Why Most Google Ads Fail (And How to Turn Them Into a Predictable Lead Engine) - Jeff Coleman

Inside Marketing with MarketSurge | Featuring Jeff Coleman

Google Ads should be printing leads — so why does it feel like a money pit for so many businesses?

In this episode of Inside Marketing with MarketSurge, Reed Hansen sits down with Jeff Coleman, founder of Factor Four Marketing, to break down what’s actually broken in Google Ads today — and what still works incredibly well when done right.

Jeff has been managing Google Ads since 2004 (back when it was simple, cheap, and didn’t require a 40-page dashboard) and now oversees more than $4 million in annual ad spend for businesses ranging from local service providers to Fortune 500 companies.

If you’ve ever been told to “trust the process” while your ad budget quietly burns, this episode is for you.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why most Google Ads campaigns underperform, even when managed by agencies
• The number one conversion-tracking mistake that kills ROI
• Why “trust the process” is bad advice and what to trust instead
• Vanity metrics versus metrics that actually grow your business
• How to turn Google Ads into a predictable lead engine
• When Google Ads isn’t a good fit and when it’s a goldmine

Key Takeaways:

• Focus on the right conversions, not cheap distractions
• Separate branded and non-branded traffic to see real growth
• Know your numbers or Google will gladly spend your money
• Differentiation wins — “great customer service” doesn’t
• Results beat dashboards every time

Guest Links:
Factor Four Marketing: http://factorfour.com/
Jeff Coleman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffcoleman21/

At MarketSurge, we help you turn tools into systems — and systems into growth.
If you want automation that feels per

Creators and Guests

Host

Reed Hansen

Reed Hansen is a seasoned digital marketing executive with a proven track record of driving business growth through innovative strategies. As the Chief Growth Officer at MarketSurge, he focuses on leveraging AI-powered marketing tools to help businesses scale efficiently. Reed's expertise spans from leading startups to Fortune 500 companies, making him a recognized authority in the digital marketing space. His unique ability to combine data-driven insights with creative solutions has been instrumental in achieving remarkable sales growth for his clients. ​

What is Inside Marketing with MarketSurge?

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Hosted by Reed Hansen, Chief Growth Officer at MarketSurge and a digital marketing veteran who's helped scale everything from scrappy startups to Fortune 500 giants, this podcast dives deep into what’s really moving the needle in today’s marketing world. Find us at Marketsurge.io

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Speaker: Welcome to Inside
Marketing With Market Surge.

Your front row seat to the
boldest ideas and smartest

strategies in the marketing game.

Your host is Reed Hansen, chief
Growth Officer at Market Surge.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Hello
and welcome back to Inside

Marketing with Market Surge.

Today's guest is someone who has
been in the Google ads trenches long

enough to see what works, what used
to work, and what's completely broken.

Jeff Coleman is the founder of Factor four
Marketing and has been building results

driven Google Ads campaigns since 2004.

That's back when page search
was simple, cheap, and didn't

come with a 40 page dashboard.

Today, Jeff and his team manage over
4 million in annual ad spend helping

everyone from local service businesses to
Fortune 500 companies to stop trusting the

process and start trusting actual results.

Jeff is known for cutting through
jargon, calling out agency myths,

and showing business owners how to
turn Google ads from a money pit

into a predictable lead engine.

He's also taught digital marketing
at uc, San Diego extension and USD If

you have any questions for Jeff, he's
going to be a great resource for you in

the future if you've ever wondered why
Google ads should be working but aren't.

This episode is for you, Jeff.

Welcome to the show.

Jeff Coleman: So much for having me, Reid.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge:
Yeah, my pleasure.

You know, you have a very impressive
background and especially in a niche

that I think a lot of businesses
use, you know, using Google Ads, but

not necessarily use it very well.

Now you've said that Google Ads campaigns
often underperform, even the ones

that are administered by the agencies.

So what, in general, what do you
see are some of the real reasons,

maybe some of the most common reasons
that these campaigns are failing?

Jeff Coleman: Well, the biggest
one I see is that people don't

focus on the right conversions.

The algorithms are very.

Goal driven, and that's one of the
things that's changed over time.

The algorithms play a huge role
now, and if you don't have the

right goals, then you start to get
a lot of traffic that isn't really

something you want to pay for.

For example when we took over a credit
union's account, one of the goals

that they were measuring against was
driving directions to the credit union.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Hmm.

Jeff Coleman: Now, yes, you want
your people to be your members to

be able to find how to get there,
but you don't really want to pay

$20 per person who's getting driving
directions to your credit union.

You wanna pay for people who
are signing up for new loans,

who are opening new accounts.

So it's really about finding
the right conversions and making

sure you're focused on that.

And because the algorithms will keep
sending more and more of the people who.

Convert,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Mm.

Jeff Coleman: but, and those are some
of your cheapest, you know, the driving

directions ones and that's aren't really
who you want to be spending money on,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: No.

Jeff Coleman: So that's a
really big one that we see.

Of course there are lots of others.

You know, we get more nuanced,
but that one's a obvious

and common one that we see.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Interesting.

So fair to say that the algorithms
have become more complex over time,

but really they're very results driven.

Would that be accurate?

Okay.

Jeff Coleman: Google's, I mean,
one of the evolutions we've seen

in search over time was, you
know, it started with the keywords

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Hmm.

Jeff Coleman: you know, I
started doing this 20 years ago.

You were building out these
keyword lists that were.

Hundreds of keywords long,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jeff Coleman: what Google
started to recognize was.

It's really hard you know, that's what
a good, campaign manager was doing.

But they wanted other advertisers to
be able to find success with Google ads

and, and have their ads shown for more.

So they started focusing on search intent.

So trying to understand what the
searcher is getting at, not necessarily

the exact words that they have.

And one of the interesting
things is over the last 10 years.

Every single month, 15% of all
searches are completely new.

Like no

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Hmm.

Jeff Coleman: done that search before.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Interesting.

Jeff Coleman: you know, the switch
to more voice searching and, and you

know, different modes of how people
are looking has really changed that.

You know why people have such different
search terms, but Google wants to

make sure their ads are showing for
as many of those as they possibly can.

So the search intent became
very important for them.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

Now, you know, in your writing you refer
to the statement, trust the process.

That's something that agencies say a lot.

Do you think that that mindset
is dangerous for business owners?

And what do you think they
should be trusting instead?

Jeff Coleman: So, you know,
fundamentally Google Ads does not

fit into most advertising agencies.

Well, Google Ads Management because.

And I worked for a digital agency
for a while, and that's where I got

a lot of this experience was they're
looking for the new shiny objects.

And that's often why companies
even hire digital agencies.

They want to do what's new.

They want to do what's cool.

Google Ads is typically
the opposite of that.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Hmm.

Jeff Coleman: It's what works.

Discernment is much more important than
creativity as you're building campaigns.

they will talk about the process and
they try and fit search into everything

they're doing, which makes sense.

But at the end of the day, you
wanna see an ROI search should be

about the prospects who are the
closest to converting for you.

The very bottom of the funnel is what most
of search is about, You don't want to just

keep that everything's gonna eventually
work and that you should see ROI within

a month or two of launching a campaign
that makes sense to continue with.

And we tell our clients 90 days
because some, new campaigns can

take a little longer and you
run into some extra challenges.

But if you can't, certainly not within
90 days, but even less than that, you

should see a return on investment that
makes sense to continue investing.

And that's what we talk about really
trusting the results, not the process.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

So let's talk a little
bit about lead engines.

You know, something that you
also mentioned quite a bit.

What does that actually mean in practice
and how's that different from just.

You know, the old fashioned approach
of you know, running in some ads

and hoping for some conversions.

Jeff Coleman: So.

You know, sometimes we give new
names to things so that people pay

a little more attention to them,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jeff Coleman: think that's what we've
really tried to do with the lead engine.

As I mentioned earlier, it all
starts with focusing on the right

conversion, making sure that you've
really defined what is going to move

the needle for you as a business and.

That your resources are
going into that effort.

The next is knowing your numbers.

What's the value of a
lead or conversion to you?

And so we know what success looks like
when we've defined it that way, and we're

only gonna continue running campaigns
that are successful in the sense that

your cost per lead meets your goal.

But what I think we do differently,
and this is an important part

of the lead engine, is we really
try and help our clients focus

on what makes them different.

And you know, far too often you hear.

You know, if you're talking with
a small to mid-size business,

it's our customer service.

It's how we treat our customers,
and that's just table stakes to

even be in business these days.

So we really try and help them find
what makes them stand out in the digital

marketplace, which is, might be different
than what if they, if they're, you know,

just talking about their local business,
but helping them figure that out so that

we can them stand out on the page so that.

The people who are most likely to
convert are the ones actually clicking

on their ads because it's, it's
expensive when all the ads look the

same and the searcher clicks on four
ads and then decides who to talk to.

You really want to filter that out.

So much more likely to get a lead.

You get higher conversion rates
'cause the right people are clicking

through on the ads and that turns
them into you know, prospects and,

and hopefully clients much faster.

Then we also work with them
to make sure there's some kind

of follow up system in place

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Hmm.

Jeff Coleman: that you're not missing that
opportunity and finding the right way for

that business to stay in front of folks.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

So I wanna go back to something, you know,
you've worked in Google ads a long time

and which is, I I'm sure you have a lot
of lessons you've gained over those years.

You know, I, I'd say a
common sentiment I hear.

Is that people that have done ads for
a few years, they're saying, oh, they

seem like they're less effective or
more expensive now, or I don't like the

results I'm getting from Google Ads.

Now.

With all those changes you've seen over
the years what, what do you think is.

You know, like, what do you,
do you think that's accurate?

That they're less effective over time or,
or, you know, what's your opinion on that?

Do you think it's, there's
still plenty of opportunity?

Where, where would you

Jeff Coleman: plenty of opportunity.

The important thing is
to know your numbers.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jeff Coleman: you deliver
the leads for the cost?

That makes sense for you.

But there are also strategies that
can make a big difference in outcomes.

So one of our larger clients
it's a home services company.

They have I think right now 38
locations on the east coast.

you know, when we took over their
campaigns a little over a year ago.

their former agency that was managing it
was doing everything at a very high level.

So their specific service line was being
advertised with you know, they just threw

all the zip codes in that they serve one

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jeff Coleman: or one ad group,
and you know, that just.

Looked very circumspect to me.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Hmm.

Jeff Coleman: they were, you know,
that was the right way to do it.

And what we've done is broken down
both by location and service line.

Each of the things they do.

And what we found is the cost per
lead in Richmond, Virginia is very

different than Bow New Hampshire.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Hmm.

Jeff Coleman: that changes
how you allocate your dollars.

But they still sometimes need
leads in a particular location.

Orlando is where we're focused right now.

And you know, even when they
start to creep up a little, they

said, no, no, no, that's okay.

We want, you know, this is where
we really need business right now.

And so by breaking it down like
that, you can start to really

see where your advantages are,
where your disadvantages are.

Some of it's the local competition.

And so, you know, we've eed out, a
cost per lead that is a fraction of

what they were paying before because
we have a lot more levers to pull.

You know, we brought down their, their
branded terms by they're down to about

18% of what they were before, which
meant that they also had a lot more

money to put their non-branded terms
and for their, their main service line.

We've brought that down about
half of what it was before.

And so they can continue to invest
and it's now a growth engine for

them versus it was just trying to
keep up the, the spend on Google ads

before we started working with them.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge:
Wow, that's awesome.

Yeah.

Very impressive.

And now when we talk about data and
metrics and numbers there's a lot

of vanity metrics out there and, you
know, things that maybe are featured,

prominent on the Google dashboard or,
you know, maybe for rookies, you know,

they, assume that this is more important.

what are some of those vanity metrics that
a business owner or brand should avoid?

Jeff Coleman: I mean, a lot of people
wanna see how many impressions,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Mm, yeah.

Jeff Coleman: if someone didn't
click on your ad, kind of.

It's hard to even justify why you
would care that someone saw your ad.

So that's one that I find a lot of
business owners in particular focus on.

Now, if you're running video ads or
something, that's a little different.

But if you're talking search
ads, you definitely don't want

to be focused on the impressions.

Click through rates can matter,
but they're also, you know,

at the end of the day, it's.

How much did it cost to get that lead?

That really matters.

So you know, click through
rates, yes, they're important,

but they're not the end all.

raising your click through rate
by 10% isn't necessarily going

to make your campaign successful.

But the other thing that I see a lot
of agencies and businesses that are

doing it on their own confuse is they
mix up their branded non-branded terms.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Oh.

Jeff Coleman: are people who are coming
back because they already know you or

they heard about you and are, you know,
looking for you specifically by name

or unbranded are people who haven't
heard of you or, or may not know of you.

Well, and obviously those
are two very different.

Pool of, of potential customers.

so we always keep those separate
for clients so they understand

how many of the, the folks, and,
and it should be super low cost to

have your branded terms convert.

Versus your unbranded terms, which
can cost, you know, 10 times as much.

But those are actual new cust customers
and they're, they're growth opportunities.

So I really find separating those
two and not having a dashboard that

just shows your cost per lead across
your whole campaign is so important

to really understanding the success.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

No, that's good.

I love this kind of line of
thinking, 'cause you know, you're

really experienced in this area.

Are there any other Google ads, best
practices, you know, quote unquote, or,

you know, traditional thoughts do you
think are just, you know, either outdated

or, or never were effective at all?

Jeff Coleman: Well, so I still see a lot
of, companies using phrase and exact match

as their primary way of driving traffic.

And as I mentioned earlier, because
search intent has become so important

to the whole of traffic that unless
you are a national or international

brand and really focused on a tight
niche of a product or service, local

businesses, even regional businesses often
benefit from broad match, particularly

if you're in a consumer segment.

B2B phrase match, an exact match can be a
better choice, but you're just missing out

on a lot of low, cost clicks and leads.

if you don't have those broad match
in for the, in most instances.

So that's one I've definitely found
is outdated and a lot of agencies

are still trying to do that as best
practice and it's just not, a good fit.

The other is, you know, it used to be
best practices to really have one keyword

to one ad, particularly for anything
that was a, national or larger campaign.

It just.

Loses that search intent,
aspect that Google's focused on.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Mm-hmm.

Jeff Coleman: having at least a
small grouping of keywords in any ad

group is generally best practices.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

You know, if a new client
came to you, said, you know, I

haven't been running Google ads.

I am not sure if I should,
but I am open to it.

But I'd love you to advise me one way or
the other, you know, first, like, would

you ever say there are companies that
maybe aren't a good fit for Google ads?

And then, okay.

Yeah.

Jeff Coleman: even when we
bring on a new client, we

always tell them this is a test.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

Jeff Coleman: if they haven't been
running Google ads, if they have, we

obviously can make a better assessment.

But we were working with
one who did assessments for

children for IEP type stuff.

And,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jeff Coleman: We tested it for him and
I told him early on that it may not work

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jeff Coleman: you know, he just
couldn't bring in enough of the right

kind of clients to make it work.

he gave it six months and, you
know, he got clients out of it, but

at the end of the day, we couldn't
make the cost per lead work for

the conversion rate he was getting.

I think he might have been able to do
more on the conversion rate, but it

wasn't, he just didn't have the capacity
to do the changes on the backend.

That might've helped,
but yeah, and, and some.

the cost per click can be awfully
high in certain categories.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jeff Coleman: if you don't have
your sales process dialed in as a

business, it's gonna be a lot harder,
even when those leads come in to

convert a high enough portion of them.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

Jeff Coleman: And then there are
also, if you don't have a product

or service that people are actually
looking for directly enough, search is

never gonna be a good match for that.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

So conversely, you know, what
situation would a business be in

that your ears would really perk up
and say like, oh, I, I think we've

got a lot low hanging fruit for you.

Like, is it like about the industry
size of the business or like a

particularly exciting offering?

What gets you excited?

Jeff Coleman: yeah, so people who,
businesses that are doing something

different than their competitors is

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

Jeff Coleman: exciting.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jeff Coleman: We have one client
who does CPR training and he's

located in the Philadelphia area.

And when you read their reviews,
people talk about how they feel so

ready to save a life A checkbox,
you know, and we're required.

By regulation to have CPR training
every two years for all of our

employees or all our frontline.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yes.

Jeff Coleman: That's a really
exciting client to work with

because they are doing something
different than the industry standard.

It's better.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jeff Coleman: They, you know,
once you bring them in as a client

and help them get the leads,
they have huge growth potential.

And I was super excited when
this company their largest client

ever that they generated 'em,
the lead through Google Ads.

They obviously closed them.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jeff Coleman: but they're
training thousands of people

at a particular organization
over the course of three years.

And that's just.

It's a whole new market for them.

And so those kind of clients
are lot of fun to work with.

And it gives us a lot of potential.

You know, we worked with them
on the landing pages to make

sure their differentiators

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jeff Coleman: out.

And the ads practically write themselves,
if you do a good job of explaining why you

wanna work with them on the landing page,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: That's awesome.

Yeah.

You know, and I think, I think you've
mentioned that you know, uncovering

differentiators is really important
before you start running the ads.

And I mean, it's sound
business principle and I think.

It would apply to a lot of businesses
is really find like, what do you do

different and special and better.

And I think that makes a ton
of sense and it seems to align

with everything you're saying.

So Jeff, you've got a lot of experience.

You know, I think you'd be
a great person for business

looking to get into Google Ads.

Where can people find you
or learn more from you?

Jeff Coleman: Sure.

If you go to our company
website, factor four.com,

F-A-C-T-O-R-F-O-U r.com,

you can learn more about us.

You can see why.

we think we're different than most
agencies that you would work with.

And you know, if anyone has questions,
I'm always happy to talk Google ads and

even marketing a little more broadly with
business owners and marketing people.

'cause it's just fun.

That's what I love doing.

That's what I've been doing for
a very long time at this point.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Well
thanks so much for sharing.

So much helpful information and I'd
definitely point anybody to Jeff that is

looking to get deeper into Google Ads.

Thanks so much for coming on the show.

Jeff Coleman: Thanks for having me.

It's been great.

Speaker 2: Want to stay ahead of what's
actually working in marketing right now.

Head over to Market surge.io

and see how we're helping businesses
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That's market surge.io

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