Google Ads and Local Services Ads
Be the first call, not the fourth.
Search is the one channel where the buyer has already decided. The whole job is making sure your budget only ever meets those people, and never the tutorial readers, the job seekers or the town two hours away.
Start here
If you have never run search ads, read this bit.
- What is a Google ad, in one sentence?
- It is the paid result at the very top of the page when somebody types what you sell into Google. You only pay when they click, and the person clicking already decided they need the job done.
- What is LSA and why does it come first?
- Local Services Ads sit above everything else, show a green verified badge, and charge you per lead instead of per click. Google verifies your licence and insurance first. When you can get verified, it is usually the cheapest booked job on the page.
- Why is Google more expensive than Facebook?
- Because intent costs money. On Facebook you interrupt somebody. On Google you catch somebody who is already ringing around. The click costs more, the close rate is far higher, and the job usually books sooner.
- What actually goes wrong in most accounts?
- Nobody looks at the search terms report. The budget quietly drains into tutorials, job seekers, price shoppers and clicks from outside the market area. Fixing that is worth more than any bidding trick.
Try it yourself
Switch off the waste. Watch the budget go to work.
Here is a $6,000 month in a typical unmanaged Google Ads account. Switch off the search terms that were never going to buy and watch the working budget climb.
The same budget, after
- Budget still being wasted$2,600
- Budget buying real intent$3,400
- Qualified enquiries at $90 each37
You did not raise the budget. You stopped paying for people who were never going to hire you. That is most of what the first ninety days of a Google Ads engagement is.
Illustrative numbers based on the accounts we take over. Yours get measured properly in the audit.
What is included
Seven things we do every month. Open any one of them.
01Account audit and rebuildWe take what exists, find where the money is leaking, then rebuild the structure around your service lines and their margins.
- Search terms report reviewed line by line for the last 12 months
- Campaigns split by service line and margin, not by keyword volume
- Match types tightened so broad match stops guessing with your budget
- Geo settings set to presence, not interest, so you stop paying for other cities
- Ad schedule matched to when somebody actually answers the phone
02Local Services Ads setup and managementVerification is the hard part and it stalls most businesses. We push it through and then manage the leads that come out of it.
- Licence, insurance and background check paperwork walked through
- Profile, service selection and market areas configured
- Weekly budget and lead type management
- Disputes filed on every junk or out of area lead, which most accounts never do
- Review flow, because LSA ranking leans heavily on it
03Negative keyword disciplineThe unglamorous work that saves the most money. Every week the search terms get read and the waste gets blocked.
- Weekly search term review with a growing negative list
- Shared negative lists across campaigns so a fix applies everywhere
- Competitor and DIY term handling decided deliberately, not by default
- Job seeker, salary and free intent terms blocked from day one
04Landing pages that convertSending expensive clicks to your homepage wastes them. Each service gets a page built to do one thing.
- One page per service line, matched to the ad copy word for word
- Phone number tappable and visible without scrolling on mobile
- Short form, proof, and pricing bands where they help
- Speed checked on a mid-tier phone, because the click already cost you
05Call tracking and lead qualityLead count is easy to inflate. We track calls, listen to a sample and judge the account on booked work.
- Dynamic call tracking numbers per campaign
- Recordings sampled monthly for quality, not just quantity
- Missed call reporting, which usually explains a bad month
- Offline conversion import so Google optimises toward jobs, not clicks
06Bidding and budget controlBudget is set against the work you can take, then moved toward the service lines that pay best.
- Bid strategy chosen for your data volume, not for what sounds advanced
- Budget bands agreed with you before anything scales
- Seasonal and capacity based throttling
- Spend pacing checked weekly so nothing runs away over a weekend
07Reporting you can readOne page a month: spend, calls, qualified leads, cost per booked job, and the single change we are making next.
- Cost per booked job by service line
- Which keywords produced real work
- What we blocked and what it saved
- One recommendation, not twenty charts
Where the money goes
No markup on your ad spend. Ever.
- Most of it
Ad spend to Google
Paid straight from your own account to Google. We never mark it up and you can see every dollar yourself.
- Flat monthly
Management fee
Fixed, so we have no reason to tell you to spend more than the market can profitably absorb.
- Scoped once
Tracking and pages
Call tracking and landing pages are a one time build unless you add service lines. You approve the scope before we start.
First 30 days
What happens after you say yes.
- Days 1 to 3
Audit and access
We read the search terms, the geo settings and the conversion setup. You get the leak list whether or not you continue. Access is requested, never taken.
- Days 4 to 10
Rebuild and track
Structure rebuilt, negatives loaded, call tracking installed, landing pages pointed correctly. LSA verification started in parallel because it takes the longest.
- Days 11 to 30
Stabilise
Live and learning. We are cutting waste weekly and getting conversion data clean enough for the bidding to mean something.
- Day 31 onward
Push cost per job down
Budget moves toward the service lines with the best margin, offline conversions feed back in, and the number we report on every month is cost per booked job.
This works for you if
- People search for what you sell by name
- You can answer calls during business hours, every day
- Your average job is worth enough to absorb a paid click
- You are licensed and insured, so LSA verification is possible
- You have capacity for more booked work this quarter
Do not start yet if
- Your budget is under a thousand a month in a competitive metro
- Calls go to voicemail during the day
- You want to judge the channel on impressions or clicks
- You cannot tell us which service line makes you the most money
Search punishes slow follow-up harder than any other channel, because the same person is calling three of your competitors in the next ten minutes.
FAQ
Google Ads questions, answered straight
LSA first when you can get verified quickly, because it sits above everything and is priced per lead. Search on top of it once the LSA volume plateaus.
You do. Google Ads, LSA, Analytics, Tag Manager and the call tracking numbers are all in your name. If we part ways you keep the account, the history and the data.
No. Nobody controls the auction. After the audit we will give you a realistic range for your market and job size, and then report against it honestly every month.
Enough to get meaningful data in your market. In most trades that is a few thousand a month in one metro. We will tell you straight if your budget is too thin to compete rather than take it anyway.
Usually yes. LSA first when verification is quick because it sits above everything and is priced per lead. Search underneath it to catch the searches LSA does not cover.
It has a place once you have clean conversion data and enough volume. We do not start there, because it hides where the money went and that is exactly what we are trying to see.
Tell us what your cost per booked job is. We will tell you if we can beat it.
Twenty minutes, no deck. If we are not the right fit we will say so on the call.