Google Ads

01 — Definition

What this is

Paid search: your ad appears above or below the organic results when somebody searches a term you bid on, and Google charges you when they click.

Four terms, used throughout. PPC is pay per click, the model itself. CPC is cost per click, what one of those clicks costs you. CPA is cost per acquisition, what one enquiry or sale ends up costing once you divide the spend by the number you got. Performance Max is a Google campaign type that runs across search, display, YouTube, Gmail and Maps from one budget, with Google deciding the distribution — powerful, and the easiest way in the platform to spend money without knowing where it went.

02 — Problem

The problem this usually solves

The account spends its full budget every month and the enquiries don't arrive.

Cost per enquiry has been climbing for a year and nobody can say why.

The reporting says conversions, you can't find those conversions in your inbox or your CRM, and nobody wants to be the one to ask.

Someone set the account up years ago, it has been running on defaults ever since, and the negative keyword list has eleven entries.

Most of these are structural. Paid search fails quietly through match types that were never tightened, a Performance Max campaign absorbing budget that Search should be getting, and conversion tracking that counts a page view as a lead.

03 — Scope

What we actually do

Account structure, or a rebuild

Campaigns, ad groups and budgets arranged so you can tell what is working. Where an existing account is beyond adjusting, we rebuild it and say so up front, because a rebuild resets the learning period and that is a real cost you should know about before it happens. Done looks like: you can open the account and understand it without us.

Keywords and negative keywords

The terms you bid on, and — more importantly for most accounts — the terms you refuse. Negative keyword work is the single most reliable way to stop money leaking, and it is ongoing, not a one-off. Done looks like: the search terms report stops showing you queries that were never going to buy.

Campaign types

Search, Shopping where there's a product feed, and Performance Max where it earns its place rather than by default. Each with its own budget and its own reporting, so Performance Max can't quietly take credit for brand searches.

Ad copy and testing

Headlines and descriptions written against the actual query, tested in a way that produces a readable result rather than four variants splitting the data into noise.

Bidding and budget pacing

Bid strategy chosen for the amount of conversion data the account actually has, not the one that sounds most advanced. Spend paced so the month doesn't end on day nineteen.

Conversion tracking

Hooked up and verified before campaign work starts. If the account can't count an enquiry, every optimisation after that is guesswork wearing a suit.

Where the clicks land

Landing page work is part of this service, not a separate product. What's on the page, whether it answers the query, what the form asks for, and whether the page loads before the visitor leaves. We'll specify build changes for your developer, or work within a page builder if you have one.

04 — Fee model

How we're paid, and why it's structured this way

The flat fee below the threshold is deliberate. The standard agency model is a percentage of whatever you spend, which means the agency's income rises every time it recommends a bigger budget. That is a conflict of interest sitting in the middle of every budget conversation you'll have. A flat fee removes it: below $10,000 a month, we earn the same whether you spend $3,000 or $9,000, so "increase the budget" only ever gets said when there is something to say it about.

Above $10,000 the fee becomes a percentage, because at that point the work genuinely scales with the account. We'd rather publish that threshold here than have you discover it in a proposal.

The build fee covers the one-time work: account and conversion tracking setup or rebuild, campaign and ad group structure, initial keyword and negative lists, first ad sets, and the tracking verification. It is charged once. If we build it and you leave, you keep it.

See what this costs →

05 — Your money

Your money never passes through us

Google bills you directly, at cost, on your own payment method, in your own account. We never hold, forward, invoice or mark up your advertising budget, and there is no media buying through us.

You can log into the account any day of the week and see exactly what was spent. If you ever want us gone, you revoke our access yourself and the account keeps running, because it was always yours.

06 — Excluded

What is not included

07 — Receive

What you receive

An account you can read, with a structure documented in writing. Ongoing keyword, negative keyword, bid and budget management. Ad copy written and tested. Conversion tracking verified, and re-verified when your site changes.

A written report covering spend, clicks, cost per click, conversions, cost per conversion, what changed that period and what changes next — enquiries first, impressions last. Written reporting is included in the retainer and is not billed separately. What the report contains is specified in full on the analytics page, and the cadence is agreed in writing before work starts.

How the work runs →

08 — Cost

What paid search costs

Starting prices. What moves them: how many campaigns and locations, whether there's a product feed, how much of the account needs rebuilding, and how much spend is being managed.

The full pricing table →

09 — Questions

Questions people ask before signing