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Paid search
ads.

// SEM // Google Ads + Microsoft Ads
Reach people already searching for what you offer, with tracking in place before money starts going out.

I make sure the basics are in place before money starts going out — so the spend goes where it's working, and you've got a clear read on whether the ads are bringing in real enquiries or just clicks. Google Ads first, Microsoft / Bing layered in when the audience supports it. Flat monthly management fee; ad spend goes to the platform directly, never bundled into mine.

Get a Free Digital Health Check

// 45 min · Google Meet · No obligation

// Recognition _ 01

Why people come
to me for paid search.

Usually because something stopped feeling right about what the ads are actually doing. The monthly invoice keeps arriving but the picture of what it's bringing in hasn't caught up. Or an agency that hasn't sent a real report in months is running the account on whatever Google's auto-applied recommendations suggested last week. Or paid search worked once, two years ago, and now nobody's quite sure what's running underneath.

It shouldn't take a digital-marketing background to know whether the ads are working. Plain answers about what's currently spending, what's converting, what's wasting money, and whether the foundation underneath is set up cleanly — without the agency-deck theatre — is usually enough.

// What I'd check first _ 02

What I'd
check first.

Before any ad spend goes out, this is the kind of thing I'm looking at. The list is here so you can see the craft up front — not because you're expected to action any of it yourself.

The Free Digital Health Check covers the public-side picture across these. The deeper checks — the ones that need account access — are part of the In-Depth version.

// What you get _ 03

What you
get.

Paid search works because it captures intent — someone is actively looking for what you sell, in the moment they need it. The job is pointing that intent at the right keywords, writing ads that match what people are searching for, gating wasted spend with negatives, and reporting in language that tells you whether the money is working.

  • // An account audit and a clean structural setup. Campaign architecture, ad-group separation, match-type discipline. New accounts built clean; inherited accounts get the cleanup pass first so you can actually inspect what's running.
  • // Keyword research focused on commercial intent. Built around the queries that real buyers use when they're ready to enquire, not the broad-and-curious questions content is better suited to.
  • // Ad copy written for conversion, not buzzword soup. Responsive search ads with multiple headlines and descriptions, tested against what's actually driving enquiries.
  • // A sensible bid strategy. Manual CPC, target CPA, target ROAS, or maximise conversions — picked based on how much conversion data the account has and how mature the campaigns are. Not blindly Performance Max.
  • // Ongoing negative keyword management. Reviewed weekly to monthly. The single biggest leak in most accounts I audit is missing negatives — and clearing them out usually does more than any bid adjustment.
  • // Conversion tracking that's actually verified. Every form, every phone-click, every booking — tested end-to-end before any campaign goes live. If conversion tracking breaks mid-engagement, campaigns pause until it's fixed. That's a hard rule.
  • // Microsoft / Bing Ads when the audience supports it. Lower competition on Bing can deliver cheaper conversions for B2B and Australia-specific niches; not added by default, but it's there when the case is real.
  • // Monthly reports in plain English. What was spent, how many enquiries it brought in, what each one cost, what's working, what isn't, what's changing next month.
  • // Ongoing optimisation under monthly care. Bid adjustments, ad rotation, search-term reviews, landing-page feedback handed back to you.
// For the technically curious — the platforms + tooling behind this

Google Ads (primary platform) · Microsoft Advertising (Bing, secondary when the audience supports it) · Google Tag Manager (conversion tracking + event firing) · GA4 (conversion attribution + post-click behaviour) · Google Search Console (linked to Google Ads for organic + paid query intel) · Google Merchant Center (when shopping campaigns are in scope) · DataForSEO + the internal Auditor Toolkit (keyword research + competitive intel + monthly reporting data layer) · Google's Ads Transparency Center + Meta Ads Library (competitor ad-copy research, no scraping needed).

// What I don't do _ 04

What I don't
do.

Honest scope. The work below isn't a refusal — it's a stay-in-lane discipline that keeps quality high on what I do build.

If a project sits outside the default scope and there's a real reason to do it — a large shopping-campaigns build, a multi-region account structure, a YouTube engagement that genuinely justifies the add-on, a Display campaign with proper creative behind it — ask anyway. The honest discipline applies on both sides: you have to agree to the scope, and I have to be confident I can deliver it to a standard worth my name. If I'm not, the honest answer is no — and I'll point you toward someone who can take it on if I know one.

// Fit _ 05

Who this is
best for.

// Best for

  • +Australian small-business owners running existing Google Ads campaigns with unclear results, no conversion tracking, or auto-applied recommendations they didn't approve.
  • +Businesses that tried paid ads in the past, lost budget, and walked away — and who want a clean look at whether to try again with the basics in place this time.
  • +Founders launching a new product or service that needs qualified traffic now while SEO catches up.
  • +B2B companies where Google's commercial-intent keywords match what their buyers actually search.
  • +Charities, not-for-profits, and community sports clubs running paid ads (including Google Ad Grants where eligible) and wanting them set up properly without paying agency-deck prices. The 25% ACNC charity rate applies.

// Skip if

  • −You can't sustain $1,000/month per platform in ad spend. Below that threshold, paid search has too few signals to optimise from cleanly — reporting becomes statistically noisy and the management fee swallows too much of the value.
  • −The SEO and analytics foundation isn't yet in place — without conversion tracking and the measurement layer underneath, paid search can't be evaluated honestly. Start with a Free Digital Health Check, which covers both.
  • −The offer itself isn't yet defined clearly enough to advertise — paid search amplifies a clear offer; it can't manufacture one. The Health Check is the right starting point.
  • −The website the ads send to can't answer the obvious questions a paid visitor will ask — web design work comes first.

// Pricing _ 06

What it
costs.

There are two shapes most paid-search work takes:

  • A setup project, then ongoing monthly management. Setup phase: 1–2 weeks (account audit, structural rebuild or fresh build, conversion-tracking verification, first campaigns live). Then monthly management on a rolling basis.
  • An audit-only deep-dive. Booked through the Free Digital Health Check + the In-Depth version. Written audit + walkthrough call; you take the recommendations and run with them yourself, or come back for execution.

Management fee is flat monthly, separate from ad spend. Percentage-of-spend pricing pays me more when you spend more, which is the wrong incentive — so it isn't on offer. The two are quoted on the call against your situation; they're not on a public price list because the right number depends on platform count, account complexity, and reporting cadence.

ACNC-registered charities: 25% off the management fee. Single ABN-lookup verification at intake — the same rate that runs across every NSD service.

// Pacing _ 07

How long
things take.

Paid search runs on Google's learning periods, not on the calendar. The honest timing:

  1. /01

    Setup — 1–2 weeks.

    Audit, structural build, conversion-tracking verification, first campaigns live.

  2. /02

    Learning month.

    A clean account takes 2–4 weeks of running before Google's bid algorithms start optimising sensibly. The first month is often a "feed it data so it can learn" month, not a "already winning" month.

  3. /03

    Months 2–3 — Stability.

    Real ROAS or cost-per-conversion stability usually emerges. From there it's ongoing optimisation under monthly care.

Anyone selling guaranteed leads in the first 30 days is either lucky on a specific account or not telling the full story. Paid search rewards a clean setup, patience through the learning phase, and honest reporting on what's actually moving.

// Shipping _ 08

Shipping
well.

Before any paid-search engagement is called shipped, I run the work through the same checks: whether conversion tracking is verified end-to-end across every action that matters, whether the account is structured so you can actually inspect what's running, whether negatives are gating obvious waste, and whether the reporting tells you something useful in plain language. No engagement is signed off until those pass.

// For the technically curious — what's actually in the monthly report
  • //Spend, clicks, impressions, CTR.
  • //Conversion volume and cost per conversion — the two numbers that matter most.
  • //Search-impression-share with lost-IS-rank vs lost-IS-budget broken out.
  • //Top-performing and bottom-performing keywords plus ad copy.
  • //Search-term review insights — what real queries triggered ads, including candidates for new negatives.
  • //What I changed in the account and why. What I'm planning to test next month.

// Journey _ 09

What comes
next.

Most paid-search work starts with a Free Digital Health Check — a plain-English audit of any existing Google Ads account plus the measurement and search foundation underneath. You get a solid base to start from, instead of guessing — and the PDF is yours to keep, whether you work with me afterwards or not.

If paid search looks like the right next move, the usual sequence is the SEO and analytics foundation first (conversion tracking, GA4, the measurement layer), then a setup project on top — either Google-only or with Microsoft / Bing layered in. When the broader digital direction needs more clarity before any of this gets locked in, a Strategic Digital Roadmap sits in between.

Once setup has shipped, ongoing monthly care (the Looked After plan) covers what comes after — monthly optimisation, reporting, account hygiene, periodic strategy reviews. Optional; the setup stands on its own without it.

// FAQ _ 10

Common
questions.

What's the minimum ad spend?
Minimum $1,000/month per platform. Below that, paid search has too few signals to optimise from cleanly — reporting becomes statistically noisy and the management fee swallows too much of the value. Ad spend goes directly to Google or Microsoft; it's never bundled into the management fee.
Why a flat fee rather than percentage-of-spend?
Because percentage-of-spend pricing pays me more when you spend more, which is the wrong incentive. A flat monthly management fee means my interest is the same as yours: get the most enquiries possible from the spend that's already going out — not bigger budgets for their own sake.
Do you use Performance Max?
Only when there's a clear case — broad-intent e-commerce, mature account with stable conversion data — not as the opening move. The default is clean campaign architecture you can actually inspect, with PMax reached for when the data supports it.
How long until results show up?
A clean account takes 2–4 weeks of running before Google's bid strategies start optimising sensibly — the first month is often a learning month. Real ROAS or cost-per-conversion stability usually emerges in months 2–3. Anyone selling faster certainty than that is either lucky or not telling the full story.
What happens if conversion tracking breaks?
Campaigns pause until it's fixed. Spending without measuring is gambling, and that's a hard rule — not a negotiation. Conversion tracking is verified end-to-end before campaigns go live and watched throughout the engagement.
Why does the SEO and analytics foundation need to be in place first?
Because paid search lives on the measurement layer underneath — GA4, Google Tag Manager, conversion events. Without those set up cleanly, the ad data can't tell you what's working, and any optimisation is guessing dressed up as numbers. The Free Digital Health Check covers both sides and can tell you which to start with.

// Start _ 11

Get
started.

Wondering whether your paid search is set up properly — or whether it's worth starting at all? Book a 45-minute call. I'll run a Free Digital Health Check on your existing account beforehand (or, if there's no account yet, on the measurement and search foundation that paid search would need underneath) and walk you through it on the call.

Get a Free Digital Health Check

// 45 min · Google Meet · No obligation · The PDF is yours to keep regardless

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// Last updated: May 2026