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.
| Metric | Value | Benchmark | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ad Spend | ~$700 | — | — |
| Conversions | 11 | — | — |
| Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) | $63 | ~$90 (industry) | ✅ Below benchmark |
| Click-Through Rate (CTR) | 2.44% | ~6% (industry) | ❌ Below benchmark |
| Quality Scores | Low on several keywords | — | ❌ Needs attention |
| Budget Pacing | Slightly overspending | On-pace | ⚠️ Monitor |
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.
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:
Recommended action: Audit ad copy for each active campaign. Tighten keyword-to-ad-to-landing-page alignment. See [3].
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:
Recommended action: Prioritize the lowest-scoring keywords. Restructure ad groups to improve thematic tightness. Confirm landing pages load quickly and match keyword intent.
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.
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.
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.
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].
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.
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.
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.
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.
For reference, the following settings were configured during onboarding: