Why are my Google Ads leads so bad?
Paid Ads — answered straight, by an operator who builds these systems rather than an agency selling them.
Almost always targeting. Broad match keywords without a strong negative list will spend your budget on people researching DIY, students, out-of-area searchers, and competitors. Second most common: ads that point at a homepage instead of a page about the specific service searched.
The longer version
Open the search terms report and read the actual queries you paid for. Owners are routinely stunned — words like jobs, salary, training, free, cheap, DIY, and how to eating a meaningful share of spend. Every one of those belongs in the negative keyword list.
The second fix is landing pages. Someone searching "emergency water heater repair" who lands on a general homepage has to hunt for confirmation you do that, today, near them. A page about that one service in that one city, with the phone number visible without scrolling, converts several times better on the same traffic.
More on paid ads
Other questions
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