From 3 Enquiries a Week to 14: How an Australian Tradie Transformed His Lead Flow Without Increasing Ad Spend
How a Melbourne building and renovation business fixed a broken Google Ads account and tripled qualified enquiries at the same monthly budget.
The Situation
Mike Thompson had been running Google Ads for his building and renovation business for over a year. He was spending $1,800 AUD per month and getting three to four enquiries per week — some real, most not. His ads were on broad match. His landing page was the homepage. He had no negative keyword list.
The account was not failing dramatically. That was the problem. It was failing invisibly — spending budget on irrelevant searches, attracting tyre-kickers, and never sending a prospect to a page built to convert them. He assumed this was as good as Google Ads got for his industry. It was not.
The Problem in Numbers
| Metric | Before | After (45 Days) |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly Qualified Enquiries | 3–4 | 11–14 |
| Cost Per Enquiry | $107 AUD | $31 AUD |
| Wasted Spend (Irrelevant Searches) | ~62% of budget | ~9% of budget |
Our Approach
Phase 1 — Audit (Week 1)
We pulled the search term report first. In the previous 90 days, the account had paid for 847 unique search terms. Of those, 61 were relevant to renovation and building services in Melbourne. The remaining 786 were DIY tutorials, competitor brand names, rental searches, and unrelated construction terms. Broad match with zero negative keywords — every loosely related search was triggering the ads.
Phase 2 — Build (Week 2)
We moved to phrase and exact match keywords built around 14 high-intent service terms. We built a dedicated landing page for the top three service keywords with a single offer: a free renovation quote in 24 hours. Call tracking was installed to distinguish phone enquiries from form fills. A negative keyword list of 340 terms was built and applied on day one.
Phase 3 — Optimise (Days 15–45)
First two weeks delivered at $38 per enquiry — already 64% cheaper. Call tracking revealed 70% of conversions were phone calls, not form fills. The landing page CTA was updated to lead with the phone number. Cost per enquiry dropped to $31. Weekly Monday reports: three metrics only — enquiries, cost per enquiry, confirmed bookings from ad leads.
The Results
| Metric | Before | After (45 Days) |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly Qualified Enquiries | 3–4 | 11–14 |
| Cost Per Enquiry | $107 AUD | $31 AUD |
| Wasted Spend | ~62% of budget | ~9% of budget |
| Budget Increase Required | — | None (same spend) |
| Revenue from Ad Leads (Month 3) | ~$18K AUD | ~$67K AUD |
“I thought Google Ads just did not work well for tradies. I was wrong — I just had it set up wrong. I had been spending $1,800 a month for over a year and getting maybe three genuine enquiries a week. Cyborg showed me my search term report on the first call. I was paying for 786 searches that had nothing to do with what I do. Forty-five days later I was getting 11 to 14 real enquiries a week. Same spend. The phone does not stop now. I have already recommended them to two other tradies.”
Mike Thompson, Director — Thompson Building & Renovation, Melbourne, Australia
More budget rarely fixes a Google Ads problem. A clean keyword structure and a dedicated landing page will outperform a large budget on a broken account every time.
Trades or service business spending over $1,000/month on Google Ads?
We will audit your search term report and show you exactly what you are wasting it on — free, before you commit to anything.