The Real Reason Your Google Ads Aren't Working Has Nothing to Do With Your Keywords

It is natural to go fix keywords or obsess over keywords when the plumbing is broken. It is human nature, in fact I do this in my own business when all I want to do is write more blog posts but I have existing ones that are orphaned or just don’t fit and I let them rot on my website.

So here you are…

You've tightened your keywords. You've refreshed your ad copy. You've added negatives, adjusted bids, and A/B tested headlines. And yet — the account still isn't performing the way it should because you are playing on the surface.

Unfortunately, in most underperforming Google Ads accounts, the keywords aren't the singular problem.

The conversion tracking is.

And I hate that fact. I don’t just hate it because the implementation of conversion tracking in Google Ads is still hard. I hate it because it is insanely hard to cover in my blog posts when it is one singular topic that holds so much weight toward your success.

Google's Smart Bidding Is a Machine. You Choose the Fuel.

When you set up a Google Ads campaign today, you're essentially handing the keys to one of the most sophisticated optimization engines ever built. Google's Smart Bidding algorithm, the platform running in the back ground of your Target CPA, Maximize Conversions, and Target ROAS strategies is genuinely powerful.

Google analyzes hundreds of signals in real time: device, location, time of day, audience behavior, query intent, and more and if you are reading this or seeing my content in AI this complex matching behind Google is exactly why.

Here is the thing.

I firmly in my heart of heart believe in Google’s matching because today in if it weren’t for Google I would not have a business. Google’s matching is why you are reading my Google Ads blog right now. I am a case study in Google’s matching capability.

But here's what you need to consider when you are stressing about your keywords.

Google’s bidding optimizes for whatever conversion signal you tell it to.

Ruthlessly. Completely. Without judgment. Google’s is a large scale prediction machine.

If you tell it to optimize for form fills, it will find the humans most likely to fill out a form.

If you tell it to optimize for page views, it will find the humans most likely to view a page (more predicting).

If you've accidentally told it to optimize for accidental clicks the prediction system underneath find you a lot of those too.

The algorithm doesn't know if those form fills are qualified leads or tire-kickers. It doesn't know if those page views are prospects or bots.

It will get you exactly what you asked for.

The ads algo follows your instructions ruthlessly. And just like conversion tracking I hate this. I hate this because it is so insanely hard to write about something when the execution layer is removed and Google is predicting everything based on my inputs.

So the first question to ask about any underperforming account isn't "are my keywords right?"

It's: what signal am I feeding this machine, and is that actually what I want?

The Two Ways Conversion Tracking Goes Wrong

In my 17 years of managing and auditing Google Ads accounts, I've seen this break in two opposite directions. Both are equally costly.

Failure Mode 1: Too Much Data

I recently worked on an account that was tracking everything. Every chat initiated. Every phone call. Every form fill. Every calendar booking. Every "marketing qualified lead" flag from the CRM.

On paper, the account looked like it was converting like crazy.

In reality, the algorithm had latched onto the highest-volume signals — the quick chat initiations and the micro-interactions — and was spending aggressively to drive more of them. Meanwhile, the actual pipeline was being fed garbage. The sales team was drowning in unqualified outreach. The metrics looked great until I segmented by conversion action in Google.

The business results were really questionable.

When you inflate your conversion data with low-intent signals, you're not giving the Google Ads algorithm better data but instead you're confusing it.

Again, this technology will optimize for whoever clicks, chats, or bounces fastest, not for your actual buyer.

Failure Mode 2: Not Enough Data

This one is more common in B2B, and it's the one I see most often with companies that have long, expensive sales cycles.

Here's the mathematical reality of Smart Bidding that most people don't know: Google's algorithm needs a minimum of 30–50 qualifying conversions per month to learn and optimize effectively.

Below that threshold, it's essentially flying blind. I see clients who know this but they try anyway to optimize towards conversions. And here is what I find interesting. It is easy to do this.

Just yesterday I was on a consulting call with a client. I was setting up a brand new Performance Max campaign and I was given the option to optimize using a target CPA with unconstrained budget. What I found alarming about this is that this campaign had no data. It was brand new.

So if you are trying to run your own ads and you can’t figure out why the ads aren’t working and you are chasing your tail. It might just be that you accidentally or though the guidance right there in Google Ads chose the wrong setting.

Now imagine you're a B2B SaaS company.

Your average deal takes 3–6 months to close. You close maybe 3–5 new customers per month. Someone tells you to "track real conversions" — so you set your Google Ads to optimize toward closed deals.

You now have a sophisticated machine trying to optimize for a signal it sees 3 times a month, in an industry where the path from click to close is half a year long.

The algorithm cannot learn from that but a human can’t either. It will default to broad, expensive, often irrelevant traffic — because it has nothing to work with. And then you'll wonder why the CPCs keep climbing (step 4) or it’s clearly and obviously in permanent finding mode.

So What's Actually the Right Conversion Signal?

Here's the framework I use with every client, especially B2B:

The right conversion action is the earliest reliable signal of genuine intent that you can generate at sufficient volume.

For most B2B companies — especially ones selling complex, expensive solutions — that signal is the form fill.

Not the page view. Not the "time on site." Not the eventual closed deal.

The form fill.

The reason we look at the form fill is because it's the moment a real human raised their hand and said "I want to talk to someone." It's downstream enough to be meaningful. It's upstream enough to generate volume.

But what I constantly tell clients and this is important is that a form fill is only the right signal if your sales team is validating quality.

If your sales team is consistently telling you "these leads are good, we can work with these," your form fill is the right conversion to optimize toward. Stay the course.

If your sales team is consistently telling you "these leads are garbage, why are we getting all these tire-kickers," that's your signal that something has drifted and it’s either in your targeting, your ad copy, or the pages people are landing on.

The form fill is a proxy. Like any proxy, you have to verify it's actually representing what you think it is.

The One Move Most People Skip: Observe Before You Bid

Here's something Google Ads actually lets you do that almost nobody uses correctly:

You can add a new conversion action in "observation" mode before you start bidding toward it.

This means you can track a new conversion — say, "completed a calendar booking after the form fill" — and watch the data accumulate for 4–6 weeks without changing what you're optimizing for. You get to see whether that signal correlates with your actual pipeline before you bet your budget on it.

Most people skip this step. They change the conversion and immediately switch the bidding strategy. Then everything gets more expensive, or the volume collapses, and they can't figure out why.

The answer is always the same: you changed the fuel while the engine was running. You didn't give the algorithm time to relearn.

Change conversions slowly. Observe first. Bid later.

Why This Matters More in B2B Than Anywhere Else

B2B Google Ads is an unforgiving environment. The cost-per-click is high. The sales cycles are long. The deal values are large but rare. There's less room for error than almost any other Google Ads context.

That's exactly why conversion tracking is the lever that matters most.

If you're in an industry where your product costs $50,000 and your sales cycle is six months, you are not going to be able to optimize for downstream revenue signals at the volume Google needs. You have to find a proxy that works — and you have to watch it carefully.

The companies that figure this out are the ones that get efficient, scalable Google Ads that compound over time.

The companies that don't figure it out keep tweaking keywords, refreshing ad copy, and wondering why nothing sticks.

How to Audit Your Own Conversion Setup (Right Now)

Before you touch a single keyword, ask yourself these three questions:

1. What am I actually optimizing for? Go into your Google Ads campaign settings and look at your bidding strategy. What conversion action is it using? Is that what you intended?

2. How many of that conversion am I getting per month? If the answer is under 30, the algorithm is likely struggling. You may need a higher-funnel proxy to generate enough signal.

3. What does my sales team say about lead quality? If they're happy with the leads, you're likely in the right place. If they're complaining, something in your signal chain is off — and it's almost never the keywords.

The Bottom Line

I've inherited enough Google Ads accounts to recognize a pattern: when someone tells me "we've tried everything and nothing works," within the first 20 minutes of looking at the account, I'm almost always looking at the same problem. Not bad keywords. Not weak copy.

A conversion setup that's either starving the algorithm of data or feeding it the wrong signal entirely.

Fix the fuel first. Then everything else — the keywords, the bids, the copy — gets dramatically easier to optimize. Because now the machine finally knows what you're asking it to do.

If you're staring at a Google Ads account that isn't converting the way it should — and you're not sure if the issue is the account or the tracking or something else entirely — that's exactly what I help companies figure out. I offer hands-on coaching where we get into the account together, work through what's actually happening, and build your confidence to manage it long-term.