Clicks and Clarity with Claire
If you’re spending real money on Google Ads and still asking, “Why isn’t this working?”—this podcast is for you.
I’m Claire Jarrett, Google Ads strategist and founder of Jarrett Digital. Each week, I break down what’s actually going on behind the numbers—so you can stop wasting ad spend, start attracting qualified leads, and scale with confidence.
No fluff. No jargon. Just clear advice, real audits, and proven strategies from accounts managing four to six figures in monthly ad spend.
Whether you're DIY-ing your ads or working with an agency, this is the clarity you've been missing.
Clicks and Clarity with Claire
Inside the Home Inspector’s Google Ads Mess (And How to Clean It Up)
In this episode of Clicks and Clarity with Claire, we audit Jeff’s Google Ads account—a home inspector unknowingly burning budget on campaigns that never should’ve gone live.
You’ll learn:
- Why display and call-only campaigns often fail for service businesses
- The hidden danger of mixing branded and cold traffic
- How a $36 lead revealed massive untapped potential
- What a well-structured account should actually look like
If your Google Ads feel messy, mismanaged, or mysteriously quiet—this episode will show you what’s going wrong, and how to fix it.
Hi and welcome to Clicks and Clarity with Claire.
In today’s episode, I’m walking you through a real Google Ads audit for Jeff—a home inspector whose account had all the signs of potential… and all the signs of mismanagement.
If you’ve ever wondered why leads have slowed down even though your campaigns are technically “running,” this is for you!
So, let’s dive in....
Jeff’s account had four live campaigns.
Only one of them should have been active.
Two were display campaigns.
Now—display ads might sound great in theory, but in reality? Nobody browsing a blog suddenly decides to hire a home inspector!
We *never* run display for cold traffic.
The only exception is re-marketing.
So right away—those two campaigns were wasting budget.
Then there was a call-only campaign.
Those get low quality scores from Google, and don’t show often enough to matter!
That left us with one search campaign—and even that had issues.
Now, let’s look at conversions.
The account reported seventeen phone calls.
But ten of those came from call extensions—people clicking the number straight from the ad without even visiting the website.
Most of the time, those are branded clicks.
Or they’re accidental!
They’re *certainly* not reliable lead signals.
So that leaves us with seven real calls from Unbounce—the landing page.
And here’s where the bigger problems start.
The account had old, broken conversion tracking.
Forms last active over a year ago.
Unreliable data.
And if we dig deeper—the structure was a mess.
Branded and cold traffic keywords were all thrown into one campaign.
That tells Google, “Just get conversions any way you can.”
And what does it do?
It leans hard into branded searches.
Half of the entire budget went to those—people already looking for Jeff’s company by name.
That skews the numbers and hides what’s really working.
The cold traffic—people who don’t yet know Jeff—only brought in seven conversions!
Those are the leads that matter most.
So what else did I see?
Seventy-nine keywords dumped into a single ad group.
Many of them were paused.
Most were broad match—meaning the ads were showing for almost anything.
Competitor names.
Boundary surveyors.
Radon testing.
Generic terms.
This wasn’t strategy. This was spaghetti against the wall.
And there was zero ad structure.
Just one active ad group.
One!
When I compared it to a solar client we’re onboarding?
They’re launching with sixty ad groups.
Each one mapped to a different service and location.
Each one going to a matching landing page.
That’s how it should be.
Now, the good news?
Even with that messy setup, Jeff’s cost per lead was just thirty-six dollars.
That’s promising.
It means there’s a ton of upside.
So what do we do next?
First—ditch the display and call-only ads.
Second—split branded and cold traffic into separate campaigns.
Third—build a real campaign structure with location-based ad groups.
Fourth—create specific landing pages for services you offer, like buyers reports or sellers inspections.
And finally—cut out everything you don’t want.
If you don’t want plumbing inspections or code-related terms, add them as negative keywords.
Don’t let Google decide.
That’s it for this episode of Clicks and Clarity with Claire.
Jeff’s account had the right ingredients—but it needed structure, focus, and strategy.
If your campaigns feel scattered, you’re not alone.
But with the right approach, results can turn around fast.
Thanks for listening. See you next time.