Budget limits eligible traffic at times. More budget could increase coverage if the marginal traffic is worth buying.
Google Ads Search · Level 5 of 5
Campaign Optimization
Optimization is diagnosis before action. Read search-term quality, impression share, competition, conversion efficiency and budget pressure together — then change the thing most likely to address the actual constraint.
6 diagnostic rounds~35 minOptimization workflowProgress saved locally
0% complete0 of 6 rounds complete
Start with the business result, then locate the constraint.
Northstar is slightly above its £40 CPA target. That is a reason to investigate — not permission to randomly lower bids, add negatives, raise budget and rewrite ads at the same time.
| Metric | 21-day result | Signal |
|---|---|---|
| CPA | £43.45 | 8.6% above target |
| Conversion rate | 4.9% | Needs context by query/ad group |
| Lost IS (budget) | 18% | Budget pressure exists |
| Lost IS (rank) | 11% | Some rank opportunity |
Quick check
What is the strongest first move?
Search terms show where intent and spend actually met.
Do not judge a term only because it has zero conversions. Volume, spend, relevance, conversion lag and the pattern across related queries all matter.
| Search term | Clicks | Cost | Conv. | CPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| crm software for small business | 132 | £520 | 16 | £32.50 |
| sales pipeline crm | 91 | £402 | 10 | £40.20 |
| free crm spreadsheet template | 67 | £248 | 0 | — |
| best crm software uk | 44 | £196 | 5 | £39.20 |
Quick check
Which action has the clearest evidence?
Do not over-negative
A zero-conversion query with tiny spend is not automatically a negative. The free-template term is stronger evidence because intent is mismatched and spend is already meaningful.
Lost impression share tells you why you missed auctions — not whether you should buy them.
Budget loss and Ad Rank loss point to different constraints. Neither metric should be maximized blindly; additional impression share only matters if the incremental traffic is commercially useful.
Ad Rank is preventing some impressions. Relevance, quality, landing page and bid economics can all matter.
Scaling before removing known waste could simply buy more inefficient traffic.
Quick check
With CPA currently above target and clear irrelevant-query spend, what is the better sequence?
Auction Insights explains competitive visibility — it does not tell you to start a bidding war.
Competitor movement can help explain changes in impression share, overlap and position. It still needs to be connected to your own conversion economics.
| Domain | Impr. share | Overlap | Position above |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northstar CRM | 54% | — | — |
| competitor-a.com | 61% | 48% | 58% |
| competitor-b.com | 37% | 29% | 41% |
Quick check
Competitor A's impression share rose sharply this week. What should Northstar do?
Scale the part of the campaign that has earned more budget.
Account-level averages hide useful and weak segments. Northstar's two core ad groups are behaving very differently.
| Ad group | Spend | Conv. | CPA | Lost IS budget |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CRM Software | £1,360 | 38 | £35.79 | 24% |
| Sales Pipeline CRM | £912 | 20 | £45.60 | 7% |
| Irrelevant free/template traffic | £248 | 0 | — | — |
Quick check
After removing the proven free/template waste, where is incremental budget most defensible?
Choose the next four actions — and leave the tempting noise alone.
Select exactly four actions you would put into the next optimization cycle. The strongest plan fixes clear waste, protects proven demand, investigates the weaker segment and avoids stacking unrelated changes.
Level 5 complete: you diagnosed before you optimized.
The full five-level path is done. The final challenge removes most of the teaching rails and asks you to build and optimize a fresh campaign from one brief.
Start the Final Challenge →