Your Google Ads account has five switches turned on right now that you never touched. Google turned them on for you. Every one of them spends your money in ways you did not choose.
We have run Google Ads for small businesses for over two decades. When a new account lands with us, I do not look at the keywords first. I do not look at the ads. I go straight to the settings page, because that is where the quiet waste lives.
Here are the five settings, where each one hides, why I switch them off, and what changes in your numbers when you do.
Why Google’s Defaults Are Not Your Friend
Google Ads defaults are built for Google’s revenue, not your results. Every default answers one question: how can this account spend more, in more places, with less friction?
That is not a scandal. It is a business model. Google’s ad revenue passed 260 billion dollars in 2024, and defaults are part of how it got there. Every account that never opens its settings page spends a little more than it needs to, across millions of accounts, every single day.
For you, it means one thing: a brand-new account leaks money from day one unless someone walks through the settings on purpose.
Most business owners never do. They build a campaign, pick keywords, write ads, and hit launch. The settings page stays untouched for years. In the takeover audits we run, at least three of these five settings are still on in most accounts. That is the gap this article closes.
Setting 1: Search Partners
When you create a campaign, Google quietly ticks a box that lets your ads run on its “search partner” sites. That is not Google search. It is a collection of other websites with search boxes, and the click quality is nowhere near the same.
Google does not publish a list of these partner sites. You cannot see which site sent you any individual click. You only see one blended line of results, which makes the waste hard to spot.
If your numbers never seem to add up to the leads you actually got, this is often where the gap lives. Your budget buys clicks from places you have never heard of, mixed invisibly with real Google searches.
Where it hides: Campaign, then Settings, then Networks.
What to do: untick it. If Google’s own search brings you good leads, you can test partners later on purpose, not by default.
What changes: your click-through rate usually rises within days, because low-quality partner impressions stop dragging it down. Your reported clicks may drop. Your enquiries usually do not.
Setting 2: The Display Network on Search Campaigns
The same Networks box holds a second tick: the Display Network. On a search campaign, this lets your search budget leak into banner ads across random websites and apps.
Think about the difference. One person is searching for your service right now. Another is scrolling a recipe site, and your banner happens to load. Those are not the same buyer, and they should never share one budget.
Google’s own guidance treats search and display as different campaign types with different goals. The default tick quietly merges them anyway, and the display side usually wins the impressions because there are far more of them available at lower cost.
Where it hides: Campaign, then Settings, then Networks, directly under search partners.
What to do: untick it. Search budget stays on search. If you want display advertising, build a separate campaign with its own budget, its own creative, and its own goals, so you can judge it on its own results.
What changes: your cost per click may rise slightly, because cheap display clicks leave the average. Your cost per enquiry almost always falls, which is the number that pays your bills.
Setting 3: Auto-Applied Recommendations
This is the one that genuinely costs people money. Buried in the recommendations page is a setting that lets Google make changes to your account on its own. It can add keywords, broaden your match types, and adjust your ads without asking you.
Nobody reads the small print here. Then three months later you are paying for search terms you never chose, and you cannot work out why.
When we audit an account, this is one of the first places I check, because the damage compounds quietly. A broadened match type in March becomes a junk search term in April and a wasted budget by June. By the time the owner notices, the account history is polluted, and the smart bidding has learned from bad data.
The recommendations themselves are not the problem. Some are genuinely useful. The problem is automatic application without review, because Google’s idea of an improvement and yours are not the same. Google optimises for more spend and more coverage. You optimise for profit.
Where it hides: Recommendations, then the auto-apply option.
What to do: turn every auto-apply option off. Review the recommendations monthly yourself, apply the few that make sense, and dismiss the rest. You want Google’s suggestions. You do not want Google’s hands on the wheel.
What changes: nothing visibly, at first. What you have removed is future drift: the slow, unreviewed broadening that turns a tight account into a loose one over a year.
Setting 4: Location Options
Say you are a roofer in Luton. You target Luton. Sensible. Except the default location setting shows your ads to anyone who has shown interest in Luton, from anywhere in the world.
Someone researching Luton for a holiday can click your ad. Someone reading about Luton from another country can click your ad. You pay either way.
For a local service business, this is pure waste. You cannot fit a roof in Spain from a van in Bedfordshire. Yet the default treats interest in your town as equal to standing in it.
Where it hides: Campaign, then Settings, then Locations, then Location options.
What to do: choose “people in or regularly in” your locations. One click, and your budget stops commuting.
What changes: check your location report a week later. The spend from outside your service area drops to near zero, and that money goes back into clicks from people who can actually buy from you.
Setting 5: The Broad Match Toggle
Newer campaigns come with a setting that switches every keyword to broad match in one go. Google frames it as an upgrade, and the AI Max branding makes it sound like a free win.
Broad match can work. But it only works with strong conversion data guiding it, because broad match hands Google the decision about which searches count as relevant. With years of clean conversion history, that judgment call has data behind it. On a small account with a modest budget and thin data, you are funding Google’s guesswork.
We see the same pattern in account after account: the toggle goes on, impressions jump, the owner feels the campaign is “working harder”, and four weeks later the search terms report is full of searches that were never going to buy anything.
Where it hides: Campaign, then Settings; look for the broad match keywords toggle.
What to do: keep the toggle off. Choose your match types deliberately, keyword by keyword. Exact match for your money terms, phrase match to explore, and broad match only when the account has the conversion history to steer it.
What changes: fewer impressions, better searches. The account gets smaller and sharper at the same time, which is exactly what a limited budget needs.
What These Five Have in Common
Look at the pattern. Every one of these defaults widens where your money can go: more networks, more websites, more locations, more search terms. Not one of them narrows anything.
Widening helps an advertiser with unlimited budget and perfect tracking. It quietly hurts a small business with a fixed monthly spend, because every pound that goes somewhere loose is a pound that cannot go somewhere sharp.
That is the whole philosophy behind this checklist. You are not fighting Google. You are just taking back the decisions that should have been yours on day one.
The Ten-Minute Job That Pays for Itself
Open your account tonight and check these five settings. Note down how many were on. Most owners find at least three.
Then next week, open your search terms report. That report shows the real searches you paid for, and it tells you whether these switches were costing you. Most people who read it once never leave the defaults on again.
If you would rather watch the walkthrough, the video version of this article shows every screen and every click.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are search partners in Google Ads?
Search partners are websites outside Google that show Google ads next to their own search results. Click quality varies widely and conversion rates are usually lower than Google search itself. New campaigns include them by default, so most advertisers are on partner sites without knowing.
Should I turn off auto-applied recommendations?
Yes, in almost every case. Auto-apply lets Google change your keywords, match types and ads without your review. Keep the recommendations as suggestions, apply the ones that make sense, and stay in control of what changes in your account.
Why is my Google Ads budget spending outside my target area?
Check your location options. The default setting includes anyone who has shown interest in your target location, not just people who are actually there. Switching to presence-based targeting keeps your spend inside the area you serve.
Is broad match bad for small budgets?
Broad match needs conversion data to aim well. On a small account with limited budget and few recorded conversions, it tends to buy loosely related searches you would never pick yourself. Exact and phrase match give a small budget far more control.
How do I check what Google Ads is actually spending my money on?
Open the search terms report. It lists the real searches that triggered your ads and what each one cost. Review it weekly, add negatives for the junk, and the account gets cheaper and sharper every month.
How often should I review my Google Ads settings?
Do the full five-setting check when you take over or launch an account, then glance quarterly. Google adds new defaults and new toggles regularly, and each new campaign you build starts with the defaults switched back on.
Check Yours Tonight
Five settings. Ten minutes. That is the whole job.
None of this needs an agency, a course, or a tool. It needs one evening and a willingness to open a page you have never clicked before. Your budget is already paying for the defaults; the least they owe you is a look.
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