When you're running Google Ads, there's one number that's very easy to become obsessed with:
Cost per lead.
Campaign A generates leads for £20 each.
Campaign B generates leads for £40 each.
So Campaign A must be twice as good, right?
🤔 Not necessarily.
Because there's a much more important question:
What happened to those leads after they came in?
If your £20 leads never become customers while your £40 leads regularly turn into profitable business, suddenly the more expensive campaign starts looking very different.
This is why businesses need to look beyond simply generating the cheapest possible leads.
The real goal should be generating the right leads that have a realistic chance of becoming profitable customers. 🎯
📊 The £20 Lead vs the £40 Lead
Let's look at a simple example.
Imagine you're running two Google Ads campaigns.
Campaign A
📩 10 leads
💷 £20 cost per lead
💰 Total advertising cost: £200
❌ 0 customers
Campaign B
📩 5 leads
💷 £40 cost per lead
💰 Total advertising cost: £200
✅ 2 customers
If you only looked at the cost per lead, Campaign A appears to be the winner.
It generated twice as many leads for the same £200 spend.
But which campaign would you actually rather have?
Campaign B.
Because businesses don't survive on form submissions.
They survive on customers and revenue. 💷
🚨 Cost Per Lead Doesn't Tell You Everything
Cost per lead is still an important metric.
If your lead costs suddenly double, that's something worth investigating.
But it shouldn't be viewed in isolation.
Imagine receiving 100 enquiries this month.
That sounds fantastic.
But what if:
❌ 30 are spam
❌ 20 want something you don't offer
❌ 20 can't afford your service
❌ 20 never answer their phone
❌ 8 aren't serious
✅ 2 actually become customers
Suddenly those 100 leads don't sound quite as impressive.
This is why lead quality matters alongside lead quantity.
🔎 What Should You Actually Be Tracking?
Ideally, your measurement shouldn't stop when somebody submits a form.
Think about the customer journey like this:
🔍 Search
Someone searches Google for something related to your product or service.
⬇️
🖱️ Click
They see your advert and visit your website or interact with your ad.
⬇️
📩 Lead
They submit an enquiry, call, or complete another lead action you're tracking.
⬇️
✅ Qualified Lead
You establish that they're genuinely interested and potentially suitable for your business.
⬇️
🤝 Customer
They actually buy.
⬇️
💷 Revenue
You understand how much that customer was worth.
That's much more useful than stopping at:
“We got 37 leads.”
The next question should be:
“How many became customers?”
🎯 Not Every Lead Has the Same Value
This is particularly important for service businesses.
Imagine you're a website design company.
You generate two leads.
Lead A
💷 Cost you £15
❌ Wants a website for £200
❌ Doesn't fit your target customer
❌ Never progresses
Lead B
💷 Cost you £60
✅ Has a realistic budget
✅ Needs exactly what you provide
✅ Becomes a £2,000 customer
Which lead would you rather have?
Obviously Lead B.
Yet if you were judging your advertising purely by cost per lead, you could mistakenly think Lead A was better.
That's why the cheapest lead isn't necessarily the most valuable lead.
🧠 Google Ads Isn't Just About Getting More Leads
There's another trap businesses can fall into.
They tell whoever manages their advertising:
“We need more leads.”
But more isn't always the right goal.
You might actually need:
🎯 Better targeting
🔎 Better search terms
✍️ Better advert messaging
📱 A better landing page
❓ Better qualification questions
📞 Better follow-up
📊 Better conversion tracking
Generating twice as many poor-quality enquiries doesn't necessarily improve your business.
Sometimes fewer, better enquiries can be far more valuable.
🔍 Check What People Are Actually Searching
If you're running Search campaigns, one useful area to review is the search terms that are triggering your adverts.
Your keywords and the searches people actually type into Google aren't always identical.
You may discover you're paying for searches that aren't relevant to your business.
For example, imagine you provide a premium service.
Your ads may be attracting searches containing words such as:
❌ Free
❌ Cheap
❌ DIY
❌ Jobs
❌ Training
Depending on your business, some of these searches might be completely irrelevant.
Appropriate negative keywords can help prevent your ads from appearing for unwanted searches.
⚠️ But be careful.
Don't blindly add negative keywords simply because a search hasn't converted yet.
You don't want to accidentally block relevant potential customers.
📞 What Happens After the Lead Matters Too
This is something advertising reports can easily hide.
Imagine your Google Ads are generating excellent enquiries.
But nobody answers them for two days.
Or the sales team calls once, gets no answer and never follows up.
Or the customer completes the form and receives no clear confirmation about what happens next.
The advertising might not be the main problem.
Your follow-up process could be.
That's why businesses should look at the whole system:
📢 Advertising → 📩 Enquiry → 📞 Follow-up → 🤝 Sale
Advertising doesn't operate in isolation.
⏱️ How Quickly Are You Responding?
Think about the customer.
They've just searched for a service.
They've found your business.
They've submitted an enquiry.
They're interested right now.
But they may also have contacted two or three competitors.
If your business doesn't respond efficiently, that opportunity can disappear.
Make sure you have a clear process for:
📲 New enquiries
📞 Missed calls
📧 Emails
💬 WhatsApp messages
🔁 Follow-ups
Getting the lead is only the beginning.
🌐 Your Landing Page Can Affect Lead Quality
Your Google Ad makes a promise.
The page someone lands on should continue that conversation.
If your advert promotes:
“Commercial Air Conditioning Installation”
but sends visitors to a generic homepage covering ten different services, you're potentially making the visitor work unnecessarily hard.
A relevant landing page can clearly explain:
✅ The service
✅ Who it's for
✅ The problem you solve
✅ Your credibility
✅ Reviews or evidence
✅ Frequently asked questions
✅ The next step
The objective isn't simply getting someone to click.
It's helping the right person decide whether you're the right business for them.
📝 Your Form Can Help With Qualification
Your enquiry form also matters.
Previously, we've talked about keeping forms easy to complete — and that's still important.
But there's a balance.
Too many unnecessary questions can create friction.
Too few questions can sometimes leave your sales team without enough information.
For example, depending on the service, you might genuinely need to know:
📍 Location
🛠️ Service required
📅 Timescale
💷 Budget range
📞 Preferred contact method
Only ask for information that's useful at that stage.
The goal isn't:
“Make the longest form possible.”
Nor is it:
“Make the shortest form possible.”
It's:
Make the enquiry process easy while collecting the information your business genuinely needs.
📈 Track More Than Form Submissions
If your business has the right systems and tracking in place, you can build a much clearer picture of what your advertising is producing.
Instead of:
Google Ads → 50 Leads 🎉
you want to understand something closer to:
Google Ads
⬇️
📩 50 leads
⬇️
✅ 25 qualified leads
⬇️
🤝 10 customers
⬇️
💷 £X revenue
Now you have information that can actually help you make better advertising decisions.
💡 A Cheap Lead Can Become Expensive
Here's the interesting part.
A lead that initially looks cheap can become extremely expensive if hardly any of those leads turn into customers.
Let's use another simple example.
Campaign A
100 leads × £10 = £1,000 ad spend
Only 2 become customers.
Your advertising cost per acquired customer is effectively:
£500
Now Campaign B:
25 leads × £20 = £500 ad spend
5 become customers.
Advertising cost per acquired customer:
£100
Campaign B's leads cost twice as much.
But its customer acquisition result is dramatically better in this simplified example.
💡 This is why context matters.
💷 Go Beyond Leads and Think About Revenue
For many businesses, the ultimate question is not:
“How many leads did Google Ads generate?”
It's:
“What did we spend, and what business did that advertising help generate?”
That doesn't mean every customer journey is perfectly trackable.
Customers can:
📞 Call later
💻 Return through another channel
📱 See your social media
⭐ Read your reviews
🔍 Search your brand again
🤝 Speak to your sales team before buying
Marketing attribution isn't always perfectly clean.
But the closer you can connect advertising activity with actual business outcomes, the better your decisions can become.
🚫 Don't Automatically Pause an Ad Because Its Leads Cost More
This is another reason to be careful when optimising campaigns.
Imagine:
Ad A: £22 per lead
Ad B: £38 per lead
It can be tempting to immediately pause Ad B.
But first investigate.
Maybe Ad B's enquiries:
⭐ Have bigger budgets
⭐ Close more frequently
⭐ Buy higher-value services
⭐ Stay customers longer
If so, paying more to acquire those leads could make commercial sense.
Cheap doesn't automatically mean good.
And expensive doesn't automatically mean bad.
📊 Build a Better Google Ads Scorecard
Instead of watching one number, consider the wider picture.
Depending on your business and tracking setup, useful measures might include:
🖱️ Clicks
💷 Cost per click
📩 Conversions
💰 Cost per conversion
📞 Calls
✅ Qualified leads
🤝 Customers
💷 Customer acquisition cost
📈 Revenue
🔁 Repeat business
You don't need to become obsessed with every metric.
The point is to connect your advertising with the outcomes your business actually cares about.
⚠️ Make Sure Your Conversion Tracking Is Correct
There's little point optimising towards conversions if the wrong actions are being counted.
Businesses should periodically check what their Google Ads campaigns are actually treating as meaningful conversions.
For example, you don't want to believe you've generated 100 genuine enquiries if the tracking setup is actually counting less meaningful actions in a way that inflates your results.
Tracking needs to reflect your real business goals as closely as practical.
📊 Better data can lead to better decisions.
🧮 Do This Simple Google Ads Check
Next time you review your campaign, don't stop at:
How many leads did we get?
Ask:
📩 How many leads did we receive?
✅ How many were genuinely qualified?
📞 How many did we successfully contact?
🤝 How many became customers?
💷 How much revenue did those customers generate?
❌ Why were the unsuccessful leads unsuitable?
That final question can be particularly valuable.
If your sales team repeatedly says:
“These people are looking for something we don't provide.”
that may tell you something about your targeting, keywords, search terms, advert or landing page.
🚀 The Goal Isn't Cheap Leads. It's Profitable Growth.
Google Ads can be incredibly powerful because you're able to reach people who are actively searching for products and services.
But don't let one attractive metric distract you from the bigger picture.
A campaign generating loads of cheap enquiries might look fantastic on a report.
But your bank account doesn't care how impressive the report looks.
Your business needs customers.
So follow the journey:
🔎 Search → 🖱️ Click → 📩 Lead → ✅ Qualified Lead → 🤝 Customer → 💷 Revenue
Then make your decisions using the information that actually matters to your business.
📣 Need Help With Your Google Ads?
At Page Crowd, we help businesses manage their Google Ads with a focus on generating meaningful results rather than simply chasing impressive-looking numbers.
We can also help connect your advertising with your website, social media and wider digital marketing strategy so potential customers have a consistent journey from discovering your business to making an enquiry.
📲 Want help with your Google Ads? Contact Page Crowd today.
🔥 Remember:
The cheapest lead isn't the goal. Profitable customers are.
