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Finding Gold in the Small Wins: How Tracking Niche Leads and Small Optimizations Creates Big Opportunities with Google Ads

Photo and title of the article with ChatGPT Impacts on Local Search, by Craig Hadley, Madison, WI.
Craig Hadley

Chief Content Officer (CCO)

Digital Services & PPC | Newsletter | Outsource Your Marketing | Website Development

In marketing, it’s tempting to focus only on the “big fish,” the campaigns that bring in the most clicks or the landing pages with the most visits. This is what Dan Sullivan’s The Gap and The Gain: The High Achievers’ Guide to Happiness, Confidence, and Success  calls Gap thinking: measuring progress only against an ideal, like “we want X number of conversions per month.”

Gap thinking can make you miss valuable insights hiding in plain sight. Gain thinking, on the other hand, measures progress against where you started and recognizes the steps, big or small, that move you forward.

Sometimes, those steps aren’t just progress —they’re hidden growth engines.

Example 1: How a Niche Google Ads Campaign Turned Into Daily Leads

In a recent Google Ads campaign, we began with two goals:

  1. Gather actionable data to guide future marketing decisions
  2. Start generating quality leads.

Through keyword search trend analysis, we identified that a specific service offering, in this case, kitchen backsplashes, had strong local search demand. We then created a dedicated landing page for that service, placing it both in the site’s main navigation and using it as a high-intent Google Ads destination.

We paired this with targeted promotional spending within Google Ads to quickly collect more data and start building a pipeline of inquiries. This approach worked:

  • In just the last 30 days, the Google Ads campaign averaged a new lead per day.
  • Another niche ad group within the campaign delivered a 9.79% conversion rate and cost per conversion less than half of the account average.
  • The service-specific landing page achieved a 1.13% click-through rate in a competitive niche, with a higher-than-average cost-per-click that signaled strong buyer intent.

What began as a small, focused experiment became a highly effective lead source, a perfect example of how Gain thinking turns targeted insights into measurable results.

Example 2: Adding Gains Through Continuous Optimization

Even after launching a campaign, small, targeted adjustments can unlock additional performance gains.
In one recent account audit, we identified several quick wins:

  • Adjusted daily budgets to reduce lost impression share in top-performing campaigns.
  • Refined ad group structure to improve keyword focus and ad relevance.
  • Added highly relevant branded keywords to better capture searchers already familiar with the brand.

These changes didn’t require a complete rebuild, but they led to improved click-through rates, increased visibility, and maintained a lower cost per conversion. By ensuring high-performing campaigns had the budget and targeting needed, we kept results strong while uncovering new opportunities for growth.

Why the Gains Matter in Google Ads
  1. Double down on high-performing niches in future ad spend.
  2. Refine targeting for similar high-intent search terms.
  3. Keep campaigns evolving through ongoing adjustments that compound results over time.

These insights don’t come from chasing only the biggest metrics; they come from spotting and acting on the gains, even in unexpected corners of your campaigns.

Takeaways

The big wins are exciting, but the small ones often point the way to the next growth opportunity. If you only measure against your ultimate ideal, you’ll miss the stepping stones that get you there.
Ask yourself:

  • Which small Google Ads campaigns, landing pages, or adjustments have surprisingly strong ROI?
  • Are you tracking enough detail to even see them?
Craig Hadley

Chief Content Officer (CCO) at The Creative Company

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