The month the tracking went in, and the first month we can see which ads your leads came through. That matters because of what it shows: 11 of the 12 tracked leads arrived on employer-targeted keywords, things like "background checks for employers" and "pre employment background check". After a lead review that found no employer prospects at all, July's leads are landing where the business is.
Your lead sheet
Every submission, now with the campaign, ad group, and search term attached. Your Lead Quality column is what turns this into a picture of what the ads are worth.
When you went through the sheet from May 1, the finding was blunt: of 40 leads, none were employers. Half were individuals asking about checks other companies had run on them. The problem was that we could not see what any of those people had searched, so there was no way to tell whether the ads were attracting the wrong audience or the right audience was arriving invisibly.
On July 7 we fixed that. Every form now records the campaign, the ad group, and the keyword that matched. Of the 12 leads that came in after the tracking went live, 11 arrived on employer-targeted keywords. "Background checks for employers" alone accounts for 5. The four leads you marked "No" this month, the Texas personal-history question, the Uber applicant, the solicitation, all arrived on July 2 and 6, before the tracking was on.
That does not mean every one of those 11 becomes a customer. It means the traffic reaching the form is now employer traffic, which is the thing the May review said was missing. The open question is what happens after the form, and that is where your Lead Quality column comes in.
Campaigns
Campaign performance
July 1 – July 31 · final numbers
↑ Click any column header to sort. Tap a row to see additional detail.
Campaign
Clicks
Conv.
Conv. Rate
Avg. CPC
Spend
Cost / Conv.
Background ChecksEmployment screening · 4 ad groups
206
14
6.80%
$3.68
$759.09
$54.22
Daily Budget$25.00
Conversions3 phone calls · 11 form fills
Note76% of the month's spend, and where the employer searches are coming from
FingerprintingLocal · Cleveland
60
4
6.67%
$4.07
$243.91
$60.98
Daily Budget$8.00
Conversions6 phone calls · 2 form fills
NoteMostly a phone business, as expected for local fingerprinting
The two sides behave differently
Fingerprinting converts over the phone: 6 of its 8 conversions were calls. Screening converts through the form, 11 of 14. That is worth knowing because it changes what each side needs. Fingerprinting needs the number easy to find and the hours obvious. Screening needs the form and the setup path to be clear. Splitting the budgets, as we discussed, is what lets each one be judged on its own terms.
Ad Groups
Which group is doing the work
Employment Checks is carrying the account. Instant Background Checks went live partway through the month, so July is a partial read on it.
Background Check is the cheapest group by a distance: 5 conversions at $26.35 each, on only $131.76 of spend
Employment Checks brings the volume, 119 clicks and 8 conversions, and a 10.96% click-through rate that says the ads match the search
[Background Checks], the exact match group, cost $114.26 for a single conversion. Highest click-through rate of any group, lowest conversion rate at 3.33%
Instant Background Checks launched mid-month: 24 clicks, no conversions yet, too early to judge
What we're doing about it
Shifting budget toward Background Check and Employment Checks, the two groups converting at a workable cost
Reviewing the exact match group's searches to find why strong click-through is not turning into form fills
Giving Instant Background Checks a full month before judging it, since it went live partway through July
Both campaigns are flagged "limited by policy" in the account, which caps how often the ads show. Sorting that out is the single biggest lever available right now
Lead Sources
Which keywords your leads came through
The 12 leads that arrived after tracking went live on July 7, and the keyword in your account that matched each one.
Keyword that matched
Ad group it sits in
Leads
background checks for employers
Employment Checks
5
background check providers for employers
Background Check
3
pre employment background check
Employment Checks
1
employment screening checks
Employment Checks
1
staff background checks
Background Check
1
background check provider
[Background Checks]
1
Keyword, not search query
Worth being precise about what this column is. It records the keyword in your account that matched, rather than the exact phrase the person typed. Someone searching "who does background checks for new hires in ohio" can match your keyword "background checks for employers", and the keyword is what gets recorded. That is why the same phrases repeat so cleanly above. The distinction matters because it means this table tells you which of your keywords are producing leads, which is what you would act on, but it does not show the raw wording people used. We read the raw queries separately in the search terms report, and that is where the negative keywords come from.
Reading your sheet
Three new columns explain themselves once you know what they map to. utm_campaign is which campaign, either background-screening or fingerprinting. utm_content is the ad group, so employment-checks means that lead came through the Employment Checks group. utm_term is the keyword in your account that matched, which is close to but not always identical to what the person typed. A row with those columns blank came in before July 7, or through a route other than the ads.
Important: this report undercounts you
Everything above is what the website can see, which means form submissions and phone calls. It is not the whole business. An employer who is ready to move usually skips the contact form: they go straight into the signup portal, credential themselves, and start ordering. That portal is Accio Data, and Accio is a closed system that sends nothing back to Google Ads. So if an ad click ends in a credentialed account through Accio, this report cannot show it. The 18 conversions are a floor, not a ceiling, and that gap is a limitation of Accio rather than a measure of how the ads performed. Finding out what Accio can export is the way to close it: a list of credentialed accounts with dates would let us match customers back to clicks and point the bidding at accounts instead of form fills.
From Our Call
Where the account already stood
You raised five changes on July 7. Most were already in place, so here is the state of each rather than a plan to do them.
What you asked for
Where it stands
Split fingerprinting and screening into separate campaigns
Already in placeTwo campaigns with their own budgets, $8 a day and $25 a day. That is what makes the split reporting above possible
Fingerprinting local, roughly 35 miles around Cleveland
Already in placeSearch only, geo-fenced, with conversion tracking and negatives set
Conversion tracking on calls and forms
Already in placeJuly recorded 9 calls and 9 form fills. Source tracking on the forms was added July 7
An ad group for instant background checks
Built and liveLaunched partway through July, 24 clicks so far. August is its first full month
Geo-fence employment screening to Cleveland
Deliberately not doneScreening serves employers nationwide, so fencing it to Cleveland would cut off most of the market. Fingerprinting stays local because that business is walk-in
Why we did not pause
The reason to pause was to stop spending until the account was rebuilt properly. Since the rebuild was already done, pausing would have meant switching off working campaigns and losing a month of data at the exact moment the new tracking was ready to produce it. July is the evidence: 18 conversions at $55.72, and 11 of 12 tracked leads searching employer language. If that had been paused, we would be sitting here in August with nothing to read. Happy to revisit if you would still rather pull back on a specific campaign.
Optimization Log
What we worked on this month
Tracking build · July 7
Added source tracking to all three site forms, so every lead records its campaign, ad group, and search
Connected the instant page form to your sheet, which was sending nothing at all before
Tagged each ad group separately, which is what makes the table above possible
The source now sticks for 90 days, so a click today still gets credit for a form fill next month
Account work
Launched the Instant Background Checks ad group, aimed at small employers who want to order without the concierge setup
Rewrote the instant page so it matches the real process: sign up, get approved, then order
Added negative keywords from the search term report to keep filtering out people checking their own records
Heading into August
What's next
01
Clear the policy limits
Both campaigns are flagged "limited by policy", which holds back how often your ads can show. Background screening is a sensitive category for Google, so this is common in your industry, but it is capping reach on every group. Resolving it is the biggest single lever we have.
02
Fix the exact match group
[Background Checks] earns the highest click-through rate of any group and then converts at 3.33%. People are compelled by the ad and then not acting. We will read its search terms and its landing page to find where the drop happens.
03
Give Instant a full month
It launched partway through July with 24 clicks and no conversions. August is its first clean read, and the new page copy is now live behind it.
04
Find out what Accio can export
If Accio can produce a list of credentialed accounts with dates, we can match those to clicks and point the bidding at customers rather than form fills. If it cannot, we should both know that and plan around it.
05
Two things waiting on you
The pricing question: your Background Screening page starts at $14.95 and the Packages page starts at $18.95, and no $19.95 appears anywhere on the site. Tell us the starting and middle price you want and we will make both pages match. And Appointy access, so we can see whether the booking button can be tracked on the free plan.
06
One ask
Mark the Lead Quality column for July's leads. Now that each row carries the search behind it, marking which ones were real tells us which searches produce customers rather than which produce forms. That is the input no ad platform can generate on its own.
Housekeeping
We will take a look at the #VALUE! errors in the Conversion Time column of your sheet.
Talk to us
Anything you want to talk through?
Use the comment marker on any section above, or start a note here. We reply right inside the report, and you'll get an email when we do.