The Challenge
An Australian mortgage brokerage was running Google Ads with an ad spend of approximately AUD 8,000/month but generating insufficient qualified leads. Cost per lead had climbed to AUD 180, well above their target of AUD 100. Previous agencies had produced reports showing “optimization activity” but no tangible improvement in commercial metrics.
Initial audit revealed the underlying problem: the account had grown organically over 2 years without structural maintenance, conversion tracking was partially broken, and a third of the budget was being spent on search queries that had no commercial relevance.
The Diagnosis
Audit findings that drove the rebuild:
- Conversion tracking broken. GA4 was tracking events, but Google Ads conversion actions weren’t importing correctly. Smart bidding had no reliable signal to optimize against.
- Broad match keywords at scale. 60%+ of spend on broad match terms with minimal negative keyword coverage. Search Terms Report revealed regular matches on queries like “free home loan” and “first home buyer grant” that had no commercial fit.
- Search Partners on. Low-quality traffic from Google’s Search Partner sites was eating 15% of budget at 3x the main network’s CPA.
- Display Network mixed with Search. Legacy campaigns had Display Network enabled in Search campaigns — a known bad practice that dilutes performance.
- Quality Score average of 5. Ad-to-keyword-to-landing-page relevance had drifted. CPCs were 40%+ higher than they needed to be.
- Landing page mismatch. 80% of ads pointed to the homepage instead of intent-matched landing pages.
The Rebuild
Week 1: Foundation
- Rebuilt Google Tag Manager setup with clean event naming
- GA4 conversion events verified and exported to Google Ads
- Enhanced conversions configured for improved attribution
- Call tracking integrated for phone-based conversions
Weeks 2–3: Structure
- New campaign architecture with themed ad groups by product (refinance, first-home buyer, investment property, construction loans)
- Match types reset — mostly phrase and exact match, broad only with dense negative coverage
- Search Partners turned off
- Display Network disabled in Search campaigns
- Negative keyword lists built from 6 months of historical Search Terms data
- Geographic targeting tightened to the brokerage’s actual lending area
Weeks 3–4: Ads & Landing Pages
- Responsive Search Ads created for each ad group with 15 headlines and 4 descriptions
- Sitelinks, callouts, and structured snippets standardized
- Landing page recommendations issued to client — 4 intent-specific landing pages built
- Ad copy aligned with landing page messaging
Weeks 4–8: Optimization
- Daily Search Terms review in first two weeks, weekly after
- Aggressive negative keyword addition
- Bid adjustments for device, geography, and time-of-day based on emerging data
- Manual CPC bidding initially; shift to Target CPA at week 5 once conversion volume stabilized
The Results
- 35% CPA reduction — from AUD 180 to AUD 117 per qualified lead
- 40+ qualified leads per month — up from 22
- Quality Score improved from 5 average to 8 average — dramatically lower CPCs
- Budget efficiency: same AUD 8,000/month spend generating nearly 2x the leads
- Close rate improvement: leads from restructured campaigns converted to client appointments at a higher rate because landing page-to-ad alignment pre-qualified intent
What Worked
Foundation first. Fixing conversion tracking and account structure delivered 70% of the gain before any tactical optimization started. You can’t optimize what you can’t measure.
Landing page alignment. Purpose-built landing pages per intent (refinance, first-home, etc.) dramatically lifted Quality Score and conversion rate. Generic homepage landing is the most common underperformance cause I see.
Discipline on match types and negatives. Phrase/exact default with aggressive negative lists eliminated the wasted spend that had been bleeding the account.
Smart bidding with proper signal. Target CPA bidding deployed only after conversion tracking was clean and volume was sufficient. Too-early smart bidding is a common failure mode.
Key Takeaway
A properly structured Google Ads account with working conversion tracking will outperform an unstructured account with 3x the budget. The foundation matters more than the spend. Before anyone optimizes bids or tests creative, the tracking has to work and the structure has to make sense.
Key Takeaway
A properly structured Google Ads account with working conversion tracking will outperform an unstructured account with 3x the budget. Foundation before scale.