Google Ads has become one of the best lead generation sources for almost every sized company in India, from startups to small and moderate sized businesses and even large companies. Google Ads provides quick visibility and instant inquiries regardless of what industry your company serves.
The biggest issue that most businesses face is their cost per lead (CPL) is too high. It is not enough to just get leads; but if your cost per lead continues to rise on a monthly basis then your marketing is not working.
This is especially true in today’s growing array of competitive marketplaces such as digital marketing, IT services, real estate, health care, education and SaaS. While there are many explanations for why CPL is too high; in most cases the problems do not stem from having limited ad spend budgets. Instead, they usually stem from not having the right marketing strategies (i.e. poor targeting) or optimizing the ad campaigns correctly.
Due to the fact that a majority of Indian businesses have the opportunity to significantly reduce their Google Ads CPL and improve the quality of their leads by utilizing the correct online advertising approach, use the below strategies to reduce your CPL.
What Is Cost Per Lead in Google Ads?
Cost per Lead: The total amount spent on acquiring a lead using advertising. This is calculated by taking your total ad spend and dividing it by the total number of leads received.
Example. If your total Google Ad spend is ₹20,000 and you generated 100 leads then your CPL would be ₹200.
CPL benchmarks in India are dictated by different industries. For example, Business-to-Business services and high ticket solutions command higher CPLs while local and low-cost services will typically have lower CPL’s associated with them. The main goal of a marketing strategy should be to achieve a sustainable CPL with quality leads that convert to customers (real goal is not getting the most economical CPL).
Why Google Ads CPL Is High for Many Indian Businesses
High Cost-Per-Lead for many businesses in India is since many campaigns were launched quickly and without much planning. The use of generic keywords, broad targeting, poor landing pages and tracking Conversion just happened to be the cause of wasted spend.
Other reasons include high competition in Metropolitan City areas, Mobile-usage friendly websites, Searching for irrelevant clicks and No ongoing optimizations. When businesses use Google Ads as a “set and forget” channel (also adds to escalation of cost).
Focus on High-Intent Keywords
One of the biggest reasons why a business incurs a high CPL is due to the large number of broad search intent keywords that are used to create traffic, however have little to no leads as a result of that created traffic.
Some businesses need to focus on the technical aspects of their campaigns by using high intent search keywords that illustrate that a particular user wants to take action. The best example of this is keywords that include the specific keywords such as “services,” “company” or “agency,” “consultant,” “pricing.”
By taking it one step more, if an Indian business applies location-based keywords of either a city or state names, costs can be reduced significantly.
Use Keyword Match Types Strategically
Google Ads provides keyword match types of broad match, phrase match and exact match. Only using broad match keywords can increase traffic but bring in irrelevant users resulting in higher cost-per-lead (CPL).
Using phrase match and exact match keywords makes it easier to control when your ad appears and improves the quality of traffic generated. Broad match may also be useful if used together with strong negative keywords and proper bidding strategies.
Having a balanced keyword strategy helps decrease wasted spend and increase lead relevancy.
Write Ad Copies That Qualify Users
Many advertisers create ad copies that are strictly for getting clicks. When you only create ads to get clicks, you can result in irrelevant traffic and higher CPL.
Your ad copy should clearly communicate to the audience what type of service you provide and what type of problem it solves. By including qualifiers like “For Companies”, “For B2B Companies” or “For Indian SMEs,” you filter out the unqualified audience.
Having clear messaging can generate less clicks, but resulting in higher conversion rates and lower overall CPL.
Improve Quality Score to Lower Costs
Quality score is the main factor that will determine how much you pay per click and how visible your ads are. If you have a high quality score you will pay less for a better placement.
Quality score is dependant on three main factors:
- Keyword relevance
- Ad relevance
- Landing page experience
When you have higher quality scores than your competitors, you will pay less for placements in comparison to your more expensive competitors.
Use Dedicated Landing Pages Instead of Homepages
Sending visitors to your website’s homepage has been proven to be one of the biggest mistakes made by businesses in India. Homepages are created with multiple types of visitors and multiple types of actions in mind, ultimately resulting in confusion.
A dedicated landing page is designed for one purpose only – generating leads. It provides a clear understanding of the specific service, shows all of the various benefits, addresses each of the different pain points and provides a clear path toward completing a single call to action (lead generation).
Optimize for Mobile Users
Due to its mobile-first market, India’s conversion rates can be greatly impacted if landing pages take a long time to load and/or if the process of using them on a mobile device is cumbersome.
Having fast load times, clean layouts, short forms, and easy navigation is essential for mobile conversion. A slight improvement in conversion rates will substantially lower cost per lead (CPL) without the need for increased advertising costs.
Set Up Proper Conversion Tracking
Without proper tracking of conversions, Google Ads cannot effectively optimize campaigns. Many businesses are spending too much time and energy tracking the incorrect actions and therefore missing some of the most important conversions.
Be sure that you are tracking all form submissions, phone calls, WhatsApp clicks, and other lead generating activities correctly. This allows Google’s algorithm to continue to optimize its efforts toward users who are more likely to complete a conversion.
Use Smart Bidding at the Right Time
Maximize Conversions or Target CPA, Google’s smart bidding strategies can assist in reducing your CPL, but they only work when sufficient conversion data has been collected. In this case, it is usually best to begin with manual or enhanced CPC and wait for enough conversion data to be collected in order to use smart bidding effectively and consistently. By using Smart Bidding too soon, you typically increase your CPL instead of decreasing it.
Add and Update Negative Keywords Regularly
Negative keywords block your ad from being shown when an irrelevant search is made, thus wasting a portion of the ad budget. By regularly reviewing your search term report, you can identify searches that do not convert and assign these as negative keywords. Doing this often will increase your traffic quality and continue to decrease your CPL.
In India, you can significantly reduce your CPL by eliminating negative keywords for job related, free, course or other location unrelated keywords.
Use Location Targeting Smartly
Instead of targeting all of India, realize where your potential customers will most likely convert and target that area. Localized targeting reduces competition and increases the relevance of the lead.
Even with a pan-India business, shifting your bids based on the performance of a particular city or state will provide a more efficient use of your budget and lower your CPL.
Retarget High-Intent Visitors
The majority of users do not convert on their first visit. With retargeting ads, it’s possible to bring back users who have demonstrated interest in your offerings.
Retargeting tends to be cheaper than cold traffic, leading to better results. As in India, where a high degree of consideration is involved in the decision-making process, retargeting has a significant role in lowering CPL and improving ROI.
How Device Doctor India Helps Reduce Google Ads CPL
Device Doctor India assists Indian businesses in lowering Google Ads cost per lead (CPL) by using a range of data-driven strategies and continuing to optimize for the best outcome. The Device Doctor India team employs intent-based keyword targeting, conversion-focused ad copies, high-performance landing pages and accurate conversion tracking to reduce CPL.
By combining their extensive digital marketing experience with web and software development skills, Device Doctor India helps ensure that Google Ads provides businesses with genuine results—not just clicks.
Final Thoughts
A high CPL in your business does not have to be an inevitability. Google Ads can be a valuable source of profit for Indian businesses when used strategically.
Through the use of intention, relevance, landing page experience, and ongoing optimization, businesses can decrease cost per lead while simultaneously improving lead quality. Google Ads yields the most value when viewed as a long-term performance channel rather than a short-term experiment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Your specific industry, customer type, and the amount you charge for products/services will affect how much you need to spend on each lead. However, while the average cost per lead quoted may differ significantly by business type (local vs. B2B), the greatest focus should be on the quality of leads received via Google Ads, rather than on the cost of obtaining them.
There are many reasons CPLs could go up in Google Ads. Some of these include choosing poor-performing keywords; getting too much irrelevant traffic to your ads; having poorly designed landing pages with low relevance; high competition; and/or incorrect conversion tracking. Regular optimization of your campaigns is extremely important in order to ensure that you have control over the costs associated with acquiring leads with Google Ads.
If you decrease your CPL costs (per lead), it should not affect the quality of the leads you will receive. With better targeting, clearer ad messages, and optimised landing pages, CPL costs and lead quality will typically improve.
With proper optimisation of your first campaigns and ongoing regular testing and thorough data analysis on your behalf, you should expect to see improvements in your CPL cost (per lead) within approximately 4-8 weeks after optimising your campaign.
Absolutely! Campaigns need to be targeted correctly based on geographic location and conversion-focused to be successful.
