Paid ads are the fastest way to buy attention and the fastest way to waste money. The difference is almost always tracking. We set that up first, then spend against what it tells us.
Search · Emergency plumbing
Google Ads · last 90 days
Spend
$2,840
Leads
74
Cost / lead
$38
Cost per lead
down 58%Calls, forms, and purchases all verified before the first dollar.
The dividing line is almost always whether you can measure it.
A good fit if
Probably not if
If the budget is not there yet, local SEO compounds instead of renting attention is the honest answer, and we will say so.
Paid is the fastest channel to get wrong, and almost all of the ways to get it wrong look fine on the dashboard.
$0
is what you can prove untracked spend earned you, whatever the platform reports.
Most underperforming accounts we inherit are really tracking failures. The platform optimizes toward whatever you told it a conversion is, so a broken conversion buys you more of the wrong thing.
Provable return without conversion tracking
Homepage
is where most ads send their traffic, and it is why the clicks do not convert.
The ad made a specific promise and the homepage answers a general question. Building the page the ad promised is usually the single biggest available lift, ahead of anything in the account itself.
The most common landing destination
Forever
is how long a losing campaign runs when nobody checks it weekly.
Budget drifts toward whatever spends fastest, not whatever converts best. Without someone cutting and concentrating every week, the account slowly optimizes itself into the expensive half.
Lifespan of an unmanaged campaign
Tracking first, then a small launch, then weekly cutting. In that order, every time.
Which is why accounts managed purely from inside the platform tend to plateau at expensive.
The platform optimizes toward whatever you told it a conversion is. Tell it wrong and more spend buys more of the wrong thing, enthusiastically, for months. Most underperforming accounts we inherit are not bidding problems or creative problems. They are counting problems.
Conversion tracking audit
before the account goes live
Two of these were counting wrong. The account had been optimizing toward them for eight months.
The ad makes a specific promise and the homepage answers a general question. The visitor arrives ready and has to go looking. Building the page the ad promised is usually the single biggest lift available, and it sits outside the ad account entirely, which is why most agencies never touch it.
Emergency Drain Cleaning, Des Moines · Same Day
Upfront pricing. Someone out today or you pay nothing.
Homepage
Answers a general question. The visitor has to go looking for the thing the ad promised.
The page the ad promised
Same headline as the ad, one thing to do, phone number that works on a phone.
Identical ad, identical spend. Building the right-hand page is usually the single biggest lift available in an account.
Left alone, budget drifts toward whatever spends fastest rather than whatever converts best. Most of the gain in paid advertising comes from someone looking every week and moving money away from the losers. It is unglamorous and it is the job.
Where the budget went
same spend, every week
Most of the people who click your ads do not inquire on that visit. You paid to reach every one of them and then let them go. Advertising to people who have already been to your site is the cheapest reach in the account, and most businesses never switch it on.
Last month's traffic
one campaign, 30 days
Visited, did not inquire
738 people
You already paid to reach every one of them. Most businesses never advertise to them again, which makes this the cheapest audience in the account.
Most local businesses should start with one of these and add the others once the first is profitable.
Somebody typed the problem you solve into a search box. This is the most expensive click and usually the most profitable one, because the intent is already there and you are only paying to be present for it.
Right for
Demand that already exists. Emergencies, replacements, and anything people go looking for.
Facebook and Instagram reach people who are not searching yet. Cheaper attention, longer path to a sale, and it lives or dies on the creative, which is why it needs testing rather than set-and-forget.
Right for
Demand that has not started searching. Seasonal work, offers, and anything visual.
Ads shown only to people who have already visited. The audience is small, the cost is low, and the conversion rate is far higher than cold traffic because they already know who you are.
Right for
Every account, once there is enough traffic to build an audience from.
The search terms report is the least glamorous screen in Google Ads and the most profitable one. It shows what people actually typed before your ad appeared, which is rarely what you thought you were bidding on.
Negatives, added weekly
"Free", "jobs", "how to", "salary", competitor names, the neighboring city you do not serve. Each one stops paying for a click that was never going to convert.
Match types that mean something
Broad match will find you an audience. It is rarely the audience you asked for, and it spends the fastest while doing it.
Hours and geography that match reality
If you can't answer the phone at 2am, do not buy the 2am click. Same for the county you will not drive to.
Devices judged separately
Mobile and desktop convert at genuinely different rates for most local businesses. Averaging them together hides which one is carrying the account.
Search terms report
last 30 days3 negatives added. That is $291 a month that stops buying clicks from people looking for a job.
The awkward question
Plenty of agencies charge a percentage of ad spend, which means the person advising you to increase your budget is the person paid more when you do. That is a bad arrangement even when everybody involved is honest.
Our fee is flat and separate from spend, the platforms bill you directly, and the accounts are yours. If we stop working together, your history, audiences and learning stay with you.
Where the money goes
proportions illustrativeAd spend
Your budget
Straight to Google and Meta, billed to your own accounts
Management fee
Flat monthly
To us, and it does not move when your spend does
Spend more and our fee does not move
Stop working with us and the accounts, history and audiences stay yours
The platforms bill you directly, so nothing is marked up on the way through
Paid Advertising
Every item below is in every engagement.
Before a dollar is spent, we make sure calls, forms, and purchases are tracked accurately. Most underperforming ad accounts we inherit are really tracking failures.
Search, Performance Max, and local campaigns built around the searches that indicate someone is ready to buy, with the negatives that keep you out of the ones that are not.
Facebook and Instagram campaigns for the demand that has not started searching yet, plus the creative testing that keeps them from going stale.
The people who already visited and did not convert are the cheapest audience you will ever reach. Most businesses never advertise to them.
Sending paid traffic to your homepage wastes it. We build the page the ad promised, which is usually the single biggest lift available.
Spend, leads, and cost per lead in your dashboard as they happen, so you find out a campaign is slipping in a day instead of at month end.
Every step after the first one depends on accurate conversion data, because the platform optimizes toward whatever you told it a conversion is. Get that wrong and more spend buys more of the wrong thing.
Tracking, call tracking, and conversion events verified end to end. Nothing launches until the numbers can be trusted.
A deliberate starting budget across a narrow set of campaigns, so we learn what works before scaling spend.
Weekly, we kill what is not converting and move that budget to what is. Most of the gain in paid comes from this step.
Once cost per lead is stable and profitable, we raise spend gradually and watch that it holds.
Included, never an upsell
Paid moves fast enough that a monthly report is too late to act on. Your dashboard shows spend, leads and cost per lead as they land, so a campaign slipping is something you find out about in a day rather than at month end.
Morales Plumbing
example LiveSpend
$2,840
on plan
Leads
74
+18
Cost / lead
$38
down 58%
Visitors
last 90 days
This month's work
It depends on your market and what a customer is worth to you, and we will tell you honestly if your budget is too small to be worth running. As a rough floor, most local service businesses need at least a thousand a month in ad spend for the data to mean anything.
A management fee separate from your ad spend, so our incentive is not to talk you into spending more. Ad spend goes to the platforms on your own account, which you keep.
Usually within the first week or two of launch. Getting to a cost per lead that is genuinely profitable normally takes a couple of months of cutting and concentrating.
Yes, always. We work inside your accounts. If we stop working together, your history, audiences, and learning stay with you.
Ready when you are
Start with the audit. It reads your site the way Google and the AI assistants do, and tells you what is wrong with it. Free, about sixty seconds, and nobody has to call you.