EngiClean: £86 to £20.17 a lead — and the first fix was the measurement.
EngiClean runs a specialist DPF — diesel particulate filter — cleaning network across multiple UK locations. The account arrived reading £86 a lead and looking worse every month. Some of that was genuine waste. A good part of it was a conversion-tracking fault that had stopped the account counting its own enquiries. We fixed the measurement, then the account: 468 leads at £20.17 each in the 30 days after the rebuild (live account data).
No call required · read-only access · in writing within 48 hours
The account that looked like it was getting worse every month
This was a takeover. EngiClean’s brief was blunt: cost per lead was rising, the account read £86 a lead (live account data, on arrival), and each month looked worse than the one before. Find out why, and stop it.
The first finding was not a bidding problem. Before moving any budget, we audited the measurement — and found the conversion tracking had partially stopped counting real enquiries in mid-May. Calls and forms were still reaching the locations; a share of them was simply never recorded against the account.
That one fault does two kinds of damage. The reported cost per lead inflates, because real enquiries go missing from the maths. And Google optimises blind, because its bidding learns only from the conversions it can see — feed it a partial picture and it steers the budget by the wrong results. The account was better than it looked and worse than it should have been, at the same time.
We say this up front because it changes how you read the £86. Part of that figure was broken measurement, not waste. Pretending otherwise would inflate the win, so we publish it as it is: fixing the tracking mattered as much as any optimisation that followed.
What we changed, in the order it happened
A takeover in the order the faults demanded: measurement first, then structure, then pages, then budget. Every step after the first is judged on the real enquiries the rebuilt tracking counts.
- Diagnosis before optimisation. We traced the rising cost per lead to its source: conversion tracking that had partially stopped counting real enquiries in mid-May. No bid, keyword or budget moved until the account could see its own results.
- Tracking rebuilt. Calls and forms count again, across the network — so everything that follows, and every number on this page, is measured against real enquiries rather than a partial feed.
- Cannibalisation removed. Three campaigns were bidding on the same searches, splitting the budget and the conversion data three ways. We consolidated the structure so every search has one home.
- Message-matched landing pages, per location and service. A searcher wanting a DPF clean near them lands on a page about that place and that job — not a national homepage.
- Budget moved weekly to the geographies that convert. The network spans multiple UK locations, and they do not convert equally; the spend follows the ones producing enquiries, reviewed every week.
Why this order. There is no point consolidating campaigns or rebuilding pages while the account cannot count its own enquiries — every improvement would be judged against numbers that are not real. Measurement first is the least glamorous move on this page, and the one that made the rest work.
Cost per lead
£86 →£20.17
From the figure the account arrived reading to the rebuilt account’s cost. Part of the £86 was broken measurement, not waste.
Live account data · 30 days
Leads in 30 days
468
Calls and forms, counted by the rebuilt tracking. Enquiries, not completed cleans.
Live account data · 30 days
Campaigns per search
3 →1
Three campaigns were bidding on the same searches. Consolidated so every search has one home.
Account structure · before / after
What you are looking at: EngiClean’s Google Ads account in the 30 days after the takeover rebuild — the cost per lead, the lead count, and the structural change that made room for both. Two caveats, published on purpose: part of the “before” £86 reflected broken conversion tracking rather than waste alone — the account had partially stopped counting real enquiries in mid-May, and pretending otherwise would inflate the win. And the 468 are enquiries — calls and forms — not completed cleans.
If your cost per lead is rising, check the measurement first
Sometimes the account is leaking. Sometimes it just cannot see. The 12-Point Wasted-Spend Audit checks both — your tracking as well as your spend — from read-only access, with findings in writing within 48 hours. Yours either way.