Most Google Ads accounts we audit have the same problem.
The conversion tracking is set up. The campaigns are running. The reports show leads coming in. But the client is frustrated because the business isn't actually growing.
When we dig into why, it's almost always the same thing.
They're optimising for the wrong outcome.
Here's how it happens.
You set up Google Ads. Your agency or your developer adds conversion tracking for form fills. Seems reasonable. Someone fills out a form, that's a lead, that counts as a conversion.
Google's algorithm sees those conversions and starts finding more people like the ones who filled out forms. It gets better at it over time. Your cost per lead comes down. Everyone looks at the numbers and thinks it's working.
But what if only one in ten of those form fills actually turns into a customer?
The algorithm doesn't know that. It's doing exactly what you told it to do. Getting you form fills. And it's getting very good at finding people who fill out forms and never buy anything.
You're not paying for bad leads because your targeting is wrong. You're paying for bad leads because you taught the algorithm that bad leads are the goal.
We see this constantly with new clients.
One client came to us spending a healthy monthly budget on Google Ads with a solid volume of leads coming in each month. Close rate was sitting around 8%. They thought the ads weren't working.
The ads were working fine. The problem was that Google was optimising for enquiries from people who were browsing, comparing, not ready to buy. The people who actually became customers looked completely different.
The fix wasn't better ad copy or smarter bidding. It was connecting their CRM data so Google could see which leads turned into revenue, and optimise toward those instead.
Three months later the lead volume dropped slightly. The close rate more than doubled. Revenue went up.
This is the shift most businesses haven't made yet.
Your conversion tracking is now your targeting strategy. Whatever outcome you tell Google to optimise for, it will find more of that. So the question to ask isn't "are we getting leads." It's "are the leads we're getting turning into customers."
If you're running Google Ads and you're not sure whether you're tracking the right thing, that's worth looking at before you spend another dollar increasing your budget.
We cover exactly this in our Google Ads Management service. Or if you want to understand whether Google Ads even makes sense for your business right now compared to SEO, the Google Ads vs SEO Cost Calculator is a good place to start.
Tom Galland is the Managing Director of SEO Growth, a Sydney-based SEO and Google Ads agency. If someone forwarded this to you, subscribe here.
