Campaign ACoS says 24%. Target says 25%. So nobody opens the search term report.
By Elizabeth Greene · October 17, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
Campaign ACoS says 24%. Target says 25%.
So nobody opens the search term report.
The campaign is an average.
You've got one search term carrying the whole thing and eleven underneath it taking clicks every month, and the number on top looks fine so nobody looks underneath it.
Open the search term report for the last 30 days, sort by spend highest to lowest, then filter for zero orders.
That list is where your money is going, sitting at the top of your spend column, still enabled right now.
Then go further.
In the targeting tab, switch to the lifetime view and look at your enabled targets with clicks and no orders.
I love that one honestly.
You will find targets that have never converted in the entire history of the campaign and are still live because the campaign they sit in reports a reasonable ACoS.
Your spend is going up and your sales aren't.
You tell yourself you're investing in ads to grow.
Even with our systems, we still pair an account manager with someone else and do spot checks.
"I'm doing my optimizations, it's going good" is a claim.
Whether the search term report is clean is something you look at.
What's at the top of your spend column with zero orders right now?