Exterior Renovations Google Ads Performance Analysis

Initial performance data surfaced during ^[1] onboarding to the ^[2] reveals a paid media account with a solid cost-per-acquisition but meaningful headroom for improvement in ad quality and click-through rate.

Snapshot: Last 30 Days

Industry context: X-Ray benchmarks against the Home & Home Improvement vertical. A CTR of 2.44% against a 6% industry average is the most significant gap identified.

Key Issues

1. Low Click-Through Rate (2.44% vs. 6% benchmark)

The CTR gap is the primary signal that ad copy and keyword-to-ad relevance need attention. At roughly one-third of the industry average, a large share of impressions are being wasted. Likely contributing factors:

• Ad copy not closely matching search intent
• Keyword match types pulling in lower-relevance queries
• Poor Quality Scores (see below) creating a feedback loop that suppresses ad rank

Recommended action: Audit ad copy for each active campaign. Tighten keyword-to-ad-to-landing-page alignment. See ^[3].

2. Poor Quality Scores

Multiple keywords are flagged with low Quality Scores in X-Ray. Low Quality Scores raise effective CPC and reduce ad rank, compounding the CTR problem. The three components to diagnose:

• Expected CTR — likely the primary driver given the 2.44% actual CTR
• Ad relevance — check whether ad groups are tightly themed
• Landing page experience — see the deck page issue below

Recommended action: Prioritize the lowest-scoring keywords. Restructure ad groups to improve thematic tightness. Confirm landing pages load quickly and match keyword intent.

3. Budget Pacing — Slight Overspend

The account is trending to spend approximately $2,700 against a ~$1,170/month budget (~$39/day). This needs to be monitored daily via the X-Ray budget pacing chart.

Note: A bug in X-Ray was incorrectly displaying the budget ceiling as $7,000. Mark is investigating. Verify the pacing chart reflects the correct $1,170/month figure before acting on it.

Recommended action: Review campaign-level daily budget caps in Google Ads directly until the X-Ray bug is resolved.

4. Wednesday Conversion Dead Zone

Performance-by-day-of-week data shows zero conversions on Wednesdays. If this pattern holds over a longer observation window, consider applying a bid adjustment to reduce or pause spend on Wednesdays and reallocate to higher-converting days.

Recommended action: Monitor for 60–90 days. If Wednesday remains a consistent zero, suppress bids via ad scheduling.

5. All Conversions on Mobile

Device breakdown shows conversions are concentrated on mobile. This is relevant context for the deck page issue below — slow mobile load times directly suppress conversion rate on the highest-converting device type.

Opportunities Identified via X-Ray

Blue Ocean: "Exterior Renovations" Keyword

X-Ray flagged "Exterior Renovations" as a Blue Ocean keyword — low competition, low ad cost, ~2,900 estimated monthly impressions, currently ranking 17th organically. The account may not be actively bidding on its own brand name in a meaningful way.

Recommended action: Confirm whether a brand campaign exists for "Exterior Renovations" and related variants. If not, launch one. See ^[4].

Competitive Blind Spot: "Siding Contractors Near Me"

Competitor Opal Exteriors bids heavily on this term but has no organic presence. This creates a dual opportunity: run paid ads against a competitor with weak organic backing, and build organic content to own the term long-term.

Recommended action (paid): Add "siding contractors near me" to active campaigns if not already present.
Recommended action (organic): Assign content creation to Gavin. Task created in ClickUp via X-Ray.

Conversion Lever: Deck Services Page

The /services/deck page receives traffic but has zero recorded conversions. X-Ray attributes this to a mobile performance score of 80 — slow load times are likely driving visitors away before they convert.

Recommended action: Email eShock requesting a mobile speed audit and optimization for the deck services page. This is the highest-priority dev task surfaced by the analysis.

Peak Performance Windows

X-Ray identifies 11am as converting 64% better than average, and Thursdays as converting 40% better than average.

Recommended action: Apply positive bid adjustments for 10am–12pm and Thursdays in the Google Ads time-of-day and day-of-week bid adjustment tables.

Attribution Gap

A parallel issue noted during the OKR review: lead source-to-resolution tracking is incomplete. Google Ads conversions are visible, but the full picture of leads (including organic, referral, and direct) is not being captured end-to-end. This limits the ability to prove marketing value to the client.

Recommended action: Verify conversion tracking is firing correctly in X-Ray and Google Ads. Ensure Gravity Forms submissions are mapped and attributed. See ^[5] — Objective 3.

Current Account Configuration (X-Ray)

For reference, the following settings were configured during onboarding:

• Ad Budget: $1,170/month (~$39/day)
• Lead Value: $3,000 (placeholder — needs client confirmation of actual average)
• Business Type: Lead Generation (ROAS metrics suppressed)
• Industry: Home & Home Improvement
• Keywords: Primary siding terms, secondary service terms, brand terms added
• Competitors: Four local competitors added for benchmarking

Open Action Items

• [ ] Review and improve Quality Scores for flagged keywords (@Ben San Fratello)
• [ ] Launch Google Ads campaign for "Exterior Renovations" Blue Ocean keyword (@Ben San Fratello)
• [ ] Write content targeting "siding contractors near me" — assigned to Gavin via ClickUp (@Ben San Fratello)
• [ ] Email eShock re: mobile speed on deck/services pages (@Ben San Fratello)
• [ ] Confirm average lead value with client; update X-Ray lead value setting (@Ben San Fratello)
• [ ] Fix budget pacing display bug in X-Ray (@Mark Hope)
• [ ] Fix conversion tracking in X-Ray for Exterior Renovations (@Mark Hope)
• [ ] Monitor Wednesday performance; consider bid suppression if pattern holds (@Ben San Fratello)

Related

• ^[6]
• ^[5]
• ^[7]
• ^[8]