How to find wasted Google Ads spend with AI

Codex found more than 100 bad search terms Google had matched to our ads.

Some were obviously wrong. One person searched for Adobe, clicked our ad instead, and we paid for a visit from someone who was never looking for Bogi.

Those clicks look small one at a time. Left unchecked, the same mismatches can keep spending your budget long after it is clear they will not become customers.

The fix is a search-term audit: review what people actually searched, compare it with what your company sells, and add the obvious mismatches as negative keywords.

Keywords are not search terms

A keyword is what you tell Google you want to target. A search term is what someone actually typed before your ad appeared.

They are not always the same. Google's search terms report shows the real searches that matched your keywords, along with their clicks, cost, and conversions.

That report is where wasted spend becomes visible. You may find:

• people navigating to a competitor
• searches for a different product category
• job seekers, students, or tutorial traffic
• free-tool and template searches
• foreign-language or unrelated queries
• relevant-looking terms that spent money without converting

An agent can review all of them quickly, but only if it understands the business behind the account.

Give the agent enough context

A search term is not bad in isolation. It is bad when it does not match what you sell, who you sell to, or the problem your product solves.

Before asking an agent to judge the report, give it:

• your product and ideal customer
• the use cases you want to attract
• competitors people may be navigating to
• categories and audiences you do not serve
• what a good lead or conversion looks like

For Bogi, that context matters. Bogi is a workspace where teams build internal tools that both teammates and agents can use. Someone searching for an ad-design product may use similar words, but still have completely different intent.

Run the first audit

If your agent is connected to Google Ads through Bogi, it can pull the report, check existing negative keywords, and compare the results with the company context already in your workspace.

Ask it to review first, without changing the account:

If your agent cannot access Google Ads directly, export the search terms report as a CSV and attach it with the same company context.

Review the recommendations

The goal is not to block every imperfect query. It is to stop obvious waste without hiding potentially valuable traffic.

A useful review looks like this:

Start narrowly when there is any uncertainty. Negative exact, phrase, and broad match affect different sets of searches, and negative keywords do not match close variants in the same way as positive keywords.

Keep the first version human-approved:

1. The agent proposes negative keywords with evidence.
2. You review the cost, intent, and suggested match type.
3. The agent applies only the approved changes.
4. It records what changed so the team can check it later.

Turn the audit into a routine

One cleanup helps, but new searches keep appearing. The better version is a weekly loop that catches new mismatches before they have time to compound.

This is where Bogi makes the workflow more than a one-off chat. It gives the agent the Google Ads connection, keeps company context in a shared workspace, runs the audit in the cloud, and can post a summary in Slack for the team.

The account stays reviewable, and the check keeps happening even when nobody remembers to open the search terms report.

The takeaway

Google can optimize a campaign, but it does not know your business the way your team does.

An agent can bring that judgment to every search term you paid for: keep the relevant traffic, flag the obvious mismatches, and ask before anything changes.

Run the audit once now. Then turn it into a routine so the same bad traffic does not quietly spend your budget again.