Google Ads should drive real business opportunities—not fake leads that waste your time and drain your budget.
However, for many industrial manufacturers, spam submissions are a costly frustration. That’s exactly what happened to a luxury flooring provider when they noticed a surge in low-quality leads coming from their Google Ads campaigns.
Fake names. Nonsensical inquiries. Impossible project requests.
Their sales team was wasting hours sifting through junk leads, and their marketing budget was being drained with nothing to show for it.
Sound familiar? Here’s how we fixed it.
The Problem: a surge in spam leads
The Company’s Google Ads campaigns were suddenly flooded with low-quality leads. Their team noticed:
- Incomplete or fake entries
- Unrealistic project requests (e.g., quotes for jobs that didn’t match their target customers)
- Time wasted on follow-ups—sales calls that went nowhere
The bigger issue? This had been happening for weeks—and the company had no way of knowing how much money had been wasted on bad traffic.
They needed a fix—fast.
investigating the cause
While the exact root cause was unclear, we identified several potential culprits:
- Bot activity – Automated scripts targeting their form
- Competitor or affiliate interference – Possible attempts to drain ad budget
- Website form vulnerabilities – CAPTCHA was in place, but additional protections were lacking
- Google Display Network (GDN) traffic – Historically more prone to spam
the solution: a multi-pronged approach
To combat the spam, we took aggressive corrective actions across multiple areas:
google ads adjustments
- Paused Display Campaigns – Display ads tend to attract more spam, so we shut them off.
- Keyword Refinements – Paused keywords generating excessive spam and shifted from broad match to phrase match.
- Geo-Targeting Updates – Narrowed targeting to specific regions to filter out irrelevant traffic.
- Conversion Action Adjustments – Removed "Request a Quote" as a conversion and set "Click to Call" as an observation-only metric.
website & form adjustments
- Removed the "Request a Quote" Form – The form was a primary spam source.
- Revised the Sample Request Form – Added a quote request option to an already-existing form, improving lead quality.
the results: high-quality leads, lower spam
Within a few months of implementing these changes, the impact was clear:
- Spam volume significantly decreased
- Qualified lead volume improved
- Cost per conversion stabilized, with the majority of leads deemed qualified
With improved lead quality and better ad performance, they were able to refocus on real prospects instead of wasting time filtering out spam.
key takeaways for marketers
This case underscores a few critical lessons for Google Ads campaigns:
- Tackle spam immediately – Don’t wait for it to spread across keywords or ad groups.
- Take a holistic approach – Both ad settings and website forms need adjustments to fully eliminate spam.
- Limit reliance on Google Display Network (GDN) – Use it mainly for retargeting.
- Regularly review conversion quality – If conversion volume spikes unexpectedly, analyze lead quality with your client.
final thoughts
Spam isn’t just a nuisance—it hurts your ad performance and wastes your marketing dollars. The faster you eliminate it, the better your results.
At Knowmad, we specialize in Google Ads optimization for industrial manufacturers, ensuring your ad spend generates real, high-quality leads—not junk.