One-Page Guide5 min read

Top 5 SEM Budget Leaks (and How to Plug Them)

Search campaigns rarely collapse overnight. Instead, budgets leak through small, compounding issues that go unchecked. This guide reveals the five most common SEM budget drains and actionable fixes to plug them.

Identify the 5 biggest budget drains in SEM

Proven fixes for each common leak

Protect your budget from platform defaults

Shift focus from vanity metrics to revenue

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What you'll learn

Inside this guide

01

Platform Rep Pitfalls

Why blindly following Google/Microsoft rep recommendations can drain your budget through unmeasured placements and poor targeting.

02

Broad Match Dangers

How broad match keywords without proper guardrails lead to irrelevant traffic that kills conversion rates.

03

Landing Page Waste

The connection between poor landing page experience and inflated CPCs, plus Quality Score optimization tactics.

04

Attribution Misalignment

Why optimizing for "easy" conversions instead of revenue leads platforms to waste spend on vanity metrics.

The core problem

SEM platforms are designed to spend your budget, not protect it. This guide shows you how to implement the guardrails and optimization frameworks that ensure every dollar works harder for real business outcomes.

Why this guide matters

Most brands don't lose money from one big mistake—they lose it from a dozen small leaks. We've managed over $250M in ad spend and seen these patterns repeat across hundreds of accounts.

This guide distills our proven frameworks for auditing SEM campaigns, controlling automation, and tying spend directly to revenue.