Start with cost per booked job, not cost per click
A cheap click that never calls is worse than an expensive click that books a roof replacement. The one number that matters is cost per booked job: total ad spend divided by the number of appointments or estimates that came from those ads. If you can't calculate it today, that is the first thing to fix.
The five numbers to check every week
- Spend: what you paid this week and this month.
- Leads: calls, forms and texts that came from ads, counted separately.
- Booked jobs: how many of those leads became a scheduled estimate or appointment.
- Cost per booked job: spend divided by booked jobs.
- Search terms: the actual phrases that triggered your ads, so you can cut the junk.
Common signs your account is leaking money
- Lots of clicks, few calls. The ads are reaching the wrong searches or the page isn't convincing.
- Calls that aren't tracked. If you can't tell which ads produced a phone call, you are optimizing blind.
- Search terms full of words like free, jobs, salary, DIY or how to. You need negative keywords.
- One campaign for everything. Low-value repairs are eating the budget meant for replacements.
- Leads that arrive and wait. If no one replies for hours, the click was wasted.
Fix the reply speed before you raise the budget
Adding more budget to an account where leads go unanswered just buys more unanswered leads. Fix the response first with an AI lead response agent, then scale spend on the campaigns that are booking jobs. Our Google Ads management is built around exactly this loop.