Why You’re Paying for Phone Calls You Don’t Want
Imagine you own a high-end landscaping business in Ascot. You specialise in structural retaining walls, pool surrounds, and designer gardens that cost upwards of $50,000. You decide to run some Google Ads to get more enquiries.
Two weeks later, your phone is ringing, but you’re frustrated. Why? Because half the callers are asking for a $50 lawn mow, and the other half are looking for a job as a labourer.
Every time one of those people clicked your ad, Google charged you $8.00. By the end of the month, you’ve spent $1,000 on clicks from people who were never going to hire you. They weren't "bad" people; they were just looking for something you don't sell.
In the world of Google Ads, this is the single biggest drain on your bank account. Most Brisbane business owners I talk to think Google Ads is a scam because "they spent money and got no jobs." Usually, the problem isn't Google—it's that they are paying for the wrong searches.
This is where Negative Keywords come in. Think of them as a "Do Not Call" list for your advertising budget. They tell Google: "I want to show up for landscaping, but if the person types in 'cheap' or 'mowing' or 'jobs', do NOT show my ad and do NOT take my money."
The "Blacklist" That Saves Your Budget
If you want to stop the bleeding, you need a strategy to filter out the tyre-kickers and the bargain hunters. Most small business owners set up their ads and then never look at them again. That is exactly what Google wants you to do, because they make money every time someone clicks, regardless of whether you make a sale.
To get your costs down, you need to be aggressive about what you don't want. I’ve seen businesses in suburbs like Coorparoo or Chermside cut their monthly ad spend by 40% simply by blocking the wrong words, without losing a single genuine lead.
When you organise your ads properly, you can see exactly which words are eating your profit. If you don't have a list of words you're blocking, you're essentially leaving your wallet open on the counter of a busy Queen Street Mall shop and hoping people only take what they need.
The "Cheap" Trap
Unless you are the absolute lowest-priced provider in Brisbane, you should probably block words like: Cheap Free Discount Bargain BudgetIf someone is searching for a "cheap electrician," they aren't looking for the guy who does a quality, safe job and cleans up after himself. They are looking for the cheapest price possible. If you pay $10 for that click, you're already behind. By the time you quote them a fair price, they’ll hang up on you. You've just paid Google $10 for the privilege of being rejected.
Real-World Example: The Morningside Plumber
We worked with a plumber based in Morningside who was spending $3,000 a month on Google Ads. He was busy, but he wasn't making much profit. When we looked at his account, we found he was paying for hundreds of clicks for:
"How to fix a leaky tap" (People wanting to do it themselves) "Plumbing apprenticeships" (Kids looking for work) "Rheem hot water manual PDF" (People looking for instructions, not a plumber)He was paying about $15 per click for these. We added a massive list of "Negative Keywords" (blocked words) to his account.
Within a month, his bill stayed the same, but his phone calls from people actually needing a plumber doubled. He wasn't spending more; he was just spending it on people who actually had a plumbing emergency, not people looking for a DIY video on YouTube.
Categories of Words You Should Block Right Now
If you are running your own ads, go into your settings and look for the "Negative Keywords" section. Here are the categories you need to address immediately to get cheaper leads.
1. The DIY Crowd
These people want to do the work themselves. They are looking for information, not a service. Words to block: How to, DIY, guide, tutorial, steps, video, manual, parts, diagram, tools.2. Job Seekers
You want customers, not employees. Unless you are actively hiring and running a specific ad for it, block these. Words to block: Jobs, careers, employment, salary, apprentice, internship, resume, work, hiring.3. Students and Researchers
Brisbane is a massive uni town. You don't want to pay for a QUT or UQ student doing a research paper on your industry. Words to block: What is, definition, statistics, examples, case study, research, university, course, training.4. The Wrong Services
This is common for tradies. If you’re an electrician who only does residential work, you shouldn't be paying for "industrial high voltage commercial electrical." Words to block: Any service you don't actually provide or don't want to do because it's not profitable.How to Find These "Money Wasters"
You don't have to guess what people are typing. Google actually gives you a report (it’s usually called the "Search Terms" report). This is a list of exactly what people typed into their phones before they clicked your ad.
I’ll be honest: looking at this report for the first time is usually a painful experience for business owners. You’ll see that you’ve paid for things that have absolutely nothing to do with your business.
I once saw a boutique furniture maker in Fortitude Valley paying for clicks on "IKEA assembly instructions." He was horrified. He’d spent hundreds of dollars over six months helping people put together flat-pack desks from a Swedish giant.
Action Step: Once a week, look at that list. If you see a word that doesn't lead to a sale, tick the box and add it as a negative keyword. It’s like weeding a garden—if you do it regularly, it stays clean. If you ignore it, the weeds (the bad clicks) will choke out your flowers (your profits).
The "Location" Problem
If you only service the Northside of Brisbane, why are you paying for clicks from people in Logan or the Gold Coast? While you can set your geographic area in Google, people often type locations into their search.
If someone types "Accountant Gold Coast" and you’re in Strathpine, you don't want that click. You need to block the names of suburbs and regions you don't visit. This is a tedious job, but it saves a fortune.
Why Most Agencies Get This Wrong
Here is a bit of an industry secret: many marketing agencies won't bother with a deep negative keyword list. Why? Because it’s time-consuming. It’s much easier for them to just let the ads run and show you a report that says "Look at all these clicks!"
But clicks don't pay your mortgage. Sales do.
At Local Marketing Group, we take the opposite approach. We’d rather you get 10 clicks that result in 3 sales than 100 clicks that result in nothing. We spend a lot of time building out these "blocked lists" because we know that for a small business, every dollar counts. If you're working with a realistic budget, you can't afford to waste a cent on people looking for a "free PDF download."
When Should You Start?
You should have a basic list of blocked words before you even launch your ads. Then, for the first month, you should be checking your search terms every single day.
It’s a bit like training a new puppy. In the beginning, you have to watch it constantly and correct it when it does something wrong. After a while, it learns what you want, and you can step back.
After 3 months of aggressive "weeding," your Google Ads account will be a lean, mean, lead-generating machine. You’ll find that your cost per lead drops significantly because you’re no longer subsidising the curiosity of people who aren't ready to buy.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
1. Being too broad Don't block a word that might actually be useful. If you’re a mechanic, don't block the word "service" just because you don't like doing basic oil changes. You might miss out on a "logbook service" which is a great foot-in-the-door for a new customer.
2. Forgetting your competitors Sometimes people search for a specific business by name. If you’re a small gym in Hendra, do you want to pay for someone searching for "Anytime Fitness login"? Probably not. They are already a customer somewhere else and just want to check their account. Block the names of your competitors if you don't want to pay for their existing customers' clicks.
3. Not thinking like a human Put yourself in the shoes of a person who is bored on their lunch break. They might search for "cool kitchen ideas." If you’re a kitchen renovator, that sounds like a good search, right? Wrong. That person is just browsing. They aren't looking to hire someone today. You want the person searching for "kitchen renovation quotes Brisbane." Block the "ideas" and "inspiration" searches until you have a massive budget to play with.
Summary for the Busy Owner
If you take nothing else away from this, remember these three points: 1. Google is happy to take your money for clicks that will never turn into customers. It's your job to stop them. 2. Negative keywords are your best friend. They are the filters that keep the rubbish out of your inbox. 3. Check your search terms. Look at the list of what people actually typed. If it looks like something you wouldn't want to pay for, block it immediately.
Running a business in Brisbane is hard enough without giving away your hard-earned cash to a multi-billion dollar tech giant for no return. Be aggressive, be ruthless with your blocked list, and focus on the searches that actually put money in your bank account.
If this sounds like a lot of work—it is. But it's the difference between an ad campaign that's an expensive hobby and one that's a growth engine for your business.
If you want someone to take a look at your current ads and find where the leaks are, or if you're ready to start ads that actually work for a Brisbane business, reach out to us. We don't care about "impressions" or "click-through rates"—we care about how many times your phone rings with a genuine customer on the other end.
Ready to stop the waste? Contact Local Marketing Group today and let’s get your ads sorted.