PPC Management
PPC management is the operation of paid search and paid social budgets against qualified enquiries rather than clicks. Account structure follows how you actually sell, negative keywords are maintained weekly, and spend that is not producing enquiries is turned off.
Spend judged on qualified enquiries
Paid search is the one channel where the feedback loop is fast enough to be honest. Within a month you can say which terms produced enquiries, which produced form fills that went nowhere, and which produced nothing at all. Most accounts we inherit have never had that question asked of them.
The two failures are consistent. Campaigns structured around a product taxonomy rather than commercial intent, so that high-intent and research traffic compete for the same budget. And automation running without negative-keyword discipline, which is how budgets disappear into terms nobody would have chosen.
OMAV runs accounts against cost per qualified enquiry. Form fills are counted, but they are not the number that decides whether a campaign continues.
What PPC management covers
Six workstreams, run weekly and reported monthly.
Account structure
Campaigns organised by commercial intent rather than product taxonomy, so that budget for people ready to buy is not competing with budget for people still researching.
Search-term review
The search terms report read by a person every week, with negatives added. This is unglamorous and it is the single highest-return activity in the discipline.
Landing page alignment
The page matching the promise in the ad, because a mismatch is paid for twice — once in the click and once in the impression of carelessness it leaves.
Conversion tracking
Tracking that records enquiry quality rather than form submissions alone, including offline outcomes where the sales process can supply them.
Bidding and automation
Automated strategies used where the data supports them and constrained where it does not, with negatives and audience signals maintained so the automation has something honest to learn from.
Waste reporting
A monthly statement of spend, cost per qualified enquiry, and what was turned off — including our own recommendations that did not work.
How a PPC engagement runs
Audit
Account structure, search terms, negatives, tracking accuracy and landing page match reviewed, with waste quantified rather than described.
Fix tracking
Conversion tracking corrected first, because every subsequent decision depends on it and inherited tracking is wrong more often than not.
Restructure
Campaigns rebuilt around commercial intent, with budgets separated so that research traffic cannot consume high-intent spend.
Operate weekly
Search terms reviewed, negatives added, bids and budgets adjusted, and underperforming terms turned off rather than optimised indefinitely.
Report monthly
Spend, cost per qualified enquiry, what changed and what we stopped doing, with the reasoning stated.
PPC next to organic channels
What paid search does that organic cannot, and the reverse.
| Dimension | PPC | SEO | AI visibility |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to first enquiry | Days | 2 to 6 months | 3 to 9 months |
| Cost behaviour | Stops when spend stops | Compounds and decays slowly | Compounds slowly |
| Control over position | Direct | Indirect | Very limited |
| Feedback speed | Weekly | Monthly | Quarterly |
| Best used for | Testing demand, filling gaps | Durable commercial coverage | Being named in answers |
| Wrong when | Deal value cannot support CPC | Nobody is searching | You are not yet notable |
What PPC cannot do
PPC cannot fix a proposition. It delivers people who were already looking and puts them on your page. If the page does not make the case, or the offer is not competitive, paid traffic converts the problem into a measurable cost rather than solving it. That measurement is useful, but it is a diagnosis rather than a treatment.
It also cannot work below a minimum spend. Reaching statistical signal on your main terms within a month requires enough volume to distinguish a pattern from noise. Below that threshold you are paying for randomness, and we would rather say so than take the retainer and report on it monthly.
- Structure campaigns by commercial intent, not by product taxonomy.
- Weekly search-term review with negatives is the highest-return activity available.
- Fix conversion tracking before making any other decision.
- Report cost per qualified enquiry, and report what was turned off.
Questions buyers ask about this
What is the minimum sensible spend?
Enough to reach statistical signal on your main terms within a month, which depends on your market’s click costs rather than on a universal figure. Below that threshold the data cannot distinguish a pattern from noise. We will tell you when a budget is too small to manage honestly rather than accepting the retainer.
Do you use Performance Max and broad match?
Where the data supports it, and always with negatives maintained weekly and audience signals kept current. Automation is effective when it has accurate conversion data and constraints to learn from. Automation without negative discipline is the most reliable way to spend a budget on irrelevant terms.
How do you define a qualified enquiry?
With you, at the start, in terms your sales process can apply. Usually it means a contactable person with a real requirement in a segment you serve. Form fills that fail that test are counted separately, because a campaign optimising toward them will produce more of them.
Should we run PPC and SEO together?
Usually yes, and for a specific reason beyond coverage: paid search tells you within weeks which commercial queries actually convert, which is the best available input to where organic investment should go. Running them in isolation wastes that signal.
What happens when we stop spending?
The enquiries stop, immediately and completely. That is the fundamental difference from organic work and it should shape how the two are budgeted. PPC is a tap; SEO and AI visibility are an asset that appreciates and depreciates slowly.
Marked up as FAQPage structured data, matching the visible text exactly.
Still not sure this is the right service?
Answer four questions and we will tell you which one fits — or that none of them do.
Tell us what you are trying to fix.
A short conversation about the objective, the constraints and the timing. If we are not the right fit, we will say so.