Latest articles
In a Managed Portfolio, the Median Campaign Bids Toward Three Conversion Goals
September 7, 2026
41,784 biddable campaign conversion goals across 125 managed accounts, covering all but 509 of the 10,056 campaigns in the goal table. 37.8% carry a category whose label names no business outcome, and 36.8% carry one alongside a sales or lead category.
Search Partners Are Still On in 51.6% of Live Google Ads Campaigns
September 7, 2026
Across 740 Search campaigns that spent money in the twelve months to July 2026, 51.6% still include Google search partners. The decision is bimodal: 15 of 42 accounts have it off everywhere, 9 have it on everywhere.
Bid and Blocked: 31 of 91 Accounts Target and Exclude the Same Search
September 1, 2026
Google flags search terms that are both added as a keyword and excluded by a negative. Across 9,193,221 rows in 91 accounts the flag appears in 31 of them, on 1,490 distinct cases.
Half the Median Account’s Google Ads Negative Keywords Are Duplicates
September 1, 2026
Across 1,058,686 campaign level negative keywords in 102 accounts, the median account repeats 48.1% of them, and a repeated negative sits in a median of five campaigns.
What Actually Gets Changed in a Google Ads Account: 91.9% of 63,252 Edits Touched a Criterion
September 1, 2026
A census of 63,252 change events across 42 managed accounts: 91.9% touched a keyword, negative or targeting setting, ads took 1.4%, and 63.6% of the log was written by scripts rather than people.
44.0% of the Median Account’s Search Clicks Land in Google’s Leftover Category
August 24, 2026
Across 88 accounts and 6.6 million clicks, the leftover row Google labels 'other search terms' holds a median of 44.0% of the clicks its category report accounts for.
Google Says Count a Lead Once. In 79 of 98 Accounts the Bidding Column Counts It Every Time
August 24, 2026
An audit of 1,611 conversion actions inside the column Smart Bidding optimizes toward: 51.1% of lead-type actions count every conversion against Google's own advice, while 86.7% of sales follow it.
Where Your Google Ads Impressions Actually Go: 43.18% Lost to Rank, 1.24% to Budget
August 24, 2026
Across 7,977 Search campaign-months in 89 accounts, the median campaign loses 43.18% of its impressions to Ad Rank and only 1.24% to budget, and rank carries 83.7% of everything lost.
A Google Ads Audit Checklist Ordered by the Strongest Evidence
August 16, 2026
Eight account checks ordered by the strength of the measurement behind each one, starting with the worst tenth of zero-conversion search terms, which holds a median 48.8% of the wasted spend in 32 accounts.