Why your Google Ads leads are rubbish (and how to fix it)

Lead volume is the easiest metric to game and the most misleading. Loosen your targeting and the leads pour in, cheaper than ever. The problem is what is in them. More is not better when more means more rubbish to wade through.

Google optimises for whatever you tell it is a win

This is the root of it. Google’s bidding chases conversions. If every form fill counts as a conversion, the algorithm learns to find you form fills, and it does not care whether they close. Feed it undifferentiated leads and it will faithfully bring you more of the same, including every freebie-hunter and wrong-fit enquiry.

So the fix is not really about keywords. It is about teaching Google what a good lead looks like.

Feed quality back into the account

The single biggest lever is offline conversion tracking. Connect your CRM so that when a lead becomes a quote, then a customer, that outcome flows back to Google Ads. Now the algorithm can tell the difference between a form fill and a paying client, and it starts bidding for the latter.

If a full CRM link is a step too far for now, even a rough version helps: mark your good leads, give different conversion values to a booked call versus a brochure request, and stop counting low-value actions as conversions at all.

Tighten the front door

While the data side does the heavy lifting, a few account moves cut the rubbish at source:

• Negatives, relentlessly. Build the negative list that keeps the researchers and job-seekers out: free, cheap, DIY, jobs, salary, how to. Add to it every week.
• Match intent, not just keywords. Bid up the searches that signal a buyer ready to act, and pull back on the vague, top-of-funnel terms.
• Qualify on the landing page. A form that asks a qualifying question or two will deter the tyre-kickers and cost you almost no real leads.
• Pre-frame in the ad. Spell out who you are for. If you only take jobs over a certain size, say so, and the wrong people self-select out.

Fewer, better leads is the goal

Counterintuitively, a healthy lead-gen account often shows fewer leads at a higher cost per lead after this work, and more revenue. That is the point. You are paying for enquiries that close, not a busy inbox. Volume flatters the dashboard. Quality pays the wages.

If your leads are up but the quality is down, the account is almost certainly optimising for the wrong signal. We can show you where in the Free Audit, and it is worth reading what a good cost per lead actually looks like once quality is in the picture.