Google Ads management
Google Ads management where the senior person is the only person
Ongoing management of Search, Shopping, Performance Max and YouTube campaigns, done by me every week, priced as a flat monthly fee and reported in the numbers an owner cares about.
What Google Ads management services should actually include
Most management retainers are defined by what is excluded: tracking is a separate project, landing pages are your problem, reporting is a dashboard nobody reads. An account cannot perform under those conditions, so my definition of management is wider.
Weekly, inside the account
Search terms read and negatives added. Bids, targets and budgets adjusted against cost per customer, not cost per click. Ads and assets rotated when a test has a clear winner. Auto-applied recommendations kept off and reviewed by a human.
Measurement, maintained
Conversion actions checked monthly for double counting and breakage. GA4 and Tag Manager kept in step with site changes. Offline conversion import where sales close after the click. Included, not sold separately. See conversion tracking.
Landing pages, in scope
Message match between ad and page, mobile speed, form and call tracking. Small changes I make myself; larger ones I specify for your developer. Paid traffic mostly dies on the page, so managing the account without the page is half a job.
Reporting, in writing
A monthly document: cost per lead or per customer, revenue where it can be measured, what changed, what is next, and what I need from you. A call to go through it whenever you want one.
Campaign types and how each one is handled
- Search. Structured by margin, service line and geography, because that is how you make decisions. Match types chosen deliberately, broad match only with the negatives and conversion data to support it. Brand kept in its own campaign so its numbers never flatter the rest.
- Performance Max. Brand exclusions from day one, asset groups split by product economics rather than by whatever the feed happened to contain, and a search-terms insight review every week to catch it buying demand you already had.
- Shopping. The feed is the campaign. Titles, GTINs, price competitiveness and custom labels come before bids. Standard Shopping kept where control over queries is worth more than reach. More on the ecommerce PPC page.
- YouTube and Demand Gen. Run for outcomes, not views: sequenced remarketing, offer-led creative, and conversion measurement that does not count a view as a lead.
- Microsoft Advertising. Imported and then actually managed, not left to sync. Often the cheapest incremental conversions in the account for B2B and finance. See Microsoft Advertising management.
The first ninety days
- Weeks 1–2: measurement. Audit and fix every conversion action, reconcile Google Ads with GA4 and the CRM, define the one number the account will be optimised towards. Nothing else changes until this is right, because every later decision inherits it.
- Weeks 2–4: stop the leaks. Twelve months of search terms reviewed, negative lists built, brand and Performance Max exclusions set, budgets moved off the campaigns that produce cheap conversions with no margin.
- Weeks 4–8: structure. Rebuild or restructure where the current setup fights the business. Done in stages so learning is not reset across the whole account at once.
- Weeks 8–12: test. One control and one challenger at a time on ads, pages and offers, with enough volume to read the result. Report at day ninety on what moved, with the before and after in the same units.
How the retainer is priced
A flat monthly fee, agreed after the audit and scaled by scope: number of campaigns, platforms, markets and how much landing page work is included. Not a percentage of spend, so the advice to cut budget costs me nothing to give. Month to month with a notice period. Ad spend is paid by you, directly to Google, from your own billing. The pricing page compares the models and gives typical ranges.
The account, the conversion actions, the tags and the landing pages stay in your properties. If the engagement ends, nothing needs to be rebuilt.
Proof
A Houston HVAC and plumbing account spending about $20,000 a month: cost per acquisition down 44%, qualified leads up 60%, over nine months in a $45 to $80 CPC auction. What was done and what can be verified is on the results page.
Questions people ask before hiring
How much do Google Ads management services cost?
A flat monthly fee set by scope, not by ad spend, quoted after a fixed-price audit that is credited against the first month. Send your monthly spend and platforms and you get a range back by email; the pricing page explains the model.
How is a freelance Google Ads manager different from a management company?
The person you speak to is the person in the account, every week. A management company assigns the account to whoever has capacity and puts an account manager between you. The freelance model trades scale for continuity and seniority.
Do you need a minimum ad spend?
No fixed minimum, but below roughly $3,000 a month a retainer is usually poor value; a one-off setup or audit fits better.
How long until results show?
Tracking and wasted-spend fixes show within the first month. Structural and testing gains take a quarter to read properly, because bidding algorithms need conversion volume to settle. Anyone promising a number in week two is guessing.
Will you manage the account in my Google Ads or yours?
Yours, always, via manager (MCC) access. Billing stays with you and nothing is built in an account I control.
Can you manage Meta or LinkedIn alongside Google?
Yes. Same person, same measurement layer, one report. See PPC management for the multi-platform version.
Related services
Tell me about the account
Spend band, site and what is not working. You get a straight answer on whether I can help, what I would do first and a price range. No proposal deck, no sales follow-up sequence.