Google counted dozens of conversions for every real enquiry.

On the platform the numbers were excellent: hundreds of conversions a month, a negligible cost per conversion, a reported conversion rate in double digits.

The sales team, on the other hand, received few enquiries a month, and some were not usable: private individuals, businesses outside the area served, promotional messages, support requests. For every real enquiry, Google counted dozens of conversions.

The audit started from the conversion actions. Almost all recorded conversions were page scrolls: a visitor only had to scroll the site for Google to count it as a result.

Automated bidding did exactly what it had been asked to do: it looked for people willing to scroll a page, at the lowest possible cost. The automated campaigns absorbed almost all the spend with low-cost traffic, with no control over the searches that generated it. The result was less than one contact per hundred clicks.

A second problem concerned the geographic area: a steady share of enquiries came from areas not served.

1. Measurement: only a submitted form counts as a conversion, with no double counting. Scrolls and visits are still tracked as secondary data, but they no longer drive bidding.
2. Campaigns: automated and generic campaigns switched off, replaced by a Search campaign with exact and phrase match keywords, split by type of need.
3. Exclusions: negative keyword lists for private individuals, job searches, competitors and services not offered.
4. Geographic area limited to the provinces served.
5. A log shared with the sales team: every enquiry classified by quality, deal stage and outcome, so that campaigns are assessed on sales data and not on platform data.

The monthly budget stayed at the same level. The landing page did not change.

Comparison between the following three months and the previous period:

• with the same budget, the traffic bought fell to a fraction of what it was, while enquiries per month increased;
• with the same page, it went from less than one contact per hundred clicks to about one in twenty;
• the cost per enquiry fell compared with previous months with a similar budget;
• enquiries from outside the area almost disappeared.

On the platform, conversions went from hundreds a month to a number close to that of the real enquiries. Anyone looking only at the dashboard would have seen a collapse. In fact it was the first time that number measured something real.

The log then produced information the platform could not give: larger, more structured companies reach a quote many times more often than micro-businesses. This is the criterion that guides the next phase of work: ads, exclusions and budget calibrated on company size, not only on the search.

A conversion is what has value for the sales team, not what is easy to count. Scrolls, visits and button clicks are useful for understanding behaviour on the site. As a goal for automated bidding, they lead the campaign to buy exactly that behaviour.

A cost per conversion that is too low is a warning sign, not a success. A qualified B2B contact for a few euros does not exist. When the number is too good, the first question is what is being counted.

Automated bidding optimises exactly what you ask it to. It cannot tell a curious visitor from a company looking for a supplier: it only knows if the data it receives says so.

Less traffic can bring more enquiries. Click volume is not a goal. The right searches, in the right area, are worth more than many low-cost clicks.

The decisive data is in the sales team’s log. Without the quality and outcome of each enquiry, a campaign is only half assessed. With the log, information emerges that no platform provides, such as the size of the companies that actually reach a quote.

Four checks to run on your account

1. What feeds the Conversions column. In Google Ads, Goals → Conversions: the primary actions must include only those with commercial value, such as a submitted form or a call of meaningful length.
2. Conversions against enquiries. Conversions recorded by Google and enquiries received by the sales team, same month. If the former are many more, the platform is measuring something else.
3. Reported conversion rate. A double-digit rate on a B2B lead campaign should be verified before celebrating.
4. Enquiry log. Every enquiry with quality, stage and outcome, updated at least once a month and compared with the campaigns.