Most ad accounts we inherit were built to produce clicks, because clicks are what the platforms make easiest to buy. The dashboards look busy. The sales team is not.
When the goal is leads that turn into revenue, the setup changes from the very first decision. This is the sequence we follow for service businesses across Canada.
Define a lead before you spend a dollar
Write down what counts as a lead. A phone call longer than a minute? A form with a real phone number? A booked estimate? Those, and only those, should be set up as conversions in the ad platform. If page views or button clicks are counted as conversions, the algorithm will happily find you more people who view pages and click buttons.
Put a rough value on a lead too. If one in four leads becomes a $2,000 job, a lead is worth something like $500 in revenue, which tells you how much you can sensibly pay for one.
Start where intent is highest
For most service businesses the first campaign should be Google Search, on keywords that signal someone ready to hire: the service plus a location, “near me”, “cost”, “emergency”. Use phrase and exact match to begin with, and build a list of negative keywords from day one.
Meta ads play a different role. They are excellent for retargeting people who visited your site and for reaching local audiences with a strong visual offer, but they find people before they are searching. Automated campaign types such as Performance Max work best later, once the account has solid conversion data to learn from.
Give people a reason to act now
“Quality service since 2008” is not an offer. A free in-home estimate within 48 hours is. So is same-day service in Mississauga, a clear price range, a seasonal booking discount or a written warranty. The more specific the offer, the more your ads stand out next to three competitors saying the same generic things.
Send clicks to a page built for the ad
Each ad group should point to a page that repeats its promise in the headline. Someone who clicked “Furnace repair in Brampton, same day” should land on a page about exactly that, with a tappable phone number, a short form, reviews and a price range visible on the first screen of a phone.
The ad earns the click. The page earns the lead.
Track calls, forms and closed deals
- Track calls from ads and calls from the website, not only form fills.
- Mark successful form submissions as conversions, not page views.
- Use enhanced conversions for more accurate measurement.
- Import closed deals from your CRM so campaigns learn which leads became customers.
- Respect consent, especially for visitors from Quebec under Law 25.
Budget and bidding
Start with fewer campaigns and enough budget in each for the platform to gather meaningful data. Ten small campaigns starved of budget learn nothing. Set locations to people who are actually in your service area, not people merely interested in it, and schedule ads around the hours you can answer the phone.
Once a campaign has a steady flow of conversions, move to bidding strategies that target a cost per lead, and adjust in small steps.
The weekly routine
Every week: read the search terms and add negatives, check lead quality with whoever answers the phone, pause ads that underperform and test one new headline or offer. Every month: review cost per lead and cost per customer by campaign. It is steady, unglamorous work, and it is what our Google and Meta Ads management consists of.
