Google Ads Management That Lowers Your Cost Per Lead

Cost per lead looks excellent in the report and sales has stopped bothering to call them. Usually a mix of broad match with no negatives, a form asking for nothing beyond a name and number, and bidding optimised for form fills rather than for anything that resembles revenue.

Tighten match types, build the negative list from the search terms report, add one qualifying question that a casual browser will not answer, and where the CRM allows it feed qualified-lead status back into Google so the bidding optimises on the outcome instead of the form.

Same campaigns, same budget, noticeably fewer clicks. Usually a new competitor bidding hard, seasonal auction pressure, or a match-type change that widened reach without anyone intending it.

Check the auction insights before changing anything. If it is genuine competitive pressure, the answer is rarely to outbid — it is to improve the landing page and ad relevance so the same position costs less, and to concede the terms where the economics no longer work.

Somebody notices you are buying clicks from people typing your company name — traffic you would arguably get for nothing.

Often worth keeping, but not automatically. If competitors bid on your name, brand terms are cheap defence. If nobody does and you own the organic result outright, we will test pausing and watch total enquiries rather than paid ones.

One campaign absorbing most of the budget, with limited visibility into placements, search terms or which asset group is doing the work.

Separate brand from non-brand so the reported performance is not simply your own name repackaged, use account-level and campaign-level exclusions properly, and keep a conventional search campaign running alongside as a control.