"I get more spam from Google Ads than real leads!"
I've heard this more than once, and not just from PPC newbies.
Even seasoned PPC pros get hammered by junk leads: jobseekers, people who swear that they never filled in the form and spam with fake names like Maerr09eri Nesxr44wd.
Send enough junk to your clients, and they're going to start doubting your abilities. They'll be asking uncomfortable questions about wasted ad budget.
You could even lose the account.
The traditional approach to stopping junk leads doesn't work.
You can...
- Add negative keywords like job, jobs, employment, hiring etc.
- Exclude jobseekers as an audience.
- Write “Not hiring” on the landing page or in the ad copy.
- Ask jobseekers to use another form.
- Put reCAPTCHA on your form.
- Use only phrase and exact match keywords.
- Check the search terms report every day.
- Tighten language and location settings.
... and still get junk leads eating your budget.
But what if your clients never saw another junk lead?
What if every lead you sent them was legitimate?
They’d listen to your advice.
They’d ask your opinion before making decisions.
They’d know you know what you’re doing.
They’d respect you as a professional.
They'd trust you.
Stopping junk leads from annoying your clients isn't enough. When you know where the junk comes from you can optimise for lead quality.
You’ll spend the ad budget on real sales prospects.
You'll be able to scale up confidently.
And, you won't have to hope that one day Google will give a damn about all the rubbish on their platform.
But, unless you know exactly which campaigns, keywords, locations and so on are the source of the junk, all you can do is guess, change something, wait and hope. Never a good strategy.
I’ve been managing Google Ads for clients since 2007. I’ve generated more than 2 000 000 leads using Google Ads. And, I've seen junk leads from our campaigns snowball from a handful to more than 250 000 a month.
I tried standard client-side solutions like reCAPTCHA and honey traps.
- reCAPTCHA adds friction to legitimate leads and allows jobseekers through.
- Honey traps don't block modern smart bots or human spammers.
And, all client-side solutions have a fundamental flaw: They don't stop junk leads wasting your ad budget. They just stop you from knowing about it.
I ended up building a system to identify junk leads, stop them getting to my clients and pinpoint the source, so we can optimise our campaigns for leads that turn into sales.
I’ve extracted the technology into GhostBlocker - an enquiry form that stops junk leads ruining your campaigns (and your reputation).
Optimise your campaigns for legitimate leads.
When you use GhostBlocker you get the benefit of an enquiry form system that's designed from the foundations up to improve your Google Ads performance.
It keeps junk leads away from your clients but, it doesn't hide the junk leads from you. That's vital because you need to know if Google is wasting your budget on rubbish, so you can adjust the campaign.
It gives you the data you need to optimise your Google Ads account to reduce junk leads. All your normal tracking parameters are linked to junk leads. You'll be able to figure out exactly which campaigns, keywords, network, etc. are responsible for the junk - and then pause if needed.
It stops junk leads polluting your conversion data. This is a particular problem with job-seeker leads. You start out with a few and unless you retract the conversions (complicated) the algorithm optimises to bring you more job-seekers. I've seen campaigns where 100% of the leads were Spanish jobseekers.
It gives you the data you need to make trade-offs when scaling a campaign. A typical case is when you’ve got a campaign or keyword that generates a lot of great leads and a few junk leads. Scaling up risks getting more junk leads. With GhostBlocker you have this information at your fingertips in real-time.
Concierge onboarding. We’ll help you set up your tracking parameters and conversion tracking, so you get the data you need to optimise your accounts.
It learns from your feedback. You know how good email sometimes gets caught in your spam filter or spam gets into your inbox. This happens once in a while with junk leads. It takes 2 clicks to fix it.
Plus the features you’d expect from a contact form system.
Deliver legitimate leads to your clients by email. To as many addresses as you want.
Webhooks so you can add leads to the client’s CRM system or trigger other actions using tools like Zapier or Make.
A custom form builder. Make the GhostBlocker form match your client's landing pages or websites exactly. Make as many forms as you need at no extra cost.
Simple installation. Drop a line of Javascript where you want your form to show and it’ll be there.
CSV export.
Your first 100 legitimate leads are free.
We'll load your account with 100 credits when you sign up. That'll allow you to handle 100 legitimate leads through your GhostBlocker enquiry forms. It should be enough for you to make sure that GhostBlocker is a good fit for your business.
After that it costs $0.05 per legitimate lead.
A legitimate lead is one that the system, or you, mark as legitimate, not spam. If the system makes a mistake and marks a spam lead as legitimate you can correct this, and you won't be charged for the lead.
Estimate your costs using the table below.
| Legitimate leads | Your bill |
|---|---|
| 200 | $10 |
| 500 | $25 |
| 1 000 | $50 |
| 5 000 | $250 |
There is no cost per form you set up or per website you use your forms on. You can set up as many forms as you need.
We don't charge extra for defending you against spammers.