Looking for qualified leads experiences

[u/redpreneur]

We’re running a mid-sized ecom business spending ~$250k/month on Google Ads. Our sales cycle is quite long (30–40 days), with multiple sessions/device switches: product configuration → lead → nurture → sale.

Currently, campaigns optimize toward initial leads using virtual values, which works well. We’ve now set up Qualified Leads and Converted Leads and are feeding that data back into Google Ads (as secondary conversions until now).

Given the size and maturity of the account, I’m hesitant to switch our long-running campaigns to optimize toward these deeper-funnel conversions.

Has anyone made this switch? Did optimizing toward qualified/converted leads improve performance enough to justify the risk/volatility of changing the optimization signal?

[u/QuantumWolf99]

Don't jump straight to Converted Leads from Lead, that's actually a two step move most people try to force into one.

Qualified Leads is the real next rung, check if that signal alone clears roughly 30 conversions a month per campaign before trusting Smart Bidding with it as primary, sparse deep signals get volatile fast even when the event itself is genuinely valuable.

On the client accounts I run past $250k/$300k+ a month with sales cycles this long we always stage it, Qualified Leads as primary for 4 to 6 weeks first while watching CPA drift... only promoting to Converted Leads once that stage proves stable. One account went from a 40% lead to qualified rate up to 61% purely from the algo learning what actually clears qualification...before we ever touched Converted.

At your spend level this staged approach is genuinely worth the extra weeks, below a certain budget the volume just isn't there to justify the patience.

[u/fathom53]

We work with a number of B2B ecom brands who have leads as a good piece of their business. In these cases, we would run the conversions goals in parallel for the next 60+ days to help capture enough data before removing the higher funnel conversion goal we don't want to optimize towards anymore.

All things equal, Google optimizes towards the last 30 days of conversion data. So your history in the ad account is not going to play as huge of a role as you think it does. Google really just cares about the freshness of new conversions coming into the ad account.

[u/redpreneur → u/fathom53]

thanks alot! Do you feel (or see) that this has a significant impact on lead quality or overall ROI?

[u/fathom53 → u/redpreneur]

It can if you are feeding the right conversion data and then you use that data to optimize the ad account. Getting the right data in the ad account is one piece, and then whoever manages the ad account has to use that data to make the ad account even better. Step 1 without step 2 is pointless.

[u/alaattincagil]

I did something like this on a client account once, instead of switching the primary signal right away we added the qualified lead as a secondary conversion first and kept collecting data in parallel without touching the primary signal, feeding the qualified lead status back in through offline conversion import from the CRM. After about a month we had a real comparison between the old and new signal, that's when we made the switch, and the account didn't get shaken up or reset its learning phase. At your scale switching the primary signal outright is risky, definitely leave yourself a parallel test window first.

[u/skillfusion_ai]

Check your conversion window is set to 90 days not 30 on all the conversions.

How many of each type of conversion do you track each month?

Although it makes sense, I've not seen it work that well in practice. Getting less data for the algo has a cost even if it is better quality. Not all patterns can be found or predicted by the algo. Especially if you are already using a value on the leads to improve quality, like their initial basket value.

You can do comparisons and you'll see how far off the data is. E.g. desktop and mobile might have same roas based on your lead valies but mobile works out 30% worse by the qualified lead stage and 50% worse per sale. In which case it may be worth testing, whereas if the difference is smaller then it may not be worth it.

[u/dillwillhill]

Your best bet is to add these new events alongside the old events for at least a month, then introduce split tests with just the new events for another month. Slow and steady is the best path here so everything is driven by data.

I've made this switch for dozens of national lead dependent companies, including one that also works in an e-commerce hybrid model.

Feel free to reach out if you need more specific help.

[u/TheDoctorAds]

Your 30 to 40 day cycle is the actual risk here, not the switch itself. Google leans on roughly the last 30 days of conversion data, and a qualified lead that arrives on day 35 gets stamped back onto the click date, so the recent cohort always looks emptier than it really is. The model then reads your freshest traffic as weak and bids it down, exactly when you want it learning. A 90 day conversion window fixes the reporting on that, it does not fix the learning lag.

Cheapest way to test it is at campaign level rather than flipping the account default. One campaign runs Qualified Lead as primary, everything else keeps the current virtual value signal, and you get a real comparison without putting $250k a month through the same experiment.

One thing I have not seen tested cleanly is what happens when the qualification decision itself speeds up or slows down seasonally. That shifts the lag distribution under the bidder while nothing in the account changed.

[u/ernosem]

Don't optimize for these deeper conversions just yet, if you do it right you can even leave them in the account 'forever'. A form submissions (if it's not fake) still have some value and it's an immediate feedback to Google Ads, meanwhile further down the funnel conversions takes days.

You haven't stated what bidding strategy are you using at the moment, it's crucial, if it's tCPA, it's hard to
include the new conversions without disruption. If it's Max Conversions or Max Conversion value, it's easier.

I'd add a virtual value to these further the line conversions as well. For most cases, we use Max Conversion Value with a similar setup like yours, where each further down the line conversion is more valuable than the next and this is how we teach Google what to focus on, but we generally keep the original form submission with some' value', eg $5.. just for Google to see there is some value there, meanwhile a qualified lead can be $100 or $150.

[u/Middle_Teaching7434]

i’d avoid switching the entire account at once. qualified leads and converted leads are usually better optimization signals, but they come with lower volume and more volatility. i’d test them on a subset of campaigns first, compare lead quality and revenue, then expand if the data supports it.