Google Ads managed against cost per qualified lead
Paid search buys you a place in the queue immediately, which is its whole advantage. The discipline is making sure the leads it buys are worth more than the clicks that produced them.
What is google ads?
Google Ads management is the ongoing planning, structuring and optimisation of paid campaigns across Search, Shopping, Performance Max, Demand Gen and YouTube. It covers account structure, keywords, creative, bidding, feeds and conversion tracking. It suits Australian businesses that need measurable enquiry or sales volume quickly and have the margin to buy attention profitably.
Get a fixed written quote- Typical timeline
- Live in 2 to 3 weeks, meaningful optimisation data by week 6
- What drives cost
- The number of campaigns the structure needs, how much creative and landing page work is involved, and how much spend sits under management.
- Best for
- Businesses with existing demand, decent margin and capacity to handle enquiries
- You own
- The Google Ads and Merchant Center accounts, the data and the campaign history
- Built with
- Search, Shopping, Performance Max, Merchant Center, GA4 and offline conversions
Your handover
The number we manage to, and why it is not cost per click
Cost per click is an input, not an outcome. Cost per lead is closer but still misleading, because a form fill from someone wanting free advice costs the same to buy as one from a buyer with a budget and a deadline. The number that matters is cost per qualified lead, or for retail, contribution after advertising cost. Getting there means agreeing with you what qualified means before anything goes live, then finding a way to feed that judgement back into the account.
- 01Account audit with quantified wasted spend
- 02Conversion tracking and value configuration
- 03Offline conversion import from your CRM
- 04Rebuilt campaign structure with budget rationale
- 05Product feed setup and optimisation for Shopping
- 06Ad copy and asset testing programme
- Negative keyword governance
- Landing page recommendations per ad group
- Monthly written performance review with commentary
Most underperforming accounts we audit are not badly built
In practice that means the sales team, or the person who answers the phone, marks outcomes somewhere we can read. It might be a CRM stage, a call disposition or a spreadsheet in the first month. Without it, the platform optimises towards whatever is easiest to generate, which is usually the cheapest and least valuable conversion available. Most underperforming accounts we audit are not badly built. They are optimising perfectly towards the wrong target, which is a measurement failure dressed up as a media failure.
Most underperforming accounts we audit are not badly built.
Account structure when the platform automates most decisions
Google has removed a great deal of manual control. Exact match is no longer exact, bidding is largely automated, and Performance Max deliberately hides much of what it does. Fighting that is a waste of retainer. The useful work has shifted to the inputs the platform cannot generate for itself: which products or services deserve budget, what a conversion is worth, what the creative says, where the click lands, and what should be excluded.
The full list
So we keep structure simple enough that the bidding has sufficient data to learn from, rather than fragmenting the account into forty campaigns that each starve. Budgets are separated where the economics genuinely differ, for example a high-margin service against a loss-leading one, and consolidated everywhere else. Search term reports are reviewed weekly and negatives added continuously, because in the Australian market irrelevant matches are a constant drain, particularly on generic service phrases where job seekers and DIY searchers outnumber buyers.
- Conversion values assigned per action, not one flat value for every form
- Negative keyword lists maintained weekly from search term data
- Location targeting set to presence rather than presence or interest
- Brand and non brand separated so the reporting is not flattered by brand demand
- Landing page assigned per ad group, never a generic homepage
- Ad schedules matched to when your team can actually answer the phone
How the engagement runs
Feeding the platform better data than your competitors do
Automated bidding is only as good as the signals it receives, so the highest leverage work in a modern account is usually data plumbing rather than bid adjustment. That means conversion tracking that fires accurately, values that reflect real commercial worth, and offline conversion import so a closed deal in your CRM tells the platform which click actually made money. A lead that becomes a sale six weeks later is invisible without it.
- 01AuditAccount structure, wasted spend, tracking accuracy and what the current numbers actually mean
- 02Define qualifiedAgree with your sales team what counts as a real lead and how it will be recorded
- 03Fix measurementConversion actions, values, consent handling and offline import from your CRM
- 04Rebuild structureCampaigns, budgets and targeting aligned to margin rather than to volume
- 05Creative and landingAd copy tested in groups, each pointing at a page written for that intent
- 06Launch and learnA deliberate learning period with bidding left alone long enough to settle
- 07Weekly cycleSearch terms, negatives, budget shifts, creative rotation and a monthly written review
Two decisions on your side that keep the project moving
There is a compliance dimension too. Consent settings determine what can be collected from Australian visitors, and enhanced conversions require careful handling of customer data under the Privacy Act 1988. We configure consent handling and hashed data passing properly rather than switching everything on and hoping. Where tracking is a mess, and it usually is, we fix it first through GA4 and Tag Manager before optimising spend, because optimising against wrong numbers just gets you to the wrong place faster.
Choose the right level
Choosing between Search, Shopping, Performance Max and Demand Gen
Each campaign type buys a different kind of attention, and mixing them without a plan produces an account that cannibalises itself. Performance Max in particular will happily absorb brand searches and report them as new conversions, which flatters the numbers while adding nothing. We keep the boundaries deliberate and measure incrementality where the budget justifies testing it.
Campaign type
01
Search
Best used for
Capturing existing intent, service businesses, urgent needs
Where it goes wrong
Broad match without disciplined negatives burns budget quickly
02
Shopping
Best used for
Retail catalogues where the feed is accurate and competitive
Where it goes wrong
A neglected product feed caps performance no matter what you bid
03
Performance Max
Best used for
Retail scale and filling demand beyond what Search alone reaches
Where it goes wrong
It absorbs brand traffic and reports it as incremental unless you exclude it
04
Demand Gen and YouTube
Best used for
Building awareness before the search happens
Where it goes wrong
Judged on last click it always looks like a failure
05
Remarketing
Best used for
Recovering considered purchases and abandoned carts
Where it goes wrong
Small audiences in a small market mean frequency gets uncomfortable fast
How we work this out during scoping
The right mix depends on whether you sell products or services, whether demand already exists, and how long your sales cycle runs. A trade business with urgent demand belongs almost entirely in Search. A retailer with a large catalogue lives or dies on Shopping and the quality of its product feed. A considered B2B purchase with a six month cycle needs Search plus something that builds familiarity earlier, and needs patience with the reporting because the conversion happens long after the click.
What you can and cannot claim in an Australian ad
Ad copy is regulated advertising. The ACCC pursues misleading and deceptive conduct regardless of the channel, and the character limits in a search ad are not a defence. Component pricing rules mean an advertised price generally has to include everything a customer must pay, so an ad promising a figure that becomes larger at checkout is a real exposure, not a technicality. Was and now pricing needs the earlier price to have been genuine and recent.
The rest of the answer
Beyond consumer law, Google enforces its own restrictions on healthcare, financial services, gambling and other categories, and Australian advertisers in those sectors often need certification before campaigns will run at all. We check this during scoping rather than discovering it on launch day. For regulated clients we also keep an approval trail of ad copy, which matters when a compliance officer asks in nine months who signed off a claim. This runs alongside how we handle claims in site copy, since an ad that promises what the landing page cannot support fails on both quality score and credibility.
When Google Ads is the wrong channel for you
Paid search only works if the arithmetic works. If clicks in your category cost a great deal and your average order value is small with no repeat purchase, you can run a technically excellent account and still lose money on every sale. We would rather model that on a whiteboard before you spend anything than discover it in month three. Some categories in Australia are genuinely priced beyond what a small operator can compete in profitably.
New categories usually need paid social or content to build awareness first
It is also the wrong move when nobody is searching for what you sell, since paid search captures demand rather than creating it. New categories usually need paid social or content to build awareness first. And if your enquiries go unanswered for two days, or the landing page is a PDF brochure, more traffic simply makes the leak bigger. Fix the response process and the page first. That is cheaper than advertising and it improves everything else you do afterwards, including conversion work.
How we scope it
Four ways to scope your Google Ads project
We do not publish package prices, because the same brief can be a short build or a long one. These are the shapes the work usually takes. Tell us which one sounds like you and you will get a fixed written quote that spells out exactly what it covers.
Google Ads Foundations
The technical and structural work that has to come first
Fixed written quote, agreed before work starts
- Account audit with quantified wasted spend
- Conversion tracking and value configuration
- Offline conversion import from your CRM
Growth program
A running program with reporting you can act on
Fixed written quote, agreed before work starts
- Everything in Google Ads Foundations
- Rebuilt campaign structure with budget rationale
- Product feed setup and optimisation for Shopping
- Ad copy and asset testing programme
Full program
Content, technical and authority work together, at pace
Fixed written quote, agreed before work starts
- Everything in Growth program
- Negative keyword governance
- Landing page recommendations per ad group
- Monthly written performance review with commentary
Google Ads Ongoing
Month to month, with the working shown
Rolling monthly, quoted in writing
- Monthly reporting that says what changed and why
- A named person who knows the account
- The next quarter planned, not just the last one reported
- Rolling, cancel with 30 days notice
These are shapes, not menus. Most quotes end up somewhere between two of them, and we will say so when the honest answer is the smallest one. Describe the problem and we will tell you which it is.
Questions buyers usually ask
Frequently asked questions
How quickly will Google Ads produce leads?
Clicks arrive on day one. Reliable performance takes longer, usually four to six weeks, because automated bidding needs conversion data before it settles and the first fortnight of search terms always reveals waste that has to be excluded. We plan for a deliberate learning period and avoid changing bidding strategies mid learning, since resetting it repeatedly is the most common self inflicted problem.
How much should we spend on ads each month?
Enough for the campaign to gather data, which depends on your click costs and how many conversions you need before bidding can learn. Spreading a small budget across five campaign types produces five campaigns that never learn anything. We model a minimum viable budget for your category first, and if it exceeds what you can commit, we say so rather than taking the account.
Who owns the ad account and the data?
You do. Campaigns are built in a Google Ads account owned by your business with your billing details, and Merchant Center, GA4 and Tag Manager are set up the same way. We access them as a linked manager account you can unlink whenever you want. All campaign history, audiences and conversion data stay with you if we stop working together.
Is Performance Max worth running?
For retailers with a solid product feed it often is, because it reaches inventory and placements Search cannot. For lead generation it needs careful handling, since it will happily consume brand searches and count them as wins. We exclude brand terms, feed it high quality conversion signals and compare against a Search only baseline before letting it take a large share of budget.
Do you charge a percentage of ad spend?
We scope management as a defined monthly service and quote it in writing, so the fee does not automatically rise because you increased budget. Spend goes directly to Google on your own credit card, never through us, which means you can see exactly what was spent and there is no margin hidden in the media cost.
Can you run ads for a franchise or multi-location group?
Yes, and the structure question comes first: one national account with location targeting, or separate accounts per franchisee. Central accounts give better data and consistent brand control but need a fair budget allocation model that franchisees accept. We usually pair this with local visibility work in local SEO so paid and map presence reinforce each other rather than competing.
Related services
Get an audit before you get a proposal
Give us read access to your account and we will tell you where the money is going. You will hear back within one business day, and any management we propose comes as a fixed written quote.