Solved: Google Ads Leads Not Converting? (The Real Reason)

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! I had a look at your problem with converting Google Ads leads into trials in Belfast. It's a really common issue, and tbh, the problem is rarely where people think it is. I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance based on my experience. Most people immediately blame the ads, but 9 times out of 10, the real issue lies in what happens *after* the click.

Let's be blunt: your Google Ads are probably not the real problem...

You mentioned you're struggling to convert leads from Google Ads. This tells me one thing straight away: you are getting clicks. People in Belfast are searching for terms you're bidding on, seeing your ad, and clicking on it. The traffic source is doing its job; it's delivering seemingly interested people to your digital doorstep.

The issue is what they find when they arrive. It's like spending a fortune on fancy invitations for a party, but when the guests arrive, the music is off, there's no drinks, and the host is hiding in the kitchen. People will just turn around and leave. Your website and your offer are the party. Right now, it sounds like the party is a bit of a letdown.

Blaming Google Ads for low trial sign-ups is the most common mistake I see. It’s an easy scapegoat. But if the clicks are coming, you have to look inwards at the conversion mechanics. We've seen clients reduce their cost per acquisition by 80% or more, not by fiddling with ad keywords endlessly, but by fixing the broken steps between the ad click and the "thank you" page. It’s a funnel problem, not a traffic problem. And that's actually good news, because you have full control over your funnel.

You need to stop thinking about 'leads' and start thinking about nightmares...

Before we even touch your website or your offer, we need to get this right. Who are you actually trying to sell to? If your answer is "small businesses in Belfast," you've already lost. That's a demographic. It tells you nothing of value. It leads to generic messaging that speaks to no one.

You have to get forensic. Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a problem state. A specific, urgent, expensive, career-threatening nightmare. You need to become an expert in that nightmare.

Let's imagine you sell project management software. Your ICP isn't "construction firms with 10-50 employees in Northern Ireland." It's 'John, a site manager for a mid-sized Belfast builder, who lies awake at 3 AM terrified that a subcontractor will miss a critical deadline, triggering a penalty clause that will wipe out the project's profit margin and make him look incompetent in front of his boss.' See the difference? One is a line in a spreadsheet; the other is a real, emotional pain point.

Once you know the nightmare, your entire strategy changes. You're not selling "project management software" anymore. You're selling "the only PM tool that guarantees you'll never miss a subcontractor deadline again." Your ad copy, your landing page headline, your trial onboarding—everything must speak directly to solving John's 3 AM terror.

We should have a quick look at your Google Ads targeting...

Even though the ads aren't the main culprit, we can still make sure they're not making things worse. The keywords you bid on are a direct reflection of your prospect's intent. You need to be ruthless about this. Are you bidding on keywords that show someone is just browsing, or someone who is ready to act?

For example, bidding on "business software" is a waste of money. It's a broad, informational query. The person searching could be a student writing an essay. But bidding on "construction project management software for NI" or "best accounting software for Belfast startups" is completely different. The intent is much higher; they are actively looking for a solution like yours. These are your "pre-qualified" searchers.

I remember one B2B software client we worked with who was getting lots of clicks but few trials. Turns out they were bidding on the names of huge, enterprise-level competitors. They were attracting people looking for a completely different (and much more expensive) class of product. We paused those, focused on long-tail keywords that described the *problem* their software solved, and their trial conversion rate tripled, while their cost per lead dropped. We see this all the time, getting targeting right is one of the most important things for success.

Your offer is probably asking for too much, and giving too little...

This is probably the single biggest reason for your low conversion rate. Let's talk about your Call to Action (CTA). What are you asking people to do on your landing page? If the main button says "Request a Demo," "Book a Call," or "Talk to Sales," you are committing a cardinal sin of B2B marketing.

The "Request a Demo" button is the most arrogant CTA ever invented. It presumes that your prospect, a busy professional, has nothing better to do than schedule a meeting to be sold to. It screams high-friction and low-value. It puts all the work on them and offers nothing in return but a sales pitch. Why would anyone sign up for that?

Your offer’s only job is to deliver an "aha!" moment. A moment of undeniable value that makes them sell *themselves* on your solution. You need to replace your high-friction ask with a high-value gift.

The gold standard options are:

• -> A True Free Trial: Not a 'trial' that requires a credit card and a conversation with sales. A real, self-serve trial they can start using in two minutes. Let the product do the selling. When the product itself proves its value, the sale becomes a formality. This is how you generate Product Qualified Leads (PQLs), who are infinitely more valuable than Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs). We helped one SaaS client get over 5,000 trials at just $7 each by switching from a demo model to a self-serve trial.
• -> A Freemium Plan: Even better. Give them a core version of your product for free, forever. Let it become embedded in their workflow. The upsell will happen naturally when they need more power.
• -> A Free Tool or Asset: If you're not a SaaS, you are not exempt. You must bottle your expertise into something of value. A marketing agency could offer a free, automated SEO audit. A financial consultant could offer a free 'Cash Flow Projection' template. You must solve a small, real problem for free to earn the right to solve the whole thing for money.

How to know what you can *really* afford to pay for a trial...

This brings us to the maths. Right now, you're probably obsessed with your Cost Per Lead (CPL). You want it to be as low as possible. This is the wrong question. The real question is: "How high a CPL can I afford to acquire a truly great customer?" The answer is found by calculating your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

LTV tells you what a customer is actually worth to your business in profit over their entire relationship with you. Once you know this number, you stop making decisions based on fear and start making them based on data. You stop worrying about a £50 lead and start seeing it as an investment in a £5,000 return.

Here's the basic formula:

LTV = (Average Revenue Per Account * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate

Let's break it down:

• -> Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What's the average amount each customer pays you per month?
• -> Gross Margin %: What's your profit on that revenue after accounting for the cost of servicing that customer (e.g., server costs, support staff)?
• -> Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of your customers cancel their subscription each month?

Calculating this manually is a pain, so I've built a simple calculator for you below. Play around with the numbers. See how a small increase in retention (lower churn) or a higher price point dramatically increases the value of each customer you acquire. Its quite a powerful bit of maths.

A healthy business model often aims for a 3:1 ratio of LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). So, if your LTV is £3,200, you can afford to spend up to £1,067 to acquire one new customer. If your sales process converts 1 in every 10 trials into a customer, you can afford to pay up to £107 per trial. Suddenly, that £50 CPL from Google Ads doesn't look so bad, does it? It looks like a bargain. This is the mindset that fuels aggressive, intelligent growth.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

This has been a lot to take in, I know. But fixing these foundational issues is the only path to sustainable growth. Fiddling with ad bids is just rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic if the ship is heading for an iceberg. Here's a summary of what you should focus on next.

Working through these steps is a process. It takes time and a willingness to be brutally honest about your own business. It's much harder than just increasing your ad budget, but it's the only way to build a machine that reliably turns clicks into customers.

This is exactly the kind of strategic overhaul we specialise in. We've helped numerous B2B clients, including software companies where we took a CPA from over £100 down to just £7, by implementing this exact same methodology. It’s not about finding a magic bullet; its about systematically fixing each broken piece of the conversion funnel until it works like a well-oiled machine.

If you'd like to have a chat and walk through how these principles could be applied specifically to your business in a free, no-obligation strategy session, feel free to get in touch. We could audit your current funnel together and identify the biggest opportunities for growth.

Hope that helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh