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Google Ads Management
Google Ads is the only major channel where people tell you what they want before you spend anything. That makes it the highest-intent inventory available and the easiest to waste, because a poorly structured account spends most of its budget on queries that merely resemble the ones that convert.
Overview
Capture demand that already exists, structured so intent stays readable and budget follows it.
Structure decides what you can learn
An account is a measurement instrument before it is a buying mechanism. If a single campaign contains a query someone types when ready to buy and another they type while researching, the reported cost per acquisition is an average of two different businesses and tells you nothing actionable.
We separate by intent and by economics rather than by product catalogue. Brand traffic is isolated so it stops flattering the numbers — it converts cheaply because those people were already coming. High-intent commercial queries are segmented from research queries. Where margins differ materially between products, they are separated so budget can follow profit rather than volume. The result is an account where a change in the numbers points at a cause.
Search terms, not keywords
Keywords are what you bid on. Search terms are what people actually typed, and with broad match and Performance Max those two have drifted a long way apart.
The search terms report is where most recoverable waste lives. We work it on a fixed cadence, adding negatives, promoting queries that convert into their own tightly controlled ad groups, and watching for the semantic drift that broad match produces as it explores. In most accounts we audit, a meaningful share of spend is going to terms the owner would immediately recognise as irrelevant if anyone were looking.
Performance Max, used deliberately
Performance Max works when it is fed properly and constrained honestly. It fails when it is used as a way to avoid making decisions, because it will happily absorb budget that belongs in search and then take credit for conversions that would have happened anyway.
We run it with brand exclusions applied, asset groups built around real audience segments rather than one undifferentiated pool, and clean conversion values so the algorithm optimises towards profit rather than raw conversion count. We also insist on watching the channel and placement reporting that PMax makes awkward to see, because a campaign type you cannot inspect is one you cannot manage.
Bidding follows measurement, not the other way round
Smart bidding is genuinely good, and it is only as good as the conversion signal you give it. Feed it form fills that include spam and time-wasters and it will efficiently find you more of those.
So the sequence is fixed: verify what is being counted, assign values that reflect actual profit rather than a nominal figure, feed offline conversion data back where the sale closes outside the website, and only then move to a value-based bidding strategy. Accounts that skip to the last step and stay on target-CPA with a broken signal are the single most common pattern we inherit.
What's included
The scope of the engagement, stated plainly so there is nothing to discover later.
- Account audit covering structure, tracking accuracy and wasted spend
- Intent-based campaign and ad group architecture
- Conversion tracking rebuild with deduplication and value assignment
- Search term review on a fixed cadence, with negative keyword management
- Responsive search ad testing against pinned control assets
- Performance Max configuration with brand exclusion and asset group segmentation
- Shopping feed diagnostics where an e-commerce catalogue is involved
- Offline conversion import where the sale closes off-site
- Landing page and conversion rate recommendations, prioritised by impact
How we run it
The order matters more than the individual tasks. Doing these out of sequence is what wastes months.
Audit and measurement fix
Before anything is switched on we establish whether the existing numbers are true. Conversion duplication, missing tags and misattributed brand traffic are found here, and they change what the account appears to have been doing.
Restructure
Campaigns rebuilt around intent and margin so that spend can be read. Where an existing account has useful learning history we migrate rather than discard it.
Test and prune
Systematic creative and landing page testing, with search terms worked continuously. Losers are cut on evidence rather than instinct, and we record why so the same test is not repeated in six months.
Scale what survives
Budget shifts towards segments proven profitable at the margin, not merely cheap on average. Scaling an average is how accounts hit a ceiling that looks like market saturation but is really structural.
What you get
Concrete artefacts you keep, whether or not the engagement continues.
- Restructured Google Ads account you own outright
- Verified conversion tracking with a documented measurement map
- Negative keyword library maintained on a fixed cadence
- Creative test log with results and reasoning
- Monthly reporting tied to profit, not impressions
- Landing page recommendation list ranked by expected impact
Common questions
The questions that come up most often on discovery calls.
Should we bid on our own brand name?
Usually yes, but for a specific reason: to control the message and to keep competitors from occupying the top of a search where the buyer already wants you. The mistake is counting that spend as acquisition. We isolate brand into its own campaign and report it separately so it never inflates blended performance.
Is Performance Max better than Search campaigns?
It is different, not better. PMax buys across inventory Search cannot reach and it obscures where the money went. Most accounts we run use both, with brand and high-intent commercial terms protected in Search so PMax cannot quietly absorb demand that would have converted anyway.
How often do you make changes to the account?
Search terms and budget pacing are reviewed weekly; structural changes are made deliberately and infrequently. Constant tinkering resets the learning phase and produces the volatility it is trying to fix. Changes are logged so any shift in performance can be traced to a cause.
We were told our quality score is low. Does it matter?
It matters as a symptom rather than a target. Low quality score usually means the keyword, the ad and the landing page are not talking about the same thing — which is a relevance problem you would want to fix regardless. Chasing the score itself, rather than the mismatch underneath it, is wasted effort.
Can Google Ads work for a long, complex B2B sales cycle?
Yes, provided you stop optimising to form fills. With a long cycle the website conversion is a leading indicator, not the outcome, so we import qualified-lead and closed-won events back from your CRM and bid towards those. Without that feedback loop the platform will optimise towards whoever fills in forms most readily, which in B2B is rarely your buyer.
Related work
This sits inside our Performance Marketing practice.
Want this done properly?
Start with a discovery call. We will tell you whether google ads is actually your bottleneck, or whether something else should come first.