Small business running Ads? I'm sorry to say you're probably getting it all wrong. Let me help

Stop hitting auto-accept. Here's how a small business should set up paid ads

Ok, before we start I'm going to be really honest with you. As a business owner, of any size, you're going to do better on Ads with somebody who does it for a living, rather than doing ads yourself. You're competing in a sport where everyone else playing is a professional, it's best to pay the money and get a professional on your side.

That being said, if budgets are too tight to manage that, I'm here to help you. Because god knows Google and Meta aren't going to.

Do you know how much Google makes from Ads?

A lot of business owners fall into this trap. It's a really easy thing to assume that the platform telling you how to get new customers will be optimised to help you find the most customers. Wrong.

They make around $300 billion a year from their ad revenues. I'll say that again. $300 billion.

Now, you might think 'oh it's Google, they make a trillion bajillion dollars every year'. Again, wrong. It's around 75% of all the money that they make, across absolutely everything they do. From phones, to YouTube to search and more. It's an astronomical business.

Ok, so what's the problem with that?

I'm so glad you asked. Well, as a business owner- you'll know that there's something called a profit motive. Typically, we don't just do things for the sake of it. I'm writing this blog to give you some free advice, so that if you do need a pro in your corner you think of me. And you don't just check your business inbox for the fun of it, you do it to try and generate a bit of money.

Now when +75% of your business comes from getting people to spend money on Ads, guess what you're going to do? Try and get them to spend more money

Auto-recommendations are designed to spend your money, not save it

Google will tell you Smart campaigns do the work. Meta will tell you Advantage+ handles targeting. Both are true in a narrow technical sense and deeply misleading in practice.

The interface is designed to get you live quickly. Your interests and the platform's interests are not aligned here. Theirs is ad spend. Yours is return. Please go and check that you've not got auto-accept on.

I'm getting loads of leads, but not actual customers

You've got the wrong audience my friend. Part of this puzzle is working out who your ideal customers are and building the journey for them.

Who exactly is this for? Not "small business owners" but "sole traders in the UK who've outgrown spreadsheets and are searching for a specific thing right now". The more specific the audience definition, the less waste later.

Then I think about pain points. What's going to get that person to click?

I build a landing page that exactly matches that. Create a few copies that might present it more concisely, or at greater length. Then I build a beautiful ad that will get the right customer clicking onto the right page.

Conversion tracking is non-negotiable, and even pros get it wrong.

This is where I see the most expensive mistakes. Someone sets up a Google Ads conversion action but points it at a page view rather than a form submission. Their campaign reports 80 conversions. They've actually had 12 enquiries. They scale up. They spend more. They wonder why the phone isn't ringing.

So if you're going to do any form of ads, you really, really need to have the right campaign-level tracking and also the technical implementation.

The bit I see even pros getting wrong is not having a feedback loop from your actual customer data. For example, if you know that a customer coming through for a roof clean is less than one coming in for a new roof, you need to tell Meta! Assigning monetary value to those leads, after they're fully through your system is where the real magic happens. If you want this kind of level-up, talk to me. It will pay for itself very quickly.

A checklist you can steal before you hit go

Before any campaign I run goes live, I check every one of these:

Tracking

• Conversion event defined and tracking the right action (not a page view)
• Conversions confirmed in preview mode
• Meta Conversions API set up alongside the pixel
• Feedback loop of conversion value from actual customer data

Audience

• Audience defined specifically, not broadly
• Exclusions set (existing customers, irrelevant geographies)
• For Meta: audience size checked, not too small for the algorithm to learn

Landing page

• Page loads in under 3 seconds on mobile
• One clear call to action
• Message matches the ad (if the ad says "free quote", the page says "free quote")
• Variations in place to test messaging

Ad Design

• Ad actually looks nice, not like AI Slop
• It has a clear message that matches the landing page

Budget

• Daily caps set so nothing runs away before you check it
• Bid strategy chosen after the above, not before

Campaign settings

• Search partners and Display Network off (unless you've consciously decided otherwise)
• Auto-apply recommendations off

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You are probably better off paying a pro

In reality, most of that is achievable yourself with a bit of learning and trial and error. It's not rocket science, but it does take focus, discipline and a bit of creativity. If you look at that list and think "God, I can't do all that", then you need to pay someone to do it.

I pride myself on charging fair rates for my services. If you want someone who can actually deliver - let's chat.