Google Ads said each lead cost $44. The real cost was closer to $410.

What the owner was seeing

The owner kept increasing the budget, because Google reported a cost per lead of just $44.

But the company booked about the same number of jobs every month, no matter how much it spent. Something wasn't adding up.

What was actually going wrong

Google counted any call longer than 30 seconds as a new lead. That included robocalls, wrong numbers, supplier calls and voicemails.

The number in the ads was also the company's main phone number — the one existing customers called about service. Every one of those calls was counted as a new customer from Google Ads.

What we changed

1. Gave the ads their own phone number, so only new prospects are counted.Dedicated Google Ads call tracking number, separate from the main business line.
2. Only count calls long enough to be a real conversation.Minimum call duration raised from 30 to 120 seconds, filtering out robocalls and quick wrong numbers.
3. Added a short phone menu — press 1 for new service, press 2 if you're an existing customer. Only press 1 counts.IVR qualifier; only option 1 is recorded as a conversion.
4. Sent Google the jobs that were actually booked and completed, with what each job was worth.Offline conversion import from ServiceTitan — booked and completed jobs only, with job value.

What changed for the business

The real cost per lead is now $127. That's higher than the $44 the dashboard used to show — but it's true, it's still profitable, and it can finally be improved.

With Google learning from completed jobs instead of every ring of the phone, the return on the same ad budget improved about three times over.