Why are my leads lower but spend is the same?

What “same spend, fewer leads” really means in Google Ads

When spend holds steady but leads drop, the root cause is almost always one (or a mix) of these three mechanics: you’re buying less traffic (higher CPCs, fewer clicks), you’re buying the same traffic but it’s converting worse (lower conversion rate), or your lead measurement/reporting changed (leads are happening but aren’t being counted the same way).

The reason this pattern is so common is that Google Ads can maintain spend even while performance degrades. If average CPC rises due to auction pressure, the platform can still spend the same daily budget—just on fewer clicks. And if conversion tracking, conversion goals, or consent behavior changes, you can “lose” reported leads overnight without any meaningful change in demand.

Quick translation: what to look at first

• If clicks dropped (but spend stayed the same), your CPCs rose and you’re simply buying fewer chances to get a lead.
• If clicks are flat (and spend is flat), but leads fell, the issue is usually conversion rate (landing page, offer, form friction, lead type shift) or tracking/attribution.
• If leads fell in Google Ads but your CRM says leads are fine, this is almost always conversion setup, status, goals, counting, windows, or consent.

Part 1: Confirm you’re still counting leads the way you think you are

Before you touch keywords, ads, or bidding, make sure you’re not debugging the wrong problem. I’ve seen accounts spend the same amount for weeks while “leads” drop, only to find the conversion action stopped recording, switched to secondary, fell out of the campaign’s active goal set, or got clipped by a shortened conversion window.

A 10-minute diagnosis checklist (do this in order)

• Check the conversion action status for your lead conversion (Active vs Needs attention vs Inactive vs No recent conversions).
• Confirm the lead conversion action is set to Primary (not Secondary), and that your campaigns are optimizing to a goal set that actually includes it.
• Verify you’re reviewing the right column: Conversions vs All conversions (a reporting mismatch here can look like a lead drop).
• Confirm the conversion action’s Count setting (One vs Every) didn’t change.
• Confirm the conversion window didn’t change (a shorter window can reduce recorded leads, especially for longer consideration cycles).
• Account for conversion delay/time lag (recent date ranges can look artificially weak when conversions arrive days later).
• If you use tags: validate the tag fires correctly and that your sitewide setup (including any linker behavior and consent behavior) still allows measurement.
• If you import leads (offline): confirm your import cadence didn’t slow down and that your identifiers/matching logic are still consistent.

1) Conversion status: “No recent conversions” can be a clue, not the cause

In the conversions area, “No recent conversions” has a very specific meaning: there haven’t been any recorded conversions in the last 7 days for that conversion action. That can be a real performance issue, but it can also be a measurement issue (tag not firing, form flow changed, consent blocking, thank-you page removed, etc.).

If the status shows Needs attention or Inactive, treat measurement as the priority. Fixing campaigns while the conversion signal is broken usually makes performance worse because Smart Bidding (and even your own decision-making) loses the feedback loop it relies on.

2) Primary vs Secondary conversions: your “lead” might have been demoted without you noticing

Google Ads groups conversion actions into conversion goals. Only primary conversion actions that your campaign is actually optimizing toward will show in the standard Conversions column and be eligible to drive bidding. Secondary actions are “observation only” and typically show in All conversions, not in Conversions.

This is one of the most common reasons advertisers say “my leads are down” while spend is unchanged: nothing is wrong with demand; the account is simply looking at a column that no longer includes the action they care about.

Practical tip: if Conversions fell but All conversions didn’t, you likely have a goal configuration problem, not a marketing problem.

3) Account-default goals and campaign goal selection: leads can fall out of optimization

Even if a conversion action is set to Primary, it still has to be part of the goal set the campaign is using for optimization. If your account-default goals changed, if a campaign was moved to campaign-specific goals, or if a “Contact/Submit lead form” goal isn’t selected for that campaign anymore, your bidding can drift toward other actions (or toward traffic volume) while reported lead volume falls.

When this happens, you may also see the platform maintain spend because it can still find clicks—just not the clicks most likely to create the lead action you intended to optimize for.

4) Conversion counting (One vs Every): an easy setting to overlook that can cut leads overnight

Lead-focused accounts typically want to count one conversion per ad click for a lead action, while ecommerce typically counts every conversion. If your lead conversion accidentally switches from Every to One (or vice versa), your reported “leads” can swing dramatically even if nothing else changed.

Also note that counting changes apply going forward, so if you changed this recently and you’re comparing “this month vs last month,” you can unintentionally create a reporting mismatch that looks like a performance decline.

5) Conversion windows and conversion lag: recent date ranges can lie

If you shortened the click-through conversion window (or created a new lead conversion with a shorter window), conversions that happen later simply won’t be recorded. Separately, even with a healthy window, leads may take time: it’s normal for a portion of conversions to be reported days after the click, and that delay can make the most recent 3–7 days look worse than they truly are.

If your sales cycle is longer (B2B, higher-consideration services), it’s smart to compare performance using date ranges that allow for lag (for example, comparing complete weeks that ended at least several days ago), rather than judging on “last 7 days” alone.

6) Consent, tagging, and enhanced conversions: measurement can drop even when traffic is fine

In 2024 and beyond, consent behavior has become a first-class factor in conversion measurement. If your consent banner/CMP implementation changed, if consent signals aren’t being passed reliably, or if tags are firing before consent state is known, you can see fewer measurable conversions while spend and clicks remain steady.

Similarly, if you rely on offline conversion imports (CRM-qualified leads), improving measurement quality often means upgrading to enhanced conversions for leads so matching can use privacy-safe hashed first-party data (commonly email and/or phone), not just click identifiers. The big win here isn’t “more traffic,” it’s a cleaner feedback signal for optimization, especially when browser-level identifiers are less available than they used to be.

7) If your leads come from lead form assets: eligibility or compliance changes can reduce volume

If you were generating a meaningful share of leads directly from lead form assets, don’t ignore the possibility that the asset stopped serving or became limited due to eligibility/compliance requirements. Lead forms also require a privacy policy presented to the user, and certain sensitive categories aren’t eligible. If your lead form experience was a key converter and it’s no longer showing, you can easily see “same spend, fewer leads” because the ads still run and spend, but the highest-converting path disappeared.

Part 2: If tracking is correct, diagnose the auction and traffic shift

Once you’re confident leads are being counted correctly, shift your focus to the inputs that create leads: eligible impressions → clicks → landing-page engagement → form submissions. A stable budget does not guarantee stable traffic quality or volume.

1) CPC inflation: same budget, fewer clicks, fewer leads

If CPCs rose, your budget buys fewer clicks. The next step is to figure out why CPCs rose. In many markets it’s simply competition, seasonality, or more advertisers entering the auction. In other cases it’s Ad Rank pressure caused by ad relevance, expected CTR, asset coverage, or landing page experience slipping.

Use impression share metrics (including loss due to budget and loss due to rank) at the campaign level to see whether you’re losing auctions because of rank. If you’re losing due to rank, you’re not just paying more—you may be getting pushed into lower-quality inventory positions and query mixes that convert worse.

2) Competitive pressure: use Auction Insights to spot who changed the market

Auction Insights is the fastest way to confirm whether the auction changed around you. If a competitor’s overlap rate spikes, or your outranking share drops, it often correlates with higher CPCs and weaker lead volume—even if your own settings didn’t change. This is especially important in local services and B2B categories where a single aggressive entrant can move pricing.

3) Conversion rate decline: the silent killer when clicks are steady

If clicks and spend are steady but leads fell, conversion rate is the culprit until proven otherwise. In that case, go straight to landing page performance. Pay extra attention to mobile traffic, because small speed and usability issues can disproportionately reduce lead form completion.

In-platform landing page reporting can help you identify pages that struggle on mobile and give you a structured way to compare which landing pages drive clicks versus which actually convert. When I see lead drops, it’s common to find that a “new” page variant, a broken thank-you flow, a slower script, or an extra form field quietly reduced completion rates.

Part 3: Proven fixes to recover leads without increasing spend

Once you’ve identified whether the leak is measurement, traffic cost/volume, or conversion rate, the right fix becomes straightforward. The goal is not to “change everything,” but to restore a clean conversion signal and then tighten the path from query to lead.

Fix set A: Restore a clean lead signal for bidding and reporting

Start by ensuring your core lead conversion action is Primary, included in the campaign’s active goals, and showing in the Conversions column the way you expect. Confirm the Count setting matches your business logic (most lead gen uses One), and don’t shorten conversion windows unless you’re intentionally willing to stop counting longer-lag leads.

If consent changes are part of your ecosystem, treat them as part of measurement—not a legal footnote. Validate your tag behavior end-to-end. If you import qualified leads from a CRM, keep the upload cadence consistent and consider enhanced conversions for leads to strengthen matching and keep Smart Bidding learning stable.

Fix set B: Stop buying expensive clicks that don’t become leads

If CPC inflation is forcing fewer clicks, you need to improve efficiency rather than “bid harder.” In practical terms, that means improving Ad Rank and reducing wasted auctions. Quality Score components (expected CTR, ad relevance, landing page experience) are useful directional indicators here—especially when one component is consistently below average for your highest-spend keywords.

Use impression share loss (rank) as a reality check. If rank loss is high, you can often win back lead volume by improving ad-to-landing-page alignment and the landing page experience instead of simply raising targets.

Fix set C: Improve landing page conversion rate (the fastest lever in most lead-gen accounts)

If clicks are stable but leads fell, focus on the landing page and the form journey. Tighten message match between the query, ad text, and page headline. Reduce friction (form length, unclear next steps, slow load). Verify mobile usability and speed. Then validate that the conversion event fires reliably after a real submission (not on button click, not on page view that can trigger accidentally).

Fix set D: If you rely on lead form assets, protect that channel

If lead form assets were a meaningful driver, make sure they remain eligible, compliant, and actively serving. Treat the privacy policy experience as part of the conversion flow. If lead form volume dropped while click spend held, that can be a sign the on-ad form path declined and users are being redirected into a weaker website experience instead—so you may need to improve the landing page or re-evaluate how lead form assets are used within your campaign mix.

When leads drop but Google Ads spend stays flat, the cause is usually a shift in click volume (often from higher CPCs), a conversion-rate decline on the landing page or form flow, or a tracking/goal configuration issue where leads are still happening but no longer counted (for example, primary vs secondary conversions, goal set changes, consent/tag firing, attribution windows, or offline import cadence). Blobr connects to your Google Ads and continuously checks for these kinds of changes, then uses specialized AI agents to turn what it finds into clear, prioritized actions—like spotting CPC inflation and wasted queries, flagging conversion-tracking misconfigurations, or suggesting ad and landing-page alignment improvements—so you can diagnose “same spend, fewer leads” faster and focus on the fixes that actually move lead volume.