Lead Grading Case Study
An independent HVAC contractor was spending nearly $8,000/month on Google Ads with almost no measurable return. Two weeks after acting on SearchLight Lead Grading data, their Google Ads ROAS jumped from 0.1x to 3.8x.
The Situation
An independent HVAC contractor in the Northeast was running Google Ads with a return that barely registered. Their agency reported conversions were coming in, but the phones were ringing with calls that had nothing to do with their services.
The owner knew something was off. But without visibility into the quality of each conversion, every budget conversation was guesswork. The agency couldn't see the problem. The office wasn't flagging it. The data looked fine on paper.
"Nobody that's answering the phone is saying, hey, we're getting a lot of phone calls for different companies and they're just hanging up. That's infuriating me right this second."
Owner, Independent HVAC Contractor
"I've had this conversation a couple of times with [the agency], and I'm under the impression, and so are they, that this is not an issue. So there's something that you guys are able to track that they were not able to track."
Contractor Owner
What Lead Grading Found
Within the first 30 days on Lead Grading, SearchLight analyzed every inbound conversion from Google Ads. The data painted a clear picture of where the money was going.
What Happened Next
The SearchLight team reviewed the Lead Grading data with the owner and his team, then provided specific, actionable recommendations to the agency.
Additional recommendations: Turn off Search Partners Network, switch geo-targeting from radius to zip codes for spend-by-zip reporting, and address CSR handling of after-hours leads with the answering service.
The Result
The agency implemented the recommendations. Within two weeks, the account transformed.
Why It Worked
The advertising agency reported that conversions were coming in and there were no issues. They weren't wrong about the volume. They were wrong about the quality.
Without listening to every call, there was no way to know that 65% of those conversions were wrong numbers, competitor lookups, spam, and calls the answering service failed to book.
Lead Grading made the invisible visible. In a single review session, the owner, his team, and SearchLight identified the exact problems, the specific fixes, and who needed to implement them. Two weeks later, the numbers spoke for themselves.
