Advertising managed for return, not clicks.
Google and Meta campaigns with conversion tracking live before any budget is spent, so you can see what each dollar actually produced.
Conversion tracking first
Nothing goes live until we can attribute an inquiry to a campaign. Advertising without it is guessing with a budget.
Search and shopping
Google campaigns built around what buyers type when they are ready, not the broad terms that drain budget quietly.
Paid social
Meta campaigns for the demand that has not started searching yet, matched to audiences worth reaching.
Weekly optimization
Search terms pruned, budget moved to what converts, creative rotated. Unattended accounts get more expensive every month.
What does Google Ads management actually involve?
Four things, running continuously. Setting up measurement so every inquiry can be traced to the campaign and keyword that produced it. Building the campaigns, which means the keywords, the ad copy, the extensions and the landing pages they point at. Pruning, which is the weekly work of finding the search terms that spent money without producing anything and excluding them. And reallocating, moving budget toward whatever is currently returning.
The pruning is where most of the value sits and where most unmanaged accounts leak. Google will happily match your ads to searches that are adjacent to what you sell. Left alone for three months, a meaningful share of the budget goes to terms you would never have chosen.
How do you decide what a click is worth?
We work backwards from the value of a customer. If a customer is worth two thousand over the life of the relationship, and one inquiry in four becomes a customer, then an inquiry is worth five hundred. If it takes twenty clicks to get an inquiry, you can afford twenty-five per click and still be well ahead.
Most businesses have never done that arithmetic, and it changes every decision that follows. It tells you what to bid, which campaigns to keep, and whether advertising is viable for you at all. We do it on the first call, before proposing anything.
What is the difference between search ads and paid social?
Search reaches people who have already decided they have a problem and are looking for a solution. Intent is high, volume is limited by how many people are searching, and cost per click is higher because everyone wants that moment.
Paid social reaches people who match a profile but were not looking. Intent is lower, reach is far larger, and it is better suited to services people do not know they need or to staying visible between purchases.
Most local businesses should start with search, because buying existing demand is easier than creating it. Social earns its place once search is capped out or when the offer genuinely benefits from being discovered rather than sought.
Why do unmanaged campaigns get more expensive?
Because the account drifts and nothing corrects it. New search terms match in that nobody excludes. Ad creative fatigues and click-through falls, which raises what you pay for the same position. Competitors adjust bids. Seasonal demand shifts while budgets stay flat.
None of these are dramatic on their own. Together they explain why a campaign that worked well in its first quarter often looks like a poor investment a year later, and why most people conclude ads stopped working rather than that the account stopped being managed.
What do you report?
Spend, inquiries, and cost per inquiry, broken down by campaign. Then the same figures compared against the previous period so the trend is visible.
We do not lead with impressions or click-through rate. Both are easy to improve in ways that make no difference to your business, and an agency reporting mainly on them is usually avoiding the number that matters.
When is advertising the wrong answer?
When the destination is not ready. Paid traffic magnifies whatever your site already does, so a slow page or a buried contact form wastes most of the budget and produces a conclusion that advertising does not work for your business.
It is also wrong when the margin cannot support it. Some businesses genuinely cannot afford a click at the price the auction demands, and no amount of optimization fixes that. That is a first-call conversation, not something to discover in month six.
How do we start?
A call and an account review. If you are already advertising, we will look at what you are spending, what it is returning, and where the leaks are, and give you that read whether or not you go on to work with us. If you are starting fresh, we do the customer-value arithmetic first and tell you whether the numbers work.
Where we work
We manage campaigns for businesses across the United States. If you are in northeast Kansas, our Lawrence advertising page covers how we handle targeting in that market.
| Channel | Best for | Typical intent | What it costs to test properly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Search | Services people actively look for when they need them | High. They have a problem now | A few hundred a month for enough clicks to read the data |
| Google Shopping | Physical products with a clear price and image | High. Comparing options | Similar, though results read faster on volume |
| Meta paid social | Offers people would want but are not searching for | Lower. Interrupting, not answering | Lower cost per click, more creative required |
| Retargeting | Bringing back people who already visited | Warm. They know you | Small budget, usually the best return in the account |
Advertising: common questions
Can you run ads if I do not have a good website?
We can, but we usually advise against it. Paid traffic magnifies whatever your site already does. Sending expensive clicks to a page that loads slowly or buries the inquiry form wastes most of the budget, and you will conclude that ads do not work when the problem was the destination.
Often the cheaper sequence is to fix the landing experience first, then advertise into it.
Do you charge a percentage of ad spend?
No. Percentage-of-spend pricing rewards an agency for spending more of your money, which is the wrong incentive. We charge a flat management fee based on the complexity of the account, so the advice you get about raising or cutting budget is not influenced by what we earn from it.
How much should I spend on Google Ads?
Enough to gather data, which usually means a few hundred dollars a month at minimum for a local business. Below that, a campaign takes so long to accumulate clicks that you cannot tell a bad keyword from an unlucky week.
The better question is what an inquiry is worth to you. If a customer is worth two thousand over their lifetime and one in four inquiries closes, you can afford a lot more per click than a business selling a fifteen-dollar item. We work backwards from that number rather than starting with a budget and hoping.
How quickly will ads produce inquiries?
Within days, which is the main reason to run them. The trade-off is that they stop the moment the budget stops, where search keeps most of its value after you stop paying.
Expect the first two to four weeks to be a learning period where cost per inquiry is higher than it will settle at. Judging a campaign on its first two weeks is the most common mistake we see.
Who owns the ad account?
You do. We work inside your Google Ads and Meta accounts rather than a reseller account we control. If we part ways you keep the campaigns, the conversion history and the learning that goes with them, which is often worth more than the campaigns themselves.
Ask this of any agency you speak to. Being locked out of your own performance history is a real cost that only shows up when you try to leave.
Want ads, search and social working from one plan?