A lead generation business finds their digital leads are low quality despite high volume in Google Ads. What's the first step in the DEARC framework to address this gap?

The first step is Define: get clear on the total business goal. Low-quality leads at high volume is the classic symptom of a campaign optimising towards the wrong definition of success — usually raw form submissions, because that is the easiest thing to count. The framework begins with Define for that reason: before touching targets, tracking or bidding, the business has to say what a good outcome actually is. Is it a qualified lead, a booked appointment, a signed contract, and what is each worth? Only once that is settled do the later steps make sense, because enabling measurement, activating bidding and refining targets all depend on knowing what is being measured towards. Skipping Define is why teams end up tightening a Target CPA and getting cheaper versions of the same poor-quality leads.