Lead Generation PPC Case Study
Goal: Optimize for lead generation at the lowest cost per lead while reducing ad spend to a manageable amount.
Overview: We took over an existing campaign managed by a competitor agency. After rebuilding it, we dropped the cost per lead by 75% — saving thousands monthly in ad spend while maintaining lead generation.
Background
The client had worked with another agency for about a year. Whenever he asked for more lead volume, their only recommendation was to increase the budget — which grew from around $6,000/month to nearly $17,000/month, unsustainable for the business.
Worse, the agency charged a percentage of ad spend plus a management fee, so he paid more to spend more. Being savvy, he sought another opinion. His goal was simple: drive as many leads as possible within his ad-spend budget.
The Audit
Google Ads is one of the most powerful — and complex — advertising platforms. We started with a full account audit against our checklist: reviewing current data for trends and insights (what worked and what didn't), and hunting for mistakes that lead to poor conversions. Nearly 100% of the time we find room to improve. Here's the last month under the previous agency:
- Cost $16,800 / month
- Conversion Rate 4.63%
- Conversions 974
- Cost Per Lead $17.20
The Work
We rebuilt the campaign from the ground up:
- Keywords — trimmed broad budget-eaters and no-traffic terms, researched lower-funnel keywords, and added a negative-keyword blacklist to stop wasted spend.
- Ads — replaced generic copy with fresh, keyword-specific headlines and descriptions, raising the relevance score and click-through rate.
- Extensions — added the missing sitelink, callout, structured-snippet, and location extensions to expand ad real estate.
- Targeting — widened the radius from 10 to about 30 miles, unlocking a whole new pool of qualified ad inventory.
The Results
- Cost $6,000 / month
- Conversion Rate 7.5%
- Conversions 1,390
- Cost Per Lead $4.38
Conclusion
The client was thrilled. We reduced cost per lead by 75%, maintained (and slightly improved) monthly leads, and cut ad spend by over $10,000/month — money he reinvested into his business. When he's ready to scale volume, we can do so while keeping a healthy cost per lead.
