Bringing back a forklift dealer's lost leads
A forklift and equipment dealer's ad leads collapsed in early 2026, and its form leads had not been counted since October. We flagged the tracking gap as the root problem, then cleaned up the account. Calls from ads more than doubled, and the cost per call fell from $586 to $330, back to last year's level.
- Client
- Forklift and equipment dealer, US
- Industry
- B2B equipment sales and rental
- Year
- 2026
- What we did
- 2.2×Calls from ads, 16 to 35 a quarter
- −44%Cost per call, $586 to $330
- 53Website leads counted toward bidding again in the quarter
Source: Google Ads, client account, Apr–Jun 2026 vs Jul–Sep 2026 (Jul–Sep 2025: $322 per call)
The challenge
The dealer sells and rents forklifts and warehouse equipment across several regions, with separate campaigns for each region, for sales, rental, and parts and service. It spends about $4,000 a month.
In the first half of 2026 the account fell apart. Calls from ads dropped from over 40 a quarter to 16, and each one cost $586, against $322 a year earlier. The account also showed no form leads at all. The form tracking had stopped recording in October 2025, so for nine months the bidding had been optimizing on calls alone.
What we did
- Tracking first: our July audits flagged broken conversion tracking as the root problem, and we held back changes that depend on conversion data until it was sorted. A new lead tracker had started recording in June; during July it became a primary conversion, so bidding counts website leads again.
- Search terms: reviewed them every two weeks and blocked competitor brands and off-target searches across all regional campaigns.
- Unblocking: removed 27 negatives that were blocking our own converting keywords.
- Keywords: added the searches that turned into leads as exact-match keywords. Added exact and phrase twins for 20 keywords that were already serving. Paused keywords with 15+ clicks and no leads in 30 days.
- Targeting: set a Performance Max campaign to reach only people in the dealer’s area. 41% of its spend had gone to people outside it, with no leads.
The result
Calls from ads by quarter. Source: Google Ads, client account.
In July–September 2026, calls from ads reached 35, up from 16, and cost $330 each, down from $586. The new tracker counted 53 website leads toward bidding in the quarter.
This is a recovery rather than a record. Cost per call is back in line with a year earlier ($322), not below it. With tracking now working, the account can bid on everything that matters again.
Related reading: Tracking · Google Ads conversion tracking, set up right · Call tracking for lead gen