Google Ads in Ballarat, measured by the phone ringing.
Most ads accounts are judged on clicks, because clicks are easy to count. We set yours up to count enquiries instead — calls, quote requests, bookings — and we build the landing page they arrive on, so nothing gets lost between the ad and the sale. Your account, your data, no lock-in.
A campaign can look healthy and produce nothing.
Impressions up, clicks up, click-through rate respectable, spend climbing — and a phone that does not ring. Every chart in the account says things are going well, because every chart measures how well the ad is doing, not whether the business got anything from it.
Nearly every account we are asked to look at has the same root cause: nobody told Google what a customer looks like. Without conversion tracking on the actual enquiry, the system optimises for whatever it can see, which is clicks, and it gets very good at buying them. We wrote up the four numbers that tell you the truth.
Six things, and the first one matters most.
Tracking the enquiry, not the click
Conversions fire on the form submission, the call and the booking — the moments money is likely to change hands. Until this is right, every other optimisation is guesswork.
Targeting your actual service area
Your ads shown to people in the suburbs and towns you will genuinely drive to, not the whole of Victoria because it was the default.
Cutting the searches that waste money
Reviewing the real search terms people typed, and excluding the ones that will never buy — "free", "jobs", "DIY", the competitor you do not want. This is where most of the first month's savings come from.
A landing page built for the ad
We build websites for a living, so the page an ad lands on is designed for that one search rather than dumping people on your homepage. Web design in Ballarat →
Budget set to your margins
What a customer is worth to you decides what you can pay to win one. We work that out first, then bid to it, instead of spending whatever the daily budget allows.
Reporting you can read
Ads, Analytics and Search Console in one monthly report, in plain English, showing cost per enquiry rather than cost per click. See Insights →
We track our own site the way we would track yours.
On this site, conversions are recorded at the two points that actually mean something: when someone requests a quote, and when someone runs the free website audit. Not page views, not time on site, not scroll depth.
Both only fire after the visitor has accepted cookies. That is a deliberate trade: it means some genuine enquiries go uncounted, and the reported numbers are lower than an account that tracks everyone regardless. We would rather have an honest undercount than a flattering number built on tracking people who said no. Where the account supports it, enhanced conversions pass a hashed email so a consented enquiry can still be matched back to the ad that produced it.
None of that is exotic. It is simply the part most accounts skip, and it is the part everything else depends on.
When we will tell you not to run ads.
An agency paid a percentage of spend has every reason to say yes. We would rather keep you as a client for years, so here is when we will say no:
- Your Google Business Profile is not set up. For a local business it is free and often does more than ads. Fix that first. Why the profile outworks the site →
- There is no way to track an enquiry. Running ads you cannot measure is paying for a feeling.
- The site cannot convert the traffic. Slow, confusing or hard to contact on a phone — the money leaks out at the last step.
- The budget cannot buy enough clicks to learn anything. In a competitive trade, a tiny budget produces a handful of clicks a week and no conclusions. Better spent elsewhere until it can do the job.
If one of those applies, we will tell you what to do instead — which is often search or the profile, and occasionally nothing at all until the site is fixed.
For your own business, or under your brand.
Ballarat businesses
You are the client, and the account is yours — in your name, on your card, with us given access to manage it. If you leave, it all stays with you.
Agencies and studios
We manage the campaigns, you keep the relationship. Reporting carries your brand, and we never appear in front of your client. How the white-label side works →
The management fee is quoted on the size of the account and is separate from the ad spend, which goes straight to Google on your card. We never mark up the spend or hold it. No lock-in contract. Google Ads is one part of our digital marketing in Ballarat, and it works best alongside it.
The things people ask first.
How much should I spend on Google Ads?
Enough to get a meaningful number of clicks on the searches that turn into work, and no more until those are converting. For many local service businesses that is a few hundred dollars a month to start. We would rather prove a small budget works than spend a large one learning that it does not.
What does management cost?
Quoted on the size and complexity of the account, separate from the spend. The spend goes straight to Google on your own card; we never mark it up or hold it.
Who owns the account?
You do. It sits in your name with your billing, and we are given access. If you ever leave, the account, its history and its data stay with you.
How long before it produces results?
Traffic arrives the day the campaign goes live. Knowing whether it is profitable takes a few weeks of real enquiries, because the first month is mostly about finding and cutting the searches that waste money.
Should I run ads or SEO?
They do different jobs. Ads buy attention now and stop when you stop paying; search is slow and compounding. Many businesses run ads while search builds, then lean on search once it arrives. Sometimes neither is the right first step, and the Business Profile will do more.
Already running ads? Get a straight answer.
Send us read access and we will tell you, in plain English, whether the account is tracking the right thing and where the money is going. No charge for the look, and no obligation after it.