How to

generate
high-quality
leads with
digital ads
Quick links

1 What challenges do lead

generation advertisers face?

Solutions to help you get

2
more high-quality leads at
scale

3
Where Google fits in the lead
generation cycle

4 Your lead generation

checklist
In this lead
generation playbook
we’ll show you how to

Reach customers that

value your business

Get more high-quality leads

at scale

Do it all in a privacy-safe way

What
challenges do
lead generation
advertisers
face?
 Creating seamless
1
customer
experiences

To drive and nurture your leads,

you may need to connect with
customers multiple times.

And they expect these

interactions to be seamless,
fast, and relevant.

Challenges
Did you know...

88%
of consumers favor brands that
provide helpful information along
every stage of their journey

but only

47%
of brands customize and
serve information across the
customer journey
Source: Google / Ipsos Connect, Consumer Discovery Study, U.S., December 2018, n of 2,001 US consumers age 18-54
who go online at least once a month

Challenges
 Maintaining
2
quality and scale

Not only do you want to

drive a high volume of
leads, but they also need
to be high quality.

Challenges
 Putting privacy
3
first

You want to make your

customers feel comfortable
with how you’re handling
their information, while also
trusting the tools you’re using
to deliver on performance.

Challenges
Solutions to
help you get
high-quality
leads at scale
1 Drive high-
quality leads

How do you distinguish good

leads from poor-quality leads?

The key to
optimizing for
qualified leads is
robust
measurement.
Better
measurement
improves lead
quality

+30%
cost efficiency
seen by advertisers
when integrating
strategies with
customer data across
+20%
incremental
the entire lead journey
Source: BCG, Responsible Marketing with First Party Data, May 2020

revenue

Drive high quality leads

 Identify actions in your lead to
sale journey, measure them,
and assign values to those
actions.
Conversion measurement

Engaged visitors
Pages visited Newsletter sign-ups Brochure downloads
Online

Assign
Leads higher
Phone calls Form submissions values to the
conversions
that are
closer to a
Conversion measurement

Qualified leads closed deal

Marketing / Sales qualified leads
Offline

Buyers
Closed deal

Learn more about how you can maximize your ROI by assigning
values to your conversion actions.

Drive high quality leads

Measure the full value of your
leads by importing your offline
conversions

Upload your lead data into Google Ads with offline

conversion imports (OCI). This helps Google
understand the quality of your leads, so we can find
you more customers like that.

Note: If you’re unable to use offline conversion imports, we recommend

assigning static values to your conversions. Learn more here.

This is the foundational step to tell Google

what “quality leads” mean to you.

Google’s products are built to be privacy-safe. Offline

conversion imports for web forms does not involve sharing
any personally identifiable information (PII) with Google.

The only data you will need to provide is:

● Google Click ID (gclid), which does not contain any PII
● Conversion name
● Conversion time
● Conversion value, conversion currency (optional)

Drive high quality leads

Easily import your offline
conversions with Offline
Conversion Import Helper

OCI Helper is a project management platform that helps

streamline the import process by providing step-by-step
implementation guidance, stakeholder accountability, and
progress monitoring.

Drive high quality leads

Maximize value from your leads
with Smart Bidding

Smart Bidding combines your offline conversion data

with Google’s real-time understanding of user intent,
interests, and context to help you find more valuable
customers. It optimizes each bid in real time to show your
ads to the right customer at the right bid within your
goals.

This is the foundational step to

maximize both the volume and quality
of your leads, while hitting your
budget and performance goals.

Maximize conversion value bidding with a set target ROAS helps you
get the most ROI from your budget.

It factors in the data you share about what different conversions and
leads are truly worth to your business, and optimizes your campaign
to find more of these high-value customers.

Drive high quality leads

Nurture your leads with
Customer Match
Customer Match uses your first-party data to nurture
leads and continue the conversation with your best
customers.

With Customer Match, you can re-engage offline

customers while they’re online, or reach previous online
customers with new, custom messages. You can find similar
audiences to your existing customers.

Customer Match lists are automatically

prioritized in Smart Bidding, helping Google
Ads understand who’s important to you and
help you unlock new audiences segments.

When customer information is uploaded to Google, the data is

hashed—turned into encrypted codes—and matched with anonymized
codes of Google accounts. After the matching process, the codes are
deleted immediately. Whether there is a match or not, Google does not
keep this data or use it for any other Google product. Learn more here.

Drive high quality leads

2 Getting quality
leads at scale
Driving leads with Google means you
can reach your customers wherever
they are in their journey

70%
of consumers say they’re always on
the lookout for new brands and
products to make their lives
easier — and increasingly using
Google products to research
Source: Google/Ipsos Connect, U.S., Consumer Discovery Study, n=2,001,
consumers A18–54 who go online at least once a month, Dec. 2018
 Drive leads at scale with lead
form and call extensions

Lead form extensions and call extensions make it

easier than ever to collect leads across all
channels. Users can submit their information directly
within your ad, or call you as they search, discover,
and watch relevant content.

On Search, you also have the option of showing a lead form when
people tap the headline of your ad. Learn more.

Pro Tip:
It takes 2 clicks & 3 seconds for...
potential customers with high-intent to engage
and help your business drive quality leads
efficiently.
Source: Think with Google. Link

Getting quality leads at scale

Automate lead management
with third-party partners

Collecting customer information, keeping it up to date, and

using it in your marketing campaigns can be a challenging
process, especially if you’re doing it manually.

Partnering with a third-party platform (i.e. Zapier,

Salesforce, Liveramp, etc.) makes it easier to collect
and update your first-party data in a privacy-safe
way.

For a full list of Customer Match partners, visit the Google Ads Help Center.

Benefits
● Vetted by Google to be privacy-safe at each step
● Conversion actions are sent in real time
● Automatically updates lists
● No need to manually format and import information
● Easily connects lead form extensions, offline conversion
imports, Customer Match, your CRM, and Google Ads

Getting quality leads at scale

Where
Google fits
in the lead
generation
cycle
 Now that you know the best way to help
you generate high-quality leads at scale,
create a continuous feedback loop for
your lead generation campaigns.

Drive leads & calls

directly from your ads
with lead form extensions
and call extensions

4 Privacy-safe 2
No PII exchanged
Machine learning Your leads flow into your
optimizes each bid to CRM system
show your ads to more
with your chosen CRM provider
valuable leads within your
performance goals
with Smart Bidding

Tell Google Ads which leads

turned out to be valuable
with offline conversion imports
Customers
that are
doing this
well
Business.com helps business owners buy everything they need to run a
business. COVID-19 caused some categories to see a decrease in
demand (i.e. renovations), and some an increase in demand (i.e. office
desks).

In order to capture dynamic demand in a cost-effective way, they

imported their data into Google Ads with offline conversion imports,
and adopted Target ROAS automated bidding to bid towards their
most valuable leads.

“We’ve seen significant improvements to bottom-line performance

and spend efficiency, as well as time savings for our team.”

+31% +10%
conversion value conversion volume
Paycor is a platform that provides recruitment, human resources,
and payroll solutions. Their demand generation team struggled to
identify valuable small business leads.

Paycor integrated their CRM data with Google Ads with offline
conversion imports. Then they assigned values to form fills and
MQLs, pulled in actual revenue from closed deals, and
implemented Target ROAS bidding to optimize towards business
outcomes.

Using their first-party data and Smart Bidding, Paycor drove more
qualified leads and revenue by optimizing bids in real-time to reach
the most valuable customers.

105% 210% 26%

more revenue more deals improved ROAS
Lead
generation
checklist
Lead generation checklist

Map out your lead to sale journey, track

important actions, and assign values to
your conversions

Drive leads and calls directly from your ads

at scale with lead form extensions and call
extensions

Measure the full value of your leads by

importing your offline conversions. Make this
process easier with OCI Helper

Maximize the value from your leads with

Smart Bidding

Automate your lead management with

third-party partners

Nurture your leads and provide valuable

signals for Smart Bidding with Customer Match
To learn more
about lead
generation visit the
Advertising Solutions Center