Google
Channel
Google Ads
You already spend on Google. The account is busy, the reporting looks fine, and nobody can tell you whether the money is working or just moving.
- Funnel stages
- 5
- Campaign types
- 9
- Checked against the platform
- 14 September 2026
5 funnel stages9 campaign typesChecked Sept 2026
Why it is worth running
The channel you already run, run properly. Structure, auction economics and every campaign type.
Google is where the competition is most expensive and where the easy gains have already been taken. That is exactly why it has to be run precisely. At the budgets our clients run, a quality score you have not earned is paid for in cash on every click, for as long as the campaign runs, and structure decides what the platform's automation is even allowed to learn.
Most of the money in a large Google account is not lost in bids. It is lost in three places: a structure the automation cannot learn from, a quality score nobody has worked on, and conversion tracking that quietly reports the wrong thing.
We start with the audit because it is the only honest way to find out which of those applies to you, and because you keep the findings either way.
Full funnel
Every stage, and what it is judged on
Demand capture
- They are
- Someone is already looking for what you sell and is comparing options
- We run
- Search on tightly themed intent, Shopping for retail, brand defence where competitors are bidding on you
- Judged on
- Cost per qualified lead or sale, impression share lost to rank and to budget
Demand creation
- They are
- The problem is recognised but your category is not yet on the list
- We run
- Demand Gen across YouTube, Discover and Gmail, and Video for reach against defined audiences
- Judged on
- New customer rate and assisted conversions, never view-through alone
Consideration
- They are
- Actively evaluating, visiting, comparing, not yet buying
- We run
- Remarketing lists layered on Search, Display against site and customer-match audiences
- Judged on
- Return rate and cost per returning visitor who converts
Conversion
- They are
- Ready, and choosing where to complete
- We run
- Performance Max against a clean feed, Search on high-intent terms, Local where footfall matters
- Judged on
- Cost per acquisition against margin, not against a blended average
Retention and win-back
- They are
- Bought before, lapsed, or worth more than a first sale
- We run
- Customer Match audiences, feed segmentation by margin, App campaigns where a product is in-app
- Judged on
- Repeat rate and lifetime value by acquisition source
Every campaign type
Grouped by whatthey are for
Checked against the platform on 14 September 2026, because these names change, and a stale campaign name on a paid media site is worse than no page.
Intent
Where someone has already told the platform what they want.
- Search
- Keyword-led capture on query intent. Still the highest-control campaign type in the platform.
- Shopping
- Feed-driven product listings. Performance is decided by feed quality far more often than by bids.
- Local
- Drives visits and calls to physical locations, using Business Profile data.
Automated and feed-led
These hand targeting to the platform. They work when the inputs are clean and fail quietly when they are not, which is why measurement comes first.
- Performance Max
- Runs across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps from one campaign. Needs asset groups and feed segmentation to be steerable at all.
- Demand Gen
- Visual demand creation across YouTube, Discover and Gmail. The replacement for the old Discovery campaigns.
- Smart
- Simplified automated campaigns aimed at small advertisers. Rarely the right tool at the budgets we work at.
Reach and placement
- Display
- Audience and placement buying across the Google Display Network. Useful for remarketing, weak as a prospecting default.
- Video
- YouTube buying against defined audiences and formats, from skippable in-stream to bumpers.
- App
- Installs and in-app actions across Search, Play, YouTube and Display.
Verified 14 September 2026 against Google Ads campaign types, September 2026.
Measurement
How we know it worked
We build all of this for free before you commit to anything.
What the free setup covers- 01Conversion actions audited against what the business actually counts as revenue
- 02GA4 and Google Ads reconciled, with the differences explained rather than ignored
- 03Enhanced conversions and server-side tagging where they materially improve signal
- 04Offline and CRM conversions imported where the sale completes away from the site
- 05Feed health treated as a measurement problem, because for retail it usually is
Questions we get
Asked before,answered plainly
- We already have an agency. Is this worth doing?
- The free audit is designed for exactly that situation. You get a written set of findings you can hand to your current agency. If they fix it, that is a good outcome and it cost you nothing.
- Will you rebuild the account?
- Only where structure is the thing holding it back, and only after we have shown you why. Rebuilding looks like going backwards on a monthly report, which is precisely why it so rarely gets done and so often needs doing.
- Do you work with Performance Max or avoid it?
- We run it, with asset groups and feed segmentation that keep it steerable. Left as a single campaign against an unsegmented feed it will spend efficiently on the traffic you were going to get anyway.