According to WordStream research, the average conversion rates for Google Ads across industries sit at just 3.75 per cent. When you look at the numbers, it’s almost 96 out of every 100 clicks that never turn into customers or leads.
For this problem, most businesses blame their offer or landing page (which feels easier than admitting their targeting might be off). But the real issue starts much earlier in your campaign setup.
In this article, we’ll cover practical adjustments that improve lead quality in your ppc campaigns without touching your advertising budget. These tweaks will help you spend less time running after dead-end prospects and more time closing sales.
So let’s see how some small changes can attract prospects who genuinely want to buy.
What Lead Quality Actually Means
Lead quality means how likely your prospect is to become a paying customer based on budget, authority, and readiness to buy. But here’s something most people get wrong about this. Rather than enthusiasm, lead quality measures how fit a prospect is.
There are two types of lead qualities:
- Marketing-Qualified Leads: Marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) are the people showing early interest. Say when they are downloading a guide, checking out your pricing page, or returning to your site more than once.
- Sales-Qualified Leads: SQLs are further along in the buying process. They’re done researching and are actively comparing options, making them the closest to becoming actual customers.
A high-quality lead matches your ideal customer profile, needs what you offer, and is already aware of the problem you solve. That’s why they’re cheaper and faster to convert. You’re not starting from scratch, trying to convince them they need your solution. Instead, they’ve already figured that part out.
Keyword Research That Brings High Quality Leads
Your keyword research influences everything about who clicks your PPC ads and whether they’re ready to buy. If you can get this part right, the rest of your campaign performance improves automatically.
Take a look at some ways keyword research can bring better results.
High Value Keywords vs. High Traffic Keywords
Your keyword research should focus on conversion potential over search volume to improve your campaigns naturally.
The best part about targeting high-value keywords is that you’ll spend less money attracting people who are ready to purchase. They target specific problems and buying signals that indicate someone is ready to spend money. When you focus on relevant keywords that match purchase intent, you’ll see better results even with lower traffic numbers.
On the other hand, high traffic keywords bring volume but often attract browsers, researchers, and people comparing options without buying intent (most of whom leave within seconds after checking your pricing). These searches might have impressive search volume, but that doesn’t help your campaign performance if nobody converts.
Building Keyword Lists That Match Buyer Intent
Ever notice how some keywords bring tyre kickers while others attract ready-to-buy prospects who convert on the first call?
It’s because buyer intent keywords include phrases like “hire,” “purchase,” or “best service for” that signal someone is actively searching for a solution right now. The reason these search terms work better is that they filter out people who are still in the learning phase.
Working with Melbourne accounting firms and Sydney trade businesses, we’ve found that search term reports reveal buying signals you’d never predict on your own. So we suggest reviewing these reports monthly to find high-performing keywords that convert into paying customers.
Pro Tip: Exclude informational searches like “how to” or “what is” that bring traffic from people still researching. That alone will significantly improve your keyword strategy.
Using First Party Data to Refine Your Targeting
First-party data gives you the fastest way to reach prospects who look and behave exactly like your best customers. The data from your existing customers reveals which search terms and demographics convert best.
We recommend uploading customer lists to Google Ads to create lookalike audiences that share traits with your best buyers (funny how the best targeting data is usually sitting in your CRM, unused).
This targeting method improves lead quality because you’re reaching people who behave like your current paying customers. And instead of guessing which audience targeting settings might work, you’re using real first-party data that shows you exactly who buys from you.
Ad Copy Tweaks That Filter Out Low-Quality Clicks
Another great way is to include pricing or service details in your ad copy to discourage clicks from people outside your budget range. You don’t need to mention exact pricing if your service costs a fortune, but including a range like “premium” or “enterprise-level” can improve your chances.
When you include these types of budget indicators, it stops people who are just window shopping from clicking through and draining your ad spend.
Pro Tip: Use qualifying language like “for established businesses” or “custom enterprise solutions” to attract serious buyers only.
How Ad Extensions Improve Campaign Performance
Ad extensions improve your campaign’s results by providing extra information that helps qualified prospects decide before clicking your ppc ads at all. The reason this is effective for PPC optimization is that you’re not paying for clicks from people who realize after landing on your page that you’re not what they need.
Our Brisbane clients have seen noticeably better lead quality when they added location-specific callouts and service details through extensions. They usually highlight key points like “Australian owned” or “24/7 support” that attract your ideal customer profile. These small additions to your Google Ads campaigns don’t cost extra but give you more ad real estate to work with.
Along with that, structured snippets and sitelinks give prospects more context about what you offer, which reduces wasted clicks from people who seek something different. When someone sees your full ad extensions and still clicks, they’re usually more serious about buying.
Now that you’ve identified your high-value keywords, the next step is organising them into tightly focused ad groups.
Organising Ad Groups to Attract High-Performing Keywords
Tight ad groups with 5-10 closely related keywords allow you to write specific ad copy that matches search intent. Without proper ad group structure, your campaign performance becomes hit or miss because Google can’t tell which searches deserve your best ads.
The ad group level is where you control how closely your PPC campaigns match what people are actually looking for. Our experience says, separating broad match, phrase match, and exact match keywords into different ad groups improves control over lead quality.
This structure lets you allocate more budget to ad groups that consistently bring high-quality leads to your business. When your ad groups are organised properly, your entire PPC optimization effort becomes easier to manage.
How AI-Powered Campaigns Improve Lead Quality Over Time
Google’s AI analyses thousands of signals per search to predict which prospects are most likely to convert. Now here’s where it gets interesting.
Machine learning adjusts bids automatically through AI-powered bidding to show ads more often to prospects who match your high-value customer profile. The reason value-based bidding is more effective than manual bidding is that the system learns from your conversion data over time.
This is why Performance Max and Smart Bidding strategies improve lead quality as the algorithm learns your conversion patterns. This strategic bidding approach considers conversion value, not just conversion volume. Which means you’re attracting customers who spend more.
And while manual management gives you more control, AI-powered campaigns handle the heavy lifting so you can focus on business goals instead of constant bid adjustments.
Small Changes For Better Leads
You don’t need a complete campaign rebuild or a bigger budget to improve lead quality. However, you do need to start with one or two changes from this article. Maybe refining your keyword lists or adding qualifying language to ad copy will show you a noticeable difference within weeks.
Remember that every week you delay these changes is essentially money down the drain on prospects who were never going to convert. So, track both volume and quality metrics over the next few weeks to measure which adjustments improve your conversion rates.
If you need help implementing these strategies in your Google Ads account, visit KC Freedom to see how we help clients attract high-quality leads without wasting budget.