Google Ads for business energy brokers.

The searches that convert are specific: “business electricity renewal quote”, “out of contract business gas rates”, “half-hourly supplier switch”. These have lower volume than generic head terms and much higher intent, because the person searching them has an actual contract, an actual end date, and often an actual complaint about a deemed rate they've just been landed on. I structure campaigns around exact and phrase match on this kind of term, with tightly written ad copy that mentions the contract situation rather than a generic “compare and save” line.

I build the negative keyword list before I build the positive one: domestic postcodes, home tariff comparisons, job-seeker terms, DIY switching guides, and every major comparison brand name that would otherwise trigger your ad for someone comparing domestic suppliers. I run Google Ads and Microsoft Ads, and I check search term reports weekly for the first two months rather than monthly, because a broad-match account left unattended for four weeks routinely accumulates hundreds of pounds of irrelevant domestic traffic.

Landing pages are desk-specific, matching the site structure from the website design service where one exists: a half-hourly ad sends traffic to a half-hourly landing page with a form asking for kVA capacity and current supplier, not to a generic homepage.

Account build or audit, keyword and negative keyword strategy, ad copy, conversion tracking tied to form submissions and, where possible, CRM stage changes, weekly search term review for the first two months then fortnightly, and monthly reporting on cost per lead, cost per qualified lead and cost per contracted supply where your data supports it. Landing page recommendations are included; building new landing pages is scoped separately if you don't already have desk-specific pages.

I won't run broad match on generic head terms with automated bidding switched to “maximise clicks” and no negative list, which is the default an unmanaged or agency-on-autopilot account tends to drift into. It produces an impressive-looking click volume chart and a sales floor full of unqualified domestic enquiries. I also won't report on cost per click as a headline metric — it tells you nothing about whether the click became a contracted supply, and it's the easiest number for an underperforming account to hide behind.

Account build or restructure takes one to two weeks. Leads start arriving immediately once live, but the first month is mostly data collection and negative keyword refinement. Cost per contracted supply usually stabilises to a trustworthy number by month two or three, once there's enough volume and enough closed-loop CRM data to judge it against.

Paid media is a flat monthly fee scaled to your budget and account complexity, and it’s confirmed after a meeting rather than published as a number that fits nobody. It is never a percentage of your ad spend, at any budget level — a percentage pays me more when you spend more, which is the wrong incentive when half the job is switching campaigns off.

Bring your current spend, your account access and your cost per acquired contract to the call, and you’ll have the fee in writing the same week.