An eastern NC retail brand was spending $8K/month on Google Ads and had never once checked whether the search terms triggering their ads were actually relevant. 40% of the budget was going to irrelevant searches. That is $3,200/month in the garbage.

When we pulled the search terms report, it was immediately clear where the money was going. Broad match keywords matching searches in completely different categories. Geographic targeting too wide — ads showing in markets they did not serve. No negative keyword list. No search term exclusions. The automated bidding strategy was optimizing for clicks, not revenue. $3,200 per month going to clicks that would never convert.

The agency managing the account had never pulled a search terms report. They managed by dashboard — checking ROAS, adjusting budgets, and trusting Google to optimize. But Google optimizes for what you tell it to optimize for, and when the inputs are sloppy, the outputs are expensive.

We rebuilt the account from scratch. Tight keyword targeting. Aggressive negative keyword lists. Proper geographic controls. Manual bid adjustments for high-value search terms. Real ROAS went from 1.8x to 3.9x within 60 days — same budget, dramatically better targeting. GOSH Digital manages paid media for Greenville NC businesses with one standard: every dollar must work.