Google Lead Gen Advice You NEED to SUCCEED in 2025

In this detailed discussion, Artur MacLellan outlines a strategic framework for running Google Ads campaigns specifically tailored to generate high-quality leads. He highlights how a solid understanding of the product or service is essential for configuring campaigns that truly resonate with target audiences—a cornerstone principle of any effective Google Lead Gen initiative. The conversation underscores the importance of starting with a “Maximize conversions” bidding strategy, then refining your approach by regularly monitoring and adjusting Target CPA goals in response to real-time performance data. Advanced techniques for lead qualification are explored, showing how to filter out low-intent prospects and focus on users most likely to convert—another critical component for successful Google Lead Gen efforts. Emphasis is placed on piping data back into Google Ads to fuel ongoing optimization, with an added look at the potential of scripts and automation for managing negative keywords. By structuring ad groups according to specific themes and continuously testing them against each other, advertisers can gather actionable insights and enhance campaign outcomes. Ultimately, the conversation reveals that consistent data-driven refinements—supported by effective bidding strategies and careful campaign structuring—are fundamental to achieving robust results in Google Lead Gen.

🎥 Here's the video on Campaign Setup: https://youtu.be/I-rZ_DD5OMg

🎥 Here's the video for the Automated Negative Script so you can take back control! https://youtu.be/8hqyd5NxQck

Key Takeaways

👉 Understanding the product or service is crucial for Google Lead Gen campaign success.
👉 Maximize conversions should be the initial bidding strategy for optimal Google Lead Gen outcomes.
👉 Regularly monitor and adjust TCPA goals based on performance to strengthen Google Lead Gen results.
👉 Piping data back into Google Ads is essential for long-term Google Lead Gen optimization.
👉 Use ad groups by theme to streamline campaign management and enhance Google Lead Gen efficiency.
👉 Avoid frequent changes to bidding strategies to maintain consistent Google Lead Gen improvements.
👉 Test different ad groups against one another to gain performance insights and boost Google Lead Gen returns.
👉 Consider using automated scripts for managing negative keywords to refine Google Lead Gen campaigns.
👉 Focus on high-intent keywords to significantly improve Google Lead Gen conversion rates.
👉 Utilize available resources and tools to build a solid structure for ongoing Google Lead Gen success.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Google Lead Gen Strategies
02:50 Understanding Bidding Strategies for Google Ads
06:06 Maximizing Conversions: Best Practices
09:04 Optimizing Campaigns for Better Performance
11:48 Advanced Techniques for Lead Qualification
15:08 Final Thoughts and Resources

🔔 Don’t forget to subscribe for more tutorials on Google Ad Optimization, digital marketing, and online advertising! If this video helped you, give it a thumbs up and share it with others who might benefit. 💬 Got questions? Drop them in the comments—I’m happy to help!

Follow Artur on LinkedIn for daily tips on Google Ad Optimization, Meta Ads, and LinkedIn Ads, or to collaborate, send him a message here:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/arturmaclellan/

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Google lead gen advice.
What you need to know in 2025.
I'm going to go throughthis really great resource
that I just put togetherto talk about how to set up
and structure your campaigns,why and when to do, what to do,
and how to ultimately set upyour Google ad campaigns
for successspecifically for lead gen.

(00:21):
So, todaywe're just going to go through,
a questionthat I recently got from a,
consulting clientwhere they were asking,
how do you structureyour campaigns?
And so, in order for us to knowhow to structure
the Google Ads campaignsfor search,

(00:42):
you need to ask the questionof what bidding strategy
you ultimately going to use.
That's typicallylike the biggest question
that, I get ishow do when to use
which bidding strategy and,and whatnot.
So the first thing that you needto ask is ultimately,
does Google understandthe product or service

(01:04):
that you're trying to sell?
And so,in order to try and figure
this out, go into the GoogleKeyword Planner
and I've got a whole video onhow to,
do proper keyword research.
The link is going to bein the description below.
And, also,I'll just have the video here.
So make sure that you, flagthat so that you can

(01:24):
watch that in a second.
But ultimately you need to tryand determine
does Google understandthe product or service.
And the way to dothat is when you're in Google
Keyword Planner,you can determine this by
is the search volumeover 4000 monthly.
And so if it's yes, then you canmove on to the next question of

(01:47):
are there morethan four competitors
running Google ads?
And so these two things,if they're both.
Yes, thenyou can follow this path.
And I've actually got it to,going to maximize conversions.
If you set it onmaximize conversions, you're
ultimately probablygoing to succeed
and see leads coming in,fairly quickly,

(02:08):
depending on the budgetthat you have,
you need to make surethat conversion
tracking is super solidand ready to go or else it will,
ultimately fail.
And, make sure you're notusing page
views as the conversionobjective.
Make sure that youuse the actual
what happens afterthe lead is captured,

(02:29):
whether that's OCIoffline conversion imports,
or if it's the thank you page.
That people users go toafter they complete,
the lead gen form.
And so, you can see herethat, maximize conversions
is a good strategyto use out the gate, even,
even contradictory to whata lot of people say.

(02:52):
People say youusually just start
on a manual or,maximize clicks, bidding
strategy, wait,you have about 15
to 30 conversionsand then, switch
over to maximize conversions.
But I disagree with that.
I've, tested this in several,several accounts
and I've seen a lot of success,with ultimately just, doing

(03:14):
switching it right,to maximize conversions,
with a new account and,letting that thing run.
Now, this is based off of thesetwo pieces of criteria, and,
I can determinebased off of does Google
understand your productor service
by the fact that there'sa lot of search volume?
And, there are more than fourcompetitors running Google ads

(03:37):
in which Google is going to havea better understanding of the,
product or servicethat you're advertising for.
Now, let's just say,theoretically speaking,
that the search volume is over4000.
Monthly.
But, there are notfour other competitors
running Google ads.
Now, if you're a local servicecompany,

(03:59):
let's just say a hospital or,something, plumber
or something like that,don't necessarily worry about,
I would still go tomaximize conversions,
try that bidding strategyfirst because,
that's that's somethingthat's more common.
People understandnow, if it's like a,
new product or service that isvery difficult to really know,

(04:23):
if people know about itor it's, common,
then that's where I would,move over to more keyword based,
bidding.
So just be aware of that.
Now, if you do not have morethan, 4000 monthly
for search volume,then I would really recommend,
seeing if there's othercompetitors trying to understand

(04:45):
is just a common thing.
Just like whatI was talking about.
Is this somethingthat people really understand,
or is it somethingthat is way less common
and, whatnot typicallythings like
that are going to haveless than four competitors.
Now I'm talking aboutfour actual competitors.
Oftentimes you'll,get a situation

(05:05):
where you've got peoplebidding on keywords
that don't really necessarilymake sense.
So make surethat you really analyze
the competitors and whatnot.
So, typicallyjust start out with,
keyword based bidding,maximize clicks is a great way
to start out.
And ultimately,using search partners

(05:25):
and display networksto set them is off
and then use ad groups by theme.
Now, before I goon, I just want to ask you to,
just comment belowif you want this resource and,
get the downloadfor this whole thing
so that you can refer tothat as you're
starting to make decisionsNow, just going further,

(05:46):
there's all of thesedifferent types
of bidding strategies.
Maximize conversions, tCPAmaximize conversion value tROAS
manual CPC, maximize clicks,target impressions. Share.
I'm not going to goover the definition
of each one of these today.
More so just go overthe circumstances
and the situations, that,you'll want to take into account

(06:10):
in order to decidewhich one to use.
But I do want to break upbefore we go on
these bidding strategiesinto two different buckets.
So smart bidding,which are the newer bidding
strategies,they're based off of audiences.
What Google understandsand knows about, the person

(06:30):
and the user searching.
Now for,the older bidding strategies,
these are highly dependenton the keyword
and specifically going after,not necessarily who is searching
but what they're searching.
And so that'swhy I've broken it up into is
the search volume over 4000?
Are there morethan four competitors.

(06:52):
And really justthis understanding of does
Google understandthe product and service?
If they do not,then you want to go towards
keyword based bidding.
It just makes logical sensethat you wouldn't
want to try and bidbased off of what
Google doesn't understand.
Now, if Google understands,then that's where smart bidding
can be incredibly powerful.

(07:13):
And so,there's a lot of folks out there
that are saying,smart bidding is best, the best,
and, all of these things.
And it's just like, it's it'snot for every situation.
And that's why,I wanted to go through this.
So, these are the thingsto ask yourself,
as you're structuring nowwhen you're starting out
a new campaign, start out,maximize conversion,

(07:33):
start on an exact match,and then move into broad
if you want to,if you're seeing success,
if you're not seeinga whole lot of search volume,
go through on this,maximize conversions.
Then number one,check your conversion tracking.
And then number two,you can even test going to broad

(07:53):
but make surethat you restrict it
with the TCPor tROAS bidding strategy.
And you'll want to structureyour campaigns
with ad groups by theme.
But you want to ensure thatbased off of your budget,
you have the properamount of ad groups.
This is the mistakethat I see pretty commonly.

(08:15):
And, it's just somethingto watch out for again,
just before I move on.
Search partnersand display network
off to start off and then,possibly test that down the road
if you want to.
in regards to the ad groupsand the number of ad groups
that you want to usefor maximized conversions.
And any of these smart biddingstrategies is also mean.

(08:35):
Just ad and determinedby the number of conversions
that you are goingto receive monthly
or that you can predict.
Now, you may not know,but take an educated guess.
Just just for example,a plumbing company,
let's say every lead is $100.
So you'll want to dividethe expected cost per conversion

(08:57):
by your total monthly budget.
So if you have a budget of,let's just say $3,000 and,
the, cost perconversion is $100,
you can be expecting about30 conversions per month.
What you don't want to do is addthematic ad groups
based off of, themesand have 5 to 6, plus ad groups,

(09:22):
even 2 or 3.
You really want to stickto just the one.
And this is becauseyou're giving,
Google too much to figure outand, work on these optimizations
that Google pretty much,works on is based off
of the number of conversions.
And so it'll optimize quickerif you give it less

(09:43):
ad groups to work with.
So again,just, keep that in mind and make
sure that when you're runningmaximize conversions, you let it
go through the first seven daysof the learning phase.
And then wait,three conversion cycles,
and measureafter the initial learning
phase and conversion cycle,most people are changing
bid strategies like they'rechanging their underwear,

(10:06):
which is every single day.
And that's super detrimentalwhen you're using
any of these bidding strategies.
So let's just sayfrom a scenario standpoint,
you're getting conversions.
And at that point,then triple down and optimize
until you reacha high click share
or you're unprofitable.
Now, if you're seeinga lot of fluctuations within the

(10:27):
the performance of the campaign,just make sure, that you're
not touching the campaign.
You're letting it run.
Oftentimes, people are tryingto optimize
these campaigns every day.
And that's a major mistakewhen it comes
to maximize conversions.
tCPA maximize conversionvalue and tROAS.
So, just a couple quicktips on that.

(10:49):
Make sure that,you leave your optimizations,
at leastfrom a cadence standpoint,
at least 30 conversionsper ad group.
And, just let it optimizefrom there.
That wayyou're giving the algorithm
enough time to,be able to optimize itself.
So again, it's really difficultto use smart bidding,

(11:14):
and leave it alone, I get it.
But do not optimize itas if you're optimizing
the keywordbased bidding strategies.
So again, there's audience basedbidding strategies.
And then there's keywordbased bidding strategies.
Let's just say you aren'treaching your cost per
conversion goal, then test Tcpaand monitor the daily budget.

(11:34):
So, you'll just go upand test that again,
give it some time,give it some time,
and, restrict it.
But if you have, for example,$100 per day
for the search campaignand you're only on average
over the courseof the last seven days,
you're not spendingthat full $100 a day, then

(11:56):
that means that your tCPA goalis too restrictive.
What this means isthat Google is
having a hard timefinding audiences.
And so,this is where you'll want
to, instead of having a tCPAgoal of,
100, you'll want to move that upto 120
and then monitor from there.
So just keep that in mindas you're using tCPA

(12:19):
That's the same thing with tROASif you're not getting the,
specific dailyamount of spend through.
It's because it'stoo restrictive.
So you don't have to open it upand, go from, a 200 ROAS
target down to a 150% ROAStarget, for example.

(12:39):
So let's sayyou're getting leads,
after using tCPAbut you want to focus on more
valuable leads.
So, you're,you're finding that there's
a bunch of unqualified leadscoming through.
So what you'll want to dois expand your data by testing
lead versus qualifiedlead versus sales.
So give Google more data,on each one of those leads.

(13:03):
So you can do thatthrough the form that you're,
having people go throughand ultimately
ask qualifying questionsand then send
the unqualified leadsto a different landing page.
And don't let that bethe primary objective.
Now, so that'sthat's one way to do it.
Or you can addvalues to the lead and sale

(13:24):
objective and,conversion objective.
And this would requirefor again, you, being able
to pipe that databack from the CRM,
back into Google Adsso you can test doing maximize
conversion to valueor even testing tROAS from,
target standpoint.
And that would be, a great idea,but start

(13:46):
with maximize conversion valueand then move over to, tROAS.
Again,if you're not really reaching
your maximized conversionvalue goal, you'll have to be
very strategic.
And what values you assignto the qualified leads
versus lead versus sale.
And, make sure that there'sa big difference
between the leadand qualified sale.

(14:07):
For example, qualified lead.
From a value standpoint.
So just keep that in mind.
The other thing, when it comesto piping this data
back into Google,if you're using offline
conversion imports,make sure that these leads
are coming in every single day.
Don't wait.
beyond when that conversionactually occurs, because it's

(14:31):
going to take longer for Googleto optimize something
that they have stressedwhen it comes to this,
smart bidding strategiesis ultimately piping
in that data pretty muchas soon as you get it.
And so that wouldtake automating it and whatnot.
So, just make sure that you,look into that now
if Google doesn't understandmuch about your product

(14:54):
or service,I typically like to start
with maximize clicks,exact match search partners,
and display network offuse ad groups by theme.
And then for all of my basicad groups,
I like to test two differentad groups against one another
and see which oneultimately performs
from a conversionrate standpoint.

(15:15):
And so keep that in mindas your, thinking about it
and maximize clicksstarts with the clicks
and the CPCs,starting fairly high,
and then leveling outas it, determines
the level of spend, the dailyspend by the, amount of, clicks.
Now, it also expands from exactmatch to exact

(15:37):
match close variant in whichthis is where you want to let
your optimizations be daily.
And so keep itvery focused on the things
that, are very specific to whatthe product and service are
and as high intent as possibleif there isn't much
volume there.
Like, I mean, we're talking0 to 100,

(15:57):
then you might want to consider,other top of funnel strategies.
Whether it's YouTube or meta,you will not be able to,
essentially create demandfrom search.
Search is, capturing demand.
So just keep that in mindwhen it comes
to the search volume.
If you're looking for, a wayto build these campaigns out,

(16:21):
specifically search,I've actually got a video,
linked in the descriptionas well as, just up here,
if you're looking for that.
So we can get out of theoryand you can actually see
how I specifically set upa campaign.
Now, if you're wanting to usea different bidding strategy
than what I'musing in the, video,
then you'll want to,make sure you select that.

(16:42):
When it comes tomaximize clicks,
don't set a top, CPClimit on it yet.
Just let it run.
And if you're seeinga, pattern of CPCs
over a certain amount, just,not really converting at an
efficient level,then you can set a CPC limit,
but make sure that you monitorthe spend coming through,

(17:04):
as you go on.
So again,if you're getting conversions,
then triple down on thatuntil you reach a high click
share or you're unprofitable.
And if you needmore control over the CPCs,
then you can test manual CPC.
If you're trying to show upin the first, four ads,
then I would test outtarget impression share.

(17:26):
This is greatfor like plumbers or,
emergency services.
So, you can, test outreally ultimately, like,
absolute top of results page,but make sure you've got the,
specific amount of budgetthat can accommodate that.
Your CPC are probably goingto be very high.
And make sure you monitor the,average CPCs and,

(17:50):
conversion rates.
Ultimately, nowwith older bidding
strategies and the structure,you can literally do SKAGS
which is, single keywordad groups, if you want.
And the ability to maintainthat level of control
is really powerful,but you have to monitor
those exact match close variancebecause the intent

(18:11):
is all over the board,and you can waste a lot of money
that way.
So make sure you haveyour exclusions in place,
preferably before the campaignlaunches.
But if you have toafter the fact
that the campaigns launchedand adding them in,
then, do thatif you want to save time
doing that, check outmy automated negative script.

(18:31):
Just commentbelow in the description.
I'll also havea link to that, but
it will add negative keywords.
that are not the specifiedkeywords that you want,
and that'll do thatautomatically on an hourly basis
or a daily basis, weekly basisor monthly basis.
So make sure to check that out.

(18:52):
It's saved meprobably hundreds of hours
at this point.
So again,this is just a simple structure
of how to think about, startinga, Google lead
gen search campaign.
Make sure that you check outthis resource, comment below
if you're interestedin this whole document.
And being able to refer to itas you're thinking through,

(19:14):
your new campaigns and, again,take a look
at a bunch of the other videosI have.
I have a bunch of,videos on, standard shopping
and, searchcampaigns, how to set that up.
Make sure you check that outand I can't wait to talk to you
next time.