Why can a Google Ads campaign have steady clicks but few new customers?

Almost always the problem sits after the click, not in the campaign itself: what gets measured as a "conversion" in the account, the page the visitor lands on, the form or phone number that should capture the contact. The campaign screen shows clicks and cost per click, but it doesn't by itself say whether those clicks turn into people who actually spoke to the business.

What can you choose to measure as a conversion on Google Ads?

In its official guide, Google lists website actions, giving purchases, newsletter sign-ups and button clicks as examples, then app installs, phone calls, and offline conversions such as a store visit after someone saw an ad. It's a choice made by whoever sets up the account: if a weak action is set as the main conversion, such as a click on a "request info" button instead of the form submission that should follow it, that number can grow steadily without real customers growing with it.

Does the page that receives the click only affect conversion, or also the campaign's cost?

It affects cost too. In its guide on Ad Rank, Google lists "the quality of your ads and landing page" among the factors that determine both the ad's position and the actual cost per click. A page that promises something different from the ad, or doesn't make clear what to do once you arrive, doesn't only cost you in people leaving right away: it also costs you in euros for the same click, because Google itself treats it as part of Ad Rank, not as a detail outside the campaign.

Can a contact form that has stopped working make advertising look like it isn't paying off?

Yes, and it's one of the most deceptive cases: seen from the campaign, it's indistinguishable from a healthy one, because clicks keep coming in and cost per click stays normal, while on the other end the form has quietly stopped sending emails. I wrote about a case like this in "why it pays to have someone looking after it".

BlogGuides

Clicks going up, customers flat: why it happens and where to look

Q: Are phone calls generated by a campaign counted automatically?

No. Call reporting has to be turned on in the account settings, and the conversion action dedicated to calls from ads has to be verified and set as a primary goal. Without these two steps, a campaign can generate real phone calls that don't show up anywhere in the numbers you check every day, not because they don't exist, but because nobody told the system to count them.

29 October 2026

A woman sitting at a table takes notes on a sticky note while talking on the phone

Add as a preferred source on Google

One click, and Google will show my articles more often in your results.

Anyone watching a Google Ads campaign's dashboard, seeing clicks come in with a cost per click that looks normal, has a good reason to think it's working. Then they look at new customers for the month, and the number hasn't moved, or barely has. The usual reaction is to touch the campaign: change keywords, raise the budget, rewrite the ads. In most of the cases I've seen, that isn't where the problem is: it's in what happens after the click, in a place the campaign screen doesn't show.

What counts as a "conversion" is your call, not Google's

Google Ads doesn't know on its own what, for your business, counts as having gained a customer. In its official guide to conversion tracking, Google says the first step is choosing what to track, and lists a few categories: website actions, giving purchases, newsletter sign-ups and button clicks as examples; app installs or in-app purchases; phone calls; offline conversions, such as a store visit after someone saw an ad.

This is where a choice comes in that's left to whoever sets up the account, one Google doesn't make for you: among the examples of website actions is a plain button click, sitting right next to an actual purchase. If what gets set as the main conversion is a click on a "request info" button, instead of the actual form submission that should follow it, that number can climb perfectly steadily without real customers climbing with it. That's a logical consequence of how a system built to maximize a goal you defined yourself behaves, more than a warning Google spells out somewhere: but what that goal is set to remains the first thing to check when the clicks are there and the customers aren't.

The page that receives the click also weighs on the cost

There's a less obvious point: the quality of the landing page isn't only about the person reading it after clicking, it's also about what you pay to get them there. In its guide to Ad Rank, Google lists "the quality of your ads and landing page" among the factors that determine both the ad's position and the actual cost per click, alongside the bid, Ad Rank thresholds, the competitiveness of the auction, the context of the search and the expected impact of assets and other ad formats. A page that promises something different from what the ad said, or doesn't make clear what to do once you've landed, doesn't just cost you in people leaving right away: it also costs you in money for the same click, because Google itself treats it as part of Ad Rank, not as something outside the campaign.

The form that stopped working, and nobody notices

Then there's a failure that's more common than it sounds, and the most deceptive of all: the site's contact form stops sending emails, while whoever fills it in still sees the thank-you page and believes the message went through. I wrote about a case like this in why it pays to have someone looking after it: a window and door company only discovered after weeks that requests were arriving and falling into nothing. Seen from the campaign, this situation is indistinguishable from a healthy one: clicks keep coming, cost per click stays normal, and nothing on that screen signals that nothing is arriving on the other end. The reason a contact form is better than a plain email address isn't enough on its own: a form also needs checking, now and then, to make sure it's still actually doing what it looks like it's doing.

The calls a campaign generates, and that stay invisible

Businesses selling a local service often get their most important contact by phone, not through a form. Google lists phone calls as one of the conversion categories you can track, but they stay invisible until one more step is taken: call reporting has to be turned on in the account settings, and the conversion action dedicated to calls from ads has to be verified and set as a primary goal. Without these two steps, a campaign can generate real phone calls that don't show up anywhere in the numbers checked every day, not because they don't exist, but because nobody told the system to count them. The real risk is judging a campaign "not working" when it's actually bringing in customers by phone, while those customers stay out of the reports.

Where to look before touching the campaign

Before touching keywords, bids or ad copy, it's worth checking three things, in the order that costs the least time:

which action actually counts as a conversion in the account, and whether it shows a real contact or just a click;
whether the site's form still sends emails today, tested in person, not trusted on how it worked months ago;
whether the page receiving the click says the same thing as the ad, and whether anyone arriving understands in a few seconds what to do.

If all three hold up, then it's worth looking inside the campaign: keyword matching, automated bidding, ad structure. I write about that in more detail in managing Google Ads campaigns, the service I use to follow them every month: the terms are on the Google campaigns page. But starting there when the fault is downstream often means spending more to move a problem that was never in the campaign to begin with.

Where to start

The quickest check is also the most overlooked: fill in your own site's form today the way a customer would, and verify the email actually arrives. If that isn't the problem, write to me and let's look together at what's being tracked as a conversion and what happens on the page that receives the click: the reason customers aren't growing is often found before you even open the Google Ads account, and knowing where to look saves you from spending more on the wrong problem.