In August 2026, Master Plumber Services was spending about $10,000 a month on Google Ads and getting 11 leads for it. Two months later the same account produced 52 leads for $7,927. This is what changed, and why.
| The short version | |
|---|---|
| Cost per lead in August | $920 |
| Cost per lead in October | $152 |
| Leads in October | 52, from 328 clicks |
| Ad spend in October | $7,927, down from $10,126 in August |
The situation
Master Plumber Services is a Melbourne plumbing business. Most of its work had come through developers. In 2026 the director wanted to grow the residential side: general plumbing, blocked drains, hot water and roof plumbing for homeowners across Melbourne.
He first got in touch in February. We looked at the website and told him what we saw. The structure was there, but the homepage wouldn’t turn paid traffic into calls. No proof, no reason to pick this plumber over the next one. Nothing happened for six months.
In late August he came back, and this time we sat down together at our office in Burwood and opened the Google Ads account.
Inside it: five campaigns, every one of them set to maximise clicks, spending about $10,000 a month between them.
What was going wrong
Maximise clicks does exactly what it says. It buys as many clicks as the budget allows, and it has no idea whether any of them ring you.
In August the account spent $10,126 on 299 clicks and tracked 11 leads. That’s $920 a lead, before a plumber has driven anywhere or quoted anything.
The spend was spread thin. An after-hours campaign took $3,233 and produced two leads. A hot water campaign took $1,131 and produced none. The emergency plumbing campaign, the one closest to a real job, got $3,440 and about four.
Then there was where the clicks landed. The ads sent people to the main website, which asked them to read about the company. Someone with water coming through the ceiling doesn’t want to read. They want a number and a reason to trust it.
Clicks are not leads. The account was being judged on the wrong number.
What we did
1. Built a page for the ads, not for the company
A mobile-first landing page for Melbourne plumbing, separate from the main site. Phone number at the top, a short form, and the reviews and proof a homeowner looks for before they ring a plumber they’ve never used. It went live on 7 September.
2. Put tracking in before spending another dollar
New Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics, with calls and form submissions counted as leads. From this point the account had one number to answer to: what a lead costs.
3. Replaced five campaigns with one
On 10 September a single search campaign went live, bidding for conversions instead of clicks, built around the searches a Melbourne homeowner makes when they need a plumber today. The old campaigns were wound down through September.
4. Split out roofing once the base was working
Roof plumbing is a different job and a different search, so on 20 October it got a campaign of its own. In its first 12 days: 10 leads at $115 each.
The results
| August (before) | October (after) | |
|---|---|---|
| Campaigns | 5, maximise clicks | 2, maximise conversions |
| Ad spend | $10,126 | $7,927 |
| Clicks | 299 | 328 |
| Leads | 11 | 52 |
| Cost per lead | $920 | $152 |
September was the changeover month: $5,380 spent, 15 leads, $359 each, with the old campaigns still running down beside the new one.
The best week so far was 26 October to 1 November: 33 leads on $3,113, or $94 each. The first six days of November brought 20 more at $151.
A lead here is a call or a form from the ads, counted once. Google sometimes splits one lead between two campaigns, so campaign figures are rounded. Numbers are from the Google Ads account, pulled 7 November 2026.
What any plumber can take from this
If your agency’s report leads with clicks, impressions and click-through rate, ask them what a lead costs. If they can’t tell you, the account is probably set to maximise clicks and nobody is checking what comes out the other end.
Fewer campaigns, one job each, judged on leads. The spend went down by a fifth and the leads went up almost five times.
Same business, same services, less money. The difference was what the account was told to chase.
We’ve written about why cost per lead keeps climbing in accounts like this, and you can read how the same approach played out for SEQ Blocked Drains and S&J Plumbing.
Paying for clicks that don’t ring?
Book a call with me. We’ll open your account together and work out what a lead is actually costing you. See how we run Google Ads and conversion tracking.
