You’ll never pay more than your maximum bid for ad clicks, and most platforms let you set budgets so you’re never spending more than you intend.

But that doesn’t mean you’re not wasting money with your home improvement PPC ad campaigns. You could be spending exactly your set budget without seeing a valuable return that justifies the expense.

Paying attention to your advertising efforts, looking at the analytics, and understanding whether ads are performing helps ensure success. And the payoff can be lucrative. Search ads can increase consumer awareness of your business by 80 percent, and Google says the average return on Google Ads is 200 percent.

Here are some signs that your PPC marketing budget (and ad campaigns) might need a bit more oversight.

• No leads. If your ad campaigns aren’t generating click-through at all, something’s wrong. You’re targeting the wrong keywords, the bidding is poor, or your ad content isn’t doing its job.
• The leads are poor quality. If you’re getting plenty of click-through without conversions, your targeting or ad content is out of alignment. That means you’re drawing attention from consumers, but when they arrive on your site, they find that what you’re offering isn’t actually what they were looking for.
• Your cost of acquisition is extremely high. If you’re getting some clicks that lead to conversion, but you’re paying an exorbitant amount for them, your bidding budget might need attention.

These are just a few things that can lead to wasted ad campaign spend. You must pay regular attention to your home improvement ad campaigns—or pay someone to do it for you—to reduce waste and ensure your ad performance constantly improves.