Bad Google Ads Leads? The GIGO Principle Explains Why

Bad Google Ads Leads? The GIGO Principle Explains Why

If your Google Ads campaigns are not producing the conversions you want, the problem may be the data you are feeding back into Google.

There is a simple principle called GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

And it applies perfectly to Google Ads.

Automated bidding can work extremely well, but only when Google is receiving accurate conversion data.

If you are feeding Google real leads, qualified opportunities, sales and proper CRM data, it has a much better idea of what type of customer to look for.

But if you are counting things like:

• Someone visiting your Contact Us page
• Someone clicking a button
• Someone completing an action that is not actually a lead

Then you are feeding Google rubbish.

And if you give Google rubbish data, you should not be surprised when it sends you rubbish leads.

Ideally, your CRM, whether that is HubSpot, Salesforce or another system, should become your source of truth and feed the real outcomes back into Google Ads.

I do hundreds of Google Ads audits, and incorrect conversion tracking is one of the most common problems I see.

Before changing your keywords, bidding strategy or budget, make sure the data going into Google Ads is actually correct.

Garbage in. Garbage out. Gold in. Gold out.

thanks for the information i think i understand this now, i will try and make use of this.

Can this be influenced by having Google Analytics on the same page you are promoting?

the conversion definition is probably the first thing i’d look at. if every form fill counts the same, the system will optimize for form fillers rather than actual buyers. checking the last 50 leads with sales and tracing the junk ones back to campaigns/search terms can usually show where the problem is.

I think accurate conversion tracking is really important, If Google is optimizing for the wrong actions then lead quality can suffer because proper CRM tracking helps google learn from real leads.

From my experience, one thing that gets overlooked a lot is conversion tracking and if the tracking is wrong Google will optimize based on bad signals so fixing that first can make a big difference.

the other thing is the lag. if sales come in days later and u only feed back same day convs google just learns to find fast form fillers. throw the real close date in or its all skewed

Yes, this is why I prefer looking at lead quality alongside CPA and a cheap conversion means little if most of those leads never become real opportunities.