Solved: Google Ads Account Structure in LA (Data Inside)

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! I've had a look at your situation in Los Angeles. It's a common problem, especially in a market as competitive as LA. A lots of businesses get tangled up in their Google Ads account, focusing on the wrong things and wondering why the leads just aren't coming through. You're right to question your account structure, but the real issue usually goes a bit deeper.

I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance based on my experience. The secret isn't a magical account structure, but a completely different way of thinking about who your customer is, what they're worth to you, and what you're actually offering them once they click your ad. Get that right, and the structure almost builds itself.

We'll need to look at your customer, not your keywords...

Right now, you're probably thinking about your Google Ads account in terms of services and keywords. "Plumbing Services," "Electrical Repairs," "Roofing Contractors." This is how most people do it, and it's why most people fail. You're entering a bidding war against every other company in LA doing the same thing, with the same generic message. You're fighting over scraps.

You need to forget the sterile, demographic-based profile like "homeowners aged 35-65 in West LA." This tells you nothing of value and leads to ads that are completely generic and ignored. To stop burning cash, you must define your customer by their pain.

You need to become an expert in their specific, urgent, expensive, career-threatening (or at least, day-ruining) nightmare. Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a problem state. Let's make this real:

• Generic Demographic: A homeowner in Beverly Hills.
• Nightmare ICP: David, who's hosting a massive fundraiser at his Beverly Hills home in 48 hours, and his entire ground floor has just lost power because of a faulty circuit breaker. He's not price-shopping. He's desperate for a reliable, professional, and fast solution. He'll pay a premium for peace of mind.

• Generic Demographic: A family in Santa Monica.
• Nightmare ICP: Sarah, a working mum in Santa Monica, whose water heater just burst, flooding her garage. The kids need to get ready for school, and she has a critical work meeting in an hour. She needs someone who can answer the phone *now*, promise a quick arrival, and sound competent and trustworthy.

See the difference? David and Sarah aren't searching for "electrician" or "plumber." They're searching for "emergency 24/7 electrician beverly hills" or "burst water heater repair santa monica now." Their search terms are dripping with urgency and pain. When your ad speaks directly to that specific nightmare, you're no longer just another listing. You're the solution they've been praying for.

This deep understanding of their pain dictates everything. It tells you the exact keywords to bid on, the precise ad copy to write, the photos to use on your landing page, and the offer you need to make. Before you touch your Google Ads account again, you need to map out 2-3 of these Nightmare ICPs for your business. Who are they? Where in LA do they live? What specific disaster are they facing? What are their biggest fears in that moment (e.g., being ripped off, a shoddy repair, the problem not being fixed today)?

Doing this work first is the single biggest step you can take towards fixing your lead generation problem. Everything else flows from it.

I'd say you need to know your numbers before you spend a penny...

The next mistake I see businesses make is obsessing over the wrong metric. They want the lowest possible Cost Per Lead (CPL). This sounds logical, but it's a trap. Chasing a low CPL forces you to bid on broad, low-intent keywords. It attracts price-shoppers, tyre-kickers, and people who will drain your time with questions before ghosting you. It's a race to the bottom.

The real question isn't "How low can my CPL go?" but "How high a CPL can I afford to acquire a truly great customer?" The answer lies in its counterpart: Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). You need to know what a customer is actually worth to your business over the long term. Only then can you make intelligent decisions about how much you're willing to pay to get one.

Let's break down the maths. For a service business, it looks something like this:

• Average Job Value (AJV): What's the average revenue from a single job?
• Jobs Per Year (JPY): How many times does an average customer call you back in a year?
• Customer Lifespan (CL): How many years does an average customer stick with you?
• Gross Margin % (GM): What's your profit margin after labour and materials, but before overheads?

The calculation is: LTV = (AJV * JPY * CL) * GM %

Once you know your LTV, you can determine your target Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). A healthy ratio for a service business is often 3:1 (LTV:CAC). So if your LTV is $9,000, you can afford to spend up to $3,000 to acquire that customer. If your sales process converts 1 in 5 qualified leads into a paying customer, you can afford to pay up to $600 for a single, high-quality lead. Suddenly that $60 lead from Google doesn't seem so expensive, does it? It looks like a bargain. This is the maths that unlocks aggressive, intelligent growth.

Use the calculator below to get a rough idea of your own LTV. Play with the numbers. See how a small increase in repeat business or job value can massively impact what you can afford to spend on marketing.

You probably should scrap your current campaign structure...

Now we can finally talk about your account structure. But you should see now that the structure isn't the cause of your poor results; it's a symptom of a weak strategy. If your strategy is to target "everyone in LA," your structure will be a mess. If your strategy is to target "David in Beverly Hills with a dead circuit breaker," the right structure becomes obvious.

I'd say you want to throw out your old service-based campaigns. You'll rebuild your account around the Nightmare ICPs you identified. This is how you achieve hyper-relevance and a high Quality Score, which Google rewards with lower costs and better ad positions.

Here's what a simple, powerful structure looks like:

• Campaigns = Urgent Problems. Each campaign targets one specific, high-pain problem. Not "Plumbing," but "Emergency Water Heater Repair." Not "Electrical," but "Emergency Power Outage Service." This lets you control the budget for your most valuable lead types.
• Ad Groups = Problem + Location/Qualifier. Within each campaign, you create ad groups for different variations of the problem or for specific high-value locations in LA. This allows for incredibly specific ad copy.
• Keywords = The Exact Language of Pain. Your keywords should be the long-tail phrases your desperate customer is typing into their phone at midnight.

This approach allows you to match your ad and landing page perfectly to the searcher's intent. Someone searching "24/7 electrician beverly hills" sees an ad that says "24/7 Electrician in Beverly Hills" and lands on a page that reaffirms you serve their exact area and can solve their exact problem immediately. The alignment is perfect, and their confidence in you skyrockets before they've even picked up the phone.

You'll need a message they can't ignore...

Getting the right person to click your ad is only half the battle. Now we arrive at the most common failure point in all of local service advertising: the offer and the landing page. Sending high-intent traffic to a generic homepage or a basic "Contact Us" form is like fumbling the ball on the one-yard line. Its a disaster.

Your ad copy needs to use the Problem-Agitate-Solve framework. It needs to mirror the conversation already happening in the searcher's head.

• Problem: State their nightmare directly. "Power Out in Beverly Hills?"
• Agitate: Twist the knife a little. "Don't let a faulty breaker ruin your plans."
• Solve: Present your business as the fast, easy solution. "24/7 Service. Licensed & Insured. Call Now for Immediate Dispatch."

Then, the landing page must continue that conversation seamlessly. It should have a headline that matches the ad, feature trust signals (reviews, logos of associations, "serving LA for X years"), and, most importantly, have a low-friction offer.

The "Request a Quote" form is high-friction. It screams "I'm going to have to wait, get a high-pressure sales call, and then get spammed forever." In their moment of panic, your customer wants certainty and speed. You must give it to them. Your offer’s only job is to deliver a moment of undeniable value or relief.

Better offers for a local service business:

• A "Call Me Back in 5 Minutes" Widget: This offers immediate human contact without them having to wait on hold.
• Online Booking: Allow them to see your calendar and book a specific time slot right there on the page.
• A Simple Quote Calculator: For non-emergency work, a tool that gives a ballpark estimate builds immense trust.
• A Prominent Phone Number: For emergencies, make your phone number the biggest thing on the page and make it clickable.

Even a small improvement in your landing page's conversion rate can have a massive impact on your actual cost to acquire a customer. Use the calculator below to see how improving your offer (which increases conversion rate) makes your advertising far more profitable, even if the cost per click stays the same.

This is the main advice I have for you:

I know this is a lots to take in, and it's a fundamental shift from how most people approach Google Ads. It requires more strategic work up front, but the payoff is a predictable system for generating high-value leads, instead of just gambling with your ad spend. To make it clearer, I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

As you can see, fixing your Google Ads isn't about tweaking a few settings. It's about implementing a robust, customer-centric system. This takes time, expertise, and continuous testing to get right.

You could definately implement this yourself, but it can be a steep learning curve. Working with a specialist means you can get this entire system built and optimised far more quickly, avoiding costly mistakes along the way and letting you focus on what you do best: running your business and serving your customers.

If you'd like to discuss how we could apply this methodology specifically to your business, I'd be happy to schedule a free, no-obligation strategy session with you. We can go through your current account together and map out a precise plan of action.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh