With the speed at which digital marketing evolves, there are very few “tried and true” Google Ads techniques that survive unchanged for more than a few years. What were once best practices can quickly become outdated, and a Google Ads agency that may have been the best in the business a few years ago can quickly fall behind the times if it continues to rely on old practices.
At ADM, we conduct countless audits every year to help businesses understand their search engine marketing strategies—meaning we’re often checking work done by other agencies or in-house teams. Along the way, we consistently see outdated approaches still being deployed, among them:
- Antiquated campaign and ad group styles
- Bidding strategies that no longer yield good results
- Keyword approaches rendered ineffective by match type changes
- Reliance on bid-modifiers that limit reach
The best Google Ads agencies are the ones that remain extremely adaptive to the platform’s constant evolution. In this blog, we’ll explain why leading agencies no longer use these and other techniques. And if your agency still does, it might be time for a conversation.
Your Agency Fails to Keep Up With Keyword Match Type Changes
Keyword match types (like Phrase, Broad, and Exact) have always been important to paid search campaigns, but Google Ads has made substantial changes to how they work in recent years. If your Google Ads agency is still operating on older assumptions about these match types, it’s a strong signal they haven’t kept up.
For example, Broad Match Modified keywords were sunset a few years ago. If they’re still present in an account, they now function as Phrase match—but otherwise reflect outdated account structure. At the same time, Phrase match has lost some of its original role, as Exact match keywords now cover a much wider range of close variants than they once did.
For a long time, match type mirroring was a common keywording approach. It was designed to tightly control which keywords could trigger ads by forcing traffic through Exact and Phrase match before expanding to Broad. While this made sense in the past, it’s becoming less effective as Broad match expands and automated bidding relies more heavily on broader intent signals.
Today, many accounts benefit from simpler, more consolidated structures that allow Google to gather more data and optimize more efficiently. Agencies that continue to rely heavily on older match-type control tactics are often optimizing for structure—not performance.
Your Google Ads Agency Relies Heavily on SKAGS
Sticking with the keywording theme, ADM finds that building out numerous single keyword ad groups (SKAGs) is no longer a viable pursuit. Agencies typically deploy SKAGs to isolate a single keyword in a single ad group to force stronger quality scores and maximize reach on that singular keyword. This can lead to some campaigns having an exorbitant amount of ad groups, making the campaign hard to manage.
The keyword changes mentioned in the prior section have rendered this a less effective strategy: close variants and automated bidding consider more signals, and more keyword variants support more reach within a campaign. That means many of your keywords end up neglected while 10-15% of ad groups would be prioritized in the auction.
Instead, ADM recommends focusing on tightly-themed ad groups with, at most, 10-15 keywords, all with similar intent and within the same stage of the funnel. With this approach, you’re better equipped to achieve control over high-quality clicks and quality score without leaving any of your ads neglected.
The Agency is Still Bidding Like It’s 2018
Everything in Google Ads is becoming more automated, and that’s especially true of bidding. Manual CPC and singular keyword bidding are both things of the past.
Back in the day—years ago—you were forced to manage each keyword’s bid in the auction to ensure that it didn’t fall below first page eligibility. This meant consistently going into the platform and increasing keyword caps per keyword to meet Google’s auction requirements. But in a sophisticated SEM program, smart bidding strategies like Target CPA have rendered this unnecessary. Some accounts may use third-party bidding platforms that require search campaigns to be on manual CPC, but those are a rare exception.
Because of this, bid modifiers are also antiquated. There was a time when people leveraged manual bids in these areas to dictate who Google should optimize towards and which audiences to prioritize. Automated bidding no longer acknowledges these bids and leverages a different set of rules to optimize against the campaign goal (not a specific audience). Target CPA allows for 100% device bid exclusions, but this is the only exception when using automated bidding.
While deploying smart bidding strategies might feel like handing your performance over to the machines, they’re ultimately the best way to deliver the performance you’re looking for. Smart Google Ads agencies can tailor other aspects of your campaigns to ensure that you’re appearing for the right queries and users without the same manual interventions that were once required.
They Only Leverage Affinity and In-Market Audiences
If your Google Ads agency is still depending entirely on Affinity and In-Market audiences across multiple tactics, they’re doing your account a disservice.
Those audience types were once the primary way to layer intent and interests onto search and upper-funnel campaigns. Google Ads now offers multiple ways to collect and activate first-party data through conversion events and campaign-level audience collection settings, which play a much larger role in supporting retargeting and optimization across the account.
Beyond that, advertisers can create custom audiences based on users’ interests and recent search behavior, allowing campaigns to reach people who are actively researching relevant topics—not just those who broadly fit into predefined categories.
Google also supports combined audiences, which make it possible to build more precise user pools by layering multiple intent signals together. For example, an advertiser can require that a user be in more than one in-market category before they’re eligible to see an ad, tightening relevance without relying on manual bid adjustments.
Agencies that limit their audience strategy to Affinity and In-Market segments are often missing opportunities to leverage the data their accounts are already generating—and to move beyond generic interest targeting toward more meaningful intent signals.
Your Agency is Still Deploying Standard Display Campaigns
Display used to be an essential element of Google Ads, but that was a very long time ago. These days, running Display campaigns is often more trouble than it’s worth. If neglected, they tend to mostly deliver app, game and news network placements—poor quality delivery with low engagement. You have to be extremely intentional about reviewing placement reports when running Display, and even then it’s limited to being an extremely top-of-funnel tactic.
ADM’s recommendation would be to spend those dollars on programmatic advertising, which offers better targeting technology and placements, or to take advantage of more dynamic Google Ads campaigns like Demand Gen and Performance Max. Placements in either of those campaign types are better because your budget could just as easily be allocated to video, Gmail, Search, etc. It’s optimizing for a goal versus placement or impressions.
They’re Still Trying to Control Search Ad Copy
Automation is also key to determining the actual ad copy that displays in response to a user’s query—and desiring total control on what shows up is an outdated mindset for Google advertisers. Google’s best practice is to now build up to three Responsive Search Ads per ad group, which can each cycle through as many as 15 potential headlines and four descriptions that will display based on query.
Some advertisers still try to control their ads by pinning three headlines and descriptions to ensure specific language shows up in every variation of the ad on the search engine results page. While pinning one may feel useful in some instances, like highlighting a limited-time sale, we have found that pinning all of your assets in Responsive ads will lead to extremely poor results. In fact, pinning any headline in an RSA can lead to weaker performance compared to an RSA with no restrictions and fully automated to Google’s liking.
The loss of control here is tough for some brands to stomach, but adapting to the automation on copy is in your campaign’s best interest. If your Google Ads agency is recommending pinned headlines—or not even using Responsive Search Ads in all campaigns—they’re likely doing your performance a disservice.
They Fail to Make Full Use of Ad Extensions
To make your Search ads as effective as possible, it’s vital to curate and deploy the full range of available ad extensions. Unfortunately, some agencies still treat them as an add-on or afterthought. When auditing accounts, we regularly see advertisers fall into one or more of the following patterns:
- Only using basic extensions, such as sitelinks and callouts, while ignoring location, price, promotion, image, or structured snippet extensions
- Leaving automated extensions fully enabled, giving Google broad latitude to create and deploy extensions without sufficient visibility or oversight
- Failing to audit active extensions, resulting in outdated promotions, pricing, or seasonal messaging continuing to run
Extensions play a meaningful role in both performance and SERP real estate. Treating them as a set-and-forget feature is a common indicator of an account that hasn’t been actively maintained.
Advertisers Can’t Afford to Fall Behind
Google Ads doesn’t stand still, and the strategies that worked even a few years ago don’t always hold up today. In many of the accounts we audit, performance issues aren’t driven by obvious mistakes—they stem from agencies continuing to rely on structures, controls, or assumptions that no longer align with how the platform actually operates.
That doesn’t mean every “old” tactic is wrong, but it does mean that Google Ads requires constant reassessment, a willingness to let go of legacy approaches, and a high degree of comfort with Google’s automated capabilities. If your account hasn’t fully embraced the latest techniques and ad technology, you’re likely ceding results to competitors who have.
If performance is slipping or you’re seeing some of the patterns outlined above in your own account, it may be worth starting a conversation with your current agency—or seeking out another one. At ADM, constant evolution and adaptability are central to how we deliver constant improvement in our client accounts. If you’re looking for a fresh set of eyes on your account, don’t hesitate to reach out to our SEM team for an audit.
