Feature Guide

Ads Advisor

Your Google Ads spend, next to the visits and conversions it actually produced — with an AI audit that finds the waste.

Available on Growth and Agency plans — and in every 30-day free trial

If you run Google Ads, you already know what it costs. What is much harder to know is what it earns. Google reports its own conversion numbers, but those come from Google — the same company selling you the clicks. The Ads Advisor puts your ad spend next to what actually happened on your website: real visits, real goal completions, measured by your own analytics.

Once connected, every campaign shows its true cost per conversion, and — if you tell Crafty Meerkat what a conversion is worth to you — a plain return-on-ad-spend number: money out versus money in. No spreadsheet gymnastics, no exporting CSVs between tools.

Then the built-in AI Advisor audits the account for you. It reads what people actually searched before clicking your ads and flags the searches that cost money but never convert — job hunters, do-it-yourselfers, people in the wrong city — and hands you a ready-made list of negative keywords and specific changes to make. The Ads Advisor is read-only: it never edits your campaigns or touches your budget. You stay in control; it just tells you where the money is leaking.

How it works

You connect your Google Ads account with a normal Google sign-in — no developer setup, no agency access forms. Crafty Meerkat then syncs your campaigns, keywords, search terms, and daily costs automatically every night.

On your website, the tracking snippet already recognizes visits that came from a Google ad (Google labels each ad click). A one-time copy-paste of a “final URL suffix” into your Google Ads settings labels each click with its campaign, so every visit and every goal completion can be matched to the exact campaign that paid for it.

The AI audit combines both sides — what Google charged you and what your website measured — and writes its findings in plain English: wasted spend with estimated monthly savings, suggested negative keywords with reasons, and ranked recommendations to act on inside Google Ads.

Step by step

1
Open Ads Advisor and connect Google
In your site’s sidebar, choose Ads Advisor and click Connect. Sign in with the same Google account you use for ads.google.com, then pick your ads account from the list.
2
Paste the tracking suffix into Google Ads
The page gives you a short line of text and tells you exactly where it goes (Admin → Account settings → Tracking → Final URL suffix). This is what lets us match each ad click to a campaign. One copy-paste, done forever.
3
Give your goals a dollar value
On the Analytics page, create or edit a goal and fill in “value per conversion” — what one booked call or order is roughly worth. This unlocks the return-on-ad-spend number.
4
Run the AI audit
Click “Run audit.” In under a minute you get a plain-English report: where money is being wasted, which searches to block, and what to change — ranked by impact.
5
Make the changes in Google Ads and re-check next week
Apply the suggestions inside your Google Ads account (the audit tells you where each setting lives). Run the audit again a week later to confirm the waste is gone.

Tips from the den

◆The “no conversions” badge in the search terms table is your money-saver: terms with real spend and zero conversions are the first candidates for negative keywords.
◆Trust the “Conversions (your site)” number over Google’s when they disagree — it is measured on your own website, not estimated by the ad platform.
◆Set goal values even if they are rough. A $100 guess still tells you whether a campaign returning $40 per $100 spent should be paused.
◆Ads data syncs nightly, and Google keeps adjusting conversion numbers for a few days — judge a change over a week, not overnight.

Common questions

Can the Ads Advisor change my campaigns or spend my money?

No. The connection is strictly read-only. It syncs your campaigns, keywords, search terms, and costs, and it recommends changes — but every change is made by you, inside your own Google Ads account.

Why do Crafty Meerkat’s conversion numbers differ from Google’s?

Google counts conversions with its own tracking and modeling, which can over- or under-count. Crafty Meerkat counts goal completions measured directly on your website. When they differ, the on-site number is the one grounded in what visitors actually did.

Do I need the URL suffix step for this to work?

Without it you still see overall Google Ads visits and totals, because Google labels ad clicks automatically. The suffix adds the campaign label to each click so visits and conversions can be broken down per campaign — that is where the real insight lives, so don’t skip it.

Which plans include the Ads Advisor?

The Ads Advisor is included on Growth and Agency plans, and every new account can use it during the full-featured 30-day free trial — no credit card required.