Google Ads · B2B and sales-assisted lead generation
Google Search is where buyers ask for quotes, demos and consultations. It is also the easiest channel to fill with enquiries sales never quotes. Zephra runs Google Ads on qualified outcomes: it controls what your ads match, what Google learns from and what changes without your approval.
The problem
Short answer
Usually three things combine: broad matching shows ads for adjacent searches such as jobs, repairs or student projects; Smart Bidding is told every form fill is equally valuable; and the sales outcome arrives too late to correct it. Fixing search terms and feeding back qualified leads addresses the cause, not the symptom.
Broad and phrase match, and Performance Max, find searches related to your keywords. For a valve manufacturer that includes “valve repair near me”, “valve types PDF” and “valve engineer jobs”. Each can produce a form fill.
Smart Bidding optimises towards the conversion you give it. If the goal is “form submitted”, a student download and a plant manager’s RFQ are the same success, so bidding finds more of whichever is cheaper.
Sales may qualify an RFQ in days and send a quote in weeks. Unless that outcome is recorded and sent back to Google in time, bidding never learns which clicks became pipeline.
Capabilities
Zephra creates, runs and improves Google Ads campaigns for businesses that sell through a sales conversation. Every supported action follows the permissions your team grants: low-risk changes can run automatically, and the rest wait for approval.
Signals
Short answer
Use the deepest stage Google can learn from. Google recommends at least 15 conversions in the last 30 days and an action that usually happens within about seven days of the ad interaction. If qualified RFQs or demos meet that, make them the goal; if not, import them for reporting and review, and keep a higher-volume action as the bidding goal for now.
| If your qualified stage… | Use it as | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Reaches 15+ in 30 days, usually within 7 days of the click | The primary bidding goal | Enough volume and speed for Smart Bidding to learn from the outcome you actually want. |
| Arrives within 63 days, but at lower volume | An imported goal for reporting and value, reviewed monthly; keep a higher-volume action primary | Enhanced conversions for leads accepts uploads up to 63 days after the click, but thin volume makes bidding unstable. |
| Arrives after the upload window closes | Allocation and diagnosis only | Google can’t attribute it to the click, so it cannot train bidding. It still tells you which campaigns produce pipeline. |
Sources: Google Ads Help, best practices for high-quality leads; about qualified and converted leads; conversion upload windows.
What changed in 2026
Short answer
Enhanced conversions for leads is Google’s upgraded offline conversion import. Your site captures hashed details such as email from the lead form; when sales qualifies or wins that lead, the outcome is uploaded and Google matches it to the ad click. Uploads must arrive within 63 days of the click and, since 15 June 2026, go through the Data Manager API.
The lead form records the click ID and consented, hashed contact details.
Sales marks the lead’s stage in a CRM or spreadsheet: accepted, qualified, opportunity, won or lost.
Zephra sends the stage to Google through the Data Manager API, where configured, and checks that it arrived.
Google attributes the stage to the ad interaction and can use it for reporting or as a bidding goal.
Google now describes GCLID-only offline conversion import as a legacy feature and recommends enhanced conversions for leads. From 15 June 2026, offline conversion and enhanced-conversions-for-leads uploads are no longer accepted through the Google Ads API. Sources: enhanced conversions for leads; Data Manager with enhanced conversions for leads.
Search terms
The rule that saves the most budget in B2B search is also the one most often broken: review queries by the outcome they produce, not by the words they contain. A term that produces qualified RFQs rarely deserves a blanket negative, even if it looks cheap or casual.
| Segment | Usually buyer intent | Usually not a buyer | Mixed: review before excluding |
|---|---|---|---|
| Industrial & manufacturing | “[part] manufacturer”, “[spec] supplier”, “RFQ”, “OEM”, “bulk order” | “jobs”, “course”, “project report”, “PDF”, “diagram” | “price list”, “spares”, “repair”, “used”, “near me” |
| B2B SaaS & IT services | “[category] software pricing”, “[competitor] alternative”, “demo” | “login”, “certification”, “tutorial”, “salary” | “free”, “open source”, “template”, “for small business” |
| Consulting & professional services | “[service] firm”, “advisory for [need]”, “[service] consultant [city]” | “internship”, “salary”, “free report”, “how to become” | “cost”, “fees”, “checklist”, “guide” |
Add them as negatives at the right level, and check they don’t collide with keywords elsewhere in the account.
Give “spares” or “pricing” searches their own ad group and a matching landing page, so they can be judged on their own outcomes.
Where leads carry no status, ask sales before excluding anything. A few qualified enquiries can justify a costly term.
For the step-by-step method, see the negative keywords guide.
In practice
A US industrial component maker spends US$25,000 a month on Search. It gets 180 form leads, a cost per lead of about US$139. Sales qualifies 36 RFQs, so each qualified RFQ costs about US$694, and 12 of them receive quotes.
| Search terms | Spend | Leads | Qualified RFQs | Cost per qualified RFQ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Repair, spares and student queries | US$6,000 | 70 | 2 | US$3,000 |
| Everything else | US$19,000 | 110 | 34 | about US$559 |
| Total | US$25,000 | 180 | 36 | about US$694 |
Student, course and job queries produced no qualified RFQs. Exclude them within the account’s approval rules.
Both qualified RFQs in the weak group came from spares searches. Move them into their own ad group with a spares landing page instead.
About 20% of leads carry neither a click ID nor an email, so qualified outcomes for them can’t be matched back to Google. Fix the form first.
Don’t raise the target cost per acquisition while the goal switches from “lead” to “qualified lead”. Let bidding settle on the new signal.
What to measure next: cost per qualified RFQ, quote rate, and the share of leads carrying a click ID or hashed email. The split describes past spend; it is not a forecast of savings. The same pattern shows up for a valve distributor in India at ₹3,00,000 a month or an EPC subcontractor in the UAE at AED 60,000 a month.
Campaign types
Short answer
Sometimes, once the conditions are right. Performance Max works better for lead generation when Google receives qualified-lead or offline outcomes and brand and placement controls are set. With thin, junk-heavy form data it tends to find more of the cheapest conversions, so start with Search and a clean signal.
Performance Max decides where ads appear across Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps. That reach is useful when the conversion it optimises for is a qualified lead. It is risky when the conversion is any form fill, because display and video placements can generate cheap submissions that sales rejects.
Zephra monitors Performance Max health alongside Search and flags when brand queries or low-quality placements distort results. Google’s own guidance is in Performance Max for lead generation. For a fuller comparison, see Search vs Performance Max.
Controls
Your team decides which actions can run directly and which need approval. The evidence behind each recommendation stays visible either way.
Low-risk changes can run automatically. Budget moves, bidding-strategy switches and pausing campaigns can require review.
Changes stay inside the budget limits you set. Ad spend is billed by Google, not by Zephra.
Repeated edits to the same campaign are spaced out, so each change can be measured.
When a bid strategy or goal changes, further edits wait until bidding has had time to adjust.
Across platforms
Google captures demand that already exists. LinkedIn reaches buying committees by company and role before they search. Meta builds reach and retargeting at lower cost. Each looks best on its own platform’s cost per lead, which is why comparing them that way misleads.
Compare them on cost per qualified lead or opportunity instead. A LinkedIn lead that costs three times a Google lead can be the cheaper source of pipeline if sales qualifies three times as many. Zephra runs Google, Meta and LinkedIn Ads from one view and judges budget moves on that basis where lead status is available. See Meta Ads for B2B and plans and pricing.
Markets
Questions, answered
Yes. Zephra can improve the campaigns you already run, including accounts built by an agency, or create new ones. Most teams start with the free assessment of their existing account.
No. Sales can mark each lead qualified, not qualified or won in a spreadsheet to begin with. A CRM adds stage history and makes sending outcomes to Google easier, but consistent status matters more than the tool.
Not by default. In B2B, some price and spares searches come from real buyers or distributors. Check which of those queries produced qualified enquiries first. Exclude patterns that consistently produce none, and move mixed-intent queries into their own ad group with a matching landing page.
It depends on how many qualified outcomes you record and how quickly they happen compared with Google’s recommended thresholds. Low-volume accounts may use qualified leads for reporting and budget decisions for some time before they can be the bidding goal.
No. Better tracking recovers reporting on leads you were already getting, and it gives bidding a better signal. Recovered reporting is not new business; any real improvement shows up later in qualified leads and pipeline.
Only within the permissions you set. Low-risk changes can run automatically; other actions, such as budget changes or bidding-strategy switches, can require review. Spend boundaries, cooldowns and learning-phase protection apply, and the evidence behind every recommendation is visible.
It can run execution and diagnosis continuously. Many B2B teams keep an agency or consultant for strategy, positioning or creative. Agencies can also use Zephra across client accounts on the Enterprise plan.
Google’s recommendations work inside the goals and conversion actions already set in your account. Zephra also checks whether those goals count qualified leads, weighs evidence from Meta and LinkedIn, and acts within the approvals your team sets.
Start with your account
The free assessment covers wasted spend, campaign structure, performance constraints and measurement gaps, across Google, Meta and LinkedIn.
