Campaigns judged on cost per acquisition, not clicks. We rebuild your account structure, kill the waste, and scale what converts.
Four things, and usually all four at once. The conversion action counts something that isn't an enquiry. There's no meaningful negative keyword list, so a large share of spend goes to searches that could never convert. Every ad lands on the homepage. And Performance Max is quietly taking credit for branded searches from people who already knew the business.
None of this is exotic. It's the default state of an account that was set up once and then managed by automated recommendations. The reason it persists is that the reporting looks fine — conversions are being counted, they're just the wrong ones.
What does a lead need to cost for this to be profitable for you? Average job value, gross margin, close rate. That produces a target, and every decision after it — which keywords, which locations, which devices, which hours — is measured against that target rather than against clicks or impressions.
Automated bidding will optimise relentlessly toward whatever you tell it a conversion is. Give it a broken definition and it will efficiently spend your budget on the wrong people. We rebuild tracking first, every time. See Data & Measurement for what that involves.
Branded and non-branded separated so you can see what demand you're creating versus harvesting. Services separated so budget can move toward the profitable ones. Geography separated where markets genuinely differ. The purpose is decision-making, not neatness.
The first month is usually subtractive — search term reviews, negatives, pausing what can't clear the target. That often improves results without touching the budget. Scaling comes after, once there's something worth scaling.
Cost per qualified lead, and where the sales data allows it, cost per won job. Not impressions, not click-through rate, not "engagement". If a channel isn't paying, we'll tell you to stop it — including when we're the ones running it.
New Zealand businesses that need Google Ads to produce measurable enquiries. If you want activity, there are cheaper agencies. If your website converts poorly, fixing that first makes every ad dollar worth more — see Conversion Engineering.
Work with us from anywhere in New Zealand — these are the markets we've written up in detail. See industries for how the approach changes by sector.
See this in practice: Quick Towing, Cash For Cars Now and Top Cash For Cars.
It follows from what a lead is worth to you, not from a benchmark. Work out your average job value, your margin and your close rate, and you have what an enquiry is worth. What you can pay for one is a fraction of that. Once we know the number, budget becomes arithmetic rather than a guess.
Yes, always, and you pay Google directly from your own account. Agencies that bundle spend and fees into one invoice make it impossible for you to see what you're paying for management — which is usually the point.
Nothing, when it's fed properly. It works well with clean conversion data, a good product feed and structural separation from branded search. Left unsupervised it tends to harvest demand you already had and report it as new — which looks like success until you switch it off and nothing changes.
Qualified leads within days of launch is normal for a well-structured account in an existing market. What takes longer is getting the cost per lead down, because that depends on accumulating enough conversion data to optimise against. Expect meaningful improvement over six to eight weeks.
Whichever costs you less. Some accounts need structural rebuilds; plenty just need the tracking fixed, a proper negative list and landing pages that match the ads. We'll tell you which after looking, and rebuilding is more profitable for us — which is exactly why we'll say so when it isn't necessary.
Yes. It's in your name, with your billing, and you keep full access and history during and after the engagement. Agencies that run clients inside their own MCC accounts are protecting themselves, not you.
No. We'd rather earn the next month than trap you in the current one. Thirty days' notice, and your accounts stay in your name throughout.
The team you meet. We're a small, senior team — you won't be handed to a junior after the sale.
Book a free discovery session. We'll audit what you're running, tell you what's leaking budget, and show you what we'd do differently — no obligation.