The challenge
On paper, a memory care community’s Google Ads were thriving: 241 conversions in Q1, triple the year before. But conversions and customers are not the same thing.
What we did
Because we had integrated call tracking with AI categorization, we listened to the conversions instead of just counting them. Only 22% were real prospects. The other 78% were job applicants, wrong numbers, and vendors, and Smart Bidding was optimizing toward that noise. So we cleaned the signal:
- A qualified-leads-only conversion action.
- An employment and job-title negative keyword list across every campaign.
- Budget shifted into the broad campaign producing real leads at $16 each.
Results
Those 241 “conversions” were really about 53 qualified leads. Now the campaigns optimize toward the 53, not the noise, and reported cost per conversion fell 68% year over year. Counting conversions is easy. Knowing which ones are real is the job.