COST PER LEAD REDUCTION

Same Budget. More Leads. Shut Down the Black Box First.

Smart campaigns, broad match, and Performance Max are consuming US ad budgets with minimal transparency and inconsistent lead quality. We audit every spend line, remove what is not converting, and rebuild account structure so your budget works for qualified leads — not Google's automated systems.

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/ This is for you if

Is this you?

The Business Running Performance Max With No Visibility Into Where Spend Goes

The Business Whose Smart Campaigns Were "Set and Forgotten"

The Business Spending $5,000–$50,000/Month With Flat or Worsening Returns

/ What's broken

Here's what's blocking your growth

Performance Max Is a Black Box Eating Your Budget

Performance Max campaigns do not provide keyword-level, placement-level, or channel-level conversion reporting. Google decides where to spend. In high-spend US accounts, Performance Max frequently allocates the majority of budget to Display and YouTube — channels with low commercial intent for most lead generation verticals — because those placements have lower CPCs and Google's algorithm interprets cheaper clicks as efficiency. The result is high spend, high impressions, and qualified lead volume driven almost entirely by Search inventory that represents a fraction of total budget.

Broad Match Is Running Across the Account Without Controls

Google defaults new keywords to broad match and actively encourages advertisers to use it exclusively. In US accounts without a structured negative keyword strategy, broad match on keywords like "business insurance quotes" triggers searches for "how does business insurance work," "small business loan requirements," and "what is liability coverage." These queries cost real money. They do not produce qualified leads.

Smart Campaigns Provide No Meaningful Controls

Smart campaigns manage keywords, bids, ad copy, and targeting automatically. For advertisers who need qualified leads — not clicks or phone calls from unqualified users — Smart campaigns cannot be sufficiently controlled to produce consistent CPL results. They cannot be structured with tight match types, granular negative keywords, or placement exclusions. The only way to fix a Smart campaign CPL problem is to migrate to standard campaigns.

Conversion Tracking Is Measuring the Wrong Events

US accounts commonly track phone call clicks, page views, and session duration as conversion events alongside genuine lead form submissions. When these low-intent events are included in the conversion count, the bid algorithm optimises for cheap interactions rather than actual leads. The result is a CPL figure in Google Ads that looks acceptable, and a cost per qualified lead in the CRM that is two to three times higher.

/ What we engineer

What's included

Each workstream is built by the team that audits it, and wired into the rest of your growth system.

Waste Audit — Performance Max, Smart Campaigns, Keywords, and Conversion Tracking

We pull 90 days of account data. For Performance Max campaigns, we extract all available asset group, channel, and audience signal data to identify budget distribution across inventory types. For Smart campaigns, we document budget, conversion volume, and lead quality data. For standard campaigns, we cross-reference keywords and placements against conversion records. Conversion tracking events are reviewed against CRM lead data. The full audit is delivered as a working document before implementation begins.

Performance Max and Smart Campaign Restructure Plan

We produce a specific restructure plan for moving Performance Max and Smart Campaign budget into standard Search campaigns with controlled match types, negative keywords, and audience targeting. This is not a theoretical recommendation — it includes a migration sequence, timeline, and budget reallocation that protects lead volume through the transition.

Negative Keyword Expansion (300+ Terms)

We build a negative keyword list from your search term report, your vertical's known irrelevant query categories, and competitor research. For US accounts, this typically includes informational queries, competitor navigational terms, geographic terms outside your service area, and industry-adjacent searches with no purchase intent. The list is segmented by campaign type and documented for ongoing expansion.

Placement Exclusions and Channel Budget Controls

For any Display, YouTube, or Discovery inventory remaining after the restructure, we apply placement-level exclusions based on conversion history and implement channel-level budget controls to prevent algorithmic over-allocation to low-intent inventory. Mobile app placements are excluded by default.

Conversion Tracking Correction and Bid Strategy Alignment

We audit every conversion event in your account against your CRM's qualified lead definition. Low-intent events are removed from the primary conversion set or recategorised as secondary conversions for observation only. Once conversion tracking reflects genuine qualified leads, we align bid strategy — Target CPA or Maximise Conversions — to the corrected conversion data.

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/ What changes

What changes

Before
After
BeforeBudget runs through automated black boxes — Performance Max and Smart Campaigns — where you cannot see where each dollar goes.
AfterAfter Performance Max and Smart Campaign restructure, the majority of your budget runs in standard Search campaigns where you control match types, placements, bids, and negative keywords. You can see exactly where every dollar goes and why.
BeforeThe CPL reported in Google Ads is commonly two to three times lower than the actual cost of acquiring a qualified lead in your CRM.
AfterAfter conversion tracking correction, the CPL you see in Google Ads reflects the cost of acquiring a lead that enters your CRM as qualified. The gap between reported CPL and actual CPL — which is commonly two to three times — closes. You make budget and bid decisions on accurate data.
BeforeBroad match has been consuming budget on irrelevant queries since the account launched, with no negative keyword strategy to stop it.
AfterAfter negative keyword expansion and match type restructure, the search terms triggering your ads align with buyer intent. The irrelevant queries that have been consuming budget since the account launched stop appearing in your search term report. Budget previously spent on non-converting queries redirects to high-intent terms.
BeforeThe account depends on Google's automation to allocate budget, leaving you unable to see what is working or why.
AfterA restructured account can be reviewed, improved, and scaled by anyone with access to it. You are no longer dependent on Google's automation to manage budget allocation. You can see what is working, what is not, and why — and make decisions accordingly.

/ Common questions

Questions

Straight answers on scope, timelines and cost. Anything else, ask us directly.

Ask us directly
Is Performance Max actually bad, or is the problem how it is configured?

Performance Max is designed to optimise for conversion volume across all Google inventory, and it can produce leads — but it does so at the cost of transparency and control. For businesses where lead quality matters as much as volume, the lack of keyword-level, placement-level, and channel-level reporting makes it very difficult to identify what is working and what is wasting budget. The problem is structural: Performance Max cannot be controlled tightly enough for most lead generation use cases without significant asset group segmentation and negative keyword lists, which Google has only partially made available.

What happens to lead volume when we move away from Smart campaigns?

Smart campaign lead volume typically includes a significant proportion of low-quality leads — phone calls from unqualified users, form submissions outside the target geography, or contacts who do not match the buyer profile. When these are removed through standard campaign structure and tighter targeting, total lead count decreases while qualified lead count holds steady or improves. The CPL metric that matters — cost per lead that enters your sales process — improves.

How long does a Performance Max to standard campaign migration take?

The migration sequence typically runs over two to three weeks to avoid a sharp volume drop during the transition. We do not cut Performance Max immediately — we build standard campaigns, establish a baseline, then reduce Performance Max budget as standard campaign performance stabilises. The migration timeline is included in the restructure plan delivered in Step 2.

Can we keep some broad match keywords after the audit?

Broad match keywords can be effective in accounts with robust negative keyword lists, accurate conversion tracking, and sufficient conversion volume for smart bidding to function correctly. The audit identifies which broad match keywords are producing qualified leads and which are generating irrelevant traffic. Broad match is not removed categorically — it is evaluated keyword by keyword against the data.

What do you need from our CRM to do the conversion tracking audit?

We need a data export showing lead source, lead status (qualified vs. disqualified), and lead creation date for the past 90 days. This lets us compare what Google Ads is recording as conversions against the leads that actually entered your qualified pipeline. If your CRM does not track lead source at this level, we will work with whatever attribution data is available and document the gap as part of the audit findings.

/ Our team

The people behind the work.

Not a black box. Real specialists you can call, with their names on the work.

About us
Hawrry Bhattarai

Hawrry Bhattarai

Google Ads Expert

LinkedIn

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Find Out What Your US Ad Budget Is Actually Buying

The CPL Reduction Audit identifies every dollar going to Performance Max black box spend, Smart campaign waste, broad match irrelevant queries, and misconfigured conversion tracking. It takes two days to produce, requires account access and a basic CRM export, and delivers a complete picture of where your budget is going before any changes are made. There is no obligation beyond the audit.

We confirm receipt within one business day and send account access instructions to begin.
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