Google Ads Guide: Stop Wasting Money & Get Customers

So, you’ve started a new business and everyone's telling you to 'just run some Google Ads'. Sounds dead simple, doesn't it? It's also the fastest way I know to set fire to a pile of cash. Most new businesses I see come to us after they've already wasted thousands on clicks that went nowhere. The problem isn't usually Google Ads itself; the platform is just a tool, an amplifier. The real problem is that it's amplifying a broken strategy.

Before you even think about logging into a Google Ads account, you need to get your own house in order. If your offer is weak, your website is confusing, and you don't know who you're selling to, all you're doing is paying Google to show people how unprepared you are. Let's talk about how to do this properly, starting with the stuff that actually matters.

Before You Touch Google Ads, Is Your Offer Even Viable?

I'm going to be brutally honest. The number one reason paid ad campaigns fail has almost nothing to do with keywords or bidding strategies. It’s the offer. It's either not valuable enough, or it's being shown to people who couldn't care less about it. A lack of demand.

I see founders all the time, brilliant people, who spend ages building what they think is the perfect product or service. They obsess over features. Then they launch, chuck some money at ads, and... crickets. They built something nobody has an urgent need for.

So, how do you avoid this? You have to stop thinking about what you sell and start thinking about the problem you solve. A specific, urgent, expensive problem for a specific group of people.

Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a demographic. "Women aged 25-40" is useless. "Companies with 50-200 employees" tells me nothing. You need to define them by their nightmare. What keeps them up at night? What's the career-threatening disaster they're trying to avoid?

For a fractional CFO service, the nightmare isn't 'needing better accounting'. It's a founder staring at the ceiling at 3am, terrified they won't make payroll next month while their competitors are splashed across the news for raising another round. You don't sell spreadsheets; you sell a good night's sleep.

Once you know the pain, you can build an offer that acts as the painkiller. Turn your service into a product. Give it a name, clear deliverables, and a defined process. I remember a video production company that struggled to get clients. They were selling "brand films". Nobody woke up thinking, "I need to buy a brand film today". They changed their offer. They targeted fast-growing tech startups who were brilliant but struggled to get noticed. Their new offer? The "1-Day Filming Process" designed to create a pipeline of social media content that builds an audience. It was specific, it solved an urgent problem (being invisible), and it was tangible.

And for god's sake, get your website sorted first. It has one job: to convince someone to take the next step. Most of the websites I see for new businesses are a cluttered mess. And that "Request a Demo" or "Contact Us" button? Get rid of it. It's arrogant. It screams, "Give me your time so I can sell to you". It's a high-friction, low-value ask.

Your offer has to provide a moment of undeniable value, for free. It needs to solve a small part of their problem to earn you the right to solve the whole thing. For a SaaS business, this is a genuinely free trial, no credit card. I've worked on so many SaaS campaigns, and the ones that fly are the ones that let the product prove its own value. We got over 5,082 trials for one client at just $7 a pop on Meta because they had a fantastic, easy-to-use free trial. For a service business, it’s a free, automated audit, a 20-minute strategy session, or a valuable resource. It’s a taste of your expertise that leaves them wanting more.

Forget Clicks. Do You Even Know What a Customer is Worth?

The next rookie mistake is obsessing over the wrong metrics. Cost Per Click (CPC), Click-Through Rate (CTR)... they're vanity metrics. They don't pay the bills. Who cares if you're getting £0.50 clicks if none of them ever turn into paying customers? The real question isn't "how low can my cost per lead go?" but "how high a cost per lead can I afford to acquire a great customer?"

To answer that, you need to understand your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). This is the total profit you can expect to make from a single customer over the entire time they do business with you. If you don't know this number, you're flying blind.

The calculation is pretty straightforward, but most business owners never do it. Let's break it down.

Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What's a customer worth to you each month? Let's say it's £200.
Gross Margin %: What's your profit on that revenue? Let's say it's 75%.
Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of customers do you lose each month? Let's say 5%.

Here's how that looks in a simple calculation:

In this example, every new customer is worth £3,000 in gross margin to you. Now you have a powerful number. A healthy business model often aims for a 3:1 LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio. This means you can afford to spend up to £1,000 to acquire a single customer and still have a very profitable business.

Suddenly, that £50 lead from Google doesn't seem so expensive, does it? If your sales process converts 1 in 10 qualified leads into a customer, you can afford to pay up to £100 per lead. This is the maths that unlocks intelligent, aggressive growth. It frees you from the tyranny of cheap clicks and lets you focus on what really matters: acquiring high-value customers.

So, How Do You Actually Set Up a Campaign That Finds Customers?

Alright, you've got a killer offer and you know your numbers. Now we can talk about Google Ads. The goal here is not to get as many clicks as possible. The goal is to get clicks from people who are actively looking to solve the problem you're an expert in.

Keywords: The Difference Between Intent and Interest

When you set up a new campaign, Google will push you towards using 'Broad Match' keywords. Do not listen to them. This is the fastest way to burn your budget. It's like telling Google, "Here's my wallet, please find the most tangentially related, non-commercial searches you can and spend all my money on them."

You need to be a surgeon. You need to focus on keywords that show clear buying intent. Think about what someone would type into Google when they have their credit card figuratively in hand. They're not just browsing; they're looking for a solution now.

Here’s the difference:

See the difference? The first column is research. The second is a cry for help. You want to bid on the cries for help. Start with Phrase Match and Exact Match keywords. This gives you control.

And you must, must, must use negative keywords. These are the terms you don't want to show up for. For our electrician, negatives would be 'free', 'jobs', 'course', 'training', 'DIY'. Every pound you save by not showing up for irrelevant searches is a pound you can spend on a real potential customer.

Ad Copy: A Message They Can't Ignore

Your ad is a tiny billboard on a very busy motorway. It needs to grab attention and speak directly to the searcher's pain. Don't just list what you do. Talk about the transformation you provide.

Two frameworks I always use:

1. Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS): Perfect for services. You identify their pain, twist the knife a little, then present your service as the solution.

2. Before-After-Bridge (BAB): Great for products or SaaS. You paint a picture of their current frustrating world (Before), show them the ideal future (After), and position your product as the Bridge to get there.

Let’s write some ads:

Your Ads Are Great. Why Is No One Converting?

You can have the best ads in the world, but if they click through to a landing page that's a confusing disaster, you've just wasted your money. The landing page is where the conversion happens. This is probably the most common failure point I see.

Your website is not your landing page. A landing page has one job and one job only: to get the visitor to take one specific action. That's it. No navigation bar to other pages, no links to your blog, no social media icons. Just a clear headline, compelling copy, and a big, obvious button.

The headline on your landing page should match the message in your ad. If your ad promises an "Emergency Electrician", your landing page headline better say "Emergency Electrician Services". This is called message match, and it reassures the user they're in the right place.

Then, your copy needs to expand on the promise. Use bullet points to list benefits (not features), show testimonials or reviews from happy customers, and add any trust badges like certifications or awards. People are skeptical online; you need to prove you're legit.

And finally, that Call to Action (CTA). As we discussed, "Request a Demo" is weak. Your CTA should be a high-value, low-friction offer. "Get Your Free Quote Now", "Start Your Free Trial", "Download the Free Guide", "Book Your Free 20-Min Strategy Call". This is what we do, our free account review is an easy way for potential clients to get immense value and see our expertise firsthand. It works.

How Much Should I Spend, and What Should I Expect?

This is the "how long is a piece of string" question. The real answer is: it depends. It depends on your industry, your location, and your competition. But I can give you some real-world benchmarks from campaigns we've run.

For a service business, you need to be prepared for the cost per lead. We're currently running a campaign for an HVAC company in a competitive US city, and they're seeing a cost of around $60 per qualified lead. Is it worth it? Absolutely, because one job can be worth thousands. On the other end of the spectrum, we ran ads for a home cleaning company in the UK and got their cost down to just £5 per lead. A campaign for a medical job matching SaaS was a huge success, we reduced their Cost Per User Acquisition from a painful £100 down to just £7.

The initial budget isn't about getting a massive return. It's about buying data. I usually recommend a new business starts with at least £500-£1000 per month for ad spend. This is enough to get statistically significant data on which keywords, ads, and audiences are working. You won't see a massive ROAS on day one. B2B sales cycles can be particularly long. It's a process of testing, learning, and optimising.

Your cost per conversion will be influenced by a lot of factors. Here's a rough idea of what to expect for leads or signups, based on our experience:

If your CPL is coming in way higher than you can afford based on your LTV calculation, you have a problem with your targeting, your ad copy, or, most likely, your landing page and offer.

What's the Plan to Actually Make This Work Long-Term?

Getting this right isn't about finding one magic bullet. It's about getting all the pieces of the puzzle right. It's a system. If one part is broken, the whole thing falls apart. You need to be methodical and treat it like a science experiment: test, measure, learn, repeat.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below. This is the checklist I'd use if I was starting a campaign from scratch for a new business.

As you can probably tell, this isn't just a case of flicking a switch and watching the leads roll in. It's a complex system that requires expertise, patience, and a methodical approach to avoid the common pitfalls that cause most new advertisers to fail.

Doing it yourself means you'll be learning with your own money, and those lessons can be very expensive. Getting it right from the start means you can accelerate your growth and start seeing a return on your investment much, much faster.

If you're feeling a bit out of your depth and want a professional eye on your strategy before you spend another pound, we offer a completely free, no-obligation consultation. We'll look at your business, your offer, and tell you exactly what we'd do to build a profitable campaign. There's no hard sell, just honest, actionable advice from experts who do this all day, every day.