Google Ads FAQs, common questions answered without the jargon.

High CPC is usually caused by one or a combination of things: low quality scores, highly competitive keywords, or match types that are too broad and pulling in expensive irrelevant searches.

Quality score is the biggest lever. Google charges you more per click when it considers your ads and landing page less relevant to the search. A well-structured account with tightly themed ad groups, relevant ads and a landing page that matches what the ad promises will consistently pay less per click than a poorly structured one, even in the same market.

The other common culprit is bidding on keywords that are genuinely expensive because competitors are willing to pay for them. Legal, financial and home services keywords can be costly by nature. In those cases the question isn't how to reduce CPC but whether the conversion rate justifies it.

In most accounts, the highest-impact optimisations in order are: fixing conversion tracking if it's broken or measuring the wrong things, reviewing and expanding negative keywords, reviewing the search terms report and cutting irrelevant traffic, and improving landing page relevance.

After those foundational things, the next tier is tightening ad group structure, improving ad copy and assets, and adjusting bids by device, location and time of day based on performance data.

The temptation is always to jump to bidding strategy changes first. In practice, bidding strategy changes on a poorly structured account with broken tracking rarely produce meaningful improvement.

That depends entirely on what's wrong. Performance problems in Google Ads almost always have a specific root cause rather than being a general "the account isn't working" issue. The most common are: irrelevant traffic from poor keyword targeting, low conversion rates from a mismatched landing page, broken or misleading conversion tracking, and bidding strategies that don't suit the account's maturity or goals.

The starting point is always diagnosis. That's what the free audit is designed to do, identify the specific issues in your account and give you a prioritised list of what to fix. Without that, optimisation is guesswork.

If you want an honest answer to this question for your specific account, the free audit will give you one.

Most accounts are worth more than they're currently delivering. The value of a Google Ads account isn't just its current results, it's the data it has accumulated over time. Search terms that converted, audiences that responded, times of day that performed, keywords that were tried and failed. That historical data is genuinely valuable and informs every future optimisation decision.

The practical value is measured in cost per acquisition relative to the lifetime value of a customer. If a customer is worth £2,000 and you're paying £100 per lead with a 20% close rate, each lead is worth £400. That's the number that matters, not the cost per click.

Understanding what your account's data is telling you is part of what the audit covers.

Google Ads gives you a significant amount of demographic and audience data, age, gender, device, location, time of day, household income where available, and in-market and affinity audiences. This data lives in the Audiences and Demographics sections of your account.

The more useful question is whether the audience currently clicking your ads matches the audience you want to be reaching. Often there's a meaningful gap, younger age groups, mobile users or specific locations that click frequently but convert poorly, consuming budget that could go elsewhere.

A proper audience review looks at performance by segment and identifies where adjustments to targeting or bid modifiers would improve efficiency.

The Auction Insights report in Google Ads shows exactly which advertisers are appearing in the same auctions as you. It shows their impression share compared to yours, how often they appear above you and their overlap rate, how frequently you're both showing for the same searches.

This is one of the most useful reports in Google Ads and one that's frequently overlooked. Understanding who you're competing against, where they're winning and where there are gaps is an important part of building an effective strategy.

Google's Ad Transparency Centre allows you to see the ads any advertiser is currently running. Combined with tools like SEMrush or SpyFu, you can get a picture of which keywords competitors are targeting, how their ads are positioned and what messaging they lead with.

Competitor analysis is included as part of the free audit and the new account build service. Understanding what you're competing against is essential for writing ads that give people a reason to choose you over the alternatives already showing.

The free Google Ads audit costs nothing and is a good starting point if you're not sure what your account needs. It covers 12 areas and is delivered within 5 working days with no obligation to proceed.

For paid services, the pricing is fixed and transparent. Account management is charged at £60 per hour or £400 per day with no minimum commitment. A new account build is £1,000 as a one-off fixed fee. A full account restructure is £1,500. Website design and build starts from £1,000 with the exact price agreed at a scoping call.

There are no setup fees, no hidden extras and no long-term contracts.

There's no minimum budget required to work together. However, the realistic minimum to run meaningful Google Ads campaigns depends on your market and how competitive your keywords are.

As a rough guide, under £300 per month makes it difficult to gather enough data to optimise effectively. Between £500 and £1,000 per month is a more workable starting point for most businesses. There's no upper limit.

If you're unsure whether your budget is realistic for your goals and market, that's something the initial conversation can cover honestly.

You can get clicks and leads within days of a campaign going live. Consistent, predictable results typically take 3 to 6 months. That's not a vague answer, it reflects how Google's algorithms actually work. The bidding systems and quality scores that determine when and where your ads appear improve as the account gathers data.

A well-managed account in its first month should be judged on whether the right people are clicking and whether tracking is working, not on cost per lead alone. The significant cost per lead improvements tend to happen in months 2 and 3 as the account is refined on real data.

There's a full post on this in the blog: How long does Google Ads take to work?

For an audit, just access to your Google Ads account via a read-only MCC link. The process takes about 5 minutes on your end.

For account management or a new build, the main things needed upfront are access to your Google Ads account, a clear brief covering your goals, target audience and budget, and confirmation that conversion tracking is set up correctly or agreement to set it up as part of the work.

For a website build, a logo, brand colours, any existing copy or imagery, and a clear idea of what the site needs to achieve. Everything else gets covered in the scoping call.

Yes, always. Your Google Ads account is in your name and stays that way. Access is granted to me via Google's MCC system, which means I can manage the account without it ever being in my ownership.

If we stop working together for any reason, you retain full access to everything, the account, its history, the data and all the campaigns. Some agencies hold accounts in their own name. That's not something that happens here.

For ongoing management clients, you receive weekly performance updates covering what's happened, what's changed and what's planned. There's a bi-weekly call and a monthly PDF report. You also have access to a shared ClickUp workspace where ongoing tasks and ad hoc requests are tracked, so you can see exactly what's been worked on at any point.

For project-based work like audits or builds, you receive a clear deliverable at the end and a walkthrough call to go through it together.

Yes. There are no long-term contracts. Ongoing management can be paused or cancelled with reasonable notice. One-off project work is priced as a fixed fee with no ongoing commitment attached.

The goal is to keep earning your business each month, not lock you into something you can't get out of.

Yes. The work I do suits businesses at most stages, from those running Google Ads for the first time to established accounts spending tens of thousands per month. The approach and scope of work differs, but the quality of execution doesn't.

If your budget is very small (under £300 per month), it's worth having an honest conversation about whether the management fee makes sense relative to your ad spend at this stage.

B2B and B2C across a wide range of sectors, professional services, financial services, home services, education, SaaS, construction, healthcare and more. The fundamentals of Google Ads apply across sectors, and 15 years of work across different industries means the specific nuances of most markets are familiar territory.

If you're in a particularly niche sector, get in touch and we can have an honest conversation about fit.