The agency takes 20% and sends a PDF
Paid as a cut of your spend, so the incentive is to spend more. The report is clicks on a graph, and nobody can say what one enquiry cost.
- Home
- Google Ads management
Paid advertising · Google & Meta
Google Ads that pay for themselves.
Search ads for the people who need an electrician or a plumber this week — every call and form counted, the budget moved toward what actually brings work. Your account, your card, our management.
Sound familiar?
Where the Ads money usually goes
Ads has a bad name with tradies for a reason — and it's rarely the platform. Nobody was counting.
Google's recommendations spending your money
"Auto-apply" is on in a lot of accounts and nobody remembers agreeing to it. Keywords broadened, bids raised in the background; you find out on the invoice.
Ads landing on the homepage
Someone types "switchboard upgrade" and lands on a page about everything you do. They leave; you've paid for the click. The landing page is half the result.
"We tried Ads, it didn't work"
Usually it was never measured. No call tracking, no form conversion — so after a month there was nothing to show either way, and the budget got cut.
One client's numbers
What "measured" looks like
One electrical contractor we manage, anonymised. Their result, not a promise.
The honest version
For one electrical contractor we manage, cost per measured enquiry fell from about $400 in September 2026 to about $85 in October 2026, with 104 measured enquiries in October (phone taps, forms and emails) — September's tracking only started mid-month.
What's included
Management, not a monthly PDF
One of the services we run from one desk, so the landing page, the tracking and the account get the same pair of eyes.
Your account stays yours
In your name, on your card. We manage it through a manager link you can revoke any day; if we ever part ways, the account, its history and its data stay put.
The set-up month
An audit of what's there, then the groundwork most accounts never had.
- Conversion tracking for forms and calls
- Auto-applied recommendations switched off
- One campaign per service line, negatives in
- Landing pages tuned before the ads go live
Every month
Search terms read line by line, junk negatived. Budgets moved toward the campaigns bringing enquiries. Disapprovals fixed. One recorded test — a headline, a landing page, a bid — so the account learns something every month.
Landing pages built to convert
One page per service: phone number at the top, a short form, the suburbs you cover. Fast, and logging where every enquiry came from.
Meta ads read and reported alongside
Running Facebook or Instagram ads too? We read them through partner access and report them beside Google — one cost per enquiry across both. Managed as well, if you want.
A plain-English monthly report
Cost per enquiry by campaign, what we changed, what we're testing next — and which enquiries deserve a follow-up email. Written for the owner, not another agency.
What we won't do
Three things, said up front
- No Performance Max until search is producing steady enquiries
- No cut of your ad spend — a flat fee
- No lock-in — month to month
How it works
Review, build, run
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01
Review
A free look at your existing account, or at your market if you've never run ads: what's spent, what's tracked, what Google has auto-applied, and a sensible starting budget. A plain-English summary either way.
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02
Build
The set-up month. Tracking for calls and forms goes in first and gets tested. Auto-apply off, one campaign per service line, negatives in, landing pages tuned. Ads go live once an enquiry can be counted.
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03
Run
Every month: search terms reviewed, budgets moved, disapprovals cleared, one recorded test, and the report with cost per enquiry by campaign. Trade businesses are where we do most of this.
What it costs
Flat fees. Ad spend goes to Google.
What you pay — we're not GST-registered, so nothing is added. Any ad spend we recommend goes to Google directly on your card; it never passes through Tidewire.
Set-up month
$1,000 one-off set-up
The groundwork, done once, charged with the first month of management.
- Audit of the existing account or market
- Conversion tracking for calls and forms, tested
- Auto-applied recommendations switched off
- One campaign per service line, negatives, landing pages tuned
Google Ads management
$500 a month · spend up to $2,000
For spend up to $2,000 a month with Google; $750 a month above that.
- Search-term review and negatives every month
- Budgets moved toward what brings enquiries
- Disapprovals fixed, one recorded test
- Report with cost per enquiry by campaign
Meta ads
$300 a month · Google + Meta $950
On their own, or alongside Google Ads at $950 a month for both.
- Campaigns in your own Meta Business portfolio
- Reported beside Google — one cost per enquiry
- Creative and audience changes each month
If you're not happy in the first 90 days, every monthly fee you've paid comes back — set-up fees and advertising spend excepted. Every price is on one page; the Ads-cost guide covers what a tradie should expect to spend.
Why an IT business runs Ads
The click, the page, the phone.
One person.
Ads only work when the click lands on a fast page, the form posts and the call gets counted. When one person runs your website, your tracking and your Ads account, a broken form is found the same day — not at the end of the quarter.
- Tracking you can checkEvery enquiry logged with where it came from, in your own account.
- A flat feeNo percentage of spend, no reason to make the budget bigger.
- Your account, your dataAds, Analytics and Search Console in your name; access you can revoke.
- No lock-inMonth to month, with the 90-day guarantee on management fees.
FAQ
Fair questions
What's the minimum ad spend?
We don't set a floor, but search ads need enough clicks to learn from, so a tiny budget mostly buys uncertainty. The free review suggests a starting budget for your trade and area, paid to Google on your own card. Our fee is $500 a month for spend up to $2,000, $750 above.
Do you take a percentage of our spend?
No. The fee is flat — the same whether you spend $800 or $1,800 with Google. Spending more never earns us more, so we'll only suggest a bigger budget when the campaigns are bringing enquiries at a cost you're happy with — and the report will show it.
How soon do enquiries start?
Ads can be live by the end of the set-up month, once conversion tracking is proven. The first weeks are learning — reading what people actually searched, cutting the junk, moving budget to what's working. We'd ask for three months before judging cost per enquiry, and you see the numbers every month.
Should we do Ads or SEO?
Ads bring the phone to life this week and stop the day you stop paying. SEO takes months and keeps going without a per-click bill. Need work now? Start with Ads. Can you wait? Start with local search and SEO. Most trades end up with both.
Can you take over our existing account?
Yes, and we'd rather — the history is worth keeping. You grant our manager account access, revocable any time, and we start with an audit: what's spent, what's tracked, what Google has auto-applied. Nothing is deleted; campaigns are paused and rebuilt only where it's clearly worth it.
What do you need from us?
Access to your Google Ads account, or ten minutes to create one in your name. Your website, or the go-ahead to build landing pages. The jobs you want more of and the ones you don't. Someone who answers the phone. A short chat each month over the report.
Want to know what an enquiry costs you now?
Send us your Ads account or what you're spending and we'll say, in plain English, what's measured and what isn't. Free, no obligation.
Book a free 15-minute chator call 0439 649 099 · email hello@tidewire.com.au