Paid advertising case study · 6 February to 6 March 2023
2.41K enquiries at £19.21 each for a service business
The account had cheap clicks and almost no enquiries worth answering. It was rebuilt around the searches the business could actually serve.
£19.21
cost per conversion
£0.57
average cost per click
£46.3K
spend managed
Measured over
6 February to 6 March 2023
What to notice
The Google Ads overview for the month: 2.41K conversions at £19.21 each from £46.3K of spend, with an average cost per click of £0.57. Conversions here are enquiries, so the cost per conversion is the cost of an enquiry.
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Who the business is
A service business running Google Ads for enquiries. The owner asked not to be named, so the account is described by its numbers.
Why marketing mattered
Cheap clicks that never become enquiries are the most expensive kind. The measure of a lead generation account is the cost of an enquiry the business can act on.
- Service
- Paid advertising
- Sector
- Google Ads, lead generation
- Period measured
- 6 February to 6 March 2023
- Figures from
- Screenshot of the Google Ads account
What was not working
The problem
Volume was there and quality was not. The account was buying clicks at a low average cost and converting almost none of them into enquiries worth answering.
- Volume was there and quality was not.
- Clicks were cheap, and almost none became an enquiry worth answering.
- The account was built around what was cheap rather than what the business could serve.
Where things stood before the work began
The account had the volume of clicks a healthy account shows and none of the enquiries. The deck records the starting position in those terms rather than as a cost per enquiry.
What we found, and why we started there
The thinking
The cheap clicks were cheap because they were on searches the business could not serve, and a click from somebody the business cannot help never becomes an enquiry. The account was rebuilt from the searches outward: what can this business actually do, which searches say that, and what will it cost to be there.
How we did it, step by step
- 1
The account restructured around servable searches
Campaigns rebuilt from the services the business delivers, so a click was from somebody it could help.
- 2
Enquiries counted as the conversion
The account is judged on cost per enquiry rather than cost per click, which is the figure printed beside the result.
What the numbers show
The result
2.41K
conversions
2.41K conversions at £19.21 each from £46.3K of spend, with an average cost per click of £0.57. Restructured around the searches that could actually be served.
From the work to the outcome
- Searches the business can serve
- £0.57 average click
- 2.41K enquiries
- £19.21 per enquiry
How to read this, and what it does not prove
Twenty-nine days, 6 February to 6 March 2023, from the account itself. Conversions are enquiries rather than customers, so read the £19.21 as the cost of an enquiry the business can act on.
Conversions here are enquiries, not customers. Cost per conversion at this level is only meaningful next to a close rate and a customer value, neither of which is published. Volume at a low cost per lead is easy to produce badly, so read this alongside the note that the account was restructured around servable searches rather than cheap clicks.
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What you can take from this
Start from what you can serve, not from what is cheap
A campaign built from the cheapest clicks fills the inbox with people the business cannot help.
Judge the account on enquiries
Cost per click is a means. Cost per enquiry is the number that says whether the money is working.
Volume and quality are not opposites
Rebuilt around the right searches, the account kept its volume and the enquiries became ones worth answering.