface metrics don’t actually look bad. A CTR of almost 4% is respectable, and a $1.53 CPC for web development terms is on the cheaper side. Even the reported conversion rate of 12% is unusually high compared to what most service industries get. The real issue shows up when you compare those conversions to revenue. Bringing in $7-8K from $15.9K spend means each conversion was only worth about $6, which is nowhere near sustainable for web development projects. That suggests your “conversions” weren’t tied to real revenue events but likely to soft actions like form fills, call clicks, or site events that don’t actually mean a client was closed.
The second issue is targeting. Running generic campaigns like “web development” or handing everything to Performance Max is a fast way to get low-quality leads. People searching broad terms are often price shopping, just curious, or running projects too small to be worth your time. Google’s algorithms will happily optimize for cheap, easy conversions if you tell it to, which means you end up with a big pile of junk leads instead of qualified prospects.
On top of that, even if some good leads slipped through, the lack of a tight sales process probably hurt ROI further. With a spend that large, you need instant follow-up, filtering, and scheduling so you don’t lose the handful of prospects who could actually pay. Otherwise, most of the value vanishes after the click.
If I were reworking this, I’d start by redefining what counts as a conversion. A lead should only register if it’s a booked consultation or a qualified inquiry with budget and timeline, not just anyone filling a form. From there, focus on niche search terms instead of broad “web dev” ones such as “Shopify to WooCommerce migration” or “custom SaaS MVP agency.” Those bring in people with a clear intent to spend. Finally, make sure your funnel and follow-up process are bulletproof before scaling spend. Otherwise, you’ll just keep paying for activity instead of paying for actual revenue.
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Did you look at your search terms to see if you are getting traffic for searches you don’t want?
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Start organic content aside..You don’t have invest that much money and results are huge and long-term.
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Sorry for your experience, sucks but it’s common especially in the beginning.
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I’m hearing you loud and clear. I have a similar story to share: https://www.productreview.com.au/reviews/25299d43-3b66-5b94-95fe-502f792af16a
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Something like 90% of those campaigns fail. They do it to pump the stock price. A lot of larger companies use them for remarketing or engagement campaigns to offset taxes. That’s the honest truth. ChatGPT that shit.
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