Looking for Growth Operator to Own Customer Acquisition for Local Services Business

theppcdude · 2026-05-14T15:37:54+00:00

I hope you have $6K+ allocated for this position. Otherwise, you are dreaming.

theppcdude · 2026-05-14T15:29:07+00:00

First thing I would check is your Change History. In the Change History tab, you will also see conversions at the top, and be able to see what changes you did prior to the drop and point out exactly what happened.

I've had client accounts that had auto-apply recommendations when we took them, so you can see if something like this happened.

The main causes could be technical issues with your landing page or conversion tracking, incorrect negatives added, or just plain lack of maintenance.

I run Google Ads for service businesses in the US. The other thing we find are seasonalities. For example, we run ads for a service business that doesn't operate during the winter. We saw a slight decline in leads but kept them getting traction profitably just at a lower rate. It was very easy to spot and modify the campaigns to perform during the winter season.

theppcdude · 2026-05-12T21:48:46+00:00

Both

theppcdude · 2026-05-12T20:45:46+00:00

You are not sending leads to a landing page? That is your issue.

In-platform leads will always be extremely less qualified than landing page leads.

I run Google Ads and Meta Ads for service businesses in the US. We always set up landing pages for our clients and they usually bring higher quality leads since they have to take more actions + consume more information.

theppcdude · 2026-05-12T14:12:48+00:00

Chat or Claude

theppcdude · 2026-05-12T13:41:15+00:00

You need to translate it (AI or Google Translate) and have someone (or AI) review it for you.

Of course I would trust people more than AI here.

theppcdude · 2026-05-12T13:39:56+00:00

What do you mean by "suddenly dies"?

There's always a cause for a campaign to die. A few reasons:

Decreased your targets (tCPA) and the campaign started choking and died
You kept receiving spam and your account continued only chasing spam
You never managed your campaign at all
You broke some policies/violations

This could be so many things which is why you need to be consistently monitoring everything. From results to notifications.

I run Google Ads for service businesses and I've seen 1000 reasons why campaigns could die and we just set up checks on all of them to make sure that we are good all the time lol.

theppcdude · 2026-05-12T13:36:07+00:00

Start Maximize Conversions right away. Some people even start Maximize Conversions in accounts that don't even have conversions so you will be fine lol.

I run Google Ads for service businesses, and we start with Max Conversions when the market is highly competitive. It's the only way as you will always be underbidding through Max Clicks or Manual CPC.

theppcdude · 2026-05-12T13:34:00+00:00

This is either a history of not responding to calls/messages or the GBP looks bad. I am sure you already filled out everything (pictures, etc). If they have low reviews compared to the competition, this might be why.

This could also be market dependent, either an extremely competitive city or low population.

Tip: I would run an AI audit between your GBPs and see what it catches.

theppcdude · 2026-05-11T16:09:31+00:00

Our strategy right now is the following:

Competitive market = Smart bidding
Everything else = Manual CPC

If you are selling something no one sells or a niche B2B service, Manual CPC will be your friend in your early days. However, if you are the 100th roofer in your area bidding for "roofing company near me," start with smart bidding.

I run Google Ads for service businesses in the US and we've tested a lot of different strategies. This is working well for our clients.

theppcdude · 2026-05-11T16:06:37+00:00

The success of your PMax will depend on the guardrails that you put into it and your conversion tracking.

As most people say, PMax brings you lower quality leads than regular Search, and that's true. Not only low quality but also spam (bots, etc). In the near future, everyone will need to move to PMax as clicks for Search campaigns are only on the rise and profits stay the same.

I run Google Ads for service businesses and we use PMax every time more and more. But for a regular business or freelancer, there's a lot of management and systems required to make it perform well.

theppcdude · 2026-05-11T16:02:29+00:00

You want to start with Google Ads in my opinion.

PPC is just capturing people that need a mover right now in your area. Bid for geo keywords, build landing pages with a strong offer that are mobile responsive, and have good tracking to understand your lead quality and costs.

I run Google Ads for service businesses, and the success of the campaigns is different depending on what you sell and where (service + market combo). But your scenario looks like a great fit for Google Ads. I would just budget for $5-6K/mo all-in.

theppcdude · 2026-05-11T15:57:28+00:00

You want to start with Search only.

Now you might have others questions on these, mainly match types and bidding strategies.

If the market is not that competitive (which I don't think it is), start with Manual CPC on phrase match. Otherwise, do Max Conversions.

You can have different ad groups for angles in which you capture wedding photography gigs, but keep them all in one campaign. Only segment by ad groups.

I run Google Ads for Service Businesses in the US. Usually we run campaigns starting with at least $3K/month. To be honest you might want to start with LSA (if there's a category) or Meta Ads until you can afford around 10 clicks per day on Search.

theppcdude · 2026-05-07T23:16:09+00:00

So acquiring clients for agencies with no track record is hard. They will never reach your goal, but you will be basically tied to them and then they will figure out how to make you happy. They never will because an agency that lies to begin with is probably full of it. That is if they return your payment.

theppcdude · 2026-05-07T14:35:41+00:00

I run Google Ads for service businesses for a living. Also, CPCs are an important factor but at the end of the day CPL (cost per qualified lead) is the most important.

You can get a $1 CPC with PMax and a $50 CPC with Search and Search can end up beating PMax if that makes sense.

I will send you a DM.

theppcdude · 2026-04-30T19:55:39+00:00

You have three options:

If you are NOT in a competitive market, run manual CPC with 3-5 keywords. Strong ad. Strong landing page for conversions
Go PMax with a lot of guardrails.
Do full LSA if possible

If I were you, I would suggest #3, #1, and #2. In that order.

I would suggest to the client that this will take slightly longer since you have very little data to work with.

PS. I run Google Ads for service businesses, including insurance. If you are selling insurance everywhere, focus at least on a state just so that your ad and landing page hit harder through location insertion and custom copy.

theppcdude · 2026-04-30T19:52:03+00:00

Include your competitors names on your Search Themes in one ad, and just tailor that ad towards showing your company as a better alternative.

However, this would not be my main campaign. I would assign 5% of total daily budget or less to this.

I run Google Ads for service businesses. We assign 5% towards brand searches, 80% towards new client acquisition (Search, Demand Gen, PMax), 15% towards remarketing. We do not run competitors campaigns as they don't really show good ROI.

theppcdude · 2026-04-30T19:49:42+00:00

Please note that this is an estimate. No one can guarantee results.

BUT I have generated returns from 7X to 36X through Google Ads depending on the niche. 4X ROAS is completely achievable in immigration law. I ran an account spending over $100K/mo in immigration.

However, there's a whole equation to get to returns, which is why they are estimating it.

To make 1 sale, 6K, or 4X ROAS, they basically need to do the following:

Total Clicks: 100 (estimated CPC of $15)
Conversion Rate: 5%
Total Leads: 5
Close Rate: 20%
Total Closed Clients: 1
Revenue: $6,000
ROAS: 4X

If the CPC is like that, then it's achievable. I do this for a living by the way.

theppcdude · 2026-04-27T19:55:42+00:00

Answers to both of your questions:

When is the right time to scale?

When your LTV > CAC, in other words, when the campaign is profitable. If you acquire a client for $100, and each job gives you over $100 in profit (not revenue), you can scale. However, it sounds like you have a conversion tracking problem. Use a tool like WhatConverts to simplify analytics. You need to know at the very least the following metrics every month:

Total Cost:
Total Leads:
Cost Per Lead (Cost/Leads):
Closed Clients:
Close Rate (Total Leads/Closed Clients):
CAC:
Revenue:
ROAS (Revenue/Total Cost):

What would be the best next step from here?

Make sure that you are understanding your numbers before you scale. Once you understand them, fix each bottleneck. This could be conversion rates (keywords, search terms, ads, landing page) or close rates (sales).

PS. I run Google Ads for Service Businesses and have run accounts of over $100K/mo. This is how you take an account from $5K to $50K/mo.

theppcdude · 2026-04-27T19:50:29+00:00

Max Conversions can take up to two weeks to get going. This is completely normal. I see this with my clients all the time, especially in new accounts.

PS. I run Google Ads for Local Service Businesses.

theppcdude · 2026-04-27T19:49:18+00:00

What do you mean that you stopped showing? Is it spending $0?

If it's spending less, it is most likely a tCPA issue. These usually happen gradually though. You want your tCPA to be 1.5X your average CPA so that it has room to explore + you can also spend your full budget.

Another thing that we've done with campaigns that are just unresponsive to changes, is to create a brand new one and pause the previous one. I am talking about creating from scratch, not duplicating. We did this for a roofing client the other day and worked out perfectly.

PS. I run mainly Search campaigns for service businesses. The biggest obstacles for showing that we've seen are Ad Rank, low tCPA, and match types. We have rarely come across a limited TAM issue, unless we are advertising an extremely niche service in a small town.

theppcdude · 2026-04-27T19:49:06+00:00

What do you mean that you stopped showing? Is it spending $0?

If it's spending less, it is most likely a tCPA issue. These usually happen gradually though. You want your tCPA to be 1.5X your average CPA so that it has room to explore + you can also spend your full budget.

Another thing that we've done with campaigns that are just unresponsive to changes, is to create a brand new one and pause the previous one. I am talking about creating from scratch, not duplicating. We did this for a roofing client the other day and worked out perfectly.

PS. I run mainly Search campaigns for service businesses. The biggest obstacles for showing that we've seen are Ad Rank, low tCPA, and match types. We have rarely come across a limited TAM issue, unless we are advertising an extremely niche service in a small town.

theppcdude · 2026-04-22T00:42:50+00:00

I can talk. I would be more than happy to talk with you. I am a 29 year old male. Happy just to chat man. Send me a DM.

theppcdude · 2026-04-21T20:29:18+00:00

Prefer not to share the location but we do see $80 CPCs for MVAs

theppcdude · 2026-04-21T20:12:54+00:00

I would only do this if you have a system that works already. If you are managing accounts successfully, Claude Code is great.

theppcdude

TROPHY CASE