Google Ads is a powerful avenue for businesses to attract leads and drive conversions. Ensuring the quality of leads is essential for campaign success. When discrepancies arise between data metrics and actual conversions, it prompts the question: how can marketers ensure data integrity and lead authenticity?
In this article, we explore challenges faced at Salt & Fuessel regarding lead quality in Google Ads campaigns, offer insights into why it happens, and solutions for rectifying it.
The problem of inaccurate Google Ads lead data
When a client invests marketing dollars into getting leads through Google ads, they want certainty they’ll see accurate data and ultimately, receive quality leads. The last thing they want to do is spend money on tactics that don't lead to conversions.
So, when positive results appear in the data, but the real-life leads and conversions don’t match up, they’re going to ask questions. Firstly, they’ll want to know why the data is misleading, and secondly, what can be done to ensure results improve.
This is where marketers need to be doubly sure their data tracking is correct, and that they are reporting back on genuine clicks and leads. But the problem is, it can be difficult to know what the real leads are just by looking at the data alone. In some cases, the data might look positive, but in reality, results are less than satisfactory.
In this article, we’d like to highlight recent challenges we’ve encountered at Salt & Fuessel in regards to mismatches between the number of leads the data shows us, and resulting conversions. Let’s run you through what’s been happening, what we discovered as to possible causes, and ways we are combating the issue.
What’s going wrong…
Let’s run through a couple of real client examples from the past 6-12 months, where we’ve uncovered unusual discrepancies between what appear to be positive results, and actual leads.
Client 1:
For this client, data showed that our campaign resulted in 39 conversions, spread between quote requests, emails, and largely, calls. These data appeared positive, however the client reported back that these leads were actually of very poor quality. In the first weeks of December, they should have received 38 calls (according to the data), however they only received 10. In addition, some of the quote requests looked suspicious, and potentially, fake. All up, the results weren’t meaningful.
Client 2:
For another client, we had apparently very positive results, with 142 conversions driven off a Performance Max (P Max) campaign. However it turned out that the vast majority of these conversions were click-to-call clicks, and what looked like 140 leads delivered, was actually only 10 real-life leads for the client.
With these, and other clients, we were left wondering what was going on. Why was Google reporting such a high number of leads, yet the client wasn’t actually receiving them?
Our first step in working out what was happening was to check we’d set up our tracking integrations correctly. Once we’d completed that step, we checked we weren’t double counting conversions. Everything seemed in order on those fronts, so we were still wondering why the data was skewed.
What we discovered
Through further external research, we discovered that there are a number of issues arising with how Google is optimising and how this affects the data we ultimately receive. Two major issues are:
Error clicks
On P Max, you can receive a lot of error clicks that tick off your goals, when in fact they aren’t the clicks you’re seeking. An example is if your ad appears after a Youtube roll, and you have a one-click, click-to-call button. There’s a chance that other demographics are clicking the call link inadvertently. Google then optimises around these clicks, which are in essence, error clicks, and therefore aren’t providing useful data.
False clicks
Click Farms may be to blame for changing the data. What is a click farm? It’s basically a setup where artificial clicks are generated in order to stimulate favourable ‘results’. Whether the click farm uses an automatic set up, or real humans to do it, they traverse websites and forms to generate artificial views, clicks, likes, or shares to falsely inflate the perceived popularity of, or engagement with, the content. The goal, amongst other things, may be to manipulate search engine rankings, enhance social media presence, or deceive advertisers into believing the value of results.
With an online enquiry form, for example, a click farm worker will fill or click through the required fields to submit a form, but no actual business is generated from this. They may be completing hundreds of such forms per day for hundreds of businesses, but they’re not real customers, and therefore, aren't adding value.
How to improve tracking to get genuine results
Regardless of the cause, as digital marketers, we need to find solutions to these problems so that future campaigns don’t suffer. So if you're having poor quality results with some of your Google Ads leads, consider trying these solutions. These fixes pertain to issues that arise in Click-to-call and Forms – two major areas that drive conversions.
Click-to-call tracking
If you want to reduce error clicks, you can try having a dynamic call number that tracks the Google Click Identifier (GCLID) [the code that passes across information from the click]. Unlike a static phone number, a dynamic phone number changes based on conditions or criteria that you select, and this provides a useful way to quantify the effectiveness of individual campaigns. By using Dynamic Number Insertion (DNI), users see a unique phone number depending on variables such as their geographical location, referral source, or the particular advertising campaign they’re engaged with.
In conjunction with this, you can use a CRM or LMS, such as CallTrackingMetrics, to track the calls, and the dynamic call number will show you which ad or location the call came from, which helps identify the real leads. You can also import this information back into Google, which optimises future results. (For information on how to feed this information back to Google Ads, see the instructions in our video [11:55]).
Form tracking
As well as tracking calls, it’s also important to track forms to identify whether or not they are delivering legitimate leads. For this, you need to also carry through the GCLID, so you can dynamically store that on the URL from the ad. Then this information will be identifiable in the form tracking CRM, and like the click-to-call data, you can feed it back into Google to ensure better optimisation ongoing.
This enhanced tracking of both click-to-call and form leads, whereby you tell Google which the real leads were so that it will optimise around those clicks, is really worth the effort, as it gives much better insight into what tactics are delivering real results.
Reducing error-clicks
There are measures you can take to reduce error clicks on phone numbers. Here are a few suggestions:
Put a non-clickable phone number onto your desktop site.
Few people make a phone call from desktop, so by removing the number, you reduce one avenue for people to click in error. The number is still there should a user need it, it’s just not easily clickable.Introduce a two-click journey for the customer to make the call. For example, if they click on the phone number, a menu pops up with the call option, making it two steps. This reduces the likelihood of error clicks registering as leads.
Set up tracking that only registers certain clicks as conversions, and not others. This way you get clear data on the avenues that leads or conversions are coming from, and you can strategise accordingly.
Overall, you're trying to maximise the quality of the leads being reported.
Reducing false leads on forms:
Another way to reduce false leads from forms is to have longer forms, with more fields to complete. This may seem counterintuitive from a customer experience point of view, as generally you want the customer to do as little work as possible when they’re on your website, and you don’t want them to leave the site prematurely. However, if a form is too easy to click through, the click farms have an easy job.
Typically, an enquiry form will ask a customer to include their name, email, phone number and message. Including additional mandatory fields makes it less likely that the click farms will see the form through to completion, so reduces false leads. So, whilst extra fields are a barrier for customers, you have a better chance of finding leads from people genuinely interested in your product or service, and willing to stay the course through the form.
There are other measures you can take, and more will likely arise as the general Google Ads landscape changes, and as the tactics of click farms change.
In conclusion
Navigating the complexities of Google Ads requires vigilance in ensuring lead quality. Things will likely change, and the measures mentioned above may need to change, or may not be relevant in the future. However by keeping a keen eye out for discrepancies in data, by ensuring regular communication with clients, and refining tracking mechanisms, you can drive meaningful results that should maximise returns on advertising investments.
