Why Your Google Ads Leads Are Poor Quality and What Tradies Can Change
Poor quality Google Ads leads are usually several problems at once. Sort them into six types, then fix the search terms, location settings, ad copy, landing page, conversion tracking and missed calls behind each one.
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Key takeaways
- Name the bad lead first — Wrong suburb, job seeker, DIY or parts shopper, job too small, spam form and a good caller nobody answered are six different problems with six different fixes.
- Block what isn't a job — Check the search terms report weekly and add job, DIY and supplier words as broad or phrase match negatives. Negatives added from the report default to exact match.
- Switch the location default — Google's default, Presence or interest, can show your ad to people outside your area. Set Search campaigns to Presence and name your suburbs in the ad.
- Let the ad filter — Name the job, the area, a real minimum including GST and what you don't do. You'll get fewer clicks and fewer wrong-job calls.
- Count booked jobs, not phone rings — Smart Bidding buys more of whatever you count as a conversion. Stop counting taps and spam, and import booked jobs once you have the volume.
When a tradie says Google Ads sends rubbish leads, they're usually describing several different problems at once. A job seeker chasing an apprenticeship, a caller two hours outside your area, a homeowner who wanted to fix the tap themselves and a burst pipe that rang out to voicemail all land in the same pile of junk leads. They don't share a fix.
This guide sorts poor quality leads into types, shows which Google Ads settings cause each one, and walks through what to change in your campaign, ad copy, landing page and conversion tracking. It finishes with what will still look like a bad lead after the fixes, and a checklist you can work through this week.
What poor quality leads from Google Ads usually means
Before you change a setting, name the lead. Pull up last month's calls and quote forms and sort each one into a row of this table.
Type of lead | What it looks like | Where the fix lives |
|---|---|---|
Wrong suburb | A real job, but outside the area you can reach | Location settings and ad copy |
Job seeker | Asking about work, an apprenticeship or pay rates | Negative keywords |
DIY or parts shopper | Wants advice, a part or a price so they can do it themselves | Negative keywords and ad copy |
Job too small | A $40 tap washer when your minimum call-out is $180 | Ad copy and landing page |
Spam form | Fake names, junk emails, numbers that don't connect | Form safeguards and conversion tracking |
Good caller, no answer | A real job that rang out, or got a callback hours later | Ad schedule and answering the phone |
The first four are campaign problems. Spam forms are a website problem. The last one is an answering problem, and no keyword change will fix a phone that goes to voicemail. There's also a caller who looks like a bad lead but usually isn't: the homeowner getting three quotes. More on that near the end.
The search terms you're paying for, and the ones to block
Your keywords are what you bid on. Search terms are what people actually typed. On broad match, an ad built around "plumber" can show for "plumber jobs Sydney", "plumber salary" or "how to unblock a drain", and each of those clicks costs the same as a real job.
Read the search terms report every week
In your Google Ads account, go to Campaigns, then Insights and reports, then Search terms. It lists the searches that triggered your ads. Tick the ones that aren't a job you want and choose Add as negative keyword. Do it weekly for the first month, then every fortnight. Broad match keeps finding new variants, so a negative list written once and never checked goes stale.
A starter negative keyword list for Australian trades
Negative keywords stop your ad showing on searches that look related but are a different job. Google's own help notes they don't match close variants or plurals, so "job" and "jobs" need separate entries. Misspellings are handled for you. A starting point:
Job seekers: job, jobs, career, careers, apprentice, apprenticeship, salary, wage, wages, pay rate, TAFE, course, training, resume.
DIY: diy, how to, tutorial, video, youtube, yourself.
Parts and suppliers: Bunnings, Reece, Tradelink, parts, supplies, supply only, wholesale, second hand.
Work you don't do: "commercial" for a residential-only electrician, "gas" if you're not licensed for gasfitting, "strata" if you don't take strata work.
Check every word against your own work before you add it. A plumber who supplies and installs hot water units shouldn't block "supply". Too many negatives also shrink your reach, so add them because the search terms report shows a problem, not just in case.
Give each money job its own campaign
If blocked drains, hot water and bathroom renovations sit in one campaign, they share one budget. A morning of renovation browsers can spend the money your blocked-drain ads needed by lunchtime. Splitting them gives each job its own budget, ads, landing page and negatives, and shows you which one actually books work. On a small budget, start with one campaign for your main money job and add the next when the first one pays.
Clicks from suburbs you don't cover
Most advice says to target the right suburbs and stops there. The setting behind a lot of out-of-area clicks sits one step further in.
Google's default location option is Presence or interest. It shows your ad to people in your area, and also to people elsewhere who've shown interest in that area, for example by searching for it. Someone in Brisbane looking up their parents' suburb in Sydney's west can see a Parramatta plumber's ad and ring it.
To change it, open the campaign and go to Settings, then Locations, then Location options. Under Target, choose Presence: people in or regularly in your targeted locations. Save, and repeat for every Search campaign.
Google recommends the default and says most campaigns get fewer impressions after switching. For a tradie who can only reach a set list of suburbs, fewer impressions from people who can't book is the point. The exception is work booked from afar, like interstate landlords or property managers, which is better handled in its own campaign.
Then tighten the area itself. Target the suburbs you can reach on a normal day, not a 50 km radius that takes in a two-hour drive. Location is still Google's best estimate, so a few out-of-area calls will still get through. Naming the suburbs in your ad catches most of the rest: "Inner West blocked drains" filters far more than "plumber near me".
Ad copy that invites the wrong job
Most lead quality advice stops at keywords, but your ad copy is the cheapest filter you have because it works before anyone clicks. "Need a plumber? Call now" invites everyone with any plumbing question. An ad that names the job, the area and the minimum speaks to your ideal customer and tells everyone else not to bother.
Generic: Need a Plumber? Call Today | Fast, Friendly, Local Service
Filtering: Blocked Drains, Inner West | Licensed NSW Plumber | Call-out from $180 inc GST | Mon to Sat, 7am to 6pm
The second ad will get fewer clicks. It should also get fewer tap-washer calls, fewer people from outside the area and fewer Sunday callers, if those aren't your work. Build your own version from these parts:
Name the job: "Blocked drains" or "Switchboard upgrades", not "All plumbing".
Name the area: a region or a handful of suburbs.
State a real minimum: your call-out fee, or "jobs from $X".
Say what you don't do: "Residential only", "No commercial", "Installs only, no parts sales".
Match the hours to reality: if nobody answers on Sundays, don't say 24/7.
Every line has to be true. The ACCC's guidance on false or misleading claims says advertised claims, prices included, must be accurate and backed by reasonable grounds, and a price that leaves out GST can mislead. A made-up minimum or a 24/7 promise you can't keep is a consumer law problem, not just a lead quality one.
The landing page the click lands on
An ad about blocked drains in the Inner West that lands on a homepage listing every service you've ever offered throws the filter away. Send each ad to a page about that job, with the same suburbs, the same minimum, your licence number and a call button at the top. A page that matches the ad keeps qualifying the visitor after the click, and it's the part of the funnel most tradie accounts neglect. If your site doesn't have job-specific pages, that's a web design job to sort before you raise the ad budget.
Add qualifying questions to the form
A form that only asks for a name and number gets the most enquiries and tells you the least. Add two or three qualifying questions: suburb, type of job and when they need it done. You'll get fewer forms, and the ones that arrive tell you whether the job is worth a callback before you dial.
Stop spam forms at the website
Spam forms are a separate fix. Google filters invalid clicks, but its own help on preventing invalid leads says those filters can't stop fake form submissions on their own, because the form sits on your website. Google recommends reCAPTCHA on the form, a confirmation email before a lead counts, and server-side checks that reject fake emails and wrongly formatted phone numbers before they reach your inbox or CRM. Those are jobs for whoever looks after your website.
After-hours spend and missed calls
A lead that was good at 8:02am is a poor lead if the callback happens at 4pm. By then they've rung the next ad and booked someone else. That isn't a Google problem, but it shows up in the account as poor quality leads.
Set an ad schedule to the hours someone answers. Switch quote and renovation campaigns off outside those hours.
Run emergency ads after hours only if a person picks up. After-hours spend on burst pipes works when the phone is answered. When it goes to voicemail, you've paid for the click and handed the job to whoever answered next.
Check your missed calls. If you use Google forwarding numbers, call reporting shows each call's length and status. If a lot of ad calls are missed, cut the hours before you touch the keywords.
Set a callback rule, such as every missed call returned within 15 minutes, and stick to it.
Conversion tracking that teaches Google the wrong lesson
If your campaign uses Smart Bidding, such as Maximise conversions or Target CPA, Google sets your bids to get more of whatever you count as a conversion. Count the wrong thing and the bid strategy buys more of the wrong thing.
Counting taps instead of calls. Tracking clicks on a phone number on your mobile site records the tap, not whether a call happened. Tracking clicks on call assets without a forwarding number counts a conversion when Google estimates a meaningful call took place. Both can count people who hung up before it rang.
Trusting call length to judge quality. Calls from ads and calls to your website number count any call over a minimum length you set, as Google's phone call conversion guide explains. Set it too short and hang-ups count. Set it anywhere, and a job seeker, a supplier or an existing customer chasing an invoice can still pass it.
Counting every form. Spam, job applications and wrong-suburb enquiries all count unless you remove them.
Mixing goals. Page views, button clicks and calls all set as primary conversions tell Google they're worth the same.
A better setup is one main conversion per real lead type, then feeding back what happened. Google's lead quality best practices suggest bidding toward goals such as a qualified lead or a quote request, with at least 15 of them in the last 30 days, uploaded regularly. For a tradie, that means marking which calls and forms became quotes or booked jobs in your CRM or job management software, and importing those as conversions. Smart Bidding then learns to find people who book, not people who make the phone ring.
If your account doesn't produce around 15 qualified leads a month, don't hand bidding to automation on junk data. Tight keywords, a simpler bid strategy and a weekly look at the search terms are safer until the numbers are there.
Invalid clicks are not the same as poor intent
Not every bad click is one Google should credit. Invalid traffic means clicks that aren't genuine interest, such as bots, accidental clicks and deliberate click fraud. Google says it doesn't charge for invalid clicks it catches before billing and credits the ones it finds later. Add the Invalid clicks column to your campaigns table to see what it has already filtered.
A real person who searched "electrician salary" and clicked your ad isn't invalid. They meant to search it, and your targeting let the ad show. That's a missing negative keyword, and a complaint to Google won't get the money back. Keep invalid traffic investigations for patterns that look automated, such as bursts of clicks with no calls at odd hours.
What to change this week
Sort last month's leads into the six types and count each one.
Open the search terms report and add the junk as negatives, using broad or phrase match for job, DIY and supplier words.
Switch every Search campaign's location option to Presence and check the suburb list.
Rewrite one ad per campaign with the job, the area, a real minimum and what you don't do.
Point each ad at a page about that job, with a call button at the top.
Set the ad schedule to the hours someone answers.
Check what counts as a conversion. Remove taps and page views, and stop counting spam forms.
Add reCAPTCHA and two or three qualifying questions to your quote form.
What will still look like a bad lead
Some callers will still want three quotes. On planned work that's normal, and it doesn't mean the campaign is broken. Some will haggle, some will go quiet after the quote, and a few will be outside the area whatever you set. Better lead quality means fewer of these, not none.
Judge the account on cost per booked job, not on whether every caller was ready to sign. Published cost per lead figures for Australian trades vary widely and mostly come from agencies quoting their own clients, so they're a poor yardstick for your business. The useful comparison is your own: ad spend divided by jobs booked, for the month before the changes and the two months after. Expect lead volume to drop as the filters take hold. If booked jobs hold or rise while spend stays flat, it's working. For how that number compares with other channels, see SEO vs Google Ads for tradies and Google Ads vs Meta Ads for tradies.
Checklist to improve your Google Ads lead quality
Last month's leads sorted into the six types, so you know which problem you have.
Search terms report checked weekly for the first month.
Negative keyword list covering job seekers, DIY, parts and suppliers, and work you don't do, with plurals added.
Negatives for single words set to broad or phrase match, not exact.
One campaign per money job, each with its own budget.
Location option set to Presence, with a suburb list you can actually reach.
Ads that name the job, the suburbs, a real minimum including GST and what you don't do.
Licence details in your ads where your state requires them.
Each ad sending clicks to a page about that job, with a call button at the top.
Quote form with qualifying questions, reCAPTCHA and server-side checks.
Ad schedule matched to the hours someone answers, and a callback rule for missed calls.
Conversions limited to real calls and enquiries, with booked jobs imported once you have the volume.
Results judged on cost per booked job, not cost per lead.
Poor quality leads from Google Ads are rarely one fault. They're usually a few default settings, an ad that invites everyone, tracking that counts the wrong thing and a phone that isn't always answered. Fix them in that order and the leads that come through will be worth calling back. If you'd like a second set of eyes on it, we manage Google Ads for trade businesses across Australia, and we'll review your search terms, location settings, ads, landing pages and tracking and tell you which of the six problems you have, even when the honest answer is the phone, not the ads.
Frequently asked questions
Why am I getting Google Ads calls from another state?
Usually because the campaign is on Google's default location option, Presence or interest, which can show your ad to people outside your area who have searched for or shown interest in it. Switch Search campaigns to Presence, target only the suburbs you can reach, and name those suburbs in the ad. Google treats location as a best estimate, so a few out-of-area calls can still get through.
Is broad match always wrong for tradies?
No. Google recommends broad match with Smart Bidding, but it relies on good conversion data and a maintained negative keyword list. If your account counts taps, spam forms or every call as a conversion, or gets fewer than about 15 qualified leads a month, phrase and exact match on your main jobs are a safer start.
How long does a negative keyword list take to help?
A negative keyword stops your ad on matching searches from the moment it's added, so the effect on new clicks is immediate. The list needs ongoing work, though, because broad match keeps finding new search terms. Check the search terms report weekly for the first month, then every fortnight.
What does putting a minimum call-out in the ad do to lead volume?
Expect fewer clicks and fewer calls. The people who still call have already seen your price, so fewer of them are after a job smaller than you take on. Use your real minimum including GST, since advertised prices must be accurate under Australian Consumer Law, and judge the change on booked jobs rather than lead count.
How can I tell a spam form from a real enquiry?
Spam forms tend to have made-up names, email addresses that bounce, phone numbers in the wrong format, links or gibberish in the message, and no detail about the job. Real enquiries usually mention a suburb, a job and a timeframe. Asking for those three things on the form, adding reCAPTCHA and having your web developer add server-side checks makes the difference obvious and cuts the spam.
