Search that pays its way.
Senior-led Google Ads across Search and AI Max, Shopping, Performance Max, Demand Gen and YouTube, from a Google Partner, judged on what each campaign returns to the business.
Automation needs better inputs.
Google Ads now makes many of its own decisions. Smart Bidding, broad match, Performance Max and AI Max for Search, which takes a Search campaign beyond its keyword list, choose which auctions you enter and what you pay, and they choose on the signals you give them. An account that records a form fill worth nothing and a sale worth thousands as the same conversion will spend to win more of the cheaper one.
So most of the work sits underneath the campaigns. Conversion values that reflect margin or lead value, offline conversions imported from your CRM so bidding learns which leads became customers, a product feed that describes what you actually sell, and Consent Mode set up correctly. With those in place, the automation is aiming at the right target.
What a Google Ads engagement covers.
- Search campaigns, keyword and match-type strategy
- AI Max for Search, with its search terms, ad text and landing pages reviewed
- Shopping and Performance Max, with feed work in Merchant Center
- Demand Gen and YouTube
- Conversion values set to margin or lead value
- Offline conversion import from your CRM
- Enhanced conversions and Consent Mode
- Server-side tagging through Google Tag Manager
- Search term control and budget pacing
One senior operator in the account.
The person who writes the strategy is the person in the account every week, reading search terms, adjusting bids against value and checking that what Google records matches what your business banks. No junior handover sits between the plan and the platform.
Every account and tag stays under your ownership. Reporting compares each month with the same month a year earlier, so a seasonal swing is not mistaken for performance, and a tracking fault is reported as a tracking fault, never as a collapse in results.
Google Partner, with server-side tracking built on a verified Stape partnership.
Google Ads questions.
Do you use Performance Max?
Where it earns its place. Performance Max relies on the signals it is given, so it is set up with accurate conversion values, a clean product feed and clear exclusions, and judged on what it adds alongside Search rather than on its own reported figures.
What changed when Google moved campaigns to AI Max?
In April 2026 Google announced that Search campaigns using Dynamic Search Ads, automatically created assets or the campaign-level broad match setting would be upgraded to AI Max for Search from September 2026, and that new Dynamic Search Ads campaigns could no longer be created. If your account used any of the three, it may now be matching new searches, writing its own ad text or choosing its own landing pages, so those search terms, headlines and pages are reviewed against what actually converts.
Can our ads appear in Google's AI Mode?
In the markets where Google runs ads in AI Mode, its conversational search, it draws them from Search campaigns using AI Max or broad match, from Shopping and from Performance Max. Whether to open an account to those placements is decided on its own search term and conversion data rather than on the promise of new reach.
Can Google Ads learn which leads become customers?
Yes, if that outcome is sent back to it. Offline conversion import tells Google which leads became sales, matched by the ad click or by enhanced conversions for leads, so bidding can favour the searches that produce customers rather than form fills.
Do I need Consent Mode?
If you advertise to people in the UK and use Google's advertising tags, Google's EU user consent policy applies to you, and Consent Mode is how your tags pass each visitor's cookie choice to Google. Set up properly, it lets Google model conversions it cannot observe, within what each visitor allowed.
Will I own my Google Ads account?
Yes. The account, the tag manager and the data are yours throughout. The consultancy is granted access to them, never the other way round, so the history stays with your business whatever happens.
One budget, every platform.
Each platform is run inside one paid media plan, held by the same senior practitioner, so budget moves to wherever a customer is won most profitably. How the paid media practice works.
Start with a conversation.
A proper conversation with the person who would do the work. Tell me what you run on Google Ads today, or are thinking of starting, and you will get an honest read on what I would change, what I would leave alone, and where the real upside is.
Speak with NicThe senior read,
once a week.
Most marketing newsletters are noise on a schedule. This is not that. Once a week I send a short, considered read on the shifts that actually change what you should do, across the AI shift, PPC, technical SEO and analytics. Filtered, weighted and signed off by me before it goes out. The judgement is mine, and now you can hear every edition in my own voice.
Nic CraneFounder, The Crane Consultancy
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