Straight answers for local service businesses
Your ads show up on random apps and websites because Google Ads opts you into two extra networks by default: search partners (other search sites that use Google's results) and the display network (millions of websites, YouTube videos, and phone apps). Neither one is a person typing "water heater repair near me" into Google. You can see exactly what each network costs you by segmenting your campaign report by network, and you can turn both off in campaign settings in about two minutes.
You pull up your Google Ads report and see clicks from a crossword app. Or a lyrics site. Or something called "topsearchresults-dot-whatever." You never picked those. Nobody searched for a plumber on a crossword app.
Here's what's actually happening, and how to shut it off if you want to.
Because Google Ads has three different places it can put your ad, and by default you're in more than one of them:
When you build a search campaign, the google search partners display network settings are tucked under "Networks" in campaign settings, and search partners is checked for you. On some campaign types, display is too. You scrolled past it. Everyone does.
Search partners are third-party sites that run Google's search ads alongside their own results. Google doesn't publish the full list, and you can't pick and choose which partners you appear on. It's all or nothing.
Sometimes it's fine. A landscaper might pick up a cheap click from a regional directory that uses Google site search. Sometimes it's garbage: parked domains, aggregator pages, and sites built to generate clicks rather than customers.
The tell is almost always the same. Search partner clicks cost less per click, convert worse, and the phone doesn't ring.
That's the display network, and specifically mobile app inventory. Your ad becomes a banner at the bottom of someone's screen while they're playing a match-three game.
Those clicks are almost never intentional. Someone's thumb hits the banner while they're trying to hit "next level." You pay. They bounce in two seconds. Your bounce rate goes up, your cost per lead goes up, and you have nothing to show for it.
Display has a real use. Remarketing to people who already visited your site works. Branding for a big HVAC company with a big budget works. Cold display to strangers in a puzzle game, for a one-truck operation, does not.
Don't guess. Pull the number.
Now every campaign splits into rows: Google search, Search partners, Display Network. Set the date range to the last 90 days and look at three columns: cost, conversions, and cost per conversion.
If search partners spent $400 and produced one call, you have your answer. If it spent $400 and produced six calls at a lower cost than Google search, leave it alone. That happens occasionally, mostly for trades with less competitive keywords.
For display, go deeper. In your campaign, open Content, then Where ads showed. You'll get the actual list of apps and sites. It's usually an eye-opener.
Two minutes, per campaign:
Nothing breaks. Your ads keep running on Google search. You can turn them back on any time.
If you want to keep display but kill the app junk, add placement exclusions instead. Go to Content, then Exclusions, and exclude mobile app categories (Games is the big one). You can also add adsenseformobileapps.com as an excluded placement, which knocks out the broad app inventory in one line.
This is the honest part. Performance Max does not give you a clean switch to say "search only." It spends across search, display, YouTube, Gmail, Maps, and Discover, and Google decides the mix.
You can add account-level placement exclusions and brand exclusions, and you should. But you cannot carve display out of Performance Max the way you can in a search campaign. If you're a local service business with a modest budget and you want every dollar on high-intent searches, a plain search campaign gives you control that Performance Max doesn't.
Run a clean comparison. Turn off search partners, change nothing else, and wait 30 days. Then look at:
Most local accounts see spend drop and cost per lead improve. Some see total leads dip slightly because they were getting a few real ones from partners. If that's you, flip it back on. You'll have made the call with your own data instead of Google's default.
Search partners and display are the same category of problem as broad match keywords and auto-applied recommendations. Google's defaults are built to spend your full budget. They're not built to spend it on the people most likely to hire you.
That's not a conspiracy. It's just a platform optimizing for volume while you optimize for booked jobs. Those two goals overlap most of the time, and diverge exactly where your money leaks.
Spend ten minutes a month in the network segment and the placements report. It's the cheapest audit in your whole marketing budget.
Usually not in any meaningful way, because search partner traffic tends to convert poorly for local service businesses. Turn it off for 30 days, compare conversions and cost per lead, and turn it back on if your numbers actually got worse.
No. Google does not publish the full partner list and does not let you include or exclude individual partners. It's a single on/off checkbox for the entire network.
Yes, your negative keyword lists apply to search partner traffic too. But search queries on partner sites are often messier and less visible in your search terms report, so negatives won't clean it up as thoroughly as they do on Google search.
Remarketing is the one solid use case: showing ads to people who already visited your site. Cold display targeting strangers who were never looking for a plumber or electrician rarely pays for itself on a small local budget.
That's the signature of accidental app clicks. Someone tapped a banner inside a game or app by mistake and immediately left. Exclude mobile app categories and the adsenseformobileapps.com placement to cut most of it.
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