What is a qualified enquiry?

Define the opportunity before you count it

A campaign report says enquiries are up. The person answering them says most are unsuitable. Before blaming either the campaign or the person, ask what the report is actually counting.

For a service business, we would define a qualified enquiry as a genuine request that fits the agreed service, audience and practical conditions well enough to take forward. Your criteria might include the type of work and where it needs to happen. Timing or an established minimum project scope may matter too. Those conditions should come from the business, rather than an arbitrary score invented for the report.

Google Ads makes a similar distinction in its measurement terminology: a qualified lead has been assessed further outside Google Ads, in a CRM or internal lead system. A converted lead has reached a later stage chosen by the advertiser, which can be a sale. The platform labels still need your own clear definitions.

Source: Google Ads Help: qualified leads and converted leads

A submission starts the assessment

A form receipt is useful evidence that the enquiry arrived. It doesn’t establish whether the request is suitable, and a click on an email or WhatsApp button gives you even less certainty about what happened afterwards.

Consider a fictional commercial decorating firm that works in a defined area. A request to redecorate a local office could fit. A request for decorating lessons describes a different need. An office enquiry with no location is still awaiting information; there isn’t enough evidence to put it in either group yet.

Keep that uncertainty visible. Marking every incomplete enquiry as unsuitable can hide useful opportunities, while calling every received form qualified makes the campaign look better without answering the commercial question.

Ask for information that changes the next step

Once you know what makes a request suitable, the form can ask for the details needed for a useful reply. A service area check may need a town or postcode. A description of the job may help the business route the enquiry to the right person.

Each question should earn its place. GOV.UK’s design guidance recommends knowing why every question is being asked and collecting only information that is genuinely needed. That is a useful design principle for a commercial enquiry form as well, although the exact questions depend on the service.

You can leave some assessment for the reply. If a customer is unsure about scope, a compulsory technical questionnaire may demand decisions they need your help to make. Agree which information is essential now and which can wait for the next conversation.

Source: GOV.UK Design System: question pages

Keep the reporting stages separate

We would start a lead-quality review with received enquiries, those still awaiting assessment, those that meet the brief, and the eventual outcome. A short reason for an unsuitable request is often more useful than a complicated scoring formula. Repeated requests from outside the service area point to a different problem from a genuine prospect who chose another supplier.

An enquiry can be qualified and still fail to become work. The customer might postpone the project or choose a competitor after a reasonable discussion. Keep those outcomes separate from the initial fit decision so the business can see where its follow-up or proposal needs attention.

Ask the report to name the stage behind each total. Google Ads distinguishes primary and secondary conversion actions: primary actions can inform bidding when their goal is used, while secondary actions are generally observed through All conversions. Custom goals are an exception. A column labelled conversions therefore needs context before you treat it as a count of suitable customers.

Source: Google Ads Help: primary and secondary conversion actions

Give the enquiries time to develop

A fresh enquiry may need a reply, a scope discussion and a proposal before its outcome is known. Comparing this morning’s undecided requests with last month’s completed work won’t give you a fair view of lead quality.

Google’s conversion-delay guidance explains that recent reporting can be incomplete because some people convert after their initial ad interaction. Your own qualification decision can also take time. Ask when the report was prepared, which enquiries are still pending and whether the older comparison period has had longer to mature.

For a small set of enquiries, read the actual reasons before drawing a sweeping conclusion from a percentage. Record spam, repeated submissions and requests you couldn’t assess consistently, so a change in housekeeping doesn’t masquerade as a change in demand.

Source: Google Ads Help: how long customers take to convert

Use the review to improve the brief

Bring a few anonymised examples to the campaign review. Show which requests fitted, which didn’t and what you still need to learn. Then look for a specific adjustment: clearer service wording, a more relevant landing page or a better first question on the form. Avoid promising that any single change will guarantee better leads.

At Pointed, we agree the audience, offer and intended enquiry before building campaign creative, landing pages or connected forms. A useful brief also says how the business will recognise a suitable request. Received enquiries should stay labelled as received until the agreed qualification step has actually happened.

Enquire by email, WhatsApp or our short enquiry form. We agree the scope and price with you before you pay by Stripe invoice.

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