Hampton Design · Tampa, Florida
Ads on their own do not work. Ads pointed at a custom landing page, with tracking that follows a lead all the way to a signed client, do work, and they tell you when they have stopped working.
The number I care about is cost per signed client, not cost per click and not cost per lead. That number is also why I have paused campaigns I built.
cost per acquisition on the winning campaign of a 13 week flight that produced 686 CRM leads on $58,664.53 of spend. Performance Max carried 66 percent of the leads on 20 percent of the budget.ViaTerra, via Alda Strategic
A roughly 13 week flight spent $58,664.53 and produced 686 unique CRM leads. Performance Max won it at a $20 cost per acquisition, carrying 66 percent of the leads on 20 percent of the spend. The high intent Florida campaign ran at $221 and got trimmed all flight. Five Display campaigns produced five conversions between them and died early. The landing page funnel is still live.
View landing pageSearch launched July 2026 against a landing page I built. Over its final fortnight it cost $447 per form lead and had never produced a retained client. I paused it and moved the budget to Local Services Ads, which has since produced seven signed clients. Pausing a campaign I built is the job.
View landing pageFour paid search landing pages, one per waste stream, each with HubSpot capture, a dedicated tracking number and a sticky call bar. I tested the conversion chain end to end on the live domain. The setup it replaced had been reporting phone number taps as conversions, and most of the spend was landing in the wrong country.
View landing pageBefore any spend, I read the existing account. Twice now that has turned up conversion actions counting taps instead of calls, and traffic from a country the client does not sell to.
A landing page per campaign, built to one action, tracked from the first visit.
Campaigns start narrow on geography and keywords. It is cheaper to widen than to clean up.
Weekly review. Losers get paused and the budget moves. Monthly report shows cost per signed client, not impressions.
A flat monthly management fee, separate from ad spend, which you pay Google directly. Current retainers run about $500 to $2,000 a month, depending on the number of campaigns and locations. You always know your cost, and I never take a percentage of spend.
Enough for the campaign to leave the learning phase in your market, which for most local service businesses is $1,000 to $3,000 a month. Below that the data is too thin to make decisions with, and you are paying for an experiment that cannot finish.
First leads usually arrive in the first week. A real read on cost per signed client takes 60 to 90 days, because the sales cycle has to finish. Anyone promising a verdict in two weeks is selling you a click report.
Yes, and I have. Covenant's Search campaign was mine and I paused it because it had produced no retained clients at $447 a lead. The budget went to the channel that was working.
Yes, and it stays your account. I work through my manager account so you keep ownership and the history if we ever stop working together.
Yes, for businesses where the audience is there. For most local service businesses with high intent demand, Google is where the money goes first.
Send me your account and your average client value. You get a read on what the ads are really costing you per signed client.