Agency insights
Thoughts and lessons on client selection, burnout, pricing, and modernising legacy accounts, from someone who's run a Google Ads for years.
Every Google Ads lead leaves a trail of evidence
Published July 2026. Last updated July 2026.
A while ago I was auditing a Google Ads account. The client pushed back at one of my suggestions. That lead to two interesting realisations:
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Both me and my client were basing important decisions on opinion, not evidence.
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Auditing a Google Ads account isn't enough. We need to audit the whole lead generation system to find the most significant opportunities.
This article ties both of these back into a logical starting point for all future audits I do. It starts with a question.
What do you know about the last Google Ads lead you sold to?
- They saw one of your ads.
- If it had a click-to-call button they might have called. Otherwise they clicked the ad and got to your landing page.
- They contacted you from the page. Called the number on the page, filled in a form, messaged via WhatsApp or live chat.
- Someone answered the call or tried to call them back.
- Someone decided if they were a good fit for the business or not.
- There was an estimate, a quote, a booking. Whatever your next step is.
- They accepted your offer and became a customer.
- Maybe they bought something else later.
Every lead leaves a trail of evidence as it moves through your business. If you could collect all the evidence, you'd have a complete history of the lead from first click to sale.
It's like doing a round-the-world trip. Every country you enter stamps your passport.
A complete lead passport would have stamps showing everything from click to sale.
Each stamp answers a question about what happened to that lead.
Put all the stamps together and you can reconstruct its entire journey through your business. Miss a few stamps and parts of the story disappear.
A complete passport records the ads:
- What campaign drove the lead?
- What Google thought the lead's location was?
- Whether your ad showed on Google Search or one of the other networks?
- Whether they searched on mobile or computer?
It records how the lead was created:
- How they contacted you (form, call, message etc)?
- If they visited your site, what landing page got?
- When they contacted you?
It records the first contact with the lead:
- Who answered the call?
- If they filled in a form or left a voicemail, how often you tried to contact them?
- How you tried (call, email, SMS etc)?
- Who tried?
- When you first contacted them?
It records if the lead was qualified or not:
- Who decided if the lead was a good fit for the business?
- If they weren't, why not?
It records if you did an estimate or quote:
- When you did the estimate?
- How you followed up?
And it records if there was a sale or not:
- Did they become a customer? If not, why not?
- How much was the first sale worth?
- Were there ongoing sales? If so, how much were they worth?
How many of those could you answer for the last lead you sold?
Looking at the last lead doesn't tell you much. But if you looked at all your leads you'd start to see answers to important questions like:
- Which campaigns make the most profit?
- Which services lose money?
- Which ads attract tyre kickers?
- Which attract the best customers?
- Are call leads better than form leads?
- etc
Unfortunately a lot of businesses don't have this insight. They either don't save the information, or it can't be retrieved in a useful format. And that means important decisions aren't supported by evidence.
But this doesn't have to be permanent. Every lead generates the information you need to make the right decisions. It just has to be saved and used.
The first step is to figure out where the gaps are. Which borders aren't stamping the passports.
That's where the Google Ads Evidence Scorecard comes in.
It'll show you where your business is missing the evidence to support better decisions.
It's free, takes about five minutes, and you can find it here: https://pete-bowen.com/google-ads-evidence-scorecard
Most Google Ads Problems Aren't Google Ads Problems
If my writing resonates with you, I'd like to give you a copy of my book, Profitable Google Ads. The book was written for business owners, but many PPC professionals have found it valuable too.
Before you download it, what describes you best?
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