Desk fact
Query
Every search term has a job — or it gets a negative.
02 · Paid Search
Paid search agency that treats every query as a line item.
High-intent search is still the closest thing to a purchase order in marketing — if structure, negatives, and landing pages are honest. We run PPC the way finance would: brand vs non-brand split, weekly waste reports, and bids that can see a real conversion, in any market Google or Microsoft sells.
More qualified clicks. Lower CPA. Less wasted match types.
Google AdsMicrosoft AdsQuery hygieneCall + CRM import
- P&L desk
- Reply in one business day
- 30-min working session
Desk fact
Weekly
Wasted-spend kill list, not a CTR highlight reel.
Desk fact
Yours
Your MCC, your history, your change log.
Direct answer
What does a paid search agency do?
A paid search agency — also called a PPC agency — runs Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising so high-intent queries become revenue, qualified pipeline, or booked work. SpikeROAS treats every search term as a line item: it has a job, a margin, and a landing page, or it gets a negative.
I still run paid search because that is where intent shows up with a wallet or a phone number. AI Overviews and AI Mode changed the SERP. They did not retire the auction. Performance Max and AI Max are tools. We use them when they earn their keep and we can still see brand vs non-brand, Shopping vs junk, and which queries actually close.
Markets change CPCs, language, and how people pay. They do not change the operating system. We rebuild structure, fix conversion signal, and send a wasted-spend kill list every week — in any country where Google or Microsoft sells ads. If your last shop reported impression share and ignored close rate, that is the gap this desk is built to close.
Related: performance marketing, lead generation, landing pages, and hardware Google Ads result.
Fit
Who this PPC desk is for
Companies with real search demand who are tired of agencies that optimize CTR while sales starves. The category can be local or global. The scoreboard cannot be vanity.
Home services & trades
Solar, roofing, interiors, HVAC — high CPCs only pay when the query can book a job. Call tracking is not optional, wherever the truck or crew actually works.
Legal, healthcare, finance
Compliant RSAs, tight negatives, and landing pages that match the claim. Volume without qualification is a risk, not a KPI.
Ecommerce & B2B
Shopping and search that protect brand terms, harvest non-brand, and do not let PMax launder branded conversions as a miracle.
Who we will not take
- Accounts that only want more impression share with no SQL or purchase definition.
- Spend so low that Smart Bidding cannot learn in your market — we will say so.
- Teams that refuse call tracking or CRM offline conversions on a lead-gen motion.
- Shops shopping for a pasted keyword list. What converts in one market is a hypothesis in the next.
The leak
Where Google Ads accounts actually bleed
Broad match without a negative system
Broad can work. Broad without weekly search-term hygiene is a donation to Google — in any language the auction serves.
PMax as a black box
If you cannot separate brand, Shopping, and display junk, you do not have a strategy. You have a blended number that feels good and a finance team that should not trust it.
Landing mismatch
The ad promised a quote, a SKU, or a demo. The homepage promised a lifestyle. That click was stolen.
No offline conversion import
Google cannot optimize to SQLs it cannot see. Form fills that never close will look like winners forever.
On the desk
What this paid search retainer includes
Search is the closest thing to a purchase order in marketing — if structure and the page are honest. We do not sell a seven-campaign-type stack because it looks impressive.
Account architecture
Campaigns mapped to intent and margin. Brand defended. Non-brand harvested. Competitors only when the math is not spite.
Query & negative system
Search terms reviewed on a cadence. Shared negative lists. N-grams that keep showing up get a rule, not a shrug.
RSA & asset tests
Headlines and landing tests tied to SQL or purchase — not more uniqueness for the sake of the Google grade.
Shopping & feeds
Product titles, custom labels, and margin-aware bidding. Feed junk is a media problem, not an IT footnote.
PMax with adult supervision
Brand exclusions, asset groups with a job, and search-term insights. Search still owns the queries you cannot afford to guess. If we cannot see value, PMax does not get budget.
Tracking
Enhanced conversions, call tracking, and CRM import. The bid strategy is only as smart as the conversion it is fed.
The work
What we actually do
- Account rebuilds: campaigns, match types, negatives, brand vs non-brand
- RSA and landing-page tests tied to SQL or purchase
- Performance Max and AI Max only when they earn their keep
- Call tracking and CRM offline conversion import
- Query-level waste reports your last agency never sent
Deliverables
You leave with
- Search architecture mapped to revenue
- Negative and query hygiene system
- Weekly wasted-spend kill list
- Offline conversion and enhanced conversions live
Ready to brief the Paid Search desk?
Bring the account. We will tell you what we would negative tomorrow.
Cadence
How the work runs
01
Inventory intent
Map queries to money, not vanity volume.
02
Rebuild cleanly
Structure, tracking, and landing alignment before we scale bids.
03
Harvest and defend
Scale winners. Starve junk. Protect brand terms.
First 90 days
First 90 days in paid search
Days 1–14
Inventory intent
Map queries to money. Pull the waste. Screenshot the tracking gaps. Freeze campaigns that are lighting cash on fire.
Days 15–45
Rebuild cleanly
Structure, negatives, landing alignment, conversion actions that match how sales actually closes. Then Smart Bidding has something true to learn.
Days 46–75
Harvest and defend
Scale winners. Starve junk. Protect brand. RSA tests ship weekly, not quarterly.
Days 76–90
Operating cadence
A search architecture you can brief finance on in five minutes. The kill list is a habit, not a project.
The fork
Paid search: SpikeROAS vs typical PPC shop vs in-house
The difference is usually query hygiene, landing match, and whether close rate is in the bid. Hire us when you need a desk that reallocates search capital weekly.
| Factor | SpikeROAS | Typical agency | In-house |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reporting | Waste by query, brand vs non-brand, SQL or purchase | CTR, CPC, impression share | Often Ads Editor exports nobody reads |
| PMax / AI Max | Only when it earns its keep; brand split visible | One campaign, trust the machine | Turned on after a Google rep demo |
| Landing | Message-match pages on the same desk | Send traffic to the homepage | Dev queue measured in sprints, not days |
| Conversions | Enhanced + offline import + calls | Thank-you-page pixel only | IT ticket, then silence |
| Markets | One operating system. Local queries, language, and CPCs. | One-market playbook with a currency swap | Deep in one market; thin when you expand |
| Account ownership | Yours. Always. | Sometimes theirs — you lose history if you leave | Yours, by definition |
Pricing philosophy
No fake menu. An honest gate.
PPC retainers follow complexity, markets, and spend — not a blog price table. A single-country cleanup is not the same job as a multi-market program. If your search demand cannot fund learning, we will tell you to pause or stay in-house.
- High-CPC categories need enough budget to buy the queries that close — not just the cheap ones. In cheaper auctions we can learn on less. We will say which you are.
- We do not take a percent of spend as a hidden incentive to waste.
- You own the account. History stays if we part ways.
- If we cannot see a path to pipeline or contribution, we will say no. That is cheaper than a bad retainer.
The call
What happens in 30 minutes
- Have Ads access or a recent export. We will look at waste live if you can share.
- Know whether you optimize to leads, SQLs, or revenue — and which markets you sell in.
- Leave with a read: rebuild, freeze, or stay the course.
Client result · Florida
Google Ads for a hardware brand.
A Florida hardware brand needed Google to take more volume without breaking the unit. We rebuilt Shopping and search architecture, then scaled only where ROAS held. Mar–Jun 2026 vs the prior four months: $2.65M spend (+12.69%), 74,169 conversions (+8.50%), ROAS 3.91 vs 3.93. Catalog work on Meta still sits beside it — Google is the scale floor.
- Google Ads architecture — Shopping, search, and brand vs non-brand
- Scale rules: more budget only where ROAS held
- Feed and catalog hygiene so Shopping could take the volume
Google Ads ROAS
3.91x
held vs 3.93
Ad spend
$2.65M
+12.69%
Conversions
74,169
+8.50%
FAQ
Questions we get about Paid Search
What does a paid search agency do?
A paid search agency plans, writes, and optimizes Google and Microsoft Ads so each query maps to revenue or a qualified lead. SpikeROAS adds weekly waste reports, brand vs non-brand splits, landing-page match, and conversion imports — so Smart Bidding is not optimizing to junk.
Do you still run Google Ads in an AI-search world?
Yes. High-intent queries still convert. AI Overviews changed the SERP; they did not kill the auction. We pair paid search with GEO and SEO so you win the classic result, the ad slot, and the answer box — different jobs, one desk.
Will you take over an existing Google Ads account?
Yes. We audit, freeze what is bleeding, and rebuild in place or in parallel. The account stays yours. We do not force a migration into our MCC as a hostage tactic.
What is the difference between a PPC agency and a performance marketing agency?
PPC usually means paid search — Google and Microsoft. A performance marketing agency covers search plus social, video, and often creative. SpikeROAS does both: this page is the search desk; the full P&L lives on performance marketing.
Do you run Microsoft Ads / Bing?
Yes, when the query inventory and CPA justify a second floor. It is not a vanity channel. If Microsoft is a sliver of conversions at twice the CPA, we will say so and keep the budget on Google.
Can you fix Performance Max?
Often. Brand exclusions, cleaner asset groups, feed hygiene, and honest conversion actions. Sometimes the fix is turning it down until search is clean. We will not worship a campaign type because Google named it.
How do you measure paid search success?
Qualified pipeline or contribution — not CTR. Brand vs non-brand is split so you can see if we are buying customers or renting your own name. Waste reports are weekly.
Do you write the landing pages?
We brief and often ship message-match pages with the landing-page and CRO desks. Ads that send a money query to a generic homepage will not get a pass.
Do you run paid search worldwide?
Yes. The operating system is the same — weekly kill / hold / scale against a real conversion. Queries, language, CPCs, and payment are local. We will not paste one market's winners into another and call it a launch.
What budget do I need for a PPC agency?
Enough to exit learning and still test. In expensive auctions that is often a meaningful monthly media line; in others we can learn on less. If the spend cannot teach us anything in your market, we will tell you to wait or stay in-house.
Usually paired with
Other desks on the same P&L
Industries
Where this service actually runs
Further reading
How we actually run it
Paid Search
How to scale Google Ads without losing ROAS (2026)
Most accounts break at the same three points when budget goes up — and one of them changed nine days ago. The ladder, the readiness gate, and the diagnostic table.
14 min read →
Measurement
ROAS vs POAS: why a 4x account can still lose money
A 4x account that loses money is not a bug. It is what happens when you optimize revenue instead of margin. The math, the break-even table, and the tROAS trap that wipes out accounts.
14 min read →
Next step
Audit the search terms that are stealing from you.
Bring the account. We will tell you what we would negative tomorrow.