If you’re running a service business and using Google Ads to generate leads, you’ve probably heard that “Maximize Conversions” or “Target CPA” (tCPA) is the way to go. And for the most part, it is. But there is a massive trap that business owners and even experienced managers fall into.
I recently saw this play out with a long-term client. We had a finely tuned machine hitting a $100 cost-per-lead (CPL) goal like clockwork. Then, the numbers started to deviate.
When The Conversion Tracking Breaks
Take a look at what happens when your tracking breaks and you don’t feed the Smart Bidding machine the data it needs to perform.
In January, we spent more money for fewer reported results. Why? Because the website company accidentally broke the call tracking script. The forms worked, and calls from ads worked, but the calls coming from the website went “dark.” The company still received the calls, it’s just that the conversion tracking stopped working and Google Ads stopped being able to see the calls.
Why This Matters: The Signal vs. The Keyword
You might think, “Who cares if the dashboard is wrong? The client is still getting calls, right?” Wrong. In modern Google Ads, we aren’t just bidding on keywords like “real estate attorney near me.” We are bidding on signals. Imagine two people search for the same keyword: “real estate attorney near me.”
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Person A: Has visited legal blogs, is searching from a high-income zip code during business hours, and has a history of clicking “Call Now” buttons.
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Person B: Does not have a high history of performing conversions, this is their first real estate attorney search ever, and doesn’t match the normal demographic data of users who typically convert on this account.
To a manual bidder, these are the same keyword searches and deserve the same bid. But Google’s AI, Person A is worth WAY MORE because they are much more likely to convert, and the system bids accordingly.
When our website call tracking broke, Google’s AI had less data to work with. Even if the system did it’s job, and got us a great lead, if it came from a website call, we weren’t doing our job and conveying that success to the system. Thus, the system got weaker, and results suffered.
The Lesson: Data is everything!
Max conversion bidding is an amazing machine, but the machine requires good data. You give it less or worse data, it will perform worse than it had otherwise.
If your CPA is climbing and you can’t figure out why, the best thing to do first is to audit your conversion tracking.
The Rothman PPC Takeaway: Max conversion bidding works, but it’s only as good as the data you give it.
