Search advertising run with clear weekly checks

Two separate costs: clicks and management

Running search ads involves two different costs, and it helps to keep them apart when you compare offers.

Ad spend is what Google or Microsoft charges for clicks. It goes on your own card or invoice inside your own account, and you set the ceiling.

The management fee pays for the work: building or restructuring campaigns, keyword and negative keyword lists, ad copy, conversion setup, routine checks and a written summary of what changed. The provider quotes it directly.

What moves the fee is usually the number of campaigns and services, whether you run one platform or both, how much tracking needs fixing at the start, and how often you want changes and reports. A quote that bundles spend and fee into one figure makes it hard to see either.

Negative keywords and the search terms report

The search terms report shows the actual queries that triggered your ads. Reading it is the single most useful routine task in a search account, and it is where wasted clicks become visible.

Each pass sorts terms into three piles. Good terms you are already covering. Good terms worth adding as their own keywords. Poor matches that should become negatives: jobs, salary, training, templates, competitor names you have decided not to bid on, services you do not offer.

Negatives can sit at campaign level, at ad group level, or in shared lists applied across campaigns. A careful manager also checks that a new negative does not block searches you want, because a single broad negative can switch off a whole service line without anyone noticing.

What to ask about tracking and reports

Tracking decides what the account learns from, so it deserves a few direct questions.

Ask which events will be counted as conversions and which will be recorded but left out of bidding. Ask how they will test that a form submission shows up in Google Ads, and how they will notice if it stops. If you use a CRM such as HubSpot or Salesforce, ask whether they plan to import offline conversions or use enhanced conversions for leads, and what they need from you to do it.

For reports, ask to see a sample. A useful one says what changed, why, and what is being watched next. Columns of figures with no notes are harder to act on. Also ask whether you can open the account's change history yourself.

Questions about search ads management

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