The client is an established mortgage originator generating leads through SEO, Google Ads, and affiliate marketing.
95% of Google Ads leads were not clearing the first two stages of the sales funnel: an automated credit check, followed by sales qualification to determine affordability. The credit check returns results within minutes, but sales qualification can take anywhere from a few hours to over a week, depending on which banks the applicant uses.
The result was that Google Ads was being rewarded for every lead -- including the 95% that would never convert.
We changed what we were telling Google to optimise for: Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) only, rather than all leads.
From January 2026, we uploaded SQLs to Google Ads every business day. Each upload included all SQLs generated from leads acquired over the preceding 8 weeks, matched back to their original Google click. This built up a clean, high-quality conversion signal with no unqualified leads contaminating it.
In April 2026, once sufficient data had accumulated, we switched Smart Bidding from "leads" to SQLs only.
The chart tracks SQLs attributed to Google Ads over 12 months, alongside cost per lead (CPL).
May 2026 saw a marginal lift in SQL volume and a noticeable drop in CPL, an early sign the new signal was taking effect.
By June and July 2026, the picture was clear: SQL volume had grown by 400% year-on-year, from roughly 100 per month to 500, while CPL fell from an average of R80 to below R20.
The same SQL-only approach is being rolled out to the client's other advertising platforms, starting with Meta. The SQL rate is also being adopted as the primary reporting KPI across all lead acquisition channels, giving the client a consistent measure of what actually drives revenue.