Your Account at a Glance

Strong foundations, significant opportunity

Your brand, your website, and your position in the local market are all assets. The Google Ads account, however, wasn’t set up to take advantage of them. The campaigns were running without reliable tracking, without negative keywords, and without the structure that Google’s algorithm needs to find the right people.

The good news: none of these issues are permanent. They’re configuration problems, and we know exactly how to fix every one of them. This review covers the five key areas we’ll address, along with a clear plan and timeline.

What was running

Five campaigns have been created in the account over its lifetime. All are currently paused. Here’s what each one delivered:

* “Conversions” in quotes because the tracking configuration means these numbers don’t reflect real enquiries. We explain why below.

Conversion tracking is the foundation everything else sits on. When Google knows what a “good” outcome looks like, its algorithm gets smarter with every click. When it doesn’t, it optimises for the wrong signals and wastes money.

Currently, the account has 7 conversion actions, all counting as primary goals simultaneously. Several of these are inflating the numbers significantly.

Our fix: Purpose-built landing pages on a subdomain with a single, clean conversion action — form submission only. One count per enquiry. This gives Google a clear signal to optimise against, and gives you a cost-per-lead number you can actually use.

Every campaign used broad match keywords with zero negative keywords. This means Google had full discretion over which searches triggered your ads — and much of what it chose was completely off-target.

Based on search term analysis across all campaigns, we estimate 60–70% of total spend went to clicks from people who were never going to sell you a property. Here are real examples from the account:

Top wasted search terms

Our fix: Phrase and exact match keywords only, targeting people who specifically want to sell. Comprehensive negative keyword lists built from this account’s actual wasted spend data — jobs, buying, renting, estate agent brands, property portals, and more.

Well-structured campaigns give Google clear signals about what each ad group is for, which improves ad relevance and Quality Score — and ultimately brings down your cost per click.

Quality Score breakdown

Quality Score is Google’s rating of your ad relevance (1–10). Higher scores mean lower costs and better positions. Almost every keyword in the account currently scores 0.

Most campaigns were set at £1/day — far too low for Google’s algorithm to gather meaningful data. At the cost-per-click rates in this market (£10–40), a £1 daily budget might produce one click every few days, which gives the system nothing to optimise with.

On top of that, smart bidding strategies were active — but with broken conversion tracking, the algorithm was optimising for chat widget opens and phantom page views. No CPC caps were set on any campaign, which meant Google had no upper limit on what it could pay per click.

This is the best part. We looked at every competitor in the North East cash buyer space, and the local landscape is remarkably thin right now.

What we’re building

We’re starting from a clean foundation. Three purpose-built campaigns, each with structured ad groups, dedicated landing pages, and proper tracking. Here’s the full picture:

From here to go-live