Lead Quality Google Ads Case Study: Hourly and Maid Enquiries Cut from 32% of Cleaning Leads to Zero (Riyadh)
Cleaning Leads from Hourly & Maid Searches
Leads from hourly and maid-cleaning searches fell from 32% of cleaning leads to zero, and came straight back when match types were loosened for volume
The Challenge
The client is a pest control and cleaning company in Riyadh that sells service-based jobs: sofa and carpet cleaning, deep cleaning of villas and apartments, and pest treatment. It does not supply maids or hourly cleaners. Its Google Ads looked healthy, with cleaning leads at under SAR 13 each, but the client kept reporting the same problem: too many enquiries were for hourly house cleaning, maid services, or the cheapest possible price. Each of those still had to be answered on WhatsApp or by phone, and none could become a booking.
The cheap leads were also the problem for the bidding. Google Ads counted every WhatsApp tap and call click as a conversion, whether the person wanted a sofa cleaned or a maid for three hours. Smart Bidding was learning to find more of the cheapest leads, which were the ones the business could not sell.
Our Approach
- Matched client feedback to search terms. Every complaint about a bad enquiry was checked against the searches that triggered ads that week. Hourly and maid enquiries traced back to generic searches such as "house cleaning services riyadh" and "home cleaning services riyadh", which were paused on 21 October 2025. Within days, hourly enquiries had stopped arriving.
- Tightened match types on the head terms. Generic cleaning and pest control keywords moved to exact match, and service-specific keywords found in the search terms report ("sofa cleaning riyadh", "deep cleaning riyadh", "carpet cleaning riyadh") were added as their own keywords.
- Tested AI Max and switched it off. AI Max was enabled on both campaigns on 25 November 2025 and turned off three days later, because it immediately pulled in the broad, generic searches the account was trying to remove.
- Put prices in front of the click. Starting prices were added to the landing pages and ads in December 2025, and later as callouts matching the client's real minimums: sofa and carpet cleaning from SAR 200, deep cleaning from SAR 500, pest control from SAR 200. Price-shoppers can see the price before they pay for a click.
- Built negative keyword lists in English and Arabic. Maid, hourly and labour terms, competitor brand names, cities outside Riyadh (such as Kharj, Majmaah, Jeddah and Dammam), unrelated services (water tanks, AC cleaning), DIY and pesticide-shop searches, and Arabic searches for free municipal spraying.
- Said it on the landing page too. Cleaning landing page copy was rewritten to say the company offers service-based cleaning only, which discouraged hourly and job enquiries from people who clicked anyway.
- Split pest control by language. An Arabic pest control campaign with its own landing page was launched in September 2026, separate from the English campaign.
The Results
All figures are from the client's Google Ads account: SAR 59,468 of spend from June 2025 to 13 October 2026, and 5,997 rows of search-term data. A "conversion" here is a WhatsApp click, call click or form submission from the landing page, which is the only lead signal the account records. The comparison below is for the cleaning campaigns, where the lead-quality problem was concentrated.
Before: August to November 2025. Searches for house cleaning, home cleaning, maids and hourly cleaning took 26.3% of the cleaning budget that Google itemises by search term, and produced 114 conversions, 32% of all cleaning conversions in the search terms report. Service-specific searches (sofa, carpet, deep, villa and apartment cleaning) produced 21%. Cleaning cost SAR 12.89 per conversion across SAR 7,473 of spend.
After: February to May 2026. Spend on house, home, maid and hourly searches fell to zero, and so did conversions from them. Service-specific searches rose to 41.9% of cleaning spend and 38% of cleaning conversions. Across the whole account, spend on price-checking searches ("price", "cost", "cheap" and their Arabic equivalents) fell from 3.5% to 1.4%.
The trade-off: fewer, more expensive leads. Cleaning conversions fell from 580 to 219 over the same four-month length, and cost per conversion rose from SAR 12.89 to SAR 30.30. That is the honest price of removing leads the business could not sell: the cheapest conversions in the account were the hourly and maid enquiries. A lower cost per lead was never the goal; the goal was fewer wasted conversations for the client's team.
The reversal test: July to September 2026. In July 2026 the cleaning keywords were switched to broad match because the campaign was struggling to serve. House, home, maid and hourly searches went straight back to 26.3% of itemised cleaning spend, junk searches (maid, competitor and unrelated services) rose from 0% to 6.8%, and cost per conversion rose further, to SAR 47.93. Broader matching brought back the same low-quality searches the earlier work had removed, which is the strongest evidence in this account that the tightening was doing its job.
The fix and early signals: October 2026. On 5 October 2026 the cleaning campaign was rebuilt around service-specific keywords, with over 80 new negatives in English and Arabic and price callouts matching the client's minimums. In the first 13 days, house, home, maid and hourly searches took 5.5% of itemised cleaning spend, and service-specific searches produced 61% of cleaning conversions. On pest control, the new Arabic campaign cost SAR 29.17 per conversion from 23 September to 13 October 2026 (28 conversions), against SAR 54.98 for the English campaign (23 conversions), so budget was moved towards Arabic.
What we are not claiming. Google Ads cannot see whether an enquiry became a booking, and this account has no CRM or booking data imported. The quality improvement is measured by search intent, the share of budget and conversions coming from searches for services the business actually sells, together with the client's own feedback recorded in our optimisation log. The October 2026 figures cover 13 days and are an early signal, not a result. The next step is importing booked jobs as an offline conversion, so the account can bid on bookings rather than contact clicks.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you reduce low-quality leads from Google Ads?
Find the searches that produce them, then stop paying for those searches. Check bad enquiries against the search terms report, pause or tighten the keywords that trigger them, add negative keywords in every language customers search in, and show prices and service limits in ads and on the landing page so unsuitable people do not click or enquire.
Why did cost per lead go up when lead quality improved?
Because the cheapest leads were the low-quality ones. In this account, hourly and maid-cleaning enquiries were cheap and plentiful. Removing them cut cleaning conversions from 580 to 219 over four months and raised cost per conversion from SAR 12.89 to SAR 30.30, while the share of leads for services the business sells went up.
Can Google Ads measure lead quality?
Not on its own. Google Ads counts a WhatsApp click or call click the same whether the person wants a booking or a maid. To measure quality you need to import booked or qualified leads from a CRM as offline conversions. Without that, the best evidence is search intent and feedback from the team handling the enquiries.
How do you stop hourly and maid cleaning enquiries in Google Ads?
Avoid generic keywords such as "house cleaning services" and "home cleaning", use exact or phrase match for head terms, add negatives for maid, hourly, labour and their Arabic equivalents, and state on the ads and landing page that you offer service-based cleaning such as sofa, carpet and deep cleaning.
Does broad match increase low-quality leads?
It can. In this account, switching cleaning keywords to broad match in July 2026 brought hourly and maid searches back to 26.3% of itemised cleaning spend and raised junk-search spend from 0% to 6.8%, after both had been removed. Broad match needs strong negative keyword lists and accurate conversion data to stay on target.
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