95 “leads” a month from Google Ads. Only 5 became booked jobs.
A Midwest plumbing company thought Google Ads was a goldmine: $22 a lead and 95 calls a month. Revenue wasn't growing. Most of those leads were people who heard the phone menu and hung up.
What the owner was seeing
The reported cost per lead was $22, and ads were bringing in 95 calls a month. The owner felt Google Ads was a goldmine.
But revenue wasn't growing.
What was actually going wrong
Google counted any call longer than 30 seconds as a lead. The company's phone menu alone — “Thank you for calling. Press 1 for emergency, press 2 for…” — took 25 seconds.
So anyone who listened to the menu and then hung up was counted as a new lead. When we matched the phone records against Google's numbers, only 5 of the 95 monthly leads actually booked a job.
What we changed
- Checked every Google lead against the real phone records.Call data from the phone system cross-referenced with Google Ads conversion timestamps — 5 of 95 monthly conversions booked a job.
- Stopped counting calls that ended during the phone menu.Minimum call duration raised from 30 to 90 seconds.
- Told Google about booked and completed jobs only.Offline conversion import from the job management software.
- Set the bidding around real bookings instead of cheap calls.Smart Bidding target CPA moved from $22 to $85, targeting bookings at a positive return.
What changed for the business
The owner now sees what a booked job really costs — $380 before the fix — instead of a $22 number that described hang-ups.
With Google bidding on real bookings, return on investment improved 280%.
“We thought our Google Ads CPA was $22. Saifur showed us it was $380 — our IVR was eating the first 25 seconds of every call and making hangups look like conversions. After switching to offline conversion imports from real booked jobs, we finally understand what's actually working.”