Google Ads Wasted Spend: Find Keywords That Spend Without Converting

Zero conversions is not the same as wasted. The method is a spend threshold, a long enough window and a look at why, before anything gets paused.

To find wasted spend in Google Ads, list the keywords that spent more than a set threshold over a long window with zero conversions, then check why each one has not converted before you pause it. The threshold and the window are what separate an evidence-based cut from a guess.

What "wasted" should mean

Spend is wasted when it buys clicks that had no realistic chance of producing value. Spend is merely unproven when it has not had enough clicks to show a result. The two look identical in a table sorted by cost, and treating them the same is how accounts lose their best long-tail keywords.

A simple split:

• Irrelevant: the query or keyword does not match what you sell. Fix with negatives and tighter match types.
• Mismatched: the keyword is relevant but the landing page, offer or price is wrong for it. Fix the page, not the keyword.
• Unproven: not enough clicks yet. Leave it, or lower the bid to cap the cost of learning.
• Untracked: it converts, but the conversion is not recorded. Fix tracking first.

Set the threshold from your numbers

Take your target cost per conversion. Multiply by two or three. A keyword below that spend has not told you anything. Illustrative example: if you can pay 40 per lead, treat 100 to 120 of spend with no conversions as the point where a keyword becomes a candidate. Your multiple will differ; the logic is that a keyword needs a fair number of chances to convert before silence means something.

Use a window of at least 90 days. Short windows over-penalize anything with a long consideration cycle, and a 2-week view of a B2B account mostly measures noise. See customer acquisition cost for how to set the target itself.

Doing it by hand in Google Ads

1. Open the keywords view, set the date range to the last 90 days, and add the Cost and Conversions columns.
2. Filter to Cost above your threshold and Conversions equal to 0.
3. Sort by cost, descending, and download the table.
4. Add match type and Quality Score columns before downloading, so you can sort the list by cause.

Then use the search terms report, which lives in the Insights and reports section of Google Ads. For each high-spend keyword, it shows the real queries behind the clicks. This is where most true waste hides: a broad keyword that is fine in itself, attracting a handful of expensive irrelevant queries. Add those queries as negatives, then watch the keyword for another month.

Questions that sharpen the list

• Which keywords spent the most last quarter without converting?
• Of those, which have a Quality Score below 5, and which are on broad match?
• Which campaigns hold most of the zero-conversion spend, and what share of the campaign's cost is it?
• Did the keyword convert in earlier quarters, and if so, what changed?

The last question is the one most people skip. A keyword that converted well two quarters ago and stopped has a different story from one that never converted. The cause might be a landing page change, a tracking change, or a competitor.

Doing the keyword part with Quiriz

Quiriz's Google Ads connector is in beta. It reads your ad account over the last 13 months, refreshed daily, read-only, and is included in paid plans. The Keyword performance dataset is monthly and includes campaign, ad group, keyword, match type, keyword status, quality score, impressions, clicks, cost, conversions and conversion value, for up to the 100,000 keywords with the most spend.

That supports the keyword half of this method in plain English:

• "Which keywords spent the most without converting last quarter?"
• "Show those keywords with match type and quality score."
• "What share of each campaign's cost went to keywords with no conversions?"

You can also ask which keywords converted before and stopped, since the data runs 13 months by month. Answers show the table, so you can see the threshold and window the question used.

An illustrative example

Imagine a quarter with 18,000 of total spend (an example, not a benchmark) and a target cost per lead of 40, so a threshold of 100. Twenty-two keywords spent more than 100 with no leads, adding up to 3,900, which is about 22 percent of spend. Sorted by cause: nine are broad match with a quality score under 5, six sit in a campaign whose landing page was changed mid-quarter, five are brand-adjacent terms that probably assisted other conversions, and two are genuinely irrelevant. The right action is different for each group: tighten match types for the first, check the page for the second, leave the third alone, and pause the last two. Pausing all twenty-two would have been fast and partly wrong. This kind of grouping is what turns a list into a decision.

The honest limit: search terms

The connector does not read the search terms report. It reads keywords, not the queries that triggered them. So Quiriz can tell you which keywords carry the zero-conversion spend and what match type and quality score they have, but not which irrelevant queries to turn into negatives. That last step you do in Google Ads, using the search terms report described above. The other limits: conversions are as Google Ads counts them, and results are by month for keywords, so a keyword's cost in the middle of a month cannot be split further.

For the surrounding workflow, see asking your Google Ads account questions and, for client reporting, Quiriz for paid media.

Frequently asked questions