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Google Ads

Paid search measured in qualified enquiries, not clicks

Google Ads is the fastest way to test whether demand exists for what you sell. It's also the fastest way to waste money. I manage paid search by being ruthless about one thing: what a qualified enquiry actually costs.

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The problem

Google's defaults are designed to spend your budget

Broad match keywords, automatically applied recommendations, Search Partners, Display expansion and smart bidding trained on the wrong conversion action. Every default nudges toward volume, and volume is what Google is paid for.

In B2B this is particularly costly. Your buyer searches a specific technical phrase; broad match serves your ad to students, competitors and people in other countries. Click costs rise, and because the conversion signal is a contact form fill rather than revenue, the algorithm optimises confidently in the wrong direction.

The fix is unglamorous: tight keyword control, aggressive negative lists, conversion tracking that reflects lead quality, and landing pages that match the search rather than the homepage.

Outcomes

What changes for your business

  • A known, tracked cost per qualified enquiry — by campaign and by keyword.
  • Wasted spend eliminated through negatives, match types and audience exclusions.
  • Conversion tracking that distinguishes a real enquiry from a newsletter signup.
  • Landing pages aligned to search intent, not a generic homepage.
  • Budget concentrated on the terms that convert to pipeline.
A channel that can be scaled with confidence once the economics are proven.
Scope

How the account is built and run

Account audit

A forensic review of structure, search terms, wasted spend, quality scores and conversion tracking integrity — with the wasted spend quantified in pounds.

Campaign architecture

Tight themed campaigns and ad groups with controlled match types, so search terms, ads and landing pages actually correspond.

Conversion tracking

Enquiry, call and form tracking wired into GA4 and your CRM, with offline conversion import so bidding optimises toward real opportunities.

Negative keyword discipline

Continuous search term review and negative list building — the single highest-return activity in most B2B accounts.

Landing page alignment

Recommendations and copy for pages that answer the specific search, with the proof and specification detail technical buyers need.

Monthly reporting. Spend, qualified enquiries, cost per enquiry and pipeline contribution — plus what changed and what I'm testing next.

Fit

Where paid search earns its place

  • There is existing search demand for your product or service category.
  • Your average order value supports a meaningful cost per acquisition.
  • You can respond to enquiries quickly — speed to lead heavily affects conversion.
  • You're willing to run a genuine test period before judging the channel.
  • You need enquiries now while SEO builds in the background.
You have, or will build, landing pages rather than sending traffic to a homepage.
In detail

How this works in practice

The detail behind the headline: how the work is structured, what it depends on and how progress is judged.

Account structure built around profit, not clicks

Accounts are structured so that spend is controllable and reportable: campaigns split by intent and margin, tight ad groups, deliberate match-type strategy and an aggressive negative keyword programme to stop budget leaking into research traffic.

Bidding follows data maturity. Without reliable conversion data, automated bidding optimises towards noise, so early campaigns are run to build clean signal first — then handed to smart bidding with the right target once the conversion actions genuinely represent qualified enquiries or profitable orders.

Conversion tracking you can trust

Most underperforming accounts are actually measurement failures: form submissions double-counted, phone calls untracked, thank-you pages fired on page load, offline sales never fed back. Optimising towards bad data reliably makes performance worse.

Tracking is rebuilt first — form and call conversions, values where they exist, and offline conversion import from the CRM so Google learns from closed revenue rather than raw enquiries. For ecommerce that means accurate revenue and margin signals; for B2B it means the pipeline stages that predict a win.

Landing pages and quality of enquiry

Paid traffic exposes weak pages faster than anything else. Where message match is poor, the page buries the proof or the form asks for too much too early, spend simply amplifies the problem.

Work therefore covers the page as well as the campaign: headline aligned to the search, the proof a buyer needs, clear pricing signals or qualification, and a form sized to the commitment. Qualification questions are used deliberately to raise enquiry quality even when that reduces raw volume — because sales time is the scarcer resource.

Reporting, budget control and when to stop

Monthly reporting shows cost per qualified enquiry, conversion rate and — where the CRM allows — revenue and return on ad spend by campaign, plus a clear recommendation to scale, hold or cut.

Sometimes the right recommendation is to spend less. If a term cannot be bought profitably at your margin, or your market simply is not searching at scale yet, I will say so and redirect budget to demand generation, SEO or outbound rather than defending the channel.

Watch

Marketing thinking in short form

Strategy, SEO and paid search explained in a couple of minutes on Instagram and TikTok.

Keep reading

Where to go next

A few things worth reading — and the pages most people move to from here.

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Questions

Frequently asked questions

What's a sensible starting budget?
It depends on click costs in your category, but you need enough monthly volume to gather statistically useful data. For most B2B niches that's a few hundred to a couple of thousand pounds a month plus management. I'll model it before you commit.
How long before we know if it's working?
Six to eight weeks to gather enough search term data to be confident. Early weeks are deliberately about elimination — cutting waste — before scaling what converts.
Should we use Performance Max?
Sometimes, but rarely as the primary campaign in B2B. It trades control for reach, which is the wrong trade when your qualified audience is small and specific. I'd prove standard search first.
Do you manage LinkedIn or Microsoft Ads too?
Yes. Microsoft Ads is frequently overlooked and cheap in industrial sectors, and LinkedIn is useful for demand generation where search volume doesn't yet exist.
Who owns the account?
You do, always. It's your account, your data and your history. If we stop working together, nothing needs rebuilding.
Do you use AI in your marketing consultancy work?
Yes — deliberately, and I help clients do the same. AI is used for research and synthesis, keyword and intent clustering, first drafts that a specialist then corrects, campaign variants and reporting commentary, all under human review with a written data and brand policy behind it. It is never used for the parts that carry commercial risk: positioning, pricing narrative, segment priorities or any claim that has to be defensible. I also work on the other half of the AI shift — making sure your business is the source ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Perplexity cite when a buyer asks who the credible options are, because a growing share of shortlists are now formed inside an assistant rather than on a search results page.
Why should I use you as my marketing consultant rather than an agency?
An agency sells you delivery. I sell you judgement. Before anyone writes an ad or a blog post, someone has to decide which segments you are targeting, what your proposition is, which channels deserve budget and what a qualified enquiry is actually worth. That is the work that decides whether the delivery pays for itself. I do that work first, in writing, then either brief your existing agency properly or build the plan in-house — and because I have no media to sell you, there is no incentive for me to recommend spend you do not need.
What makes you different from other Fractional CMOs and marketing consultants?
Three things. First, a client-side operating background rather than a pure agency one: I have run marketing inside an industrial B2B manufacturer, dealing with technical buyers, distributor networks, long sales cycles and a board that wants commercial numbers rather than impressions. Second, formal grounding — Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (MCIM) and an MSc in Digital Marketing Management, so recommendations are based on tested frameworks rather than whatever is trending on LinkedIn. Third, I work across B2B, retail and SaaS, which means the retail pricing and merchandising discipline informs the B2B work and the SaaS retention thinking informs both.
How much does a marketing consultant cost compared with hiring a Marketing Director?
A full-time Marketing Director in the UK typically costs £70,000-£110,000 plus employer's NI, pension, recruitment fees, holiday and the risk of a bad hire — realistically £100,000+ a year all-in before they have spent a penny on marketing. Consultancy and Fractional CMO retainers give you the same seniority for one or two days a week, at a fraction of that cost, with no notice period and no recruitment risk. For most SMEs turning over £1m-£20m that is the difference between having senior marketing judgement and having none.
Do you work with B2B, retail and SaaS businesses?
Yes — all three, and the differences matter. B2B work centres on pipeline: proposition clarity, technical content, sales and marketing alignment, cost per qualified enquiry. Retail and ecommerce work centres on unit economics: contribution margin after ad spend, repeat purchase rate, lifetime value and the seasonality of demand. SaaS work centres on efficient acquisition and retention: activation, trial-to-paid conversion, churn and payback period. The strategic method is the same; the metrics I hold the plan to are different.
How quickly will I see results from working with a marketing consultancy?
You get clarity in the first two to three weeks: a written diagnosis of where marketing is losing money, what to stop and a prioritised plan. Quick operational wins — tracking that actually works, tightened paid search, fixed conversion paths, a CRM that reports honestly — typically land inside 30 to 60 days. Compounding channels such as SEO and content usually show meaningful movement in three to six months, and that is exactly why the plan sequences fast wins first: they fund the patience the slower channels require.
Will you replace my team or agency?
No. The aim is to make what you already have work harder. In most engagements your team and your agencies keep delivering; what changes is that they receive clear priorities, a proper brief and a measurement framework, and someone senior holds the whole thing to commercial outcomes. Where a supplier genuinely is not performing, I will tell you plainly and help you replace them — but replacement is a conclusion, not a starting assumption.
How do you measure success, and how am I kept accountable to it?
Every engagement is tied to commercial metrics agreed up front: qualified enquiries, cost per qualified enquiry by channel, pipeline value, conversion rate and, where the data allows, revenue and contribution. You get a monthly review pack you can put in front of a board, showing what was done, what it produced and where the next pound of budget should go. If a channel is not paying for itself, you will hear it from me before you have to ask.
What does the first conversation involve, and is there any commitment?
It is a one-hour call, free, with no pitch deck. We cover your growth target, how you sell today, what marketing is currently producing and where the obvious gaps are. You leave with an honest view on whether consultancy, a Fractional CMO retainer, a defined project or nothing at all is the right next step. There is no obligation, and I will say so directly if I do not think I am the right partner for your situation.
Next step

Get control of your paid search

A 30-minute discovery call to understand your targets, your current marketing and whether I'm the right partner for the next stage.

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