CTR +40%, appointments flat — open these reports

Dana’s Search campaign, same impression volume both months. Last month: 10,000 impressions, 400 clicks, CTR 4.0%, 12 desk-logged sales appointments. This month: 10,000 impressions, 560 clicks, CTR 5.6% (that is +40% CTR), still 12 desk-logged appointments. You do not have Quality Score, CPA, or a live GA login. You do have the right to open reports and say what they would show under a hypothesis. The question is not “is CTR good or bad.” The question is which table proves whether the extra 160 clicks were commercial or homework.

(1) Google Ads → Search Terms (not Keywords). Add columns: clicks, impressions, CTR, conversions if the conversion is the appointment form — and treat that conversion as suspect until the event map is clean. Sort by clicks this month vs last. (2) Google Ads → Landing pages crossed with those terms, or export terms and join on landing URL. (3) GA4 → Traffic acquisition, session campaign, then landing page + query string. (4) GA4 → Events: form_start, generate_lead, click_to_call, broken by sessionCampaignName and pagePath. (5) The desk sheet: booked appointments by day, not a GA4 exploration you invent. Open (1) and (4) before you rewrite an RSA. If Search Terms is empty because the campaign is Display or PMax, say so — do not fake a query table.

Search Terms would add rows that were thin or absent last month: “how to inspect a used car”, “is 120k miles too many”, “used car negotiation tips”, “what is a cvt transmission.” Those rows would carry most of the +160 clicks and a CTR at or above the account average (curiosity clicks). Conversions / form_start on those rows would sit at 0 or 1. Landing page would be the homepage or a blog, not a CR-V SRP. In GA4, sessions for the campaign would rise ~40% with the click rise; form_start and generate_lead (if honest) would stay near last month; engagement time might look fine because people read the homework page. That pattern is evidence for the research-query hypothesis. It is not a conversion rate. If instead the new terms are “used cr-v frederick” and form_start rose but desk appointments did not, the leak is after the form — tracking or follow-up — not the query job.