Search engine marketing — campaigns built, tracked and trimmed every month. Your ad budget goes straight to Google, and management starts at $290 — never more than a third of what you spend.
Most accounts do not fail at the bidding. They fail at everything around it — and the money leaves before anyone notices.
An account without conversion tracking is a slot machine with a nicer interface. That is the first thing fixed, always.
You pay Google directly with your own card, and I am paid for the management — the two figures never get tangled. The fee is sized to the account, so the budget stays where it does the work. An account where the management costs more than the ads is the most common way this fails, and it is not one I am going to sell you.
Ads work the day they are switched on and stop the day they are switched off. Search is slower and stays. Most businesses need both, in that order.
The fee follows the money you put behind it, so the management is never more than a third of what you spend. No percentage of your budget — nobody should have a reason to talk you into spending more.
One campaign, for an account spending up to $1,000 a month.
Up to three campaigns, for an account spending up to $3,000 a month.
No campaign cap, for an account spending above $3,000 a month.
Your budget is always paid straight to Google, with your own card and no markup. Cancel any month. All the numbers are here.
“We needed a professional presence to reach European clients. Daniel built the website and set up Google Ads, and inquiries increased significantly.”
“Daniel set up our WooCommerce store completely. Within 3 months we were selling consistently online — he handles everything.”
Almost, in practice. SEM — search engine marketing — is paying to appear in search results, and in this part of the world that is Google, at over ninety per cent of the market. So when someone asks for SEM, Google Ads is what they need. What I run is the search side: text ads shown to people already typing what you sell. Not Bing, not display banners, not social.
Enough for Google to have data to learn from — from around $600 a month is a sensible start for a local business. Below that the account never gets out of guessing, and you pay for the guessing.
Because a flat fee is wrong at both ends. On a small account it eats the budget — and an account where the management costs more than the ads is the most common way this fails. On a big one it buys hours nobody has. So the fee follows the spend, and never passes a third of it: $290, $490 or $890, depending on the size of the account.
No. A fixed fee for the size of the account, and it does not move when you spend more that month. A percentage gives whoever manages your account a reason to talk you into a bigger budget.
No, and be careful with anyone who does. What I can do is make sure every dollar is tracked, so you can see what a lead costs and decide whether it is worth it.
You will know from the first report, because it says what a conversion cost. If the numbers do not work, I will tell you to stop rather than keep the retainer alive.
Paid search is one channel. This is what it usually runs beside.
One call. I look at what is running, what it is costing per enquiry and whether it is worth keeping — and I will say so if it is not.
