01Google Ads

Google Ads Management Services

Apex Core is a Google Ads agency that plans and manages campaigns for lead generation and ecommerce businesses, and builds the landing pages those campaigns send traffic to. Because the ad and the page after the click are planned together, the same ad spend produces more qualified leads and sales.

See how we manage accounts

SearchPerformance MaxShopping Local Services AdsYouTubeDisplay & remarketing
Illustrative figures, not a client result.
02Why accounts underperform

Why Most Google Ads Accounts Underperform

Most underperforming accounts don't have a traffic problem. They have a spend problem: budget going to searches that never convert, and clicks landing on pages that were never built to convert them.

The usual causes:

Automation left on autopilot.

Google recommends broad match keywords, automated bidding and Performance Max for almost every account. Without enough conversion data and the right guardrails, those defaults spend money on loosely related searches.

Tracking that counts the wrong things.

If page views, button clicks or spam form fills are counted as conversions, Google's bidding optimizes toward them.

Ads and landing pages built separately.

The ad promises one thing, the page says another, and the conversion rate shows it.

Set-and-forget management.

Search behavior, competitors and Google's own features change every month. An account nobody actively manages drifts.

A business owner at her desk studying a campaign performance dashboard.

The same budget, before and after negative keywords

Search terms report · last 30 days · illustrative
Search termClicksCostStatus
core service, buying intent412$2,118Converting
jobs and careers in your field164$684Never converts
service + “near me”268$1,238Converting
salary and training queries98$372Never converts
problem phrase buyers use191$1,161Converting
Total1,133$5,573unchanged budget
Going to searches that never convert$1,056

Same spend either way. Negative keywords decide whether that $1,056 buys clicks that can never become a customer, or more of the ones that can.

Our view is simple: a click is only half the job. Good PPC management fixes what happens before the click and after it.

03How it works

How Google Ads Works, and When It's the Right Channel

Google Ads, formerly Google AdWords, is Google's pay-per-click advertising platform. You bid to show ads to people searching for what you sell, or browsing YouTube, Gmail and sites across the Google Display Network, and you pay when someone clicks. Paid search is the most direct form of PPC marketing because it reaches people while they are actively looking.

Illustrative layout, not a live result.

How the auction decides your cost per click

Every search triggers an auction. Google doesn't simply award the top spot to the highest bid. It weighs your bid against your Quality Score, a measure of how relevant your keywords, ads and landing page are, including your expected click-through rate (CTR). A more relevant ad and landing page can win a higher position at a lower cost per click (CPC) than a competitor who just bids more.

What Google Ads does well

Intent.

Someone searching "emergency roof repair near me" is ready to buy, not browsing.

Speed.

PPC campaigns can go live within days and start producing leads, while SEO builds visibility over months. The two work best together.

Measurability.

Every click, call and sale can be tracked, so return on ad spend and ROI are visible campaign by campaign.

Control.

Geo-targeting down to a city or radius keeps local advertising budgets on the areas you actually serve, and audience targeting narrows who sees your ads.

When it isn't the right fit

PPC advertising on Google works when people already search for what you offer. If they don't, because the product is new or the category is unfamiliar, channels that create demand, such as Meta Ads, usually work better first. If the budget is too small to gather meaningful data, SEO is often the better long-term investment.

We'll tell you which applies to you.

04What's included

What's Included in Our Google Ads and PPC Management Services

Our Google Ads pay-per-click advertising services cover the whole account, from strategy to reporting, not just bids. As your paid search agency, we handle the following.

Paid media strategy and planning

Before anything goes live, we set goals, define what counts as a conversion, map the customer journey and decide budget allocation across campaigns. Our paid media strategy starts from your margins and close rates, not from Google's recommendations, and paid media planning is revisited as results come in.

Conversion actionCounts asValue fromDecided before launch
Qualified leadPrimaryYour marginAgreed
Phone callPrimaryYour close rateAgreed
PurchasePrimaryOrder valueAgreed
Page view——Not a conversion
05Campaign types

Google Ads Campaign Types We Manage

Search

Google Search Ads

Search campaigns show text ads when people search for your products or services. For most lead generation businesses, keyword-controlled search campaigns are the foundation of the account. Our Google search ads management focuses on tightly themed ad groups, strong negative keyword lists and ads matched to their landing pages.

Cost / conv.$131.74
Performance Max

Performance Max (PMax)

Performance Max runs a single campaign across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Gmail and Maps, with Google's AI choosing where ads appear. It can scale well, but it isn't one-size-fits-all. We launch a PMax campaign once conversion tracking is reliable, give it first-party audience signals, and exclude brand searches where possible so results aren't inflated by people who would have found you anyway.

StatusLearning
Shopping

Google Shopping Ads

For online stores, Google Shopping ads show product images, prices and your store name directly in search results. As a Google Shopping ads agency, we start with the feed, because performance depends on it. Product feed optimization is central to our Google Shopping ads management: tested product titles, complete attributes and clean Google Merchant Center data. A strong feed also improves your free product listings and your Performance Max results.

ROAS3.42x
Local Services

Local Services Ads

Local Services Ads (LSA) appear above standard search ads for home services and other local businesses, with a Google Guaranteed or Google Screened badge. You pay per lead rather than per click. Local service ads management covers verification, service area and job type setup, review generation, disputing invalid leads, and fast lead response, which affects how often your ads are shown.

Cost / lead$64.20
YouTube

YouTube Ads

YouTube ads reach people before they search. YouTube video advertising works for building brand awareness, for retargeting site visitors and for driving direct action. Our YouTube ads management covers audience targeting, video ad creative and measuring the impact of video ads on conversions, not just views.

View rate31.4%
Display

Display Ads and Remarketing

Display ads show image ads across the Google Display Network. On their own they mostly build reach. Their strongest use is remarketing: Google remarketing ads bring back people who visited your site but didn't convert. Retargeting campaigns can follow up by audience or page visited, and dynamic remarketing shows ecommerce visitors the exact products they looked at. Google display ads and display advertising work best as a supporting layer behind search, not as the main budget.

Assisted conv.14
06Automation

Automation With Control: Google Ads in the AI Era

Google advertising becomes more automated every year. Automated bidding sets a bid for each auction, Performance Max decides where ads appear. Ads can now appear alongside AI-generated answers in AI Overviews too.

Google Ads automation is powerful when it's fed the right data and given limits. Without either, it's expensive. Our approach:

Control first, then automate.

We start with keyword-controlled campaigns and exact or phrase match, then expand to broad match and more automation once conversion data supports it.

Better data in, better bidding out.

Automation optimizes toward whatever you tell it a conversion is. We send back qualified leads and sales, not every form fill.

Guardrails stay on.

Negative keywords, brand exclusions, budget limits and regular search term reviews apply to automated campaigns too.

People make the final call.

AI drafts creative and surfaces patterns; our team decides what runs.

If you also want your brand recommended in AI answers organically, see our AI Optimization service.

Signals Google usesLive auction context
DeviceLocationTime of dayQuery wordingAudience listConversion likelihood
Automated biddingA bid set for each auction

Performance Max decides where ads appear, and ads can now appear alongside AI Overviews too.

Guardrails stay onNegatives, brand exclusions, budget limits

Regular search term reviews apply to automated campaigns too.

People make the final callOur team decides what runs

AI drafts creative and surfaces patterns.

A hand resting above a laptop trackpad, paused over a recommendation in an ads dashboard.
07Landing pages

Ads and Landing Pages, Built Together

Most Google Ads agencies stop at the ad. We build the landing page too, because conversion rate matters as much as cost per click. If a landing page converts at 2% and you raise it to 4%, your cost per acquisition halves without spending a dollar more on ads.

2%→4%conversion rate · cost per acquisition halves

Landing page optimization for paid traffic comes down to a few things done well:

  • Message match. The headline repeats the promise of the ad and the search behind it.
  • One goal per page. A single clear action, not a full website menu.
  • Speed and mobile. Most paid clicks happen on phones, and slow pages lose them.
  • Friction removed. Shorter forms, click-to-call, and trust signals placed next to the call to action.
  • Testing. Headlines, offers and layouts tested against each other using real ad traffic.

A better landing page experience also raises Quality Score, which lowers what you pay per click. For deeper testing across your whole site, see CRO and landing page development. If you run Meta Ads alongside Google, the same pages and tracking serve both.

Message match, side by side

Searchyour service near me
Your adYour service, near you. Book in 48 hours.
The pageYour service, near you. Book in 60 seconds.

Where most agencies stop

illustrative
  1. Search6,214 impressions
  2. Ad412 clicks
  3. Most Google Ads agencies stop at the adreporting ends at $5.14 CPC
  4. we build the landing page too
  5. Landing page4.9% conversion rate
  6. Form or call47 leads
  7. Qualified lead29 qualified
  8. Revenue$86,400
A laptop showing a landing page next to a phone with the mobile version and a printed wireframe.
08Tracking and reporting

Conversion Tracking and Reporting

Conversion tracking setup

Accurate conversion tracking is the base everything else depends on. Our conversion tracking setup connects Google Tag Manager, GA4 and Google Ads so that form submissions, calls and purchases are counted correctly, and nothing else is. We add enhanced conversions and server-side tracking where needed to recover conversions lost to browser privacy settings and ad blockers, and use Google Analytics to check the numbers against each other.

Call tracking

For businesses where the phone rings, call tracking shows which campaign and keyword produced each call, so phone leads count in your results instead of disappearing.

Lead quality, not just lead count

A form fill isn't a customer. Where your CRM allows it, we import offline conversions such as qualified leads, booked jobs and closed deals back into Google Ads, so bidding optimizes toward the leads that actually become revenue.

Reporting and analysis

Every month you get reporting and analysis covering spend, conversions, cost per conversion, cost per acquisition (CPA), conversion rate and, for ecommerce, return on ad spend (ROAS), along with what we changed and what we're testing next. ROAS, CPA and ROI are reported against your targets, not as standalone numbers.

Conversion actionSourceCount asStatus
Form submissionWebsite, GTMPrimaryRecording
Phone callCall trackingPrimaryRecording
PurchaseEnhanced conversionsPrimaryRecording
Qualified leadOffline import, CRMPrimaryRecording
Closed dealOffline import, CRMPrimaryRecording
Page viewGA4—Not counted
Illustrative setup. Bidding optimizes toward whatever you tell it a conversion is, which is why page views and spam form fills are not counted.
MetricResultYour targetAgainst target
Cost per conversion$98.61$120.00Under
Cost per acquisition (CPA)$131.74$150.00Under
Conversion rate4.9%4.0%Above
Return on ad spend (ROAS)3.42x3.00xAbove
Spend$11,932$12,000On budget
Illustrative figures. ROAS, CPA and ROI are reported against your targets, not as standalone numbers.
09Who we work with

Who We Work With

A tradesperson taking a call at the back of a work van.

B2C lead generation

Service businesses that need calls, quote requests and bookings, including home services and other local businesses. B2C lead generation through Google Ads usually combines search campaigns, Local Services Ads and call tracking.

Campaigns
Search, Local Services Ads
Tracking
Call tracking
A marketer at a desk reviewing campaign reports across two monitors.

B2B lead generation

Businesses with longer sales cycles and several decision-makers. B2B lead generation campaigns rely on tight keyword targeting and CRM data, so that lead generation Google Ads campaigns are judged on pipeline, not form fills.

Campaigns
Tight keyword targeting
Judged on
Pipeline, not form fills
Hands taping up a cardboard box ready for dispatch.

Ecommerce

Online stores that want more revenue at a profitable ROAS. Our ecommerce PPC services cover Shopping, Performance Max, feed management and dynamic remarketing, whether you're launching ecommerce Google Ads or trying to scale Google Ads without your CPA climbing.

Campaigns
Shopping, PMax, dynamic remarketing
Judged on
Revenue at a profitable ROAS
10How we work

How We Work: Our PPC Management Process

01Audit (about 1 week).

We review your account, tracking and landing pages, and show you what's working, what's wasting money and what we'd change.

02Strategy and roadmap (about 1 week).

Goals, conversion definitions, campaign structure and budget allocation, agreed with you before anything changes.

03Build or restructure (1–2 weeks).

Tracking fixed first, then campaigns, ads and, where needed, landing pages.

04Launch and stabilize (first 30 days).

Close monitoring while campaigns collect data, with daily checks on spend and search terms.

05Optimize and scale (ongoing).

Weekly optimization and monthly reports. Budget increases follow results, not the other way round.

06Quarterly review.

We review the whole strategy every quarter and reset priorities based on what the data shows.

11Results

What changed in accounts we took over.

Illustrative examples of what a Google Ads takeover typically changes. Figures are representative, not taken from a specific client.

E-commerce (Shopping + Performance Max)

First 90 days Illustrative example
Spend on irrelevant search terms
27% 8% 70%
ROAS
2.3x 3.6x 57%
Cost per purchase
$41 $26 37%

What we changed. Fixed a purchase conversion that was counting twice, split Shopping by margin tier, added 450+ negative keywords, and excluded brand terms from Performance Max.

B2B services (Search lead gen)

First 60 days Illustrative example
Avg. Quality Score (core keywords)
4 7 75%
Leads that turn out qualified
15% 31% 107%
Cost per qualified lead
$240 $128 47%

What we changed. Imported CRM-qualified leads as the conversion action, regrouped 14 ad groups into 5 by search intent, and matched landing pages to ad copy.

SaaS (free trial)

First 120 days Illustrative example
Cost per trial start
$78 $49 37%
Share of spend on brand terms
58% 25% 57%
Non-brand impression share
22% 48% 118%

What we changed. Capped brand spend, rebuilt non-brand campaigns around the problems people search for, turned on enhanced conversions, and removed a duplicate GA4-imported conversion.

Past performance in one account is not a prediction for another. Your audit reports your own numbers.

12Free audit

Start With a Free Google Ads Audit

Every engagement with our Google Ads services starts with a free Google Ads audit. A PPC audit is the fastest way to see where your budget is going and what's holding the account back. Rather than generic Google Ads case studies, you'll see exactly what we'd change in your own account.

Our Google Ads account audit checks:

  • Conversion tracking accuracy
  • Wasted spend in search terms
  • Keyword match types and negative keywords
  • Account and campaign structure
  • Bid strategies and Performance Max setup
  • Quality Score and landing page experience
  • Competitor ads in your market

You'll get written findings with fixes in priority order, and a call to walk through them. If we don't think we can improve your results, we'll say so.

  • Free AI Visibility Check
  • Free Google Ads Audit
  • Free SEO Audit
  • Free Funnel Audit

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13FAQs

FAQs

Anything else, ask us in the audit.

Get your free Google Ads audit
What does a Google Ads agency do?

A Google Ads management agency plans, builds and manages your campaigns: keyword research, ad copy, bid strategies, conversion tracking, testing and reporting. A good PPC agency also tells you where the account is wasting money and what to stop doing, not only what to add.

How much should I budget for Google Ads?

It depends on your industry's cost per click, how competitive your market is and how many conversions you need for the data to be useful. The budget has to be large enough for Google's bidding to learn from real results. We recommend a starting budget after the audit, based on your market and goals rather than a fixed minimum.

How long does it take to see results from Google Ads?

Campaigns can start producing clicks and leads within days of launch. Automated bidding usually needs a few weeks of conversion data to stabilize, and most accounts see their clearest gains in the first two to three months of active optimization.

How is Google Ads management priced?

Agencies usually charge either a flat monthly fee or a percentage of ad spend, sometimes with a setup fee. Your ad spend is paid directly to Google and is separate from the management fee. We quote after the audit, once we know the account's size and scope.

Can a Google Ads agency guarantee results?

No honest one can guarantee specific numbers, because results depend on your market, competition, offer and landing pages. What we can commit to is clear tracking, weekly optimization, transparent reporting and an honest view of what's realistic before you start.

How do I choose the best Google Ads agency?

Whether you're comparing a Google Ads marketing agency, a broader PPC company, a freelancer or an in-house hire, ask how they define a conversion, who works on your account day to day, whether you keep ownership of the account, how they handle automation, and what their reports show. The best Google Ads agency for you is the one that measures success the way your business does.

Do I keep ownership of my Google Ads account?

Yes. The account, the data and the campaign history are yours. We work inside your account with access you control.

Should I run Google Ads and Meta Ads together?

Often, yes. Google Ads captures people already searching, while Meta Ads creates demand among people who aren't searching yet. Running both with shared tracking and landing pages gives a fuller picture of what drives sales. See our Meta Ads service for how we run the two together.

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