Question from Reddit user:
Hello everyone,
I run Google Ads for my small consulting practice and typically generate about 6-10 leads per week. However, many of these leads are low quality, and I don’t want Google Ads to optimize for them as if they’re “good” leads. I’m currently using Max Conversions bidding.
My website has a simple form that captures email addresses and some additional details, but I don’t use a CRM. I’ve read about Offline Conversion Import, but it doesn’t seem like the right fit for my setup.
Is there a way for me to feed only my high-quality leads back into Google Ads to help train the bidding algorithm without using a CRM?
I’d appreciate any guidance or suggestions!
Thanks!
Answer from Nabil:
The short answer is:
Absolutely, there’s a highly effective, low-cost way to feed only your high-quality leads back into Google Ads to train your Max Conversions bidding algorithm without needing a full CRM.
The solution is to use an advanced form of Enhanced Conversions for Leads that sends a user-provided data hash along with a unique Google Click ID (gclid) at the time of the form submission.
Then, when you manually qualify a lead as high-quality, you use the Google Ads API via a server-side solution like Stape or Google Cloud Platform to send the final, high-quality conversion back to Google Ads, matching it with the original data you sent.
The long answer is:
Your challenge is a textbook example of a lead-generation business that needs to optimize for conversion quality, not just conversion volume, which is exactly what a Max Conversions strategy struggles with when fed low-quality data.
The reason Offline Conversion Import seems like a bad fit is that it typically requires you to maintain a separate table of gclid values and upload files manually, which is cumbersome without a CRM.
The superior, automated, and much cheaper approach for a small business is to implement a server-side solution using the Google Ads API and your existing Google Tag Manager installation.
First, you need to slightly adjust your form submission tracking: at the moment a user submits the form, GTM should capture the Google Click ID (gclid) from the URL and a piece of user-provided data, such as the submitted email address.
Instead of just sending a standard generate_lead event to Google Ads, you should use the Enhanced Conversions for Leads feature.
This involves hashing the user data (like the email) in the browser before sending the event.
This allows Google to securely link the form submission to a Google user.
Second, you set up a server-side tagging environment using a service like Stape or Google Cloud Platform.
This environment will act as a bridge.
When a form submission happens, your website sends the raw data (including the gclid and the hashed email) to this server container.
Crucially, the server container does not immediately forward this event as a high-value conversion to Google Ads.
It simply records the event on your server.
Third, once you have manually reviewed the leads and identified the high-quality ones, you use a simple internal process (like a spreadsheet or a one-click button on your backend) to trigger a script.
This script takes the unique gclid and the hashed email associated with the high-quality lead and uses the Google Ads API (via the Stape or GCP container) to send a new, high-quality conversion event to Google Ads.
This final, server-side conversion is matched by Google Ads to the original click data, and because you only send the high-quality conversions, the bidding algorithm learns to prioritize the user characteristics that lead to those successful outcomes.
This setup provides you with the power of server-side tracking and high-quality conversion feedback without the expense and complexity of a full-featured CRM.
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