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.
Structure before spend
- Intent tiers01
- Account structure02
- Conversion data03
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Marketing thinking in short form
Strategy, SEO and paid search explained in a couple of minutes on Instagram and TikTok.
Where to go next
A few things worth reading — and the pages most people move to from here.
Related insights
- AnalyticsThe Five Marketing Numbers Your Board Actually WantsThe reporting set that turns marketing activity into a commercial conversation.
- Manufacturing MarketingSEO for Manufacturers: How Technical Buyers Actually SearchHow specifiers, engineers and procurement teams search — and how to be found by them.
Frequently asked questions
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