How I Generated 284 Leads for a Mortgage Broker in 30 Days — at £19 Per Lead And 30% Conversion Rate To Completed Mortgage Applications

284 leads. £19.48 cost-per-lead. £2.23 cost-per-click. 30% conversion to signed client. That's what month one looked like after taking over a mortgage broker's Google Ads account that had been running — but not performing.

Here's exactly what I changed and why it worked:

The starting point:

This was not a new account. The mortgage broker had been running Google Ads for some time but wasn't happy with the results. Budget was being spent, clicks were coming in, but the leads weren't there at a volume or cost that made commercial sense.

When I took over the account, the problems were immediately obvious. Broad match keywords were eating the budget on irrelevant searches. The ad copy was generic — nothing that spoke specifically to what a mortgage broker's ideal client is actually looking for. The landing page wasn't built to convert. And there was no negative keyword list worth speaking of, meaning money was being wasted on searches that would never convert.

The monthly ad spend was £1,000. That budget didn't change. What changed was everything else.

What I did — and why

Campaign restructure. The existing campaign structure was messy — too many keywords in too few ad groups, no logical separation between intent types. I rebuilt the campaign from scratch with tightly themed ad groups, each targeting a specific search intent — first time buyer mortgages, remortgage, buy to let, self-employed mortgages. Keeping keywords tightly grouped means your ad copy can speak directly to what the person searched for, which improves Quality Score, reduces cost-per-click and improves conversion rate.

New ad copy. The previous ads were generic — the kind of copy that could apply to any broker anywhere. I rewrote every ad to speak directly to the specific search intent of each ad group, using the language that mortgage clients actually use when they're ready to act. Specific, benefit-led, with a clear call to action. No fluff.

Match type change — broad to phrase. This was one of the biggest wins. Broad match keywords in a financial services account will burn budget on tangentially related searches that will never convert. Switching to phrase match gave the algorithm enough flexibility to find relevant searches while eliminating the worst of the wasted spend. Combined with an expanded negative keyword list, cost-per-click dropped to £2.23 — well below the financial services average.

Negative keywords. Building out a proper negative keyword list is unglamorous work but it's one of the highest-impact things you can do in a Google Ads account. I identified and excluded all the searches that were eating budget without converting — competitor names, irrelevant mortgage types, informational queries from people who weren't ready to enquire. Every pound saved on a bad click is a pound available for a good one.

Landing page layout changes. Clicks mean nothing if the landing page doesn't convert. The existing landing page had too much going on — too much text, unclear call to action, no trust signals above the fold. I worked with the broker on a simplified layout: clear headline, single focused CTA, social proof visible immediately, contact form easy to find and quick to complete. The conversion rate from click to lead hit 11.47%.

Audience segments. I layered in audience segments to allow the algorithm to learn which types of users were most likely to convert — by age, by in-market behaviour, by previous site visitors. This data compounds over time and helps Google allocate budget to the searches most likely to generate a lead.

The result after 30 days

• 284 leads generated

• £19.48 cost-per-lead

• £2.23 cost-per-click

• 11.47% click-to-lead conversion rate

• 30% of leads converted to signed clients

• Ad spend: £1,000

At a 30% conversion rate and an average mortgage broker commission of £1,500 per completed case, those 284 leads generated approximately 85 new clients in month one from a £1,000 ad spend. The return on that investment is significant by any measure.

What this means for your Google Ads

The budget in this case study didn't change. The results did — because the structure, the copy, the targeting and the landing page were all rebuilt properly.

If you're spending money on Google Ads and not seeing results at this level, the issue almost certainly isn't your budget. It's the account structure, the match types, the ad copy, or the landing page — or all four. More budget going into a broken account just means losing money faster.

A proper audit of your Google Ads account will show you exactly where the problems are and what fixing them would mean for your lead volume and cost-per-lead.

Summary

• Account inherited with poor structure and wasted spend

• Budget unchanged at £1,000/month

• Campaign rebuilt from scratch with tight ad group structure

• Ad copy rewritten for specific search intent

• Match types changed from broad to phrase

• Negative keyword list built out properly

• Landing page simplified and conversion-focused

• Audience segments layered in

• Result: 284 leads at £19.48 CPL in month one

Natalie Chappell is a paid media specialist with 16+ years experience working with mortgage brokers, IFAs, funding providers and private banks across the UK. She is Google Ads Search Certified and has managed over £10 million in ad spend across Google, Meta and LinkedIn.

Want to know what your Google Ads account could be doing? Book a free 30-minute call.