TV Expert Interviews / Sales and Marketing / Mar 21, 2026 / Posted by Jeff Coleman / 0

Stop Wasting Money on Google Ads: How to Build a Lead Engine That Actually Works (video)

Google Ads promises results, but most businesses end up watching their budgets disappear with frustratingly little to show for it. In a candid conversation on the Expert Inside Interview, host John Golden of Sales POP! Online Sales Magazine and Pipeliner CRM talked with Jeff Coleman, founder of Four Factor Marketing, about why so many paid search campaigns fall flat—and what separates the businesses that thrive from those that simply throw money at the algorithm.

With more than twenty years in the Google Ads trenches, Coleman has watched the same costly patterns repeat across industries. His diagnosis is straightforward: too many advertisers treat search ads like a billboard. They prioritize visibility, eye-catching copy, and vanity metrics rather than zeroing in on what the searcher actually needs when they hit enter.

The Disconnect That Drains Budgets

According to Coleman, the number-one failure point is a mismatch between the ad, the keyword, and the landing page. When someone searches for a specific solution, clicks your ad, and then lands on a generic homepage or an off-topic service page, you’ve just paid for a visitor who will bounce within seconds. Multiply that by hundreds of clicks a month, and the costs compound fast.

He also warns against obsessing over the top ad position. Being number one feels great for your ego, but it’s often the second or third spot that delivers the best return, because those clickers tend to be more deliberate and less impulsive.

Building a Predictable Lead Engine

Rather than chasing clicks, Coleman recommends building what he calls a “lead engine”—a repeatable process designed to attract the right prospects and convert them consistently. It starts with defining a clear customer persona before you ever write an ad. Know who you’re targeting, what keeps them up at night, and how your offer solves that problem better than the alternatives.

From there, every piece of the campaign needs to align: the keyword set should reflect real buyer language, the ad copy should speak to that buyer directly, and the landing page should answer their question and make the next step obvious. Coleman stresses that your copy should also make clear who your service is NOT for, because excluding unqualified traffic is just as important as attracting qualified traffic when you’re paying per click.

Scaling Without Sinking

One of the trickiest parts of Google Ads is growing a campaign without watching your cost per lead skyrocket. Coleman explains that simply raising your budget rarely works. Local businesses hit a ceiling because only so many people in a given area are searching at any given time. Instead, sustainable growth comes from testing new keyword sets, carefully expanding into adjacent markets, and feeding real conversion data—not just lead counts—back into Google’s system.

What AI Means for Your Campaigns

With AI reshaping search, Coleman sees both opportunity and risk. Google’s automated features, such as Performance Max, can broaden your reach, but they also reduce the granular control that experienced advertisers rely on. His advice: stay hands-on, keep separating branded from non-branded campaigns so you know where new business is really coming from, and start watching how AI-powered search engines like ChatGPT handle ads—because that’s where the next wave of competition is heading.

The full conversation digs even deeper into Quality Score optimization, negative keyword strategy, and the myths that cost businesses thousands every month. If you’re running Google Ads—or thinking about it—this is one episode you don’t want to skip.

Listen to the full interview on the Expert Inside Interview podcast, and visit Sales POP! for more expert insights on driving revenue and building sustainable sales pipelines.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

About Author

Jeff Coleman

Jeff Coleman has been running Google Ads since the days when you could get clicks for a nickel, and nobody knew what “quality score” meant. Two decades later, he’s still in the trenches—only now he’s the guy business owners call when they’re tired of burning money and being told to “trust the process.” As the founder of Factor Four Marketing, Jeff oversees more than $4 million in annual ad spend and has worked with everyone from scrappy local service companies to Fortune 500 giants. His philosophy is simple: results speak louder than reports, and if a campaign isn’t making money, something’s broken. Jeff has taught digital marketing at UC San Diego Extension and USD’s Office of Corporate and Professional Education, but what really sets him apart is his ability to cut through the jargon and explain what’s actually happening inside Google Ads. He’s equal parts strategist, myth‑buster, and translator for business owners who just want their marketing to work. On podcasts, Jeff brings sharp insights, real stories from the field, and a refreshingly BS‑free take on what’s wrong with the digital advertising world—and how to fix it. He’s candid, practical, and not afraid to challenge the industry’s sacred cows, all while giving listeners clear steps they can use to get better results right away.

About Author

Jeff Coleman

Jeff Coleman has been running Google Ads since the days when you could get clicks for a nickel, and nobody knew what “quality score” meant. Two decades later, he’s still in the trenches—only now he’s the guy business owners call when they’re tired of burning money and being told to “trust the process.” As the founder of Factor Four Marketing, Jeff oversees more than $4 million in annual ad spend and has worked with everyone from scrappy local service companies to Fortune 500 giants. His philosophy is simple: results speak louder than reports, and if a campaign isn’t making money, something’s broken. Jeff has taught digital marketing at UC San Diego Extension and USD’s Office of Corporate and Professional Education, but what really sets him apart is his ability to cut through the jargon and explain what’s actually happening inside Google Ads. He’s equal parts strategist, myth‑buster, and translator for business owners who just want their marketing to work. On podcasts, Jeff brings sharp insights, real stories from the field, and a refreshingly BS‑free take on what’s wrong with the digital advertising world—and how to fix it. He’s candid, practical, and not afraid to challenge the industry’s sacred cows, all while giving listeners clear steps they can use to get better results right away.

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