Auto Dealer Goes From Guessing to Growing

The situation

A subprime auto financing dealer in Alberta was running Google Ads but couldn’t differentiate between real leads and noise. Their tracking was minimal — page views counted as conversions, form submissions weren’t connected to ad clicks, and there was no way to tell which keywords were actually driving qualified buyers.

Monthly ad spend: mid four figures. Monthly clarity on ROI: zero.

What we found

The initial audit revealed several compounding issues:

• Conversion tracking was misconfigured. Page views and form submissions were lumped together as one conversion action. A bounce and a real lead looked identical in the dashboard.
• No GCLID persistence. Click IDs weren’t being captured or passed to the CRM, making it impossible to trace a deal back to its source keyword.
• Broad match keywords with no negatives. The account was triggering on searches like “car dealer jobs” and “how to finance a car yourself” — irrelevant clicks draining the budget.
• Traffic sent to the homepage. No dedicated landing pages. Every ad click landed on a general page with multiple CTAs competing for attention.

What we built

Phase 1: Tracking infrastructure

• Implemented proper Google Ads conversion tracking with separate actions for form submissions and phone calls
• Built a tracking utility to capture and persist GCLID through the entire form submission flow
• Set up a hidden-field system to pass UTM parameters and click data from landing page to CRM

Phase 2: Campaign restructuring

• Replaced broad match keywords with phrase and exact match targeting high-intent searches
• Built a comprehensive negative keyword list (200+ terms) to eliminate waste
• Created dedicated landing pages matching each keyword theme — single CTA, no navigation, headline matching search intent

Phase 3: Conversion optimization

• Redesigned the thank-you page with next-step expectations and a pre-qualification survey
• Added trust elements (testimonials, process timeline) to landing pages
• Implemented form field optimization based on completion rate data

The results

Within 90 days:

• Qualified lead volume tripled — same budget, but now reaching the right people with the right message
• Cost per qualified lead dropped 41% — eliminating waste keywords and improving landing page conversion rates
• Conversion rate lifted 68% — dedicated landing pages dramatically outperformed the homepage

The client now has full visibility into which keywords produce real buyers, enabling data-driven optimization that compounds month over month.

Key takeaway

The biggest gain didn’t come from clever ad copy or aggressive bidding. It came from fixing the fundamentals: accurate tracking, relevant targeting, and dedicated landing pages. The unsexy work produced the headline-worthy results.