7 Google Ads Optimization Tweaks That Bring the Most Value
February 24, 2025
We’ve all been there – you’ve set up your Google Ads campaign, picked the right keywords, and your ads are live. But despite all your efforts, your CPA keeps climbing, conversions aren’t where they should be, and something feels… off.
Most PPC SaaS marketers run into this at some point, and the difference between a struggling ad account and one that brings revenue often comes down to small but powerful optimizations. These aren’t complete strategy overhauls, just smart tweaks that maximize efficiency, reduce wasted spend, and improve your results without inflating your budget.
In this blog post, we uncover 7 such Google Ads optimizations that we recommend to our clients.
1. Optimize by Customer Lifecycle Stage (Build Your PPC Funnel)
We advise integrating your CRM with Google Ads, and tracking your user’s journey in its entirety – from the first click to the final sale. This gives you a clear view of which keywords drive valuable leads and which ones flood your pipeline with unqualified traffic.
Build your PPC campaigns according to the stage your user is at. Here’s how it can look:
- Top of the Funnel (awareness stage): target broader keywords and focus on educational content (guides, whitepapers, webinars).
- Middle of the Funnel (consideration stage): refine targeting to include product comparisons, case studies, and solution-oriented search queries.
- Bottom of the Funnel (decision stage): Go after high-intent keywords that indicate purchase readiness (e.g., “best [software] for X,” “pricing,” “demo,” “alternative to [competitor]”).
By segmenting campaigns this way, you stop paying for clicks that will never convert and double down on the ones that do.
Here’s how we work with the PPC funnel at Aimers:
2. Monitor Auction Insights (Watch Your Competitors – They Are Probably Watching You!)
Yes, good old competitor intelligence is as relevant as ever!
Competitor activity can wreak havoc on your campaigns, so you got to be one step ahead.
Constant reviewing of Google’s Auction Insights reports helps you track what your competitors are doing. Auction Insights tell you who else is bidding on your keywords, how aggressive they’re being, and whether their bids are pushing up your costs. If a well-funded competitor suddenly increases their budget, your CPCs will rise – unless you adjust your strategy.
Here are some ways to stay ahead:
- If competitors outbid you on core terms: test alternative, lower-competition keywords.
- If a competitor is dominating impressions: consider switching up ad copy or landing pages to differentiate yourself.
- If costs are too high: shift budget toward retargeting, where the competition is lower.
Here’s the real-life case from our PPC practice. We’ve been running Google Ads campaigns for a client in the e-commerce niche. Amazon regularly flooded the auction with mass discounts, and this disrupted our campaigns for 1–2 weeks. To minimize losses, we started to reduce bids in advance and reallocate budgets strategically until things normalized.
Ignoring Auction Insights is like playing poker without looking at the other players. Stay aware, and you’ll make smarter bidding decisions.
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Get In Touch3. Optimize Your Landing Pages for Mobile (Even If You Don’t Target Mobile)
Whether your target audience is B2B or B2C, your landing pages must be mobile-friendly. Even if you’re not targeting mobile users, Google still factors mobile experience into the Quality Score, which affects your ad costs and placements.
For B2B SaaS, desktop may be where potential customers look you up, but mobile is valuable for retargeting and brand awareness campaigns.
We advise to regularly audit your landing pages. If they’re slow, cluttered, or hard to navigate on mobile, this might be affecting your ad spend. See 10 ways to improve your page’s conversion rate.
4. Keep Quality Score in Check (Low QS Drains Your Budget)
This takes us to the next point: Quality Score of your ads. A low Quality Score = higher CPA, so you got to monitor QS of your ads on a regular basis.
Here’s how Quality Score works. Google assigns a score (1-10) to each keyword based on:
- Ad relevance (Does your ad copy align with the search intent?)
- Landing page experience (Is your page relevant, fast, and easy to navigate?)
- Expected CTR (Do people actually click on your ad?)
If your QS is below 6/10, you’re paying too much per click.
Simple fixes that can boost your score:
- Improve ad copy relevance – match search intent.
- Ensure landing pages align with ad messaging.
- Use ad extensions (sitelinks, callouts) to increase CTR.
A higher QS means lower CPCs, better ad placement, and more conversions for the same budget. Don’t ignore it.
5. Value Each Conversion (Not All Leads Are Created Equal)
Most advertisers optimize for cost per lead (CPL) – but not all leads bring the same value.
A cheap lead that never converts into a paying customer is a waste of ad spend. That’s why advanced advertisers track conversion value, not just volume.
Here’s how to shift from CPL to value-based bidding:
- Assign monetary value to each conversion (e.g., trial sign-ups vs. demos vs. closed deals).
- Test tROAS (Target ROAS) bidding instead of max conversions – it prioritizes revenue, not just leads.
- Use CRM data to track which campaigns drive revenue, not just form fills (see optimization #1).
By making this switch, you spend more on the ads that actually bring revenue – and less on ones that just clog up your sales funnel.
6. Allocate Budget to Video & Demand Gen Campaigns
Potential SaaS customers often need to see your brand multiple times before they commit. Video and demand-gen campaigns help increase familiarity so that when they do search, they recognize and trust your name.
Allocating even 10-15% of your budget to video & awareness ads can lower CPA in the long run by making your brand the obvious choice when it’s time to buy.
7. Analyze Competitors’ Ads (Reverse-Engineer Winning Strategies)
Want to know which keywords and ad copy work best? Your competitors have already done the testing for you.
You can use the following competitor research tools:
- Semrush – see their best-performing keywords & ad copy.
- SpyFu – get insights into their PPC spend and historical ad data.
- Google Ad Transparency Tool – see their live ads for free in your target regions.
If you’re operating on a tight budget, competitor research is your shortcut to making smarter ad decisions without wasting money on trial and error.
Takeaways
Google Ads success isn’t about working harder—it’s about working smarter. These seven optimizations help you cut waste, lower CPA, and improve results without increasing budget.
Here’s a quick recap:
- Track leads beyond the first click – quality matters more than quantity.
- Use Auction Insights to outmaneuver competitors.
- Fix mobile landing pages – Google penalizes bad ones.
- Improve Quality Score to lower costs.
- Focus on conversion value – not just lead volume.
- Invest in brand awareness – demand-gen ads make bottom of the funnel ads more effective.
- Analyze competitors' ads to see what’s working.
If you’re tired of throwing money at ads that don’t convert, let’s fix that. Aimers specializes in PPC for SaaS & tech brands, helping businesses just like yours to optimize their ad spend for real growth.
Want to hear what we can do for you? Let’s talk! Book an intro call with our team here.
Ekaterina crafts engaging and strategic content to drive brand awareness and audience engagement. Her expertise in digital marketing helps the agency deliver impactful campaigns and achieve client goals.