Google Ads management for companies that need pipeline, not clicks
Search, Performance Max, remarketing and YouTube for SaaS, e-commerce and B2B companies. I fix tracking first, then scale spend - in that order, never the other way around.
Setup from $1,000 · management from $1,000/mo · minimum ad budget $2,000/mo[Express audit card - Google Ads variant]
When Google Ads “isn’t working”
Google Ads is the most direct way to reach a customer who is already searching for what you sell. Yet in most accounts I audit, the budget goes somewhere else. Four situations I see most often:
Clicks, but no leads
Campaigns optimize for the wrong conversion - a page view, a button click - or there is no conversion at all. Google delivers exactly what you asked for: people who click. Leads were never part of the instruction.
Leads, but unqualified
Broad match without negatives, Performance Max without audience signals. Budget goes to “free”, “jobs”, “tutorial”, “reviews”. Sales spends the week on calls that were never going to close, and concludes that paid search doesn’t work for your business.
Budget gone by noon
No bid strategy tied to a target, no ad schedule. The daily budget burns out in a few hours, often before your team is even online, and the account goes dark when buyers actually start searching.
Reports you can’t act on
Your agency sends CTR, impressions and “reach growth”, but nobody can tell you what one qualified lead cost, or which of them turned into revenue. The ad account lives in a different world from the business.
Recognize any of these? Send me read-only access - within a business day you’ll know exactly what’s broken. Free, no commitment.
---What a Google Ads setup includes
A setup is not “create a campaign and write some ads”. It’s an account that optimizes for pipeline from day one and can be scaled without rebuilding. Here’s what I do:
Market and competitor audit
Who shows up on your queries, what they offer, what their landing pages promise, and which queries nobody is bidding on. That last group is often where the cheapest leads are.
Keyword research and negatives
Collection, clustering, and split by intent: “buy”, “pricing”, “vs” separated from “what is” and “how to”. A negative keyword list of 200+ from day one, not 15 after a month of waste.
Account structure
Search campaigns split by brand, non-brand and competitor terms. Brand defense if competitors bid on your name - for SaaS they usually do. Performance Max only where there’s data to learn from. Remarketing from day one. YouTube where the product needs to be seen. For multi-market accounts: separate geo and language structure for US, UK and EU rather than one campaign for “everywhere in English”.
Ads and assets
Responsive search ads with all 15 headlines and 4 descriptions filled and pinned where it matters. Every relevant asset: sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, prices, lead forms. Two to three variants per ad group for testing.
Tracking before launch
GA4 with events mapped to your funnel, Google Tag Manager, conversions for forms, demo bookings, trials, calls and chat. Conversion import into Google Ads with correct priorities and values. For B2B: offline conversion import from your CRM so the account learns from qualified opportunities, not form fills. Details on the tracking page.
Bidding and budgets
A bid strategy tied to your target - cost per lead or return on ad spend - with a plan to move from manual to Smart Bidding once there’s enough data. Ad schedule aligned with your sales team’s hours and your buyers’ time zones.
Landing pages
A list of fixes that raise conversion rate: above-the-fold message match, form friction, speed. If your site runs on WordPress, I can implement them myself.
Looker Studio dashboard
Spend, leads, cost per lead, calls, by campaign and by day, in real time. It’s yours - no “can you send the report” emails.
Timeline: 7-10 business days from access to launch.
What ongoing management looks like week to week
Setup is the start. Results come from management: Google Ads is an auction where competitors change bids, Google changes rules, and seasonality changes demand. An account nobody manages gets more expensive every month.
Weekly
- Search terms report: new negatives, new keywords worth adding.
- Bids and budgets: shift spend toward campaigns with cheaper qualified leads.
- Ad testing: pause weak variants, add new ones.
- Tracking check: are all events firing, did a site update break anything.
Monthly
- A report in plain numbers: spend, leads, cost per lead, what changed and why.
- A 30-40 minute call: what’s working, what isn’t, what’s next.
- A plan for the month: new campaigns, keyword expansion, landing page tests.
Always on
- Anomaly monitoring: impression drops, cost spikes, disapproved ads.
- Response within one business day. Slack or email - your choice. I work in EET, which covers EU hours and US East Coast mornings.
What you see
- The dashboard, 24/7.
- Owner access to your own account.
- A written change log: what I did and why.
Which Google Ads campaign types fit your business
| Campaign type | Good for | Skip it when | When I start it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search | Anyone with existing demand: SaaS, B2B, services, products with clear queries | A new category nobody searches for yet | Always first |
| Brand defense | SaaS and any brand competitors bid on | Nobody bids on your name (check first) | Day one |
| Performance Max | E-commerce with a product feed; accounts with conversion history | B2B services without data; accounts with no conversions | After 30+ search conversions |
| Remarketing | Anyone with 1,000+ monthly visitors | Very low-traffic sites | Day one |
| YouTube | Products that need to be seen; brand; video remarketing | Direct lead generation from cold traffic | Month 2-3 |
| Shopping | Online stores with Merchant Center | Services | Separate service |
Performance Max and YouTube are where most accounts leak: PMax without brand exclusions takes credit for customers who were already coming, and reports it as growth. I add them after Search has produced data, not alongside it.
From access to first report
- Express audit - 1 day. Account, site, tracking. An honest call on whether it’s worth launching and what to fix first.
- Strategy - 2-3 days. Goals, budget, structure, keywords, KPIs. In writing, so we can compare plan to reality a month later.
- Tracking - 2-3 days. GA4, GTM, conversions, call tracking, CRM import. I don’t launch without it.
- Launch - 2-3 days. Campaigns, ads, assets, first tests. Daily checks in week one.
- First report - after 2 weeks. What works, what we cut, what we scale. Then the regular management cadence.
Google Ads case studies
NaturalTTS - EdTech and enterprise SaaS, US
A paid channel for a long-cycle B2B product: separate funnels for EDU pilots and enterprise demos, brand defense, remarketing to pricing-page visitors. [Result - after account review] Read the case study
Polymetrica - industrial IoT, EU
Building paid search from zero in a narrow B2B niche: multi-market EU targeting, intent-based keyword tiers, lead tracking through the demo form. [Result - after account review] Read the case study
Google Ads management pricing
Two parts: my fee for setup and management, and your ad spend, paid directly to Google from your card. I don’t touch the second part and don’t take a percentage of it on smaller budgets.
Google Ads
Setup + management. Audit, keywords, structure, ads, tracking and conversions, dashboard, monthly report. From $1,000 setup + from $1,000/mo management.
Google Ads + Meta Ads
Two platforms, shared tracking. Everything above plus Meta Ads, bi-weekly reports, monthly call. From $1,700 setup + from $1,500/mo management.
Ad budget above $7,000/mo: 12-15% of spend, minimum $1,000/mo. Full audit $500, credited to your first month. Minimum ad budget $2,000/mo per platform.
Google Ads questions
How much does Google Ads management cost?
From $1,000 for setup and from $1,000/mo for management, or 12-15% of spend above $7,000/mo. Ad spend is separate and paid directly to Google - minimum $2,000/mo.
What’s the minimum ad budget?
$2,000/mo per platform. Below that, Smart Bidding never collects enough conversions to learn, campaigns stay in test mode, and you pay for experiments without results. If your budget is lower, I’ll tell you in the audit and won’t take the project.
How fast will I see leads?
First leads in week one or two. A stable cost per lead in 4-8 weeks, once there’s enough conversion data for automated bidding. Anyone promising results on day two is either selling you brand searches or not planning to stay past month one.
Do I need Performance Max?
For e-commerce with a feed, usually yes. For SaaS and B2B services, often no, or later. PMax without brand exclusions and audience signals wastes budget and takes credit for customers who were already coming - one of the most common findings in my audits.
Do you work in my ad account or yours?
Yours only, with billing on your card. History, audiences, conversion data - all yours. If we part ways, you lose nothing, and the next specialist doesn’t start from zero.
Can you import offline conversions from our CRM?
Yes: HubSpot, Pipedrive, Bitrix24 and NetHunt, and most others via GTM or direct integration. For B2B this is usually the single highest-impact change - the account starts optimizing for qualified opportunities instead of form fills.
Do you work with agencies as a white-label partner?
Yes. For agencies that need a PPC specialist without hiring one full time: reporting under your brand, communication through you or directly with the client, your choice.
What if my account gets suspended?
I find the cause - most often “circumventing systems” from a mismatch between ads and site, or a flagged payment - and prepare the appeal. Separate work, quoted after the audit. Some suspensions can’t be lifted, and I’ll tell you that upfront.
Send your account for an audit
Within one business day you’ll get a list of what to fix and an honest take on whether it’s worth scaling. No account yet? Describe your niche and site - I’ll tell you where to start and what to budget.
Start with a free express audit
Leave your website or ad account - within one business day you'll get a list of what to fix and an honest take on whether it's worth scaling.