Google Ads Management London

Well-run Google Ads London campaigns can bring in enquiries the same day they go live. Someone searches for exactly what you sell, your ad appears, they click, and they call. When it works, it’s the most direct marketing channel there is. When it doesn’t, it’s one of the quickest ways to spend money and get nothing back.

We manage Google Ads for service businesses, local brands and online shops across London and the UK. Our job is simple to describe and harder to do: get you more of the right enquiries, at a cost that makes sense for your business, and show you clearly where every pound went.

You’ll deal directly with the person managing your account. No juniors learning on your budget, no long contracts, and no hidden markup on ad spend.

Whether you are launching your first Google Ads campaign or taking over an account that has stopped performing, we start in the same place: your numbers, your customers and the searches that matter most.

Why Google Ads London campaigns often waste money

Most accounts we audit have the same few problems. None of them are complicated, but together they can waste a large share of the budget:

• Broad match without guardrails. Ads showing for loosely related searches that will never convert.
• No negative keywords. Paying for “jobs”, “free”, “DIY” and “salary” searches when you’re selling a service.
• Everything in one campaign. Different services, areas and budgets lumped together, so nothing can be optimised properly.
• Broken conversion tracking. Google optimising for page views or clicks instead of calls and form fills.
• Sending traffic to the homepage. Visitors have to hunt for what they searched for, and most don’t bother.
• Set and forget. Campaigns built once and then left alone for months.

Fixing these is usually the first thing we do. It’s not unusual for a cleaned-up account to get more leads on the same budget.

Seven ways our Google Ads agency gets you better leads

1. Start with the right searches

We research what your customers actually type into Google, how often, and how much each click is likely to cost. Then we focus your budget on searches with clear buying intent, like “emergency electrician Hackney” or “accountant for small business London”, rather than vague, expensive terms that attract browsers.

2. Structure the account properly

Separate campaigns for separate services, locations and budgets. Tightly themed ad groups so each ad matches the search. This makes it far easier to see what’s working and move money towards it.

3. Write ads that earn the click

Your ad sits next to three or four competitors. It needs to answer the searcher’s question, show why you’re the better choice and give a reason to act now. We test headlines and descriptions constantly, and use every relevant asset: sitelinks, callouts, call buttons, locations, prices and images.

4. Cut wasted spend every week

We review the search terms report regularly and add negative keywords to stop your ads appearing for irrelevant searches. It’s unglamorous work, but it’s where a lot of the savings come from.

5. Send people to the right page

A focused landing page usually converts far better than a general homepage. We’ll recommend changes to your existing pages, or build dedicated landing pages through our web design team, with a clear headline, proof, a short form and a visible phone number.

6. Track what matters

We set up conversion tracking for form submissions, phone calls from ads, calls from your website, WhatsApp clicks and, for shops, purchases with revenue. If you use a CRM, we can import offline conversions so Google learns which leads actually became customers.

7. Use automation, but keep control

Google’s smart bidding and Performance Max can work very well once there’s enough good conversion data. We use them where they make sense, with guardrails in place: sensible targets, brand exclusions, audience signals and regular checks on where ads are really showing.

Which Google Ads campaign types do you need?

There are several ways to advertise on Google. Most businesses only need one or two of them.

• Search campaigns. Text ads on Google search results. The core of almost every account we manage, because they catch people actively looking.
• Performance Max. Google’s automated campaign type that runs across Search, Maps, YouTube, Display and Gmail. Powerful for e-commerce and some lead generation, but it needs good tracking and careful setup.
• Shopping. Product listings with images and prices, for online shops.
• Local Services Ads. “Google Guaranteed” or “Google Screened” listings for certain trades and professions, where you pay per lead rather than per click.
• Remarketing and YouTube. Useful for bringing back visitors and building awareness, usually once search is performing well.

We’ll recommend the mix that suits your business and budget, and explain why.

How much does Google Ads cost in London?

Google Ads runs on an auction, so there’s no fixed price per click. Costs depend on your industry, how many competitors are bidding, the quality of your ads and landing pages, and where your customers are. London is usually more expensive than the rest of the UK because competition is higher. One UK benchmark report puts the cross-industry average at around £2.50 per click, with central London often 20 to 40 percent higher. You can read the full UK Google Ads cost breakdown for sector-by-sector figures.

Legal, finance and insurance clicks can cost several times the average. Local trades and retail are often much cheaper. What really matters is your cost per lead and cost per customer compared with what a customer is worth. We’ll work that out with you before we launch, so we’re aiming for a number that makes business sense.

Our management fee

We charge a clear monthly fee for managing your account, agreed up front. Your ad spend is paid directly to Google from your own account, so you always see exactly what’s going on. We don’t take a hidden percentage, and you own the account and all its data.

Google Ads vs SEO: which first?

If you need enquiries quickly, Google Ads is usually the answer. You can be visible for your most important searches within days. SEO takes longer, often months, but the traffic doesn’t stop the moment you stop paying.

The best approach for many businesses is both: Google Ads for immediate leads while SEO builds organic visibility over time. Your PPC data also tells us which keywords convert best, which makes SEO more focused. And once you rank well organically for some terms, you can often reduce ad spend on them.

Google Ads vs Facebook ads

Google catches people who are already searching. Facebook and Instagram reach people who aren’t looking yet but fit your customer profile. For urgent services and high-intent purchases, Google usually wins. For visual products, impulse buys and building demand, Meta often works out cheaper. Our Google Ads vs Facebook ads guide goes into this in more depth, and we also run Meta ads if you’d like one team managing both.

Local targeting across London

London isn’t one market. Someone in Croydon is unlikely to hire a plumber based in Barnet. We set location targeting by borough, postcode or radius, adjust bids for the areas that convert best, and exclude places you don’t serve. For multi-location businesses, we can run separate campaigns for each branch with their own budgets and ads.

We also connect your Google Business Profile so your address, reviews and directions can appear alongside your ads. That builds trust and often lifts click-through rates for local searches.

Quality Score: why better ads cost less

Google doesn’t just give the top spot to whoever bids the most. It also looks at how relevant your ad is to the search, how likely people are to click it, and how good the landing page experience is. That’s summed up in Quality Score.

A higher Quality Score usually means lower costs per click and better ad positions. So the work that makes your Google Ads more useful to searchers, like tighter ad groups, more relevant ad copy and faster, clearer landing pages, also makes them cheaper. It’s one of the reasons a well-run account can outperform a competitor spending more money.

Performance Max: when it helps and when it doesn’t

Performance Max is Google’s all-in-one campaign type. You give it budgets, goals, creative and audience signals, and it decides where and when to show your ads across Google’s network. For e-commerce brands with good product data and plenty of sales, it can be excellent.

For lead generation, it’s more mixed. Without strong conversion tracking and a way to tell Google which leads were genuine, Performance Max can chase cheap, low-quality form fills. We use it carefully: with offline conversion imports where possible, brand exclusions so it doesn’t take credit for searches you’d win anyway, and regular checks on lead quality. Often we run it alongside standard Search campaigns rather than instead of them.

Call tracking for phone-led businesses

For many London service businesses, the phone is still where the money is. If you can’t see which calls came from Google Ads, you’re only seeing part of the picture. We set up call tracking so you can see calls from ads, calls from your website after an ad click, and how long each call lasted. Short calls can be filtered out, so Google learns from real conversations rather than wrong numbers.

This matters for budget decisions too. A campaign that looks weak on form fills might be your best source of phone enquiries.

Google Ads for online shops

For e-commerce, we focus on profit, not just return on ad spend. That means clean product feeds in Google Merchant Center, sensible product grouping by margin and best-sellers, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns structured around what you most want to sell, and search campaigns for high-value product and category terms.

We also check that Google’s reported revenue lines up with what Shopify or WooCommerce shows. When the numbers don’t match, we find out why before increasing spend. Done well, PPC can be a dependable, scalable source of new customers for an online shop, rather than an expensive gamble.

Working with an in-house team or another agency

Some clients already have a marketing manager, or a separate agency handling SEO or social. That’s fine. We’ll share search term data, keyword insights and landing page findings so every channel benefits. If you’d rather run your own Google Ads day to day, we can also offer a one-off audit, a rebuild, or a monthly consultancy call to keep your account on track.

Our Google Ads process

1. Discovery call. Your services, margins, best customers, competitors and goals.
2. Audit or research. We review your existing account, or research keywords and competitors for a new one.
3. Tracking. Conversion tracking, call tracking and consent set up properly before launch.
4. Build. Campaigns, ad groups, keywords, negative keywords, ads and assets.
5. Landing pages. Recommendations or new pages, so the click turns into an enquiry.
6. Launch. We go live with a budget agreed in advance and watch closely in the first weeks.
7. Optimise. Weekly search term reviews, bid adjustments, ad tests and monthly strategy calls.

Who our PPC agency London clients are

• Trades and home services: builders, electricians, plumbers, roofers and cleaners.
• Health and wellbeing: private clinics, dentists, physios and aesthetics.
• Professional services: accountants, consultants, solicitors and property firms.
• Education and training: course providers, tutors and schools.
• E-commerce: independent shops and growing online brands.
• B2B: specialist service providers who need qualified enquiries rather than volume.

We also manage campaigns for clients elsewhere in the UK and in Pakistan, using the same process.

What to expect in your first 90 days

Weeks one and two are about foundations: tracking, account structure, keywords, ads and landing pages. Campaigns go live, usually with conservative bids while we gather data.

Weeks three to six are where most of the learning happens. We cut keywords that spend without converting, add negatives, test new ad copy and shift budget towards the campaigns bringing in leads.

Weeks seven to twelve are about scaling what works. With enough conversion data, smart bidding becomes more reliable, and we can look at adding Performance Max, remarketing or new services and areas. By the end of the first quarter you should have a clear view of your cost per lead and how Google Ads fits into your wider marketing.

Reporting in plain English

Every month you’ll get a short report covering spend, clicks, conversions, cost per lead, which campaigns and keywords performed best, what we changed and what we’re testing next. No padding, no jargon. If something isn’t working, we’ll say so and explain how we’re fixing it. You can also have access to a live dashboard if you like checking numbers more often.

Compliance and consent

Google requires advertisers targeting the UK and European Economic Area to respect user consent. We set up Consent Mode and make sure your cookie banner and tracking work together correctly, so your conversion data stays as complete as possible while staying within UK GDPR and PECR. We also follow Google Ads policies closely, particularly in restricted sectors like healthcare, finance and legal services, to keep your account in good standing.

Signs your Google Ads account needs a fresh pair of eyes

• Costs keep rising but leads don’t.
• You can’t tell which keywords or campaigns bring in customers.
• Your agency sends reports full of impressions and clicks, but never talks about enquiries.
• You’re relying entirely on Google’s automated recommendations.
• Your ads show for searches that have nothing to do with your business.
• You don’t have access to your own account.

If any of those sound familiar, a quick audit will usually show where the money is going.

Why choose Proper Digital?

We’re a small team of specialists, not a sales-led agency. That means senior people working on your account, quick responses, and honest advice, including telling you when Google Ads isn’t the right fit. We’d rather keep a client for years by getting results than sign you up for twelve months and hope for the best.

Google Ads London FAQs