Conversion and enquiries

Google Ads bring clicks but no customers? It is usually the landing page

Ilyes Massoudi15 September 2026Updated 16 September 20267 min read

The short answer

When Google Ads bring clicks but no customers, the cause in most cases is not the ad but the page it lands on: a generic homepage instead of the service page, an English page for an Arabic ad, or a page with no WhatsApp in the first mobile screen. The second cause is that the campaign optimises for clicks because nobody defined a conversion, so the system buys the cheapest clicks rather than the best. Then broad keywords that bring job seekers and course hunters. Ask your campaign manager three questions: where does each ad land, what do we count as a conversion, and which actual search terms did we pay for last month.

The order I check in

The business owner sees the invoice and the clicks and does not see enquiries, and concludes that ads do not work in their sector. In most cases I have seen, the ad itself was acceptable and the loss happened elsewhere. These are the six causes in the order I check them, because the first two explain most cases.

1. The page the ad lands on

Click your own ad from your phone. Where did you arrive?

If you arrived on the homepage, the visitor who clicked on CCTV installation in Riyadh now sees a company offering ten services and a long menu, and has to search for what they clicked on. Most do not search. They leave.

The rule: every ad group lands on a page about the same thing in the same words, with WhatsApp or a call button in the first screen. The difference between a landing page and a service page, and when to use each, is in this article.

2. Nobody defined a conversion

This is the most dangerous hidden cause. If the ads account has no conversion defined, or the conversion is defined as a page visit, the system optimises what it measures: clicks. It will find you the cheapest possible clicks, and those are rarely from people who want to buy.

Define the conversion as what it actually means: a WhatsApp click, a call from the ad or the page, a form submission. The setup through Tag Manager is in the conversion tracking article. After two weeks of real conversion data the campaign changes on its own.

3. Broad keywords

Open the search terms report in your account. These are the actual words people typed and you paid for. You will usually find: jobs, courses, meaning, myself, free, and competitor names. Each one is a paid click from someone who will not buy.

Add negative keywords weekly in the first month. And note that broad match in Arabic stretches further than in English: a term about AC maintenance can bring someone searching for AC prices.

4. Language

An Arabic ad landing on an English page, or the reverse. Or an ad in formal Arabic for an audience searching in dialect. The visitor leaves within two seconds and the click is paid in full. One page per language, and ad text in the words the searcher actually typed.

5. Mobile

Most ad clicks in the Gulf come from a phone. A page that needs five seconds to appear on a mobile network loses part of the paid clicks before it is seen. A button that is not visible without scrolling loses another part. The checklist from your phone is in the mobile article.

6. Who buys your terms, and who buys your name

Search for your service in your city from your phone. Who appears in the ads above the results? That tells you two things: how much you will pay to compete with them, and how much free work on that term is worth, because a term bought outright pushes its free results down the screen.

Then search for your company name. If a competitor appears in the ad above your site, they are buying your name, and you are losing customers who heard of you and clicked the first result.

The three questions for your campaign manager

Where does each ad land, and have you tried the page from your phone?
What do we count as a conversion in the account, and does it include WhatsApp and calls?
Show me last month’s search terms report.

Anyone who answers all three clearly is running your campaign well. Anyone who replies with a report on impressions and click-through rate is selling you numbers.

Where this sits in the audit

The audit does not look at the ads account, and says so on the page itself. What it examines is the pages the ads land on and the conversion path on them on mobile, and who is buying the terms you need in the actual search results, with no invented spend figures, because that changes the order of what deserves your effort.

Common questions

What does a click cost in Saudi Arabia and the UAE?

It varies widely by sector: from a riyal or two dirhams for general terms to tens of riyals or dirhams in real estate, insurance, law and clinics. The number that matters is not cost per click but cost per enquiry: the click cost divided by the page's conversion rate. A page converting at 2 percent makes every enquiry cost fifty clicks; a page converting at 8 percent makes it cost twelve, on the same budget.

A competitor is buying my company name on Google Ads. What can I do?

Bidding on competitor names is allowed on Google unless your registered trademark is used in the ad text itself. The practical response: make sure your site and your Business Profile appear first in the free results for your name, and consider a small campaign on your own name, which is very cheap and stops the competitor taking the top position. If they use your registered mark in their ad copy, file a complaint with Google.

Does the audit review my ads account?

No. I do not ask for access to ad accounts and I do not review budget or targeting. What I review is what decides the campaign's fate after the click: the pages the ads land on and the conversion path on them, and who is buying the terms you need in the search results, because that changes what free work is worth.