How to stop wasting PPC budget on people who will never convert

PPC can look very healthy on the surface.

Your Google Ads dashboard shows strong impressions. Click through rates are acceptable. Spend is going out steadily across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Reports arrive each month with lots of green arrows.

Then you talk to sales, admissions or project leads. They are not seeing the same story. Enquiries are low quality. A lot of “leads” are students who are not eligible, companies that will never buy, or people looking for something you do not offer. Your PPC budget is working hard, just not for the right people.

This gap is common for growing SMEs, Enterprise Ireland backed exporters and EU funded projects. The good news is that you rarely need to spend more. You need to stop paying for clicks from people who will never convert, and let your budget focus on those who might.

Why PPC attracts the wrong people

PPC platforms are designed to spend your budget and maximise clicks. If you do not give them clear constraints, they will happily show your ads to anyone who looks vaguely relevant.

There are a few familiar causes.

Your keyword list is too broad, so you pick up a lot of low intent searches. Your match types are wide open, so search engines match you to queries that are only loosely related to what you do. Your location and demographic targeting are generous, which feels inclusive but pulls in people who could never realistically work with you.

On top of that, your ads may be promising something broader than your real offer. For example, an export support programme that is only for manufacturing SMEs, but whose ads talk about “support for all businesses”. Or a high level master’s course that is promoted as “a digital skills programme for everyone”.

You do not have to shut the doors. You do have to signal more clearly who you are meant for.

Start from the customers you actually want

Before touching campaigns, get specific about who a good conversion is.

For a B2B SME, that might be companies of a certain size in defined sectors, within particular regions, with the authority and budget to work with you. For an education or training offer, it might be learners with certain qualifications, in certain countries, looking for accredited study. For a European project, it might be policymakers, clusters, teachers or SMEs who can adopt and reuse your outputs.

Write this down in plain language. If you cannot describe a good customer or participant, the platform will define it for you, based on clicks alone.

Once you know who you want, you can design PPC campaigns to attract those people and gently repel everyone else.

Tighten your keywords and match types

Search campaigns are often where most waste lives.

Resist the urge to bid on every phrase that feels vaguely relevant. Focus on intent rich terms that a likely customer or participant would use, even if they cost more per click.

For example, “cybersecurity training” is broad and will attract students, job seekers and people looking for free content. “Cybersecurity training course for staff”, “cybersecurity master’s Europe” or “cybersecurity training for SMEs Ireland” are narrower, but much closer to the people you want.

Use more exact and phrase match, and be deliberate about broad match. Broad match can work when combined with good negative keywords and strong conversion data, but it is also where a lot of irrelevant traffic comes from.

Review your search term reports regularly. You will quickly spot queries that never convert. Add these as negative keywords so you stop showing ads to people who are clearly looking for something else.

Use your targeting tools properly

On platforms like Google, Meta and LinkedIn, targeting is your first filter.

On search, do not advertise across entire countries if you can only realistically serve certain regions. On display and YouTube, avoid very broad interest categories that simply equate to “people online”. On social, build audiences from job titles, industries, interests and lookalike data that reflect your real customers, not a vague idea of “everyone who might someday be interested”.

Be honest about who is not a good fit. Exclude demographics, locations or placements where you consistently see low quality leads. If your funding or accreditation only covers certain territories, do not pay for clicks outside them.

It is better to reach fewer people who can convert than many people who never will.

Make your ad copy do some filtering

Your ads do not only have to attract. They can also qualify.

That means being specific in your headlines and descriptions. A line such as “Digital master’s for experienced professionals in Europe” will deter casual learners looking for a short free course. “Export support for Irish manufacturing SMEs” will discourage very small local services that are not in scope.

You can also reference price ranges, timelines or eligibility. This may reduce click through rate slightly, but it will usually improve conversion rate and lead quality.

Think of your ad copy as the start of a frank conversation, not a billboard that has to appeal to everyone.

Fix landing pages that confuse or mislead

Even with good targeting, you will still waste PPC budget if landing pages are vague.

When someone clicks, the page should:

Explain clearly who the offer is for and who it is not for
Spell out the key outcomes and commitments
Make the next step obvious

If you promote a specific programme or service, avoid sending visitors to a generic home page or a crowded list of offerings. Create focused pages that carry through the promise from the ad and help people decide quickly.

Strong landing pages not only improve conversion, they also send better signals back to your PPC platforms, which helps them find more of the right people over time.

Track the right conversions, not every micro action

Many teams end up optimising for the wrong thing because their conversion tracking is too loose.

If every click, page view or newsletter signup is counted as a conversion, your platforms will assume that any interaction is a success, even if those people never become customers.

Define conversions that actually matter. That might be completed enquiry forms with certain fields, booked consultations, applications that pass an initial filter or purchases over a certain value.

You can still track softer actions, such as downloads or email signups, but treat them as secondary. That way, your PPC budget is guided by the behaviour of people who look like real customers or participants, not just momentary visitors.

Listen to your sales or project teams

Data in the platform tells part of the story. The rest lives with the people who handle leads and applications.

Speak regularly with sales, admissions or project officers. Ask which leads are coming from PPC, how relevant they are and where they feel they are wasting time. Patterns will emerge. You might discover that a particular campaign produces many enquiries from countries you cannot serve, or from student profiles that will never meet entry criteria.

Use that feedback to adjust keywords, targeting, ad copy and landing pages. Over time, this loop between PPC data and real world experience is what cuts out a lot of waste.

Let PPC become more selective

Protecting your PPC budget is not about throttling spend until nothing moves. It is about making spend more selective.

By tightening keywords and match types, using targeting tools properly, writing honest ad copy, improving landing pages and tracking meaningful conversions, you shift from paying for any click to paying for opportunities.

The results usually feel calmer. You see fewer “leads” that annoy your teams, and more conversations that could realistically turn into revenue, applications or partnerships. Your budget works harder without needing to grow.

Handled in this way, PPC becomes a controlled way to reach the right people at the right moment, not an expensive way to attract everyone who types a loose phrase into a search box.

Talk to a PPC Specialist