Google Ads: 5,222 UAH down the drain. Bought clicks, not customers.

Conducted a technical audit of a Google Ads account for the apartment renovation niche in Kyiv.

The task was not to "look superficially at the campaigns," but to understand where the budget was actually going and why there were conversions in the Google Ads interface, but the business logic did not match.

During the analysis period:

* expenditure: 5,222.57 UAH;
* clicks: 356;
* impressions: 2,791;
* average cost per click: 14.67 UAH;
* conversions in Google Ads: 6.

At first glance, it may seem that the advertising yielded results. But after checking, the main issue became clear: these 6 "conversions" were not real applications.

The main goal was called "Submission of the form for potential clients," but it actually triggered on loading the page `/contacts`.

That is, the system counted not the submission of the form, but a regular opening of the contacts page.

This is a critical error because Google Ads was learning not on real leads, but on a weak intermediate action.

Next, I found a second problem: the campaigns were operating on the "Maximize Clicks" strategy. This means that Google was not looking for people who were likely to submit an application. It was simply buying the maximum number of clicks within the budget.

The third problem is semantics. A significant portion of the budget was spent not on hot demand for "turnkey apartment renovation," but on pricing and related queries:

* price list for renovation work;
* rates for renovation work;
* construction rates;
* finishing work prices;
* interior design;
* apartment design;
* drywall installation price Kyiv.

The most illustrative block is the "Price Requests" group.

It spent 1,250.16 UAH, received 87 clicks, and did not yield a single conversion even for the weak goal `/contacts`.

That is, people clicked, but did not even reach the contacts.

I also discovered a problem with landing pages. In the ads, users were shown attractive specialized paths:

* `/apartment-renovation/turnkey`;
* `/cost/renovation`;
* `/renovation/apartments`.

But the actual final URL led to the main page `dpk.in.ua`.

That is, the user was looking for renovation prices, saw a path about renovation costs in the ad, but ended up on the main page. This breaks the entire advertising link.

Additionally, I checked geo, devices, search partners, negative keywords, change history, and ad structure.

Conclusion: the budget was not wasted due to one random error. The problem was systemic:

1. conversions were set up incorrectly;
2. real applications were not recorded;
3. campaigns were buying clicks, not leads;
4. semantics were too broad and pricing-related;
5. ads led to the main page instead of precise landing pages;
6. the Russian campaign was assembled carelessly;
7. Google recommendations were applied without full control;
8. for a business that operates only in Kyiv, geo needs to be tightened more strictly.

The audit result: it became clear what exactly needed to be fixed before the next budget launch — conversions, campaign structure, landing pages, semantics, geo, and ads.

This was not "setting up ads for the sake of setting up."

This was a technical breakdown of the advertising system, which showed why money was going to clicks instead of confirmed applications.