Google Ads for Small Business | The Painful Truth About PPC
Spoiler: I don’t offer PPC services. But when a client lit their own campaign on fire, I grabbed the extinguisher. Here’s how that went.
When I recently started working with a client, they mentioned me running a PPC Adwords campaign for them. And I was upfront with them that I’m not a lover of PPC campaigns.
The painful truth about PPC? I see it as gambling. Sure, it has its place in a well-rounded SEO campaign – it’s just not my bag. For context, I don’t even do the lottery.
It’s not in my skill bank. I’m no stranger to it, but I never feel entirely comfortable with the platform. More importantly, I prefer to ensure my clients receive real value from the skills I do have.
Certainly, there’s a whole host of marketing services I offer as a virtual assistant, and you’ll find that PPC isn’t actually one of them.
However, before long, my client had unfortunately got themselves into a pickle with a campaign they’d set up internally, and being the sucker I am for a rescue mission, I pulled a lemon face, and said, “Fine, I’ll take a look.”
GoogleAds: Fishing in a Big Sea
So the first thing to understand about a PPC campaign with Google is that the Ggod (my playful nickname for the Behemoth we call Google) likes to cast its net wide! Think seabed trawler wide, and you get the idea.
And you pay for all those fishies in your net as well as the old boots, manky plastic bottles, shopping trolleys, and so on. This is regardless of whether you wanted them or not.
You don’t get to choose what you take back on land. You get lumbered with the whole catch.
So basically, your job when setting up a PPC campaign is to do the exact opposite of what Ggod is advising you to do. Sounds bonkers, doesn’t it? Yet, Ggod applies a whole different logic to PPC keywords versus organic ones.
“Your sole mission is to make sure the Ggod net catches only the fish you want and not the whole goddamn sea.“
Ggod’s ‘Campaign Learning’: The Roulette Wheel of Advertising
Now, once you set up that fateful campaign, for the next week, Ggod leaps into what it calls ‘campaign learning.’ This is pretty much the equivalent of a sweaty-palmed gambler betting big on the roulette wheel at the local casino.
The money Ggod spends will make your eyes water as it chews through, and beyond your daily budget on the premise that it will all balance out at the end of the month.
All you can do is hold onto your helm, have a strong cup of chamomile tea and pray for campaign learning to come to a swift end.
If you’re lucky, it’ll calm down. And when it does, you’ll be left plugging all the holes in your campaign you didn’t know you had.
There will be red mist, a whole tonne of expletives, and you’ll be scratching your head wondering how Ggod somehow decided that ‘dance shoe’ and ‘running shoe’ were the same thing, even when you’ve locked your keywords down tighter than a submarine hatch using ‘exact’ or ‘phrase’ match.
If you let it create ads for you, you might even find your snow boots ad showing up in Honolulu for someone who’s searching for an ice bucket.
The Cure: Negative Keywords
And so, you have to start creating a list of negative keywords, simply because Ggod has decided to unlearn everything it knows about organic keywords during its learning of your campaign. You could call it selective amnesia. I call it making bank.
Even when the traffic and the wins are slow out there, Ggod will get to the end of the day, cash your remaining budget for 10p’s, and launch it all into the penny pusher, and you’ll maybe get 10p back.
Ah, so satisfying… for a five-year-old.
A few examples of negative keywords that actually help:
“free” – if you don’t want bargain hunters.
“kids” – if you don’t sell to parents.
“snow boots” – if you sell sandals.
Think Long-Term, Like That Tight Auntie
With Ggod, you need to be that tight auntie who, in 2025, hands over £1 to their teenage nephew and tells him not to spend it all in one shop. Only when the kid still has it a year later can you be a bit more generous and Sellotape another 50p into their birthday card.
Know Your Benchmarks
- Even when your click through is good (4-10% for search ads) 3.17% being the average
- Even when your conversion rate is in range (2-12% for search) 3.75% average
- Even when your cost per click is acceptable
You’ll still need to calculate your ROI at the end of the day. The numbers might not always look pretty at first, and the campaign may feel like a bit of a gamble. But keep tweaking, keep learning, and most of all, keep spending!
Don’t Skip the Strategy
Going into a PPC campaign without knowing what you’re willing to pay per click, per conversion, or how those conversions translate to actual money in the bank? That’s a one-way ticket to Brokesville.
Budget Time as Well as Money
If you’re short on time and resources, just beware. PPC isn’t a “set it and forget it” type of deal. It’s more like an old FM radio, you need to keep dialling it in to get the perfect signal. This takes time because every time you adjust that radio dial, Ggod starts the learning all over again. And if you tweak too fast or too often, things can spiral out of control before you even know what’s working.
Set Clear Goals
Set timelines, a budget you’re really okay with spending (not just in theory) and key performance indicators (KPIs) that make sense for your business. And expect to lose some cash on the way to optimising. This isn’t failure – it’s part of the process.
“Expect to lose some cash on the way to optimising. This isn’t failure – it’s part of the process.”
Organic Still Matters
Whilst PPC isn’t a replacement for some good organic SEO, once you find the right balance, it can bring solid returns for areas you’re not currently ranking in, if you haven’t lost too much money and all your hair getting there.
Final Analogy (Because I Can’t Help Myself)
Best way to think of it is like this. When you start with GoogleAds, Ggod gives you a leaky boat, your job is to keep sailing and plug it until you find the sweet spot that keeps you afloat. This is exactly why I don’t list PPC among my services. But if your campaign’s tanking and you need someone to patch the hull while you rethink your route, I’ve got duct tape and the chamomile tea.
Need someone who doesn’t gamble with your budget? That’s me. I bring the strategy, a waft of lavender and the duct tape.