Lead Gen Engine
UK service operator · Google Ads (Search)
Built and ran a dependable lead engine generating over 5,300 qualified enquiries across 27 months at a £7.82 blended cost per lead. Automotive logistics, modest budget, zero drama.
By the numbers
Where we started
The client is a small operator competing with national players that outspend them by orders of magnitude. The question wasn't 'how do we beat the big players' — it was 'how do we carve out a predictable stream of enquiries at a cost per lead that actually works with our margin?'
The brief was dependability over scale. Not a viral breakout month — a steady flow of qualified leads, every single month, that the client could build a business around.
The approach
Intent-level targeting, not category targeting
We built the account around very specific service scenarios — the actual jobs people ring about — rather than generic head terms. Lower volume, much higher close rate, and way cheaper per click.
Geo-optimisation around realistic catchment
The business has sharp geographic economics — jobs outside the right radius aren't profitable at any price. We ran the campaign as a series of geo-bid modifiers that pushed spend toward the most profitable service corridors and throttled spend where jobs wouldn't cash-flow.
Ad copy that qualifies before the click
We wrote ad copy that made the service and the typical cost ballpark explicit in the ad itself. That filters out tyre-kickers and people looking for free advice before they click — cheap clicks that never convert hurt small accounts more than big ones.
Call tracking and form capture with immediate follow-up
Every lead gets captured and routed straight to the operator's phone or inbox. The operator follows up fast. Speed of response is the biggest lever in service lead gen and the account is structured to make that easy.
Quarterly pruning, no over-engineering
The account doesn't need constant fiddling. We review it quarterly, prune underperformers, refresh copy, and otherwise let the structure do its job. Low management overhead is part of the offer — the client is paying for results, not activity.
What happened
- 5,328 qualified leads delivered across 27 consecutive active months of Google Ads activity.
- Blended cost per lead of £7.82 sustained across the full engagement — never a single month above £15 in the core 2024–2025 period.
- Consistent monthly lead flow averaging around 200 per month with a peak of 277 in June 2024.
- Total programme spend of £41,646 over 27 months — under £1,600 per month on average.
- The client has built their operating model around the predictability of the account. No missed months, no catastrophic CPA spikes, no unusable leads flooding the inbox.
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All figures pulled directly from the client's Google Ads account for the 27-month period ending March 2026. Client name anonymised pending permission; real data available on request.