Google Ads & Paid Search
Google Ads you canactually hold to account.
Nine years running search, Shopping, Performance Max and YouTube on budgets from $2,000 to $30,000 a month. The work that produces returns is mostly unglamorous: negative keywords, feed hygiene, and conversion data the bidding algorithm can trust.
Return on ad spend
6.2x
$30k/month, unbranded new customer only
Branded vs unbranded, split out
Why accounts underperform, in roughly this order.
Nine years of audits and the same four things come up almost every time.
Branded traffic is inflating everything
People searching your company name were going to buy anyway. Mixed into one blended figure, branded traffic makes a mediocre account look healthy and hides the fact that unbranded acquisition is not working.
The bidding is learning from bad data
Smart bidding does exactly what you tell it to. If your conversion is firing on every page view, counting the same lead twice, or valuing a newsletter signup the same as a $4,000 order, it will faithfully optimise towards the wrong thing.
Performance Max is a black box by default
It does not have to be. Without brand exclusions, asset group discipline and search term visibility, PMax will happily spend most of your budget re-buying traffic you already had.
The feed is quietly broken
Disapprovals, missing GTINs, stale prices, no custom labels. Shopping and PMax performance is mostly a feed problem wearing a campaign problem’s clothes.
What the work actually involves.
Fix the measurement before touching the campaigns
This is not upselling, it is sequencing. Restructuring an account that is optimising towards a broken conversion just gets you to the wrong destination faster. I audit the tracking first, every time, and tell you what it is costing you.
- Conversion actions audited, deduplicated and correctly valued
- Offline conversion imports where the sale happens off-site
- Value-based bidding fed with real margin, not order count
- Enhanced conversions and consent handled properly
Conversion actions audit
previewTypical wasted spend found
20-30%
In a first account audit
Separate branded from unbranded, then judge honestly
The single most useful thing I do in most accounts. Split branded out into its own campaign, then run a structured reallocation test so you can see what unbranded acquisition genuinely costs and whether it works. Sometimes the answer is uncomfortable. You still need it.
- Branded isolated so it stops flattering the blended figure
- A structured budget reallocation test with a defined read-out period
- Brand exclusions applied across PMax and Demand Gen
- Stakeholder-ready documentation of what was tested and what it showed
Reallocation test read-out
Quality service leads
+30%
UK engineering business
Feeds, Shopping and PMax done at the source
Most Shopping problems are solved in Merchant Center and the feed, not in the campaign. I have managed complex product feeds for multiple e-commerce businesses, including fixing them upstream in Shopify rather than patching with feed rules forever.
- Merchant Center diagnostics and disapproval clearing
- Feed rules, custom labels and product segmentation by margin or performance
- Asset groups and listing groups structured so you can read the results
- Vehicle Listing Ads and other specialist formats where relevant
Merchant Center health
previewAccounts managed day-to-day
15+
Agency side, simultaneously
Everything that is on the table.
Pick the parts you need. Most engagements start with the audit and go from there.
- Full account audit with a written findings document
- Account and campaign restructure
- Keyword research and match type strategy
- Ongoing negative keyword and search term management
- Performance Max asset groups, exclusions and controls
- Shopping feed and Merchant Center optimisation
- YouTube and Demand Gen campaigns
- Bid strategy selection and testing
- Responsive search ads, assets and ad copy testing
- Landing page and conversion rate recommendations
- Conversion tracking build and repair
- Offline conversion imports and value-based bidding
- Google Ads scripts for automation and alerting
- Competitor and auction insight analysis
- Budget planning and forecasting
- Monthly reporting and stakeholder presentations
Also comfortable in Microsoft Ads, Apple Search Ads and Amazon PPC where they are worth the effort — which is less often than vendors will tell you.
Results from accounts I ran personally.
No agency case study inflation. These are accounts where I was the person in the interface.
6x
Consistent return on ad spend for an Australia-wide engineering e-commerce business on a $30,000 monthly budget, unbranded new-customer traffic only
4x
Return on ad spend for a UK clothing brand spending up to £40,000 a month, through standard Shopping and YouTube for unbranded new customers
+30%
Uptick in quality service leads for a large UK engineering business
15+
Google Ads accounts managed day-to-day simultaneously, agency side
Client names withheld under agency and contract terms. Happy to talk specifics on a call.
How an engagement runs.
The order matters, so it is a sequence rather than a menu.
Audit
Fixed price, one to two weeks. Account structure, tracking accuracy, wasted spend, feed health and competitive position, written up plainly with a prioritised action list.
Measurement repair
Fix the conversion signal before restructuring anything, so the changes that follow can be judged against numbers that mean something.
Restructure and rebuild
Rebuild campaign architecture, split branded from unbranded, apply exclusions, fix the feed. The heavy lifting, usually two to four weeks.
Test, scale, report
Ongoing management with a defined testing roadmap and monthly reporting that answers whether the money made money.
Whether Google Ads is even the right answer.
Paid search is not right for every business, and I would rather say so on the first call.
This is a good fit if
- You are spending, or ready to spend, roughly $3,000 a month or more
- People actively search for what you sell — there is existing demand to capture
- Your margins can absorb a customer acquisition cost and you know roughly what it is
- You have a site that can convert traffic, or are willing to fix it
- You want to understand the account rather than just receive a monthly PDF
Call someone else if
- Nobody searches for your product yet and you need demand creation first
- Your margin per sale is smaller than a realistic cost per click
- You want awareness with no conversion goal — that is a different discipline
- You need someone to make changes without ever asking about the business
- You want a percentage-of-spend arrangement, which I do not offer on principle
Google Adsquestions.
Something not covered? Ask me directly — you will get a straight answer, not a proposal.
What is the minimum budget worth working with?
Around $3,000 a month is where management becomes worth paying for. Below that, the fee eats too much of the budget and you are usually better off with a one-off setup, a training session and running it yourself. I will tell you if that is your situation.
How do you charge?
Audits are a fixed price based on account size. Ongoing management is a flat monthly fee agreed up front. I do not charge a percentage of ad spend, because it pays me more to spend more of your money, which is a bad incentive to build a relationship on.
Do I keep the account if we stop working together?
Yes. Everything is built in your own Google Ads and Merchant Center accounts with you as owner. You keep the account, the history and the documentation. No handover fee, no hostage-taking.
Do you use Performance Max?
Where it fits, with controls applied. PMax works well for e-commerce with a healthy feed and works badly as a lazy default for lead generation. Either way it gets brand exclusions, structured asset groups and regular search term review, so you can see what it is doing.
How quickly will I see results?
Tracking fixes show up immediately in data quality. Structural changes need two to four weeks for bidding to stabilise, and a fair read usually takes six to eight weeks. Anyone promising a transformation in a fortnight is either lucky or lying.
Can you work alongside our existing agency?
Yes, and it happens fairly often — usually as an independent audit, or handling the tracking and analytics side while they run the campaigns. I will be straight in the audit but I am not there to run a smear campaign against your incumbent.