Hire a Google Ads consultant who actually runs your account.
Twenty years in search. Google Partner since 2013. I run Google Ads accounts for UK SME owners directly — no account managers, no juniors, no decks. You hire me, I do the work.
Most of the owners I work with arrived here after firing an agency. The pattern is almost always the same.
Burned by an agency?
The symptoms are remarkably consistent. By the time we get on a call, the owner has usually seen most of these.
Direct-hire fixes the cause of every one of them. You're hiring the person who does the work. No-one is running fifteen other accounts in parallel by the time the work gets to yours. No-one is between you and the account.
- The account manager who onboarded you is gone. The current one is your third or fourth in two years.
- Reports look impressive. The bank balance disagrees. Vanity metrics up, revenue flat or down.
- Performance has slid for months. Explanations are vague. The proposed fix is always "more budget."
- Performance Max is "running" but no-one can show you the asset groups, audience signals, or shopping feed health.
- The last structural review of the account was at onboarding. Auto-apply has been doing the rest.
- Tracking has never been audited. It's almost always broken in at least one significant way.
- You've never spoken to the person who actually runs your account.
What the free 15-minute audit actually covers.
I look at the account before the call. On the call I tell you what's wrong, in plain English, with the worst issues first. No slides, no breakout sessions, no "next steps" pitch.
- Tracking and measurement. Whether your conversions are firing, whether they're double-counting, whether what you think is a conversion really is one. This is usually where the biggest problems are.
- Account structure. Whether the campaigns, ad groups, and keywords are organised in a way that lets the algorithm work — or whether they're fighting each other.
- Wasted spend. Search terms, audiences, and placements eating budget for no return.
- Performance Max, if you're running it. Asset groups, audience signals, shopping feed health, and whether the campaign is quietly cannibalising your branded search.
- The obvious quick wins. What I'd fix in week one of an engagement, in priority order.
No sales pitch on the call. If we're not a fit I'll say so. If you have everything you need already, I'll tell you that too. The audit is useful even if you never hire me.
One hundred five-star reviews, one direct-hire client at a time.
Excellent work. David knows his way around Google Ads, and works collaboratively where needed, to understand service-specific details to achieve the solid end objective. Will certainly continue working with David at this rate.
Excellent. If you are looking for an expert in SEO and Google Ads, David is your man.
David is very knowledgeable in Google Ads and comes highly recommended.
Tracking first, then structure, then optimisation.
The short version: anything done before tracking is verified is wasted work. The longer version, four principles deep:
Tracking and measurement first.
Most accounts I audit have tracking problems — double-counting, missing conversions, wrong values, broken deduplication. Until these are fixed, nothing else is reliable. Including whatever your last agency told you was "working."
Account structure that matches the business.
Campaigns built around your actual margins and what actually sells, not the default segmentation a tool suggests. Performance Max contained, not running wild. Brand and generic separated. Search terms reviewed by hand.
Optimised by hand, not by Google's suggestions.
Auto-apply turned off. Recommendations reviewed, not actioned by default. Decisions made by someone with twenty years of context, not by the platform that benefits from you spending more.
Ads first, SEO when the data tells us where.
I run both. The reason I lead with Google Ads is that ads tell you in three months what SEO takes three years to learn — which keywords actually convert into customers. Once we know, SEO can target those keywords specifically. Integrated, not bolted together.
Good fit, bad fit, honest about both.
Good fit. Owner-operated UK businesses with room to grow. Service businesses, ecommerce brands with their own products and meaningful margins, B2B companies with real lead value. Owners who care about the numbers and want a competent person on their side. Budgets typically £1,500–£20,000+ per month in ad spend.
Bad fit. Dropshippers and arbitrage businesses where margins don't support paid search. Anyone selling £15 products on tight margins. Owners hunting for guaranteed rankings, guaranteed ROI, or specific results by a specific date — I won't promise those, and anyone who will is lying. Affiliate sites and lead-resellers. Any business model that relies on Google looking the other way.
If you're not sure where you sit, the free audit is the way to find out.
From first call to running your account.
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Free 15-minute audit call
I look at your account beforehand, we talk on the call, you get a plain-English read on what's wrong and what's worth fixing. No commitment.
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Paid discovery or full audit
If we agree to work together, the next step is a structured audit of the account. Usually one to two weeks. You get a detailed write-up of what needs to change and the projected impact.
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Ongoing engagement
Most clients move to a monthly retainer where I run the account day-to-day. Some prefer fixed-scope projects — rebuild, migration, Performance Max setup. Either works.
Most engagements end up being long-term. The clients I've had for the longest are nine years and counting.
Things owners ask before booking.
How is direct-hire different from hiring a Google Ads agency?
You hire me. I do the work. There are no account managers, no project coordinators, no juniors learning on your account. The same person who audits your account is the person who runs it on day 90, day 365, and day 1,000.
How much does Google Ads consultancy cost?
It depends on the size and complexity of your account. Most ongoing management engagements sit between £750 and £3,500 per month. One-off audits and project work are quoted separately after the free 15-minute call.
What's the minimum monthly ad spend you'll work with?
There's no hard floor, but the maths usually starts to make sense from around £1,500 per month in ad spend. Below that, my fees are a large proportion of total spend and you may be better off with a smaller scope of engagement or a one-off audit to get the account into a state you can run yourself.
Can you take over an existing Google Ads account from another agency?
Yes. About half the accounts I work on are existing accounts that need a clean-up. I start with a full audit, fix tracking first, then rebuild structure without losing the historical data. Transitions are usually painless — Google Ads accounts move with the right access permissions, no rebuild required.
Do you also do SEO?
Yes. I've worked in search since 2007 — five years in SEO before I moved into Google Ads at the start of 2013. I generally recommend Google Ads first because ads tell you within months which keywords convert; SEO targets those keywords once we know. See the SEO page for more on how that works in practice.
How long until I see Google Ads results?
Tracking and quick-win fixes show effect within weeks. Structural improvements take 30 to 90 days to compound as Google's bid algorithms re-learn the cleaner signal. Anyone telling you "results in two weeks" without seeing your account first is selling, not assessing.
My Google Ads tracking might be broken — is that a problem?
Tracking is almost always the first thing fixed. Most accounts I audit have at least one significant tracking issue — duplicate conversions, missing values, broken deduplication, or events firing on the wrong actions. Fixing this is the foundation of every engagement. It's also why I'm not interested in "performance" claims that haven't been audited at the tracking layer first.
Do you require a long-term contract?
No. Engagements are month-to-month with 30 days' notice on either side. Most clients stay for years because the work compounds, not because they're locked in.
A free 15-minute audit of your Google Ads.
I'll look at your account before the call. On the call I'll tell you what's actually wrong, what I'd fix first, and roughly what it's worth. No sales pitch, no commitment.