First, define what “working” means.
A service business may want booked jobs, qualified consultations or quote requests. Those are different goals from impressions or page visits. Set the commercial objective before reviewing the channel.
Write down the path: relevant person sees the ad, visits the page, enquires, receives a response, gets a quote and decides. You need enough information about each stage to find where the useful opportunities stop progressing.
Check measurement before trusting the report.
A conversion report is only as useful as the event being recorded. Google supports website actions, calls and offline conversions.[1] That range is useful, but it also means two reports can use the same word for different actions.
Test a real submission. Check the website confirmation, the notification and the measurement system. Ensure a reload of the confirmation page is not counted as a second enquiry. Keep an independent record of enquiries so a platform total can be reconciled.
Also ask whether the measurement relies on storage or tracking technologies that need a lawful approach to consent. The ICO’s guidance explains the rules and exceptions for those technologies.[2] Measurement gaps should be reported honestly, not hidden behind precise-looking totals.
Check whether the traffic matches the offer.
Are visitors in the area you serve? Are they interested in the work you want? Does the ad make the eligibility, service and next step clear enough? A popular creative can attract curiosity without attracting appropriate customers.
Look at the actual requests as well as the campaign settings. If people repeatedly ask for a service you do not offer, revise the message or landing page. If they are consistently outside the service area, review targeting and the visible location information.
Check the destination and the follow-up.
The page should continue the offer in the ad, provide credible evidence and make contact straightforward. Google’s landing-page experience is one part of its Quality Score diagnostic.[3] That diagnostic does not replace seeing what a visitor actually experiences.
Then inspect the response process. Who receives enquiries? How quickly do they reply? Are quotes clear? Is the business available for the requested work? Buying more traffic into a broken follow-up process can increase the workload without helping the outcome.
Review the economics with your own figures.
Keep separate totals for media spend, management fees and any additional costs. Divide the relevant cost by qualified enquiries and by booked jobs, using a consistent time window. Note that a customer may book after the month in which they first enquired.
Use contribution margin to assess affordability, rather than revenue alone. An illustrative £500 job with £350 of delivery costs leaves £150 before other overheads and acquisition costs. That is an example calculation, not an industry benchmark.
Questions people ask
Should I increase spend if my ads are getting clicks but no enquiries?
Check the tracking, traffic relevance, page and contact route first. More clicks do not repair a broken form or an offer mismatch. Agree a budget change only after you understand the current bottleneck.
Which metric should a service business focus on?
Start with qualified enquiries and booked work, then use earlier metrics to diagnose problems. Record how the business defines a qualified enquiry and account for the time between an enquiry and a booking.
Are platform conversion totals always exact?
No. Definitions, consent, attribution windows and technical gaps can affect the totals. Reconcile reports with your actual enquiry records and state the limitations.
Sources & reference notes
Primary sources checked on 2 October 2026. Recommendations and worked examples are AllVia-AI’s analysis; they are not platform guarantees.
- Google Ads Help: Different ways to track conversions.
- Information Commissioner’s Office: Guidance on the use of storage and access technologies.
- Google Ads Help: About Quality Score for Search campaigns.
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