Google Ads
Ads That
Burn spend.
Ads that return it.
Most Google Ads budgets get eaten by clicks that never convert. We build and manage campaigns measured in qualified leads and revenue, not impressions. Direct access, transparent reporting, no agency layers.
Super-proud to call these clients
The problem with most Google Ads spend
Most businesses running Google Ads don’t have a traffic problem. They have a conversion problem.
Click-through rates look healthy. Impressions are up. The monthly report is full of green arrows. But when you follow the money back to the bank account, the story changes: budget is being spent on searches that were never going to convert, bids are being optimised for the wrong actions, and the landing pages were built for a brochure website, not a paid campaign.
We take the opposite approach. Every campaign we run starts with one question: what is this ad spend meant to produce? Leads. Bookings. Revenue. Then we reverse-engineer the account, the tracking, the creative, and the landing page to serve that outcome.
What you get with Zed Studio
Every plan includes full-stack Google Ads management. Not a checklist of tasks, a system built around the outcomes you need.
01
Keyword and match-type strategy
Deep keyword research mapped to buyer intent, not search volume. Negative keyword lists built from real search term data, updated weekly. Match types selected deliberately rather than left on broad and prayed over.
02
Ad copy and assets
Responsive search ads written by humans, tested against one another, and refined monthly. Sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, and image assets built out to maximise your Ad Rank without raising your bid.
03
Conversion tracking and GA4
Proper server-side and client-side tracking that actually matches what your CRM or booking system says. Linked Google Ads and GA4 accounts, conversion actions tied to business value, not vanity events.
04
Landing page optimisation
05
A/B testing and weekly optimisation
Ad variants, landing page elements, bidding strategies, and audience signals tested on a continuous cycle. Winners kept, losers dropped, data fed back into the next round.
06
Transparent reporting
A live marketing dashboard you can check any time, plus a monthly report that explains the numbers in plain English. No black-box “trust us, it’s working”. You will always know what we spent, what it produced, and what we changed.
From audit to scale in six steps
We take on a maximum of 3 new Google Ads accounts per quarter so we can do them properly.
1
Discovery
We start with a conversation, not a pitch deck. What are you selling, to whom, at what margin, and what does “a good month” look like? If Google Ads isn’t the right channel for you, we’ll tell you.
2
Audit
If you have an existing account, we audit it end to end: wasted spend, tracking gaps, structural issues, quality score, landing page match. If you’re starting from scratch, we skip this and go straight to build.
3
Build
Campaign structure, ad groups, keywords, negatives, ad copy, assets, tracking, and landing page work. We set the account up so it’s easy to optimise later, not just easy to launch now.
4
Launch
Campaigns go live in a controlled way with conservative budgets, watching the real-world data before we scale. No “set and forget”.
5
Optimise
Weekly bid management, search term review, negative keyword additions, ad variant testing, and budget reallocation across campaigns based on performance.
6
Report
Monthly reports that tie spend to revenue, plus a live dashboard you can check whenever you want. Monthly strategy calls to discuss what’s next, not just what happened.
Case study
£3,163 into £26,494
How we built an 8.35× ROAS campaign for a national travel insurance brand.
The client is a UK national travel insurance brand, headquartered in Cambridge, serving customers across the country. They came to us running Google Ads but without the internal capacity to manage the account properly day-to-day.
Our starting point was a full account audit. Three priorities came out of it: restructure the campaigns around buyer-intent keyword groups rather than broad category terms, rebuild conversion tracking so every lead mapped back to campaign source, and split branded from non-branded spend so we could see what the ads were actually producing.
Ad spend
Revenue
ROAS
Qualified Leads
What worked
Target CPA smart bidding applied once we had enough conversion data to support it, allowing Google's models to allocate budget more efficiently than manual bidding.
Aggressive negative keyword management on the non-branded campaign, stripping out low-intent traffic before it ate budget.
Weekly bid adjustments and continuous ad copy refinement based on search term performance.
Where we're focused next
Scaling the volume-driven non-branded campaign now that the ad strength and structure are dialled in.
Broad match keyword expansion with Smart Bidding, targeting a further 13% conversion lift at similar ROAS.
Landing page experiments to lift conversion rate on colder traffic.
Paid + AI search
Paid search is changing. We're already there.
The Google SERP you optimised for three years ago doesn’t exist any more. AI Overviews now sit above traditional results for a growing share of queries. Performance Max campaigns blur the line between search, display, YouTube, and Gmail. Match types work differently than they used to. Smart Bidding does things no human could do manually, but only if the conversion data feeding it is clean.
Most agencies are still running accounts like it’s 2022. We’re not. We build campaigns that work with the way Google’s Performance Max and Smart Bidding updates are shifting the SERP, with tracking that feeds machine learning properly, and with creative that earns attention in a results page that’s more crowded than ever.
This runs alongside our organic approach to AI-era search. See our SEO Cambridge page for the organic side, because paid and organic aren’t separate channels any more. They’re one surface.
Pricing
Transparent Google Ads pricing
Most UK agencies hide their pricing behind “get in touch” forms. We don’t. All plans include conversion tracking setup, weekly bid management, monthly reporting, a live dashboard, and direct access to your account lead. No long contracts. Pricing excludes VAT and your ad spend budget.
Starter
+ £99 one-time setup
Ad spend
£1,000 – £2,499/mo
- Google Ads audit and discovery
- Conversion tracking setup
- 6 hrs/month on campaigns
- Weekly bid management
- Fortnightly check-ins
- Display and remarketing
- Landing page optimisation
- Monthly reporting
- 3-month minimum
Boost
+ £199 one-time setup
Ad spend
£2,500 – £4,999/mo
- Everything in Starter
- Full audit and discovery
- Full conversion tracking
- 9 hrs/month on campaigns
- Weekly account check-ins
- A/B testing
- 3-month minimum
Growth
+ £299 one-time setup
Ad spend
£5,000 – £7,499/mo
- Everything in Boost
- Full conversion audit
- 11 hrs/month on campaigns
- Dedicated account manager
- Enhanced remarketing
- Google Merchant setup (£199 add-on)
- 6-month commitment
Scale
+ £499 one-time setup
Ad spend
£10,000+/mo
- Everything in Growth
- 20+ hrs/month on campaigns
- Priority response time
- Bi-weekly strategy calls
- Performance Max strategy
- Multi-campaign portfolio
- 6-month commitment
Not ready to talk? Get your free Google Ads Audit.
A personalised review of your Google Ads account covering account structure, wasted spend, conversion tracking, quality score, and competitor positioning. Not automated. Reviewed by a real person.
- Account structure and waste audit
- Conversion tracking health check
- Quality score and ad strength review
- Competitor ad positioning
- Quick-win recommendations and next steps
- Delivered within 24 hours. By a real human. Not a bot.
Your ad spend deserves better than guesswork.
Running Google Ads in-house is a full-time job most teams can’t afford to do properly. Running it with an agency that disappears after the kick-off call is worse. We sit somewhere different: experienced enough to actually move the numbers, hands-on enough that you’ll know what we’re doing and why.
No layered account managers. No quarterly black-box reports. Just your campaigns, your numbers, and a strategist you can actually reach.
Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about working with us on Google Ads.
Our Google Ads management is built around one principle: every pound of ad spend should be working toward measurable business outcomes. We track performance continuously and report transparently, giving you clear insights into what your spend is producing, where it’s coming from, and what we’re changing week to week.
How much should I budget for Google Ads?
For a Google Ads search campaign in a competitive UK sector, we typically recommend a minimum of £1,000/month in ad spend to produce statistically meaningful results. Below that, there isn’t enough conversion data for Google’s machine learning to optimise against, and you’re effectively running a test rather than a campaign. Our Starter tier begins there, with most clients landing in the £2,500 to £7,500 range where Google’s bidding algorithms have enough volume to really perform.
How long until I see results?
Search campaigns can produce leads within the first week if the account is structured well and the landing page is up to it. Meaningful ROAS data, the kind you can plan a business around, typically takes 60 to 90 days. We’ll show you progress weekly, but we’d rather set honest expectations than promise miracles.
Do I own my Google Ads account?
Yes, always. We work in your Google Ads account, not ours. If you ever leave, you take your account, your history, and your campaign structure with you. We never hold your advertising hostage.
Is there a long contract?
Starter and Boost run as rolling monthly retainers after the first three months. Growth and Scale require a six-month initial commitment because that’s realistically how long it takes to get the optimisation flywheel properly turning. After that, they roll monthly.
How does Google Ads work alongside SEO?
They should be working as one channel, not two. Paid ads give you immediate visibility for high-intent terms you can’t rank organically for yet. SEO builds long-term, compounding traffic that isn’t dependent on ongoing ad spend. The shared ranking data, audience insights, and landing pages make them far more effective together than apart. See our SEO Cambridge page for how we approach the organic side.
What if Google Ads isn't right for my business?
We’ll tell you on the discovery call. Google Ads isn’t the right channel for every business, and we’d rather lose a sale than take on a client we can’t get results for. If we think your budget is better spent on SEO, Meta, or fixing your website first, that’s what we’ll recommend.
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Ready to get started?
If you’re serious about standing out online, we’re ready when you are. Let’s make it happen.