Search Partners Waste

What AdGradr checks

For each active Search campaign, AdGradr compares performance on Google Search vs Google Search Partners (third-party search sites that show Google ads). A campaign is flagged if Partners traffic burns budget at a meaningfully lower conversion rate or a meaningfully higher CPA than main Search. Three patterns specifically trigger a flag:

• Partners spent meaningful budget with zero conversions while main Search was producing.
• Partners conversion rate is less than half of main Search conversion rate.
• Partners CPA is more than 2x main Search CPA.

Campaigns where Partners spend share is too small to matter, or where Partners performance is in line with main Search, are not flagged.

This is a standalone check, meaning it does not affect your overall AdGradr score.

What Google Search Partners actually is

Google Search Partners is a third-party network of search sites and apps that show Google ads. The default in every Search campaign is to opt in. You cannot see which specific sites or apps your ads ran on. You cannot exclude individual partners. The only control is on or off, applied per campaign.

When Partners works, it adds incremental volume at similar cost to main Search. When it does not work, it is one of the easiest places in the account to find waste.

Why this matters

Most accounts have Partners enabled by default and never check whether the traffic is converting. The traffic is silently mixed into your reporting unless you specifically segment by network. You see the average CPA across both, which masks Partners under-performance.

For some verticals (especially anything with a high-intent local search component), Partners traffic comes from low-quality search sites that drive accidental clicks and bot-like patterns. The clicks cost the same as main Search clicks but produce noticeably worse leads or sales.

What good looks like

One of two states:

1. Partners enabled and performing. Conversion rate and CPA roughly match main Search across all campaigns. Keep it on; it is incremental volume.
2. Partners disabled. If you have evaluated and the data does not support keeping it, turn it off across all campaigns.

The bad state is “enabled and never evaluated”, which is where most accounts sit.

Common mistakes

1. Looking only at average CPA. Average CPA across Search + Partners hides Partners under-performance. Always segment by network when evaluating.
2. Disabling Partners account-wide based on one campaign’s data. Performance varies by campaign and by vertical. Evaluate per campaign.
3. Re-enabling Partners six months later because you forgot why you disabled it. Document the decision in a campaign note.

How to fix it

For each campaign AdGradr flagged:

1. Verify in Google Ads. Open the campaign, go to Segments → Network. Confirm the Partners performance gap.
2. Disable Partners on that specific campaign. Settings → Networks → uncheck “Include Google search partners”. Save.
3. Repeat per flagged campaign. Do not blanket-disable across the account if other campaigns are performing fine on Partners.
4. Re-evaluate after 14 to 30 days. Conversion rate on the affected campaign typically improves because lower-quality Partners traffic stopped diluting the average.

This applies going forward. Past Partner spend is not refundable, since the user opted in by default and Google did not violate policy. This is an optimization finding, not a refund opportunity.

When to ignore this check

If you have already evaluated Partners performance and made a deliberate decision to keep it on, the finding is fair to dismiss. The data may have changed since your last review (Partners performance varies over time), so re-evaluating periodically is still worth it.

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