Google Ads UK: A Founder's Setup Guide

Most new businesses in the UK approach Google Ads with the same strategy they'd use for buying a lottery ticket: throw a bit of money at it and hope for the best. And just like the lottery, it's a surefire way to end up with nothing but an empty wallet. Google Ads isn't magic. It's an amplifier. If you point it at a weak offer, a confusing website, or a poorly defined customer, it will only amplify your failure, faster and more expensively than you can imagine.

The truth is, a successful Google Ads campaign is built long before you ever log into your account. It's built on a foundation of solid business maths, a deep understanding of your customer's problems, and a structure that forces Google to find you the right people. This isn't a guide on which buttons to click. This is a framework for setting up your first Google Ads campaign in the UK so that it doesn't bankrupt you in the first month. We'll walk through the bits most agencies don't talk about, because it's the hard work that actually gets results.

So, what's this 'foundation' you keep talking about?

Right, let's get this out of the way. Your product is not your offer. Your service is not your offer. A list of features is definitely not your offer. An offer is the complete package of value you present to a customer to solve a painful, urgent problem. Most businesses get this wrong. They talk about what they do, not what they solve.

Think about it like this. Nobody wakes up in the morning thinking, "I'd love to buy some accounting software today." They wake up terrified, thinking, "I have no idea where my cash is going, and I'm worried I can't make payroll next month." The first statement is about a product; the second is a nightmare. Your offer needs to be the solution to the nightmare.

We use a simple framework for this: Problem-Agitate-Solve. For a UK-based IT support company, it looks like this:

Problem: Your team is constantly getting bogged down with small IT issues, wasting hours of productive time.

Agitate: Every minute an employee spends trying to fix a printer is a minute they aren't helping a customer or closing a sale. How much is that lost productivity costing you every month? £1,000? £5,000?

Solve: Get unlimited, instant IT support for your entire team for a fixed monthly fee. We solve 99% of problems in under 15 minutes, so your team can get back to doing what you actually pay them for. Predictable costs, zero headaches.

See the difference? We're not selling "IT support". We're selling "predictable costs and reclaimed productivity." Before you even think about keywords, you need to nail this down for your business. What nightmare are you solving?

How do I know what I can afford to spend?

This is probably the single most important question, and almost nobody does the maths before they start. They pick a budget out of thin air, like £500 a month, and wonder why it doesn't work. You need to stop asking "How cheap can I get a lead?" and start asking "How much can I afford to pay for a great customer?" The answer is in your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

LTV tells you how much profit a customer is worth to you over their entire relationship with your business. Once you know that, you can work backwards to figure out what you can afford to spend to get one, which is your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC).

Here’s the basic formula:

LTV = (Average Revenue Per Customer Per Month * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Customer Churn Rate

Let's take a UK subscription box company as an example. They charge £30 a month, have a 60% gross margin, and lose 5% of their customers each month (churn).

LTV = (£30 * 0.60) / 0.05 = £18 / 0.05 = £360

So, each customer they acquire is worth £360 in profit. A healthy business model aims for an LTV to CAC ratio of at least 3:1. This means they can afford to spend up to £120 (£360 / 3) to acquire a single new customer. All of a sudden, seeing a £10 Cost Per Click doesn't seem so scary if you know your numbers.

Use this calculator to figure out your own numbers. Don't skip this bit, its' probably the most important part of this whole guide.

Okay, I've done my homework. How do I actually build the campaign?

Finally. Now we can get into Google Ads itself. For a new business in the UK, with a limited budget and no data, there is only one campaign type you should even consider: Search. That's it.

Google will try to push you towards Performance Max (PMax). It sounds great - "let our AI do all the work!" It's a black box that will happily spend your entire budget on low-quality display traffic and app installs without telling you where the money went. It's fantastic for businesses with huge budgets and tons of conversion data. For you, it's poison.

The beauty of Search is that you are targeting intent. You aren't trying to interrupt someone scrolling through social media. You are putting your ad in front of someone who has literally just typed into Google that they have the exact problem you solve. They are actively looking for a solution. This is the lowest hanging fruit, and it's where you have to start. Many businesses find that if they stop wasting money on the wrong campaign types, their performance improves overnight.

Here are the non-negotiable settings for your first campaign:

-> Objective: Choose 'Leads' or 'Sales'. Don't choose 'Website traffic' or 'Brand awareness'. You're telling Google what you want. Be specific.

-> Networks: This is critical. When setting up, Google will automatically opt you into "Search Partners" and the "Display Network". You must untick both boxes. Search Partners are a collection of low-quality search engines, and the Display Network will show your text ads on random websites and apps. It's a guaranteed way to waste 20-40% of your budget on junk clicks.

-> Locations: Start specific. If you're a plumber in Leeds, don't target the whole of the UK. Don't even target the whole of Yorkshire. Target Leeds and maybe a 10-mile radius. You can always expand later. Go narrow first.

-> Bidding: Ignore all the fancy options. Start with 'Maximise Clicks'. I know, it sounds wrong. You want conversions, not clicks. But in the first week or two, Google has no data on who converts for you. You need to give it data. Maximise Clicks will get you traffic to your landing page so the pixel can learn. Once you have 15-20 conversions, you can switch to 'Maximise Conversions'. Don't start with Target CPA, it won't work without data.

How should I structure my Ad Groups and Keywords?

This is where 9 out of 10 DIY campaigns fall apart. People dump hundreds of unrelated keywords into one ad group and write a generic ad. This is called 'laziness' and Google will punish you for it with high costs and low visibility.

You may have heard of a structure called SKAGs (Single Keyword Ad Groups). The idea was to have one keyword per ad group for ultimate relevance. With Google's changes to how keywords match, this is now outdated and a nightmare to manage. Instead, you should use tightly themed ad groups.

An ad group should contain a small number of very closely related keywords (5-10 max) that all share the same intent. This allows you to write an incredibly specific ad that speaks directly to that search. The rule is simple: if you would need to write a different ad for a keyword, it needs to be in a different ad group.

Here is what that looks like in practice for a UK law firm specialising in employment law.

For your keywords, stick to Phrase Match and Exact Match only. Broad Match is what Google recommends because it spends your money fastest. It will match your keywords to all sorts of irrelevant searches. Avoid it like the plague until you're an expert.

-> "phrase match keyword": Will show for searches that include the meaning of your keyword. So "employment lawyer London" could show for 'find an employment lawyer in London' or 'best London solicitor for employment law'. This is your workhorse.

-> [exact match keyword]: Will only show for searches that have the exact same meaning or intent as the keyword. So [employment lawyer london] would show for 'lawyer for employment london' but not 'workplace dispute solicitor london'. This is for your highest-value, most specific terms.

The most important part of keyword management is the Negative Keywords list. This is a list of terms you do NOT want your ads to show for. You should build a starting list before you even go live. For our law firm, this would include terms like 'free', 'jobs', 'training', 'course', 'salary'. You find these by looking at your Search Terms Report every single day for the first few weeks and adding any irrelevant search terms that triggered your ads. This single activity will save you more money than anything else.

My campaign is built. What about the landing page?

Right, this is a big one. You could have the best Google Ads campaign in the world, perfectly structured with amazing ads. But if you send that expensive, hard-won traffic to your homepage, you might as well just set fire to a pile of cash. The ad's job is to get the click. The landing page's job is to get the conversion. They are two seperate but equally important jobs.

A landing page is a dedicated, standalone page built for one purpose and one purpose only: to get a visitor to take a specific action. That action could be filling out a form, calling you, or buying a product. But it can only be ONE action.

Your homepage is a terrible landing page. It has a navigation bar with ten different places to go, it talks about your company history, it has links to your blog... it's a mess of distractions. A good landing page has no main navigation. There are only two ways out: hit the back button, or convert.

The most important principle is message match. The headline of your landing page should be almost identical to the headline of the ad they just clicked. If they searched for "unfair dismissal solicitor" and clicked an ad that said "Unfair Dismissal Solicitor UK", the landing page better say "Expert Unfair Dismissal Solicitors" right at the top. This reassures the user they are in the right place and they haven't made a mistake. It sounds obvious, but almost no one does it.

And your call to action needs to be better than "Contact Us" or "Request a Demo". These are high-friction, low-value offers. Why not offer a "Free 15-Minute Case Review" or "Download Our Free Redundancy Rights Guide"? Give them some value first. Solve a small part of their problem for free to earn the right to solve the whole thing. If you want to know more, we have a complete step-by-step guide for UK founders building their first Google Ads campaign which goes into more detail on landing pages.

How do I even know if it's working?

By tracking conversions, of course. Running Google Ads without conversion tracking is like flying a plane blindfolded. You have no idea if you're gaining altitude or heading straight for a mountain. A conversion is the valuable action you want a user to take on your site - a form submission, a phone call, a purchase.

You MUST set this up before you spend a single penny. Without it, you can't tell which keywords, ads, or ad groups are driving results. You can't use any of Google's smart bidding strategies, and you have no way of calculating your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).

Setting it up involves placing a small piece of code on your website. The best way is to use Google Tag Manager (GTM), which acts as a container for all your tracking codes. You'd set up a Google Ads conversion tag in GTM and have it 'fire' on your thank-you page (the page people see after they fill out your form). This tells Google Ads, "Hey, we got one!"

It sounds technical, and it can be a bit fiddly, but it is non-negotiable. If you're not confident doing it yourself, this is the one thing it's worth paying someone for a couple of hours to set up correctly. It will pay for itself a hundred times over.

It's live! What now?

The first 30 days are about data collection and pruning. Don't make drastic changes every day. Let the data build up so you can make informed decisions. Here's your rhythm:

Daily (for the first two weeks): Check your Search Terms Report. This is your number one priority. What are people *actually* typing to trigger your ads? Add any rubbish to your negative keyword list immediately. This is the fastest way to stop wasting money.

Weekly: Review your keyword performance. Are any keywords getting lots of clicks but no conversions after spending a decent amount (say, 2-3x your target cost per lead)? Pause them. Are some ads getting a much lower Click-Through Rate (CTR) than others in the same ad group? Pause them and write a new variation to test against the winner.

After 15-20 Conversions: Now's the time to switch your bidding strategy from 'Maximise Clicks' to 'Maximise Conversions'. Google's algorithm now has enough data to understand what a converting user looks like for your business, and it will start hunting for more of them.

It's a process of continuous, small improvements. You trim the fat, double down on what works, and keep testing. If you're wondering which advertising platform is best for your UK business, the answer is always the one you can measure and optimise effectively.

This sounds like a lot of work... when should I get help?

It *is* a lot of work. And that's why so many people fail at it. They treat it like a set-and-forget vending machine when it's really more like tending to a garden. It needs constant attention.

You should absolutely try to run it yourself at first. It will force you to understand your customers, your numbers, and your offer on a much deeper level. But there will come a point where your time is better spent working *on* your business, not *in* your Google Ads account.

That's the time to consider hiring an expert. A good agency or freelancer won't just click the buttons for you; they'll bring strategy, experience from hundreds of other accounts, and a rigorous testing methodology that you simply don't have time to implement. They can often find opportunities and savings that pay for their own fee many times over. When you get to that stage, it's worth knowing how to properly vet a Google Ads expert to avoid getting burned.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

Getting Google Ads right is a game of inches, not miles. It's about doing a dozen small things correctly and consistently. If you follow this framework, you'll be ahead of 90% of your competitors in the UK who are still just buying lottery tickets. You'll be building a predictable, scalable machine for acquiring new customers.

If you've implemented all this and are ready to scale, or if you'd just rather an expert handle it from day one, we offer a completely free, no-obligation strategy session where we can look at your business and build a tailored plan. It's often the quickest way to see what's truly possible.