Google Ads course ROI: a sheet for your partner

A Google Ads course pays for itself only if, after the lessons, a smaller share of your money goes to search terms that produced no leads. In the accounts I audited from 2023 to 2025, the median advertiser spent 39.4% of tracked search spend on terms that did not produce a single lead. Multiply your monthly budget by that share, then by the part of the waste you will actually remove, and compare the saving with the course price. If 2-3 months of saving do not cover the price, the course does not pay off on that budget. That is the number you show a partner.

39.4% is not a market norm. It describes advertisers who came in for an audit. For a quarter of accounts the share was above 67%. If you already know your own share, use it instead of the median. You get it by dividing spend on search terms with no leads over a period by all search spend over the same period, using the search terms report in your account. Until you have it, 39.4% is a starting figure. Whether to pay for a course at all is a separate decision, and I laid it out in a piece on whether a Google Ads course is worth it. There, the whole waste is multiplied by the months: that is the cost of learning by trial and error. This page adds one more factor, the share you will remove. Without it, the math promises something the course will not do.

Short answer

After 19 years in advertising I keep seeing the same fork. The course is worth calculating when search ads are already spending, or you will start them this month. A plumbing company or a dental practice with a live budget has a real sum to cut. If there is no budget and no launch, there is nothing to save, and the course does not pay off.

The payback formula

The saving over a period is the product of four numbers: monthly search budget, the share of spend on terms with no leads, the share of that waste you will remove, and the number of months. I call the no-lead share waste. The formula measures a saving. It does not promise profit. Google also uses the word ROI when it shifts spend toward days it expects to convert better. That is a pacing choice inside the month. It is not the return on a course.

1. Take the average daily budget of your search campaigns. On the Campaigns page, in the Campaigns menu, it sits in the Budget column. For most campaigns the monthly spending limit is that number times 30.4. Help divides 365 by 12 to get 30.4. A monthly sum is divided the same way. In the help example, $304 a month is an average daily budget of $10.
2. Multiply the monthly limit by the waste share. If you do not have your own figure, use 39.4%.
3. Multiply by the share of waste you will remove after the lessons, for example by adding negative keywords. In the example below that share is a quarter, 25%. Put your own estimate on your sheet. Do not put all of the waste here. A course does not clear every term.
4. Multiply by the number of months you are comparing the course with learning on your own budget.
5. Compare the result with the course price. Take the price from the course page. It is not in this article.

One day is the wrong unit. Google moves spend toward days when clicks and conversions are more likely, or when it expects a higher ROI from the ads. On some days you will not reach the average daily budget. On others the campaign may spend more. For most campaigns the daily spending limit is two times the average daily budget, and by the end of the month the average daily spend matches the budget you set. The monthly cap stays at 30.4 times that budget. If a campaign starts during a calendar month, Google counts only the days it was running. The detail is in the help page on spending limits. The same page’s example runs the other way: an average daily budget of $10 means a daily limit of $20 and a monthly limit of $304.

One exception: a Pay for Conversions campaign has no daily spending limit. The monthly limit remains the average daily budget times 30.4. If a day looks more expensive than two budgets, open the Billed cost report: Report editor in the Campaigns menu, Template gallery, then Billing. In rare cases served cost goes over the limit. Billed cost does not. Google covers the difference. You can change the average daily budget at any time on the Campaigns page and select Save. The path is in the help article on how to set an average daily budget.

An example on three budgets

This is an example, not a report on your account. The figures are in dollars so the arithmetic is easy to read. The shares do not depend on the currency, so replace $300, $1,000, and $3,000 with your own monthly search budget. The $300 row is a small budget, covered below in the section on when the course does not pay off. The waste share is 39.4% in every row. The share removed is a quarter in every row. You will replace both.

The same $1,000 budget at a 67% waste share is $670 of waste a month. A quarter of that is $167.50. The median and “a quarter of accounts” are different sheets. Show your partner the one closer to your account.

A saving becomes cash only when you lower the budget by that amount. If you leave the budget unchanged, the bill from Google may not shrink: the freed money goes to other impressions, and the payback shows up as more leads for the same spend. Tell your partner in advance which of the two you chose.

Cost per click is not in this table. It changes how many clicks a budget buys. It does not replace the share of terms with no leads. I published a separate worked example of what Google Ads costs in Ukraine in 2026. The course formula still uses your monthly limit.

When the course does not pay off

My working rule: if 2-3 months of saving do not cover the course price, the course does not pay off by cutting waste. On the $300 row the saving is $29.55 a month, so compare that with the package price. A small budget is a different article, Google Ads on a small budget. The question there is whether the sum is enough for the ads themselves.

Second case: your waste is already well below 39.4%. There is little left to remove, so the saving stays small even on a large budget. Third: someone puts the entire waste into the formula. The sheet then shows a return that will not happen. Some terms still bring no leads after a cleanup.

Fourth case is Performance Max. The sheet and the 39.4% median count search spend, so for such a campaign this arithmetic does not apply directly. Its budget is a separate matter: help says to set an average daily budget of at least 3 times your CPA or cost/conv. for the conversion actions selected in the campaign. If the budget is below that, the tight spot is the sum, not a module you have not watched. The step is in the help page on setting your budget.

Do not treat a forecast on the Recommendations page as proof the course will pay off. Help says the Recommendations page does not predict whether your ads will do well. If the ads only started showing, there may be no recommendations yet.

How to show the calculation to a partner

One page, five lines. The partner should see numbers, not a pitch about a school.

1. Monthly search spending limit: average daily budget times 30.4.
2. Share of spend on terms with no leads. If you do not have it, use 39.4%.
3. Share of that waste you will remove. This is your assumption, not a promise from the course.
4. Monthly saving: line 1 times line 2 times line 3.
5. Months to the course price: course price divided by line 4.

Take the price from the Magic of Google 5.0 course page. There are three packages, Standard, Pro, and Top. The sheet uses the price of the package you are comparing. That page also says the course cannot guarantee profit. The program has 9 modules, from clean data for the algorithm to one system of search, remarketing, YouTube, and Performance Max, 1 year of access to the lessons, and group question and answer sessions. The format is built for busy people. A year of access only tells you how long you have to apply the lessons in your own account. It does not replace line 5.

If line 5 is longer than the year of lesson access, the sheet says no. If it fits inside 2-3 months, the course pays off quickly by my working rule. If it lands in between, the decision is yours and your partner’s: wait longer than my threshold, or not. In both cases one condition remains: you yourself remove the share on line 3.

The sheet for your partner is above. The step-by-step version is in my book on Google Ads for business owners.

When this does not apply

• There is no ad budget and you will not launch this month. The saving is zero. Start with Skillshop. After you sign up, the help page describes a free library of courses from Google product experts, at your own pace, built on real-world case studies and common business scenarios. That is in the Skillshop training article. Those courses do not open your account.
• The campaign goal is branding, not leads. In the guide to working with third parties, Google says that unless you are focused on branding, the return that matters is new customers. This sheet measures the wrong thing for a brand campaign. The same guide says nobody can guarantee an ad position, because an auction sets it on every search.
• The question is a career change. The sheet counts the owner’s ad money. It does not say whether you will become a specialist. The same guide says advanced advertising takes time, and the basics do not take much time. For control, an owner needs the right to see at least clicks, impressions, and cost.
• Leads are not recorded in the account. Then you do not have a waste share. Do not drop 39.4% into an account with no conversion tracking. You cannot tell a term with no lead from a lead you failed to record. Fix tracking first. The checks I use are on the Google Ads campaign audit checklist.

Questions and answers

What if spend fell after the cleanup, but leads did not grow?

That is the expected result of the formula. Waste means these terms did not produce leads, so they were never going to add any. Leads may grow if you keep the freed money in the budget and it goes to better terms. If leads did not grow on the better terms either, check lead tracking and the site.

When will the course not pay off on my budget?

When 2-3 months of saving do not cover the package price. That happens often on a small budget. It also happens when waste is already low, when a Performance Max budget is below 3 times your cost per conversion, or when leads are not tracked. The course does not promise profit.

How do I explain the decision to a partner on one page?

Five lines: monthly limit, share of terms with no leads, share of waste you will remove, monthly saving, course price divided by that saving. The partner can see where the number of months comes from. If those months run longer than the year of lesson access, the decision “not yet” is already on the page.