61 leads. 3 sales. What went wrong?

Living on my island (Gran Canaria) means I’m lucky enough to start a lot of mornings with a surf.

One morning, just after sunrise, I was out in the water when I saw a pair of sharks between me and the beach. I yelled a warning to my Canarian surf buddy, and he told me the sharks were vegan. Or maybe he said dangerous. My Spanish is still a work in progress.

Of course, I paddled over and positioned myself so he was between me and the sharks. Canarian sharks probably prefer Canarian meat, right?

This morning wasn’t quite so dramatic. I had time to think between waves. I was replaying a conversation I’d had with a grumpy client.

He was disappointed about the “quality” of the leads from Google Ads. He’d received 61 leads in the past month but only 3, he said, were any good.

That surprised me.

• I’d deliberately avoided the usual sources of low-quality leads when setting up his campaign.
• We’ve got a bulletproof system for filtering out spam and these were all legitimate enquiries.
• Judging by their questions and comments, they looked like a good fit for his service.

So, I asked him how he defined a “good quality” lead.

He said it was someone who signed up for his $2,500 service.

I'm never convinced when someone says only leads that buy are qualified so I dug a little deeper.

He explained that after reviewing the form submissions, he’d decide - based on gut feel - if someone was a good fit. If they were, he’d send them an email asking them to book a call via his calendar link.

He was busy so it took 3-4 days before he found time to send the email.

If they booked a time and answered the phone when he called, he’d give them a sales pitch. About half of those who picked up ended up buying.

If you’re with me, you’re already spotting the problems:

• He discarded about half the leads without ever contacting them, simply because he didn’t like what they typed into the form. No logic. Just a feeling.
• He took days to respond even though desperate people contact him looking for help at the lowest point in their lives.
• His first contact was a one-line email with a link to his calendar. It had all the charm of a parking fine: No context, no warmth, no reassurance.
• If someone missed their appointment, he didn’t follow up.
• If someone didn’t buy on the first call, he never contacted them again.

By this point, I was seething with frustration. If we’d been in the same room, I wouldn't have been able to hide it.

I was frustrated at him, but angry with myself. This was my fault.

Not the lead quality I'm 100% sure that if he'd treated those leads properly, he'd have made more than 3 sales.

My mistake was not digging into his lead handling process before taking him on as a client.

When I started running Google Ads 18 years ago, I was shocked by how badly some businesses treated their leads. I thought that problem would have resolved itself by now. But here we are.

I tried to show him how a few simple changes to his process would give a far better return than anything I could tweak in his ad campaigns. But he wouldn’t have it.

He told me that if I couldn't get him more sales by changing the ads he'd find someone else who could.

I get it. It’s easier to blame the ads than to admit that the process might be the problem.

But lead quality isn’t just about the ads. It’s shaped by a combination of things. And traffic is only one of them. The others are:

• How you respond to leads.
• How you follow up when there’s no reply.
• How you filter out spam and time-wasters.
• And how you feed lead quality data back into Google to improve targeting.

If even one of those aspects is weak, lead quality suffers.

That’s why I put together a short lead quality scorecard. It helps you spot which parts of your lead process are working and which are quietly costing you sales.

Take the Lead Quality Scorecard

In a few minutes you’ll have clear insights on why you're spending money on leads that don't convert, and what to do to fix it.

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