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Lead-gen Google Ads accounts are usually optimised to form fills. The problem: most form fills are unqualified, and the reported 'cost per lead' bears no resemblance to your actual cost per qualified opportunity. We wire tracking into your CRM so Google optimises to SQLs, not form fills.
What it unlocks
Built for service businesses, professional services, and B2B accounts where lead quality matters more than lead volume and the buying cycle takes weeks rather than minutes.
Capabilities
Engagement rhythm
Free audit
CRM and tracking foundations
Test, scale, prune
Quarterly strategic review
What we do
Tight non-brand Search structured around buyer-intent queries (not informational browse). Brand campaigns protect your trademarked traffic from competitor poaching. Negatives applied ruthlessly to keep the account in commercial intent space, not informational. Match-type discipline holds up under Smart Bidding, where most lead-gen accounts leak quality through the broad-match queries Google quietly substitutes.
Form submissions, phone calls, chat-to-CRM events tracked end-to-end. Offline conversion import from your CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho, custom) so Google optimises to sales-qualified leads and closed-won revenue, not form fills. The single biggest lever on lead-gen Google Ads is moving the optimisation target from clicks or form fills to qualified pipeline. Most accounts have never had this wired up.
B2B and high-consideration service buyers take weeks to convert. Remarketing audiences segmented by page visited, form started, sales conversation initiated. Customer Match for opportunities at each pipeline stage. The remarketing strategy for a R150,000 industrial-equipment lead is fundamentally different from the R45 ecommerce purchase, and most agencies still run the same generic remarketing template across both.
Founder-led video, case study content, and Display placements that build credibility through the consideration cycle. Optimised to view-through conversions and assisted lead quality, not view counts. For B2B and considered-service categories, mid-funnel video is genuinely useful; for low-consideration leads (immediate-need services like emergency plumbing), it is a waste. We will tell you which side your account is on.
Most lead-gen accounts leak in the landing page, not the ad. We test form length, hero copy, social proof placement, and dedicated paid-traffic landing pages versus your live website. Sub-page testing on multi-step forms (where do users drop off, what fields are over-asking). Call-tracking numbers, click-to-WhatsApp, and chat widgets all instrumented to the same CRM.
Weekly search-terms review with a ruthless negative-keyword cadence. Lead-quality scoring against your CRM (which queries convert to SQLs, which convert to revenue). The first 60 days of a lead-gen rebuild is almost always cleaning out queries that look fine in Google Ads but are converting to junk leads in your CRM. Without CRM data feeding back, you cannot do this work.
How an engagement runs
Full review of account structure, conversion tracking, CRM integration, ad copy, landing pages, form setup, call tracking, and which of your queries are converting to qualified pipeline versus junk. We tell you what is broken, what is missing, and the realistic cost-per-SQL for your category. No commitment past the call.
Form, phone, chat, and click-to-WhatsApp tracking wired through to GA4 and Google Ads. Offline conversion import from your CRM configured (whichever platform you use). Account restructured around intent. Brand protection launched. Negative keyword discipline established. Baseline reporting per query down to SQL and closed-won where data permits.
Landing page variant tests. Form-length and form-field tests. Ad copy and headline tests. Audience signal tests on PMax where used. Weekly search-terms review and negative discipline. Monthly cadence on CRM data feedback to refine which queries are being bid on, and how aggressively.
Every 90 days: which campaigns produced SQLs, which produced closed-won revenue, where the bid model has drifted, where landing-page CRO compounded, where next quarter's budget should sit. Real strategy, not a templated deck.
The lay of the land
The classic lead-gen Google Ads account optimises to 'cost per lead' where a lead is a form fill. That metric looks great in reports and means nothing in your CRM. The agency reports R350 cost per lead. Your sales team tells you most of those leads are junk, and the actual cost per qualified opportunity is R1,800. The bid model never sees that, so it keeps optimising for more of the wrong queries.
The fix is CRM integration: offline conversion import from HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho, or whatever you use. Closed-won deals get imported back to Google Ads as the real conversion event. Smart Bidding switches optimisation target from form fill to SQL or to revenue. Within 4 to 6 weeks, the algorithm starts shifting budget toward the queries and audiences that actually produce qualified pipeline. Sometimes that means a 'cost per lead' that goes up while cost per SQL and cost per closed-won halve. That is the right trade.
Beyond the tracking, lead-gen needs different remarketing, different ad copy (less price-led, more credibility-led), and different landing pages (longer-form, more social proof, often video) than ecommerce. The cycle is weeks, not minutes. The remarketing journey has to acknowledge that. Most agencies run an ecommerce playbook on a lead-gen account and wonder why the close rate is low.
FAQ
HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho, Microsoft Dynamics, and most cloud CRMs that expose webhooks or have a Zapier or Make integration. For custom-built CRMs we can usually wire offline conversion import through a webhook payload. Without CRM integration the whole 'optimise to SQLs' approach does not work, so this is the first thing we sort in foundations.
We import multiple conversion events from your CRM: SQL marked, opportunity opened, proposal sent, closed-won. Google Ads can be told to optimise toward whichever event has enough volume to learn from. For very long cycles (B2B enterprise) we usually train against SQLs as the primary optimisation event and import closed-won as a reporting overlay rather than a bidding signal.
Yes. Numbers like CallRail, CallTrackingMetrics, or the equivalent local South African providers, set up as Google Ads conversions with call duration thresholds. Call data feeds back to your CRM and gets included in the optimisation target. Important: the call tracking number is dynamic per traffic source, so we can attribute calls back to specific Google Ads queries, not just 'paid' as a blob.
Yes. Chat widgets (Intercom, Drift, custom) wire conversation-start events as conversions. Click-to-WhatsApp from search ads or display tracked the same way. The challenge is downstream: does that WhatsApp conversation become a lead in the CRM? If yes, we can close the loop. If your WhatsApp ends with a sales rep replying off-platform with no CRM trace, we will fix that as a precondition.
Around R10,000 per month in media. Lead-gen accounts can compound at lower spend than ecommerce because cycle and value per conversion are higher; one closed B2B deal can repay a quarter of spend. Below R10k, however, the conversion volume is too low for Smart Bidding to exit learning.
Tracking, CRM integration, and restructure land in weeks 1 to 4. Bid model shifts toward CRM-defined conversions in month two. Statistically meaningful change in lead quality typically appears from month three onwards. Meaningful change in cost-per-SQL or cost-per-closed-won from month four. Lead-gen is a longer compounding curve than ecommerce; do not expect month-one fireworks.
If your account is B2B and you want to layer LinkedIn paid alongside Google, our PPC Agency service covers Microsoft Ads (which includes LinkedIn Profile Targeting on Search and Audience Network) as a far cheaper way to reach LinkedIn audiences with intent-driven creative. Pure LinkedIn Ads (the platform) can be added on a separate scope; it is a different optimisation model and rarely the best first step.
Everything we do
Pick any other engagement that fits your business, or take the whole stack from one senior team.
Custom Shopify themes, performance-tuned from launch, conversion-led PDPs, SEO and Merchant Centre wired clean.
Custom WooCommerce themes that perform like Shopify, with the editorial flexibility and ownership of WordPress.
Custom WordPress sites built code-first as the default, with the option of a properly configured page builder when your team needs ongoing editorial freedom.
We update, back up, monitor, and patch your WordPress site every week so a stale plugin never takes your business offline.
Technical SEO, content, local, schema, and Search Console health, run as a retainer and measured against revenue.
Most Shopify SEO is left to an app that emits duplicate or invalid schema. We do the work in Liquid, where it belongs.
WooCommerce SEO done at theme and plugin level, not delegated to the Yoast WooCommerce add-on.
WordPress SEO done at theme, plugin, and hosting level, not delegated to a Yoast or Rank Math settings page.
Optimisation for answer surfaces: Google AI Overviews, Featured Snippets, People Also Ask, and voice assistants. Schema-first, data-led, tied to organic revenue.
Optimisation for generative AI surfaces: ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and agentic checkout. Content structured for LLM ingestion, product feeds tuned for shopping agents, LLM mention tracking on a retainer.
We build Google Ads accounts around conversions: tight structure, clean tracking, landing pages that match the query.
Paid search, paid social, SEO, content, and analytics run by the same senior people, with reporting tied to pipeline.
Most PPC agencies run Google only. We run Google plus Microsoft Ads in parallel, with cross-channel tracking and audience strategy.
Shopping and Performance Max are the start, not the strategy. We run the full funnel for ecommerce accounts, with margin context, not just ROAS.
Shopify-specific Google Ads work: native Merchant Centre integration, customer-list sync, Shopify Audiences, and PDP-level CRO.
Service businesses optimise to form fills. We optimise to sales-qualified leads and closed-won revenue, wired into your CRM.
We run Facebook and Instagram Ads with senior account managers, server-side tracking, and continuous creative testing so spend earns its keep.
No templates. No page builders. Bespoke websites with Lighthouse 95+, SEO foundations baked in, and CMS controls that make sense.
Custom-built ecommerce, sized to your catalogue and ops. Shopify, WooCommerce, or custom-built; the platform follows the business model.
Cape Town-focused SEO: local pack and Google Business Profile, technical foundations, content, and GSC discipline, run as a retainer and measured against revenue.
Cape Town web design agency. Bespoke builds, Lighthouse 95+, SEO foundations baked in, CMS controls your team can actually use. In-person discovery meetings across the city.
Bespoke website builds engineered around your stack, your integrations, and how the site has to perform under real load. Custom code, headless where it fits, observability and security treated as deliverables.
Continuous CRO: diagnose where the funnel leaks, run hypothesis-led tests, measure against revenue, not vanity engagement metrics.