Anyone else struggling with traffic quality from Google Ads?

D

dondon789

Newbie
Joined
May 22, 2025
Messages
14
Reaction score
5
Clicks are coming in, budget is spending normally, but the users don't seem to be converting like they used to.

CTR and CPC look fine, yet sign-ups and engagement are down.

Have you seen similar results recently? What changes helped improve lead quality?
 
Advertise on BHW
I went down that road too.In my case, refreshing the creatives helped for a while, especially the videos. Sometimes the audience just gets too familiar with the same ads and starts ignoring them.
I'd still keep an eye on the traffic quality though. I've had campaigns where new creatives improved CTR, but the lead quality barely changed. :(
 
It looks like your traffic is still healthy, but the intention of the users coming in might have changed. When clicks are fine but conversions drop, it's usually more about audience quality or landing page alignment than the ad performance itself.
 
In such situations, I usually pause the ad for a week or two, or I create a new ad group and stop the previous ones. This is because such situations generally indicate that an update is taking place.
 
Had this exact thing happen on a lead gen campaign late last year. Everything upstream looked clean, ctr was even slightly up, but the leads turned to mud.

What got me was the form. We hadnt touched it in months and turns out a tracking update started auto filling some fields wrong on mobile, so half the signups were junk before they even hit the crm. Worth checking your actual submitted data and not just the dashboard numbers.

Other thing @ads studio touched on is real... intent shifts more than people think. Same keywords, same audience, but the people clicking arent the same people from 3 months ago. I usually pull a few weeks of search terms or placement reports and the answer is sitting right there most of the time.

Wouldnt rush to pause everything like @GeorgeCruzz said though, you can lose your learning data and end up worse off. Id segment first, find where the bad leads are actually coming from, then cut just that.
 
Sometimes, and more often than not the issue is not on google end but on yours.. How is your landing page? How do you intend to convert people?
 
dondon789 said:
Clicks are coming in, budget is spending normally, but the users don't seem to be converting like they used to.

CTR and CPC look fine, yet sign-ups and engagement are down.

Have you seen similar results recently? What changes helped improve lead quality?
Click to expand...
Maybe ur targeting is too broad, I recommend narrowing ur audience to make it more precise. and the others above have a good point too: you could also try adjusting ur ad creatives, landing page...to test again:)
 
Yea same here, i found tightening targeting and adding negative keywords helped, also testing landing pages for better relevance boosted leads.
 
dondon789 said:
Clicks are coming in, budget is spending normally, but the users don't seem to be converting like they used to.

CTR and CPC look fine, yet sign-ups and engagement are down.

Have you seen similar results recently? What changes helped improve lead quality?
Click to expand...
There may be an issue with your ad creative, or you can try updating it or using a different account.
 
One thing that helped me was checking search terms again. even when CTR/CPC looks normal, platforms sometimes start matching ads to lower-quality searches over time.
 
One thing I noticed is seasonal intent changes. Same keywords or ads can bring different user mindset depending on time of month, week people may be browsing instead of ready to sign up.
 
Yeh same here, i had to tighten my audience targeting and cut broad keywords, lead qulity got much better after that.
 
One thing worth checking is whether the search intent changed recently. Sometimes clicks stay strong, but the type of people clicking becomes less qualified even if CTR, CPC looks healthy.
 
update is till rolling out. but in overall , with google ads display ads traffic you have to keep pushing the optimization. track your urls carefully.
 
Yeah, I've seen this happen before. Metrics at the top of the funnel looked normal, but lead quality was down. Cleaning up targeting and cutting low-quality traffic sources made the biggest difference for me. I'd also double-check the landing page and tracking to rule out any technical issues.
 
Check your Search Partners and Display Network settings inside the campaign, Google loves sneaking those in, and they usually drive pure bot junk.

Also, if you're using Maximize Conversions without tight target caps or solid negative lists, the algorithm will aggressively chase cheap, trashy clicks just to hit its numbers. Switch to exact match only for a bit and see if the quality cleans up.
 
Sometimes traffic quality changes without obvious reason. I started checking search terms and audience segments more closely and found lot of irrelevant clicks.
 
dondon789 said:
Clicks are coming in, budget is spending normally, but the users don't seem to be converting like they used to.

CTR and CPC look fine, yet sign-ups and engagement are down.

Have you seen similar results recently? What changes helped improve lead quality?
Click to expand...
then you need to work on your visiting website where visitors are coming you need to follow sales funnel rule for better sales or conversation.
 
Google is burning your money on trash websites in the search partners network. Turn that off immediately and check if leads return. Don't listen to its "optimization" advice, it just wants to drain your wallet quickly :)
 
one thing nobody mentioned yet, check if your numbers in the dashboard are even real conversions or modeled ones. with all the consent mode stuff rolling out google fills gaps with estimated convs, so your "fine" topline can look ok while actual submitted leads tanked. pull the raw crm side by side with the platform and see if they even agree.

other thing i'd do is break it down by device and hour before touching targeting. mine wasnt an intent problem at all, mobile leads after like 9pm were basically all garbage, desktop daytime was still converting fine. once i saw that it was an easy cut instead of nuking the whole campaign.

and yeah agree dont just pause everything... you reset learning and the new leads might be just as bad, you just wont know why anymore.
 
Advertise on BHW
You must log in or register to reply here.
Sign up now!

Main Menu

Home Main Forum List Black Hat SEO White Hat SEO BHW Newbie Guide Blogging Black Hat Tools Social Media Downloads

Marketplace

Account Selling Content / Copywriting EBooks / Methods Hosting Misc Proxies For Sale SEO - Link building SEO - Packages Social Media Social Media - Panels Web Design More

Making Money

Affiliate Programs Hire a Freelancer IM Journeys Making Money Pay Per Click Site Flipping Want to Buy

BlackHat World

Dispute Resolution Forum Suggestions & Feedback Introductions Lounge
Back
Top