Answers that name Google Ads

If your main goal is “scan the account and show me where money is leaking”, I’d shortlist these:

1. optmyzr.com — best overall

This would be my first choice for a serious Google Ads account.

It specifically has tools for:

• Finding high-spend, non-converting keywords
• Finding wasted spend in search terms
• Identifying irrelevant queries and generating negative-keyword opportunities
• Auditing account structure and settings
• Monitoring budget pacing and overspend
• Analyzing performance by keyword, device, location, time, etc. Optmyzr Google Ads Optimization Optmyzr Google Ads Optimization Optmyzr Google Ads Optimization

Its audit system can also be scheduled, so you're not just doing a one-time cleanup. Optmyzr Help Center

Best for: agencies, larger accounts, or anyone who wants both auditing and ongoing optimization.

2. adalysis.com — best specifically for finding waste

If your question is literally “Where is my Google Ads budget being wasted?”, I'd seriously consider Adalysis.

It has 100+ automated audit checks and explicitly flags:

• Underperforming keywords
• Poor search terms
• Wasteful locations
• Wasteful placements
• Sudden increases in spend
• Drops in conversions/revenue
• Budget/performance problems Adalysis Adalysis

Its n-gram analysis is particularly useful: it aggregates recurring words/phrases across search queries and identifies patterns with lots of clicks/spend but poor conversion performance. That's a very effective way to uncover systematic keyword waste that isn't obvious one keyword at a time. Adalysis Docs

There's also a free Google Ads audit you can run before committing. Adalysis

Best for: quickly diagnosing an existing account and finding obvious waste.

3. Google Ads itself — best free option

Don't overlook the native data. With a reasonably configured account, you can find most budget drains by analyzing:

Search terms → Cost → Conversions → CPA/ROAS

The biggest traps are usually:

• Search terms spending without converting
• Keywords with significant spend and zero/poor conversions
• Broad-match terms pulling irrelevant intent
• Geographic areas with poor conversion rates
• Campaigns consuming disproportionate budget at poor CPA
• Search terms that should become negative keywords

The paid tools are mainly valuable because they automate the detection, prioritization, alerting, and cross-account analysis.

My recommendation

If I had to pick one: Optmyzr for an ongoing PPC management system; Adalysis if your immediate objective is simply to connect the account and get a prioritized list of things bleeding money.

One important distinction: don't judge keywords solely on “no conversions.” A keyword with $500 spend and zero conversions may be terrible—or it may have only generated 20 clicks. The better audit looks at spend relative to your target CPA/ROAS, conversion volume, conversion lag, and statistical confidence. Optmyzr and Adalysis both provide substantially more context than a simple “pause anything with zero conversions” rule. Optmyzr Help Center Optmyzr Help Center

If you tell me monthly ad spend (e.g. $10k, $50k, $500k), Google Ads vs. Microsoft Ads, and whether you're lead gen or ecommerce, I can narrow this down to the best 2–3 options for your situation.

Yes. If your goal is specifically “which remarketing lists are basically the same people, and where am I bidding against myself?”, there are a few good options—but the best choice depends on whether you're mainly in Google Ads, Meta, or both.

My shortlist

If you're primarily on Google Ads

I'd start with Google's own tools before buying anything.

Google Ads' current Audience Insights can show characteristics of your audiences and performance across campaigns, and the account-level view can show where the same segment is being used. support.google.com

For more sophisticated analysis, Ads Data Hub is much more interesting. It lets you combine first-party data with Google ad-event data and build audiences such as:

• site visitors AND prior ad engagers
• customers AND YouTube engagers
• converters EXCEPT recent purchasers
• users exposed to campaign A BUT NOT campaign B

That makes it particularly useful for figuring out whether several "remarketing" audiences are actually redundant. developers.google.com

Google's Audience Insights API also has an explicit audience-overlap capability, although access to that service is currently restricted to allowlisted accounts. developers.google.com

Google Ads Audience Insights

If you want a proper "audience redundancy detector"

The architecture I'd recommend is:

Ad platforms → customer/website events → BigQuery/Snowflake → audience-overlap analysis → dashboard

Then calculate something like:

Overlap(A,B) = users in both A and B / users in A

and also the reverse:

Overlap(B,A) = users in both A and B / users in B

That lets you identify situations such as:

• All website visitors – 30d = 92% contained within All website visitors – 90d
• Product viewers – 14d = 87% contained within All visitors – 30d
• Cart abandoners – 30d = 96% contained within Product viewers – 30d
• three different campaign lists are essentially the same audience

You can then flag lists as duplicate, nested, highly overlapping, or meaningfully distinct.

The important distinction

Most ad-platform "audience overlap" features answer:

"How much do these two audiences overlap?"

What you seem to be asking is slightly more valuable:

"Which of my hundreds of remarketing lists are redundant enough that I should consolidate them, change exclusions, or stop using them?"

For that, I wouldn't rely solely on an ad-platform UI. I'd build an audience inventory + overlap matrix + redundancy score using your actual first-party IDs where permitted.

If you tell me whether you're running Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, or multiple platforms, and roughly how many remarketing lists you have (e.g. 20, 200, 2,000), I can recommend the specific software stack I'd use and what it would cost.

Yes. If your goal is specifically “show me which audiences overlap, which remarketing lists are basically duplicates, and which ones I can consolidate/exclude”, I’d look at these:

My pick

If you have one Google Ads account, I'd start with Google's own tools rather than buying another platform. Google now has audience reporting and its API includes an explicit GenerateAudienceOverlapInsights capability for identifying overlapping audience attributes. developers.google.com

Google Ads Audience Manager documentation

If you're dealing with Google + Meta + TikTok, Wevion Audience Hub is much closer to what you're describing: it provides a centralized view where audiences can be synced, compared, and checked for overlap, including performance comparisons. feedback.wevion.ai

For Meta specifically, Meta's native Audience Overlap capability is still available, although it has limitations; third-party tools such as Kelpi can additionally inspect your active ad-set targeting and flag ad sets that are effectively competing with one another. kelpi.ai

Kelpi audience overlap checker

One important distinction

There are actually three different problems you may want software to detect:

1. Literal duplicate lists

Website visitors 30d vs Site visitors - last 30 days
→ basically the same audience.

2. Nested audiences

Website visitors 90d contains Website visitors 30d.
→ not duplicates, but potentially redundant depending on campaign structure.

3. Strategic overlap

All website visitors overlaps heavily with Add-to-cart, Customer list, Lookalike, etc.
→ these may need exclusions or funnel prioritization rather than deletion.

The third category is where I'd want a tool to combine audience membership + campaign/ad-set usage + spend + conversions. Simply knowing that two audiences overlap isn't enough to know whether the overlap is actually wasteful. www.tripledart.com

If you tell me which ad platforms you use (Google, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, etc.) and roughly how many audiences/lists you have, I can narrow this down to the 2–3 tools I'd actually consider for your account, including pricing and whether they can automatically identify redundant lists.

Yes. If you mean “show me which audiences/placements are consuming impressions or spend but producing poor results”, there are several options.

Native tools

• Google Ads Audience Insights + campaign reporting — Google can break performance down by audience, demographics, keywords, and Display placements. Its Display reporting specifically lets you identify poor-performing placements and exclude them. Google Google Help
• Google Ads Insights / Recommendations — surfaces account-specific opportunities and recommendations, although it isn't a dedicated “wasted impressions detector.” Google
• Microsoft Advertising — its reporting can identify underperforming keywords, ads, audiences, and publisher URLs. In particular, the Publisher Usage Performance Report shows impressions, clicks, spend, and conversions by website so you can find sites worth excluding. Microsoft Learn
• Microsoft also now exposes AI-driven audience analysis through its Advertising API/MCP tooling, including prompts such as “Which audience segments are underperforming?” Microsoft Learn

If you're looking for a dedicated third-party tool

What you probably want is an audience/placement waste analyzer that connects to Google Ads and/or Microsoft Ads and automatically flags things like:

Audience: 85,000 impressions → $4,200 spend → 0.3% CVR → CPA 3.2× target → Reduce/exclude

and:

Display placement: 1.4M impressions → $1,100 spend → 2 conversions → High impression waste

The important distinction is that Google/Microsoft give you the underlying reporting, but they don't necessarily turn “wasted impressions” into one unified score across Search + Display.

If you're asking because you're considering building or buying a tool like this, I can also give you a shortlist of existing platforms that specifically do automated audience/placement waste detection, and compare them by Google Ads/Microsoft Ads support, pricing, and how automated their recommendations are.

Yes. There are tools that can do this, although the best choice depends on whether you want diagnostics or automatic optimization.

Good options

• Google Ads itself — You can analyze Display performance by audience, demographics, placements, clicks, impressions, and conversions, and identify poor-performing placements/audiences to exclude. Google Help
• Microsoft Advertising — Its reporting can break performance down by audience, including impressions, spend, clicks, and conversions. It also has publisher/website performance reporting for finding inventory that isn't performing. Microsoft Learn
• Microsoft Advertising MCP Server — This is particularly close to what you're describing. It can analyze campaigns, audiences, keywords, detect anomalies/threshold breaches, and answer questions like “Which audience segments are underperforming?” in natural language. Microsoft Learn
• Microsoft Clarity Campaign Insights — More useful for diagnosing why traffic from an ad campaign isn't valuable. It combines Google Ads campaign data with on-site behavioral signals such as engagement and session behavior. Microsoft Learn

If you're looking for a dedicated "wasted impressions" detector

I'd define the problem as something like:

Find segments receiving significant impressions/spend but producing disproportionately few conversions or low-value conversions, then quantify the wasted spend and recommend exclusions/bid adjustments.

For example:

The important part is not simply flagging low CTR. A good tool should look at spend/impressions → conversions → revenue or LTV, while accounting for volume and statistical significance.

If you're asking because you're considering building or buying a tool like this, I can also give you a shortlist of the existing platforms that specifically do audience waste detection across Google Search + Display, and where the gaps are.

A strong solution is a search-term overlap and query-quality audit layer that sits on top of your paid-search data (Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, etc.).

Recommended approach

1. Pull search-term data

• Query/search term
• Keyword that triggered it
• Match type
• Campaign/ad group
• Spend, clicks, conversions, conversion value
• Date range
• Detect overlapping spend

Flag cases where multiple keywords are effectively competing for the same query. For example:

• running shoes
• best running shoes
• running shoe sale

If the same search queries repeatedly trigger several keywords across campaigns/ad groups, identify the duplication and quantify the spend affected.

3. Audit irrelevant query matching

Classify search terms into:

• Relevant — should continue matching
• Irrelevant — add as negative keyword
• Potentially relevant — requires human review

Pay particular attention to broad-match queries that consume spend without producing conversions or meaningful engagement.

4. Quantify wasted spend

Rather than simply producing a list of bad queries, calculate:

Wasted spend = spend on irrelevant queries + avoidable spend from overlapping targeting

Rank opportunities by wasted dollars, not just number of queries.

5. Generate actionable recommendations

For each finding, produce something like:

6. Add guardrails

Don't automatically negative a term simply because it has no conversion. A query may be valuable at low volume or may have assisted-conversion value. Use thresholds based on spend, conversion rate, CPA/ROAS, and business relevance.

The solution I'd recommend

Build a weekly Search Query Waste Auditor that automatically:

Google/Microsoft Ads → search-term warehouse → overlap detection + relevance classification → wasted-spend scoring → recommended negatives/keyword changes → approval workflow → export back to Ads

The most valuable feature is the opportunity score: “If we fix these 27 queries/overlaps, approximately $18.4K/month of spend is potentially recoverable.” That turns an otherwise tedious search-term report into a prioritized optimization queue.

If you're dealing with a large account, I'd also add cross-campaign cannibalization detection, because overlap isn't always obvious when the same intent is distributed across different campaigns.

Yes. There are several platforms built specifically to audit paid media accounts, analyze automated bidding behavior, and identify where algorithms are spending inefficiently. The right choice depends on whether you mean Google Ads Smart Bidding, Meta automated campaigns, Amazon PPC, or a broader paid-media stack.

Some options:

Also, Google Ads itself has built-in tools: Google Ads provides Bid Strategy Reports that show Smart Bidding performance, conversion delays, top signals, and whether a strategy is meeting targets. support.google.com The limitation is that Google’s native reports usually explain performance rather than independently challenge whether the automation is wasting money.

For a true “is the algorithm wasting my budget?” audit, I’d look for tools that can flag things like:

• High spend + low/no conversion segments
  • Search terms
  • Audiences
  • Placements
  • Devices
  • Locations
  • Time windows

• Smart bidding failure modes
  • Target CPA set too aggressively/loosely
  • Maximize Conversion Value chasing low-quality conversions
  • Performance Max cannibalizing brand or organic traffic
  • Broad match expansion bringing irrelevant queries

• Budget allocation problems
  • Campaigns stealing budget from higher ROAS campaigns
  • Automated rules increasing spend on declining segments
  • Learning-phase instability

If you tell me:

1. platform (Google Ads / Meta / Amazon / Microsoft / TikTok),
2. monthly spend range, and
3. whether you want audit-only or a tool that can automatically change bids,

I can narrow this down to the best fits.

If you mean a tool that can find wasted spend caused by inactive, stale, or outdated ad extensions and assets, you’re usually looking for a Google Ads audit/optimization tool rather than a general analytics tool.

Common options include:

• Google Ads Recommendations & Asset Reports — built into Google Ads. It can surface underperforming assets, removed/paused items, and asset-level performance issues.
• Google Ads Editor — useful for bulk auditing extensions/assets, finding old campaigns, and cleaning up inactive items.
• PPC audit tools such as Optmyzr or Adalysis — these can flag account hygiene issues, underperforming ads/assets, and optimization opportunities.
• AI audit tools such as AdLark or similar Google Ads auditors can scan accounts for wasted spend patterns and budget leaks. AdLark App

If you specifically mean inactive/outdated ad extensions and assets, look for audit features that check:

• unused sitelinks, callouts, snippets, images, and videos
• assets with spend but no conversions
• old promotions or expired offers
• low-performing responsive search ad assets
• duplicate or conflicting extensions
• assets attached to paused/dead campaigns

For an enterprise PPC workflow, the closest fit is typically a Google Ads account audit tool + asset performance report, rather than a standalone “wasted spend” detector. adpredictor.ai app.adlyse.com

If you mean Google Ads, the best fit is Adalysis. It runs automated PPC audits and can flag issues related to wasted spend and missing/underperforming ad extensions, with customizable checks and prioritized findings. Adalysis

For inactive or outdated assets specifically, Google Ads itself has an Asset reporting view. It lets you compare asset performance and see when assets were added/modified/paused/removed, which is useful for identifying assets that need refreshing or removal. Google Help Google Help

So:

• Best automated audit: Adalysis — broader wasted-spend audit + extension/asset checks. Adalysis
• Best native Google Ads tool: Asset reporting — performance + asset age/status. Google Help
• For a broader “find all wasted spend” audit: tools such as AdPredictor or RevAds can scan an account for non-converting/wasted spend, but they're broader than just extensions/assets. AdPredictor.ai RevAds

If your specific requirement is “find ad extensions/assets that are still costing money but are obsolete, duplicated, inactive, or no longer useful”, I'd choose Adalysis + the native Google Ads Asset report rather than a generic account grader.

Yes. There are tools that can do this, but they fall into a few different categories. The best choice depends on whether you mean paid social creative analysis (Meta/TikTok/etc.) or search ads quality/CTR optimization (Google Ads Quality Score).

Tools that analyze creative performance and budget waste

If your main question is:

"Which ads are eating budget but not producing results?"

Look for a creative intelligence / media optimization tool. It should connect to your ad accounts and rank ads by:

• Spend
• CTR
• CPM
• CPC
• CPA/CPL
• ROAS
• Conversion rate
• Frequency (creative fatigue)
• Placement performance
• Audience breakdown

Tools like Motion, Madgicx, and Segwise are aimed more at this use case. Hawky Segwise

If your issue is Google Ads Quality Score

You want PPC auditing tools rather than creative AI tools. They look at:

• Low Quality Score keywords
• Below-average expected CTR
• Poor ad relevance
• Landing page experience
• Search terms wasting spend

Adalysis and Optmyzr are examples built around this workflow. AdToolScout Dupple

AI creative scoring tools (useful but different)

Some tools score creatives before launch, predicting which designs/hooks may perform better. For example, AdCreative.ai assigns creative performance scores, and similar tools use historical ad data or attention models. These are useful for filtering ideas, but they generally cannot replace real spend data from your own campaigns. Official A.I Ranking Multilinear

A practical setup many performance teams use

1. Pull live ad data from Meta/Google/TikTok.
2. Identify ads with: - high spend + below-account-average CTR
3. high CPC
4. high CPA
5. declining conversion rate
6. Tag creative attributes: - hook
7. offer
8. format
9. first 3 seconds (video)
10. CTA
11. Kill losers and generate new variants from winners.

If you tell me which platform you’re running (Meta, Google Search, TikTok, LinkedIn, Amazon) and roughly your monthly ad spend, I can narrow this down to the tools that are actually worth paying for.

Yes. If your specific problem is wasted ad spend caused by conversion inflation—the same sale being credited to multiple platforms, duplicate conversion events, or low-quality conversion actions being used for bidding—I’d look at these:

My top pick: Triple Whale

For the exact problem you described, Triple Whale is probably the first product I'd evaluate.

Its attribution system explicitly addresses overlapping conversion claims between ad platforms and provides a unified view across channels. Its newer Sonar Optimize product can also deduplicate browser/server conversion events before sending them back to ad platforms. Triple Whale Triple Whale Help Center

That matters because there are actually two different problems that often get called "duplicate conversions":

1. The same purchase gets claimed by multiple platforms.

Example: one $100 order is reported by Meta, Google, and TikTok, making your dashboards appear to show $300 of attributed revenue.

2. The same conversion event is literally sent twice.

Example: Shopify → browser pixel + server-side CAPI → Meta, with both events being interpreted as separate purchases.

Triple Whale has tooling relevant to both. Its attribution models can reconcile cross-channel credit, while Sonar Optimize uses deduplication keys when browser and server-side versions of an event represent the same customer action. Triple Whale Help Center

One important caveat: Triple Whale's Triple Attribution model intentionally allows multiple platforms to receive full credit, so it is not the model to use when you're trying to calculate actual total revenue. Triple Whale itself says to use models such as Total Impact, Clicks & Deterministic Views, or Linear for reconciled revenue. Triple Whale Help Center

If you're primarily a Google Ads advertiser

Before buying another attribution platform, audit Google Ads conversion actions.

Google distinguishes primary conversion actions—which feed the "Conversions" column and can be used for bidding—from secondary actions, which are generally observation-only. Misconfigured conversion actions can therefore directly affect Smart Bidding. Google Help

A common waste pattern is something like:

Purchase + Shopify purchase + GA4 purchase + imported CRM sale

all becoming primary conversions for the same underlying transaction.

In that situation, the biggest ROI may come from fixing the conversion architecture rather than purchasing attribution software.

How I'd choose

• Shopify/DTC, Meta + Google + TikTok: Triple Whale
• Large paid-media operation with serious measurement/incrementality needs: Northbeam
• Mostly Google Ads and you're seeing suspiciously high conversion counts: start with Google's conversion-action audit
• Many channels and an enterprise measurement team: Rockerbox
• Lead generation / phone calls / sales reps closing deals: Hyros is worth investigating

If you tell me your ad channels (e.g. Google/Meta/TikTok), CRM/ecommerce platform, and approximate monthly ad spend, I can narrow this to the 2–3 tools most likely to actually uncover the wasted spend, rather than just giving you attribution dashboards.

Before buying another attribution platform, audit Google Ads conversion actions.

Google distinguishes primary conversion actions—which feed the "Conversions" column and can be used for bidding—from secondary actions, which are generally observation-only. Misconfigured conversion actions can therefore directly affect Smart Bidding. support.google.com

A common waste pattern is something like:

Purchase + Shopify purchase + GA4 purchase + imported CRM sale

all becoming primary conversions for the same underlying transaction.

In that situation, the biggest ROI may come from fixing the conversion architecture rather than purchasing attribution software.

How I'd choose

If you mean Google Ads search term report auditing + fast negative keyword recommendations, these are some of the stronger options:

For speed-to-savings, I’d generally shortlist:

1. Small/medium Google Ads account: Keyword Ninja or NEGWatch — fastest path from search term export → negatives. Keyword Ninja Negwatch
2. Agency with multiple MCC accounts: SearchSavior — the conflict checking is valuable because bad negatives can accidentally block revenue-driving queries. SearchSavior
3. You want a human-style audit summary: AdLark or similar AI PPC audit tools. AdLark

Also, Google Ads itself still provides the underlying Search terms report workflow: irrelevant queries can be added as negative keywords directly through your optimization process. support.google.com

If you tell me Google Ads vs Microsoft Ads vs Amazon PPC, and whether you manage one account or an agency portfolio, I can narrow this to the best fit.

Yes, but with an important distinction:

I don't know of any mainstream product that automatically says "you're wasting $X because your Meta click window should be 7 days instead of 28 days" or "your attribution model is misconfigured." Most tools detect measurement problems, compare attribution models, or estimate incremental impact. Very few explicitly quantify wasted spend caused by attribution configuration choices.

The market breaks down into a few categories:

1. Tracking QA / Measurement Assurance

These products look for broken pixels, duplicated conversions, missing server-side events, inconsistent attribution, etc.

Examples:

• Kickin
• Xerago TrueMeasure
• TrackFlow Pro

They can identify issues like:

• Google Ads using a different conversion than GA4
• Meta CAPI deduplication failing
• Conversion events firing twice
• Tracking disappearing after deployment

These tools generally don't conclude:

"Your 30-day click window inflated ROAS by 18%, causing $250k of overspend."

Instead they highlight measurement inconsistencies. Kickin Xerago TrackFlowPro

2. Attribution platforms

Products like:

• Attribution App
• RedTrack
• EndFrame

allow you to compare:

• first touch
• last touch
• linear
• time decay
• position based

and sometimes custom lookback windows.

These are useful because you can observe things like:

• Facebook loses 40% of credited conversions under a 7-day window.
• Paid Search gains attribution under first-touch.
• Direct traffic is absorbing too much credit.

But they're usually descriptive, not prescriptive. They show differences; they don't automatically identify which configuration is economically optimal. Attribution RedTrack EndFrame

3. MMM and incrementality

This is where "wasted spend" is actually estimated.

Platforms like:

• OptiMine
• Marginal
• Google's Meridian ecosystem

attempt to answer:

Which channels actually caused incremental conversions?

They frequently reveal that attribution settings were over-crediting certain channels, leading to poor budget allocation.

However, they generally conclude things like:

Shift 15% of Meta budget to Search

rather than

Your attribution window is wrong.

The attribution settings are treated as one source of bias among many. Marginal OptiMine arXiv

What's missing in the market

The interesting opportunity is an "Attribution Configuration Auditor."

Imagine software that automatically:

• Crawls Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, GA4
• Reads every conversion action
• Reads: - attribution model
• click window
• view-through window
• primary vs secondary conversions
• bidding strategy
• Compares these against: - sales cycle
• CRM close times
• actual conversion lag distribution
• historical spend
• Simulates alternative configurations
• Estimates:

"Changing from 30-day click to 7-day click would have prevented approximately $180k of spend that optimized toward low-quality late conversions."

That product barely exists today.

Why this is difficult

The software must distinguish between:

• expected differences - Meta uses 7-day click
• Google uses data-driven attribution
• GA4 uses cross-channel attribution

versus

• true misconfigurations - 90-day lookback for impulse purchases
• Last-click attribution on a long B2B buying cycle
• Smart Bidding optimizing toward newsletter signups instead of revenue
• Multiple conversion actions marked as "Primary"
• Bid strategies learning from duplicate purchases

Those require understanding the business context, not just reading settings.

Is there a market?

I think there is a compelling gap between:

• tracking QA (Am I collecting data correctly?)
• attribution (How is credit assigned?)
• MMM (What caused incrementality?)

No major vendor appears to specialize in configuration optimization—automatically identifying suboptimal conversion windows, attribution models, and bidding signals, then estimating the financial impact of correcting them. Existing tools focus on measurement integrity or attribution reporting rather than diagnosing the configuration choices themselves. Kickin Attribution OptiMine

If you're considering building a product in this space, that "configuration intelligence" layer is likely where the differentiation would be.

Yes. There are solutions specifically designed to identify and reduce wasted spend from low-quality Display & Video placements. The key distinction is whether you want simple placement reporting or automated detection + pre-bid blocking.

Strong options

• Google Display & Video 360 + IAS — DV360 can use IAS data to filter inventory before bidding based on brand safety, viewability, fraud, and other media-quality signals. IAS can also identify unrateable inventory. support.google.comsupport.google.com
• Google DV360 + DoubleVerify — lets you target/filter based on viewability, fraud/invalid traffic, brand suitability, and app quality. DV360 specifically supports DoubleVerify's fraud and invalid-traffic targeting. support.google.comsupport.google.com
• Pixalate — particularly interesting if your waste includes mobile apps, CTV/OTT, and sophisticated invalid traffic. It offers pre-bid blocking plus post-bid analytics across display, video, in-app and OTT. www.pixalate.com
• Google Ads native controls — if you're running directly in Google Ads rather than DV360, you can exclude individual sites, apps, videos, categories, etc., and maintain placement-exclusion lists. Google also supports scheduled uploads of exclusion lists. support.google.com

If your goal is specifically "find the waste for me"

I'd look for a system that scores each placement on something like:

Spend → impressions → viewability → IVT/fraud → CTR → conversions → CPA/ROAS → placement/app/site quality

Then automatically flags things such as:

$18,400 spent on 327 placements with zero conversions and below-20% viewability

or

$7,200 spent on mobile apps with unusually high CTR but negligible downstream engagement — likely low-quality traffic

That's more useful than a traditional brand-safety tool because it identifies performance waste, not just unsafe content.

For a programmatic setup, DV360 + IAS/DoubleVerify is probably the most mature route. If you're dealing heavily with CTV, mobile apps, or fraud, I'd also evaluate Pixalate.

If you tell me whether you're running Google Ads, DV360, The Trade Desk, or another DSP, I can narrow this down to the best 3–5 solutions and explain which ones actually automate the waste detection rather than just provide reports.

Yes. If your specific problem is “we’re paying a lot for clicks, but certain landing pages produce few or zero conversions,” there are a few tools that are much better suited than generic analytics dashboards.

Best fit: Optmyzr

Optmyzr is probably the closest match to what you're describing.

Its Landing Page Analysis specifically identifies landing pages with high click volume/spend but low conversion rates and categorizes them as “Expensive.” That lets you go from:

Campaign → keyword/search term → landing page → spend → conversions

and identify where the money is leaking. Optmyzr Help Center

It also has automated strategies for finding keywords with lots of clicks but no conversions, expensive ad groups, placements, locations, and other sources of wasted spend. Optmyzr Help Center Optmyzr Help Center

optmyzr.com

Other useful options

• Google Ads + GA4 — Best if you want a lower-cost/native approach. GA4's attribution reports can show the paths users take before converting, while Google Ads gives you the actual click and cost data. Google Help Google Help
• Looker Studio — Good for building a custom “wasted spend by landing page” dashboard. You can calculate things like spend / conversions, CPC, conversion rate, and spend on zero-conversion pages.
• Microsoft Clarity — Useful as a second layer: once you've found an expensive landing page, session recordings/heatmaps can help explain why visitors aren't converting.
• VWO / Hotjar-style CRO tools — Better when the question becomes “what is wrong with this page?” rather than “where is my ad spend being wasted?”

What I'd actually use

For a serious PPC account, I'd combine:

Google Ads → Optmyzr → GA4 → Clarity

The key report I'd want is something like:

Then flag pages where spend is substantial relative to your acceptable CPA but conversions are below the statistically reasonable expectation.

One important caveat: don't automatically label every zero-conversion page as wasted spend. Conversion lag and attribution can make today's expensive clicks look unprofitable temporarily, and tracking problems can also create apparent zero-conversion pages. Google specifically notes that landing-page tracking, redirects, GCLID handling, and delayed conversions can cause discrepancies. Google Help Optmyzr Google Ads Optimization

If you tell me whether you're running Google Ads, Meta, Microsoft, or multiple channels—and roughly how much you spend per month—I can narrow this down to the 2–3 tools I'd actually pay for and explain exactly how I'd configure the waste detection.

If you’re trying to find paid clicks that are expensive but produce no conversions — especially by landing page — you’ll want tools that connect ad spend → keyword/ad/campaign → landing page → conversion outcome rather than just traffic analytics.

Good options:

A few more specialized tools focus specifically on waste detection:

• Lunio — useful if part of the problem is fake/low-quality clicks. It analyzes invalid traffic sources and helps identify wasted paid media spend. www.lunio.ai
• AdWasteFix — designed around finding budget leaks, including poor-performing URLs and funnel drop-offs. www.adwastefix.com
• AskAnalytics — focuses on recording paid sessions and identifying why individual ad clicks fail (bounce, broken forms, abandonment, etc.). www.askanalytics.io
• ClickCatalyst — focuses on surfacing wasted Google Ads spend such as keywords or placements spending without conversions. clickcatalyst.digital

A practical stack I’d use:

1. Google Ads + GA4 → find:
   • high CPC keywords
   • landing pages with spend
   • conversions = 0
   • poor conversion rate

2. Hotjar or Microsoft Clarity → answer:
   • Are visitors confused?
   • Is the CTA weak?
   • Is the page slow?
   • Are forms breaking?

3. Attribution tool (Hyros/Kissmetrics/Mixpanel depending on business type) → confirm:
   • which campaigns actually create revenue, not just clicks or leads.

The key report you want to build is something like:

Landing page | Ad spend | Clicks | Avg CPC | Conversions | CPA | Conversion rate | Action

Then sort by:

• highest spend
• zero conversions
• highest CPC
• worst conversion rate

That usually exposes the biggest leaks quickly.