Google Ads · Monthly Performance

September 2026

Conversions rose from 14 to 25, and each one cost $40.74, down from $65.52 ($46.29 counting only what August could track). The ads also brought in 31 phone calls, up from 12, and 10 named leads. You’ll find every name below.

Your lead sheet

Every submission, with the campaign, ad group, and matched keyword attached.

Open the sheet

Ad Spend

$1,018

September 1 to 30 · US$

Clicks

263

8.34% click-through rate

Conversions

15 calls · 10 named form leads

Cost / Conversion

$40.74

9.51% conversion rate

Watch First

Your month in a few minutes

The Story

What changed this month

September at a glance

Spend $1,018, up from $917. Conversions 25, up from 14. Cost per conversion $40.74, down from $65.52. Phone calls from the ads 31, up from 12. Named leads 10, against 11.

This month’s conversions don’t line up with August’s: on September 1 we started counting taps on the phone number on your site. Calls placed straight from an ad were always counted; someone who read the site first and then called was not. That added 3 conversions. Leave them out and September is 22 conversions at $46.29 each, still well below August.

These numbers still count only forms and calls. Anyone who skips the form and credentials in Accio isn’t in them.

13 clicks through to Accio signup Accio doesn’t report signups back to Google, so we can’t see who finishes signing up. Since September 1 we count the click on your site’s signup button instead. 13 people who came from your ads clicked it in September, all from the screening campaign. It’s kept out of the 25 conversions so it doesn’t change your cost per conversion, but it’s the clearest sign we have of employers heading straight to sign up rather than filling out the form.

Campaigns

Campaign performance

September 1 to 30 · 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 Checks Employment screening · 3 active ad groups	185	21	11.35%	$4.17	$770.85	$36.71
Daily Budget$25.00 Conversions10 named form leads · 8 calls from the ads · 3 calls from the site · plus 13 clicks through to Accio signup Note25 phone calls from the ads. Google flagged it as limited by budget: it missed about 29% of the searches it could have shown on because the day’s budget had run out
Fingerprinting Local · Cleveland	78	4	5.13%	$3.17	$247.59	$61.90
Daily Budget$8.00 Conversions4 calls from the ads · no form fills NoteCost per conversion down to $61.90 from $75.40. Still the highest impression share in the account, 27% against 12%, because it’s the one limited to Cleveland

Ad Groups

Which group is doing the work

Background Check carried the month with 13 of the 25 conversions. Instant Background Checks, which barely spent in August, picked up 5.

Ad Group	Clicks	CTR	Conv.	Spend	Cost / Conv.
Background Checkbackground-screening · background-check	106	9.02%	13	$478.74	$36.83
Instant Background Checksbackground-screening · instant-background-checks	54	7.98%	5	$206.36	$41.27
Fingerprintingfingerprinting · fingerprinting	78	8.32%	4	$247.59	$61.90
Employment Checksbackground-screening · employment-checks	25	6.87%	3	$85.75	$28.58

What stands out

Background Check took 13 conversions, 7 form leads and 6 calls. Three keywords did most of it: "global background check companies" (5), "staff background checks" (4) and "background check provider" (4, at $22.21 each)
Instant Background Checks went from $17.24 and no conversions in August to 5 conversions, all phone calls. "instant background checks for employers" took 4 of them at $22.99 each
Employment Checks had the cheapest conversions at $28.58, but spent $85.75 against $327.87 in August. The three screening groups share one budget, and Google sent more of it to the other two

Worth watching

[quick background check] in Instant took 27 clicks and $90.88 with no conversions. That’s the most any keyword spent this month without a conversion
[federal background check] is still rarely shown because Google rates it low quality: 4 clicks, $19.19, no conversions
Both campaigns still show ads limited by policy. Google restricts background screening as a category, so this comes with the industry

Your Leads

Who came in through the ads

The 10 people who filled out your form after clicking an ad in September, and the keyword each one matched. Five more submissions came in without an ad click, so they aren’t counted here.

Date	Name	Ad group	Keyword that matched
Sep 1	Teklat Ndipako	Background Check	background check provider
Sep 2	Janet Daniel	Employment Checks	background checks for employers
Sep 3	Wendy Stewart	Background Check	global background check companies
Sep 15	Cantrel Wallace	Background Check	background check provider
Sep 16	Dominic A Gonzales	Background Check	background check provider
Sep 18	Thomas Mitchell	Not recorded	Not recorded
Sep 22	Aaliyah Moton	Employment Checks	employment screening checks
Sep 24	Damon Holmes	Background Check	background check provider
Sep 24	Nancy Debellis	Employment Checks	pre employment background check
Sep 29	James Dyer	Background Check	staff background checks

What stands out

"background check provider" matched 4 of the 10, up from 1 in August. "background checks for employers", which matched 5 in both July and August, matched 1. One month isn’t enough to read a trend, so we’re watching it rather than moving budget
Damon Holmes is the only lead this month who wrote in from a company email address rather than a personal one
Thomas Mitchell clicked an ad, but the submission arrived without the keyword attached, so we can’t say which keyword matched
Cantrel Wallace sent the form twice, four minutes apart. Counted once

Reading your sheet

utm_campaign is which side of the business: background-screening or fingerprinting
utm_content is the ad group
utm_term is the keyword that matched, not what the person typed. A keyword aimed at employers doesn’t prove the person was one, which is what your Lead Quality column settles
Blank means that person found you some way other than the ads

Optimization Log

What we worked on this month

Tracking · September 1

Replaced the old tag manager on your site, which nobody had access to, with one we control. Your analytics and ad tracking now sit in one place instead of three
Started counting taps on the phone number on your site, so a visitor who reads first and then calls now shows up
Started counting clicks through to Accio signup, the signal Accio can’t send back: 13 in September. It records the click, not a finished signup

Blocked searches · every week

Read the search terms and added blocked phrases at every weekly check-in: September 7, 14, 21 and 28. Mostly people looking for a competitor’s login page and people running a check on themselves
By mid-month that was 115 phrases blocked across both campaigns, and the list kept growing each week after
Blocked 18 more on screening only. Some, like Florida Level 2 checks, are fingerprint-based, so blocking them everywhere would have cut into the fingerprinting campaign
Left DISA searches running. DISA is a competitor, but those searches brought in 2 conversions in the first half of the month, so people comparing providers are finding you there
Paused a broad "fingerprinting near me" keyword: 1 click in 30 days, and the searches it picked up were either already covered or unrelated

Heading into October

What’s next

Decide on [quick background check]

$90.88 and 27 clicks in September with nothing back. We’ll read what people typed to trigger it, and pause it if they aren’t employers.

Check the blocked lists did their job

We’ll read October’s searches against both lists to confirm the blocked phrases stopped showing and nothing useful got caught.

Stop three groups bidding on one search

"background check" sits in Background Check, Employment Checks and Instant Background Checks at once. In the first half of September it took $57.83 and no conversions. We’ll give it to one group and block it in the other two.

Your call: the screening budget

Screening ran out of budget often enough to miss about 29% of the searches it could have shown on, at $36.71 a conversion. If you want more volume, that’s where it would come from. Happy to leave it at $25 a day if the current pace suits you.

Two things still waiting on you

Pricing: your Background Screening page starts at $14.95 and Packages at $18.95. Tell us the two prices you want and we’ll make both pages match. And Appointy access, so we can check whether fingerprinting bookings can be tracked on your plan.

One ask

Mark the Lead Quality column for August and September. None of those rows are marked yet, and it’s the only way to tell which ads produce customers rather than forms.

Talk to us

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