Google Ads puts your business in front of people who are actively looking for what you do. Full-suite management across Search, Shopping, Performance Max, Display and YouTube – built around your numbers, not your budget.
Google processes over 8.5 billion searches every day. A significant portion of those searches are people looking for exactly what your business does – and Google Ads is how you show up at the precise moment they’re ready to act.
Unlike brand awareness advertising, Google Ads targets intent. The person searching for an accountant or an emergency plumber is not browsing – they are looking to buy. That’s the most valuable moment in marketing, and Google Ads is designed to capture it.
Done well, it’s one of the most measurable, controllable, and scalable channels available to any business. Done poorly, it burns budget and produces nothing.
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Google Ads reaches people at the moment they’re actively searching for what you offer – not passively scrolling. It’s the difference between interrupting someone and answering them.
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Set exactly how much you want to spend, see exactly what it produces. No other channel gives you the same level of attribution – from click to call to purchase.
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Start with search campaigns for your core services, add Shopping for products, expand to YouTube as you grow. Google Ads grows with the business rather than hitting a ceiling.
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Unlike SEO, Google Ads delivers traffic immediately. The moment campaigns go live, your business is visible to people searching for what you do.
Not every business needs every campaign type. The right mix depends on what you sell, who you’re selling to, and where they are in the buying journey.
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Text ads shown at the top of Google when someone searches for your keywords. The highest-intent format – your ad appears exactly when someone is looking for what you do. The foundation of almost every Google Ads account.
Best for: leads, enquiries, service businesses, local search
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Product listings with images, prices and reviews shown to shoppers browsing Google. Managed properly, Shopping campaigns are often the highest-ROAS format available to e-commerce businesses.
Best for: e-commerce, product-led businesses
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Google’s AI-powered campaign type that serves ads across Search, Shopping, Display, YouTube and Gmail from a single campaign. Powerful when set up correctly – and counterproductive when treated as a shortcut.
Best for: businesses with strong conversion data and creative assets
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Visual banner ads shown across millions of websites in the Google Display Network. Most effective for retargeting people who’ve already visited your site, and for building awareness in specific audience segments.
Best for: retargeting, awareness, longer sales cycles
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Video ads shown before and during YouTube content, reaching specific audiences by interest, intent, and demographics. Increasingly effective as a direct-response channel as well as a brand-building one.
Best for: brand building, product demonstrations, high-AOV purchases
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Campaigns that target people who have previously visited your website or interacted with your brand. Remarketing typically delivers the lowest cost per conversion of any campaign type – it’s reaching people who already know you.
Best for: every business running Google Ads
Strategy, build, tracking, creative, and ongoing optimisation. The parts that get skipped are usually the parts that make the difference.
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For existing accounts: a full teardown identifying wasted spend, structural issues, missing negatives, and conversion tracking gaps. For new accounts: a build plan based on your goals and unit economics.
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Intent-led keyword research, organised by campaign and ad group, with a negative keyword strategy built in from the start. Match types used deliberately – not set to broad and forgotten.
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Enhanced conversions, server-side tracking where needed, and a clear attribution setup so Google’s bidding algorithms are optimising toward real business outcomes – not proxy metrics.
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Responsive search ads written to test angles, not just fill character counts. Structured around the search query, the landing page, and the specific action you want the user to take.
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Search term reviews, bid adjustments, quality score improvements, audience layering, and landing page recommendations. Every week, not once a month when the report is due.
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Plain-English monthly reports covering spend, clicks, conversions, cost per lead or sale, ROAS, and what’s changing next month. No vanity metrics, no hiding behind impressions.
Whether you’ve never run Google Ads or you’re spending money and not sure it’s working – the starting point is the same: understand the numbers, build the right structure, and optimise from there.
Starting with a clean slate is an advantage. No bad habits to undo, no wasted historical spend to account for. Everything is built around your target cost per acquisition and the keywords your customers are actually using.
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Account setup and campaign architecture from scratch
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Tracking installed before a penny is spent
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Launch strategy matched to your budget and goals
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Clear CPA targets set from day one
Most accounts that have been running for more than six months have issues that are quietly costing money – irrelevant search terms, missing negatives, broken conversion tracking, or campaign types that are cannibalising each other.
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Full account audit before anything changes
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Honest assessment of what’s salvageable versus what needs rebuilding
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Conversion tracking verified and corrected
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Structured transition – nothing paused without a plan
New accounts are typically live within two weeks. Existing accounts are audited and stabilised before any significant changes are made.
Existing account: full audit, tracking verification, structural assessment, and a written action plan. New account: keyword research, campaign architecture, ad copy, tracking setup, and landing page review – ready to launch.
Account audit Keyword research Tracking setup Campaign build
Campaigns go live with conservative bidding strategies to gather clean data before optimising. Search term reports reviewed weekly, negative keywords added, ad copy variants tested. No aggressive scaling before the data supports it.
Campaign launch Search term reviews Negative keywords Ad copy testing
Once conversion data is reliable, bidding strategies are refined, budgets are reallocated toward what’s working, and underperforming campaigns are restructured or paused. New campaign types introduced only when there’s a clear case for them.
Bid strategy refinement Budget reallocation Audience layering Campaign expansion
Monthly reporting against CPA, ROAS, and revenue. Quarterly strategy reviews to assess new campaign types, landing page tests, and whether budget allocation still matches business priorities.
Monthly reporting Quarterly reviews Landing page recommendations
Placeholder figures below – replace with real client results once approved for case study use.
+148%
Average increase in qualified
leads from Search campaigns
–34%
Average reduction in
cost per acquisition
6.2x
Average return on
ad spend achieved
It depends on your average order value, your target cost per acquisition, and how competitive your market is. A general starting point is a minimum of £1,500 to £2,000 per month in media spend for Search campaigns to gather enough data to optimise properly. The right number for your business is something we’d work out on the strategy call based on your actual unit economics.
Google Ads can generate leads from the day campaigns go live. Typically, the first two to four weeks are a data-gathering phase – results are directional rather than fully optimised. By weeks six to eight, you’ll have enough conversion data to start refining bidding strategies and making confident decisions about what to scale.
Google Ads delivers traffic immediately but costs money for every click. SEO takes longer to build but generates traffic without paying per click once established. The two work well together – Ads while SEO builds, then reducing ad spend as organic traffic grows. A shared keyword strategy means both channels reinforce each other rather than working independently.
You pay Google directly from your own account. The management fee covers strategy, build, optimisation, reporting, and ongoing management – it’s separate from and in addition to what you spend on ads. You retain full ownership of your account and all its data at all times.
PMax is powerful in the right circumstances – specifically when an account has strong conversion history and good creative assets. It’s not a shortcut, and it’s often counterproductive for accounts with limited data. The honest answer is: it depends on your account, and the strategy call is where that decision gets made properly.
The clearest sign something is wrong: you can’t directly attribute revenue or leads to specific campaigns. If your reporting is based on impressions, clicks, and average position rather than cost per lead or ROAS, the tracking probably isn’t set up correctly. An audit will tell you within the first session whether the foundation is solid or not.
A 30-minute call. We’ll look at what you’re currently spending, what it’s producing, and where the real opportunity is – whether you’re starting from scratch or taking stock of what you have.
Strategic marketing consultancy. Liverpool, working with ambitious brands across the UK.
Copyright © 2026 Rob Russell. All rights reserved.
Strategic Marketing Consultant · Liverpool
