Google Ads That Stop Wasting Budget
Paid search is the fastest lever you have, and the easiest one to burn money on. The difference is whether anyone is watching what the clicks actually do.
When ads make sense
SEO compounds but takes months. Ads work this week and stop the day you stop paying. If you need leads now, or you are testing whether a service is worth building a whole strategy around, ads answer the question fastest.
The waste comes from set-and-forget. Google will happily spend your budget on broad matches, irrelevant search terms, and clicks from people who were never going to buy. Left alone, an account drifts toward spending more for worse leads.
The other half is the page they land on. Sending paid traffic to a homepage that does not match the ad is the most common and most expensive mistake we see.
(What is included)
How we run accounts
Whether we built the account or inherited it.
01
Account audit first
Before changing anything, we find out where the money has been going and which terms have actually produced business.
02
Search term pruning
Negative keyword work, ongoing. This is the single biggest source of recovered budget in most accounts.
03
Landing pages that match
The page reflects the ad. If someone clicks an ad for one service, they do not land on a homepage listing six.
04
Conversion tracking that works
Calls, forms, and bookings tracked properly. Without this you are optimizing toward clicks, which is optimizing toward nothing.
05
Bid and budget management
Adjusted against what converts, not against impression share vanity numbers.
06
Plain reporting
What you spent, what came in, and what it cost per lead. In language you can act on.
(Questions)
Google Ads questions
How much should I spend on Google Ads?+
Enough to get statistically useful data in your market, which varies enormously by industry. A local service business in a small town may learn what it needs on a few hundred a month. A competitive legal or medical term can cost that in a handful of clicks. We will tell you what your market looks like before you commit.
Do you charge a percentage of ad spend?+
We quote a flat monthly management fee. Percentage-of-spend models reward the agency for spending more of your money, which is a strange incentive to build a relationship on.
How fast do ads work?+
Traffic starts the day the campaign goes live. Useful data takes a few weeks. Meaningful optimization takes a couple of months of conversion history.
Should I do ads or SEO?+
If you need leads this quarter, ads. If you are building something that should still be producing in three years, SEO. Most businesses that can afford both run both, with ads covering the gap while SEO builds.
Can you work with my existing Google Ads account?+
Yes, and we prefer it. An account with history is more valuable than a new one, and the conversion data already in there is worth keeping.
Do I keep the account if we stop working together?+
Yes. It is your account, your billing, and your data. We work inside it rather than hiding your campaigns in an agency account you cannot access.
(Other services)
What else we do
(Get started)
Get your ad account audited
Tell us what you are trying to sell and we will tell you what it takes.