The First 50 Days: What Proper Google Ads Can Really Deliver.
Table of Contents
- The First 50 Days: What Proper Google Ads Can Really Deliver.
A clean, honest look at how strategic fundamentals, not guesswork, increased bookings for a North East training provider.
When a well-reputed training provider in the North East came to us, they weren’t looking for miracles. They didn’t want to “dominate the market” or “triple their revenue overnight.”
They wanted something much more practical and much more valuable:
“We want more bookings, and we want them at a cost that makes sense.”
This is a case study about what the first 50 days of effective Google Ads can achieve when you focus on clarity, intent, and discipline rather than chasing vanity metrics.
The Challenge
The client operates in a competitive local training market, surrounded by national advertisers with large budgets and broad reach.
Before working with us, their ads weren’t aligned with intent, their landing paths weren’t built for conversion clarity, and their cost efficiency wasn’t where it needed to be.
Our objective was simple:
Create a consistent flow of booking enquiries while keeping the cost per conversion efficient.
No overcomplication.
No unnecessary scale.
Just proper structure and proper execution.
What We Built
To get results quickly and reliably, we rebuilt everything from the ground up.
A new landing experience was developed for clarity
Using the client’s existing content (their accredited positioning, strong North East presence, and clear course messaging found throughout their materials) we redesigned a landing flow that:
- Removed friction
- Highlighted trust signals
- Made enquiries simple
- Matched real user intent
Strong ads cannot fix a confusing landing page, and so this came first.
A well-structured landing experience is often the difference between clicks and conversions which is why our web development and graphic design teams work closely with PPC to ensure every visitor lands on a page built to convert.
A clean, intentional campaign structure
We built:
- One focused campaign
- Two tightly defined ad groups
- Messaging built around user intent, not keywords for the sake of keywords
To keep the structure efficient, we used:
- Google’s automated bidding set to Maximise Conversions
- Google Search Network only
This simple setup allowed Google to optimise aggressively toward high-intent users from day one, without spreading the budget too thinly.
The goal was simple: Avoid noise, avoid waste, avoid complexity that doesn’t convert.
Targeting that prioritised real intent
We refined:
- High-intent themes
- Negative matching to cut junk traffic
- Geographic focus based on real demand patterns
This ensured we attracted people who were actually looking to book training, not just browsing.
Continuous optimisation driven by useful metrics
This is where many advertisers get it wrong.
They watch impression share. They chase impression share. They raise bids to inflate impression share.
We did the opposite.
Google’s automated bidding (set to Maximise Conversions) naturally prioritised the highest-intent traffic within the controlled daily budget. Forcing higher impression share would have pushed the campaign into more expensive auctions, increasing CPCs and reducing efficiency – without improving conversions.
Across this campaign, we applied a key principle that many advertisers overlook:
Impression share is not a performance goal. It is a diagnostic signal, not a KPI.
Here’s what guided our decisions:
- Trying to “dominate” the auction often leads to one thing: higher CPCs and worse CPAs.
- Impression share is simply the percentage of eligible searches where your ad appeared, not a measure of quality, intent, or profitability.
- The closer you try to get to 100%, the more Google charges you.
- Costs rise exponentially for tiny, pointless increases in visibility.
That destroys performance. We don’t do that.
Automated bidding avoids junk impressions – most of the time
With broad or phrase matching, the potential pool of impressions is huge. Google’s automated bidding (set to Maximise Conversions) generally avoids low-intent searches because they’re unlikely to convert efficiently.
In early stages, Google may test some broader impressions to learn what works, but as more conversion data is collected, the system becomes better at ignoring irrelevant or unprofitable traffic. Trying to force a higher impression share usually means paying for:
- irrelevant clicks
- accidental clicks
- low-quality searches
…all of which reduce profitability and push CPCs up without improving results.
Rank losses aren’t always bad
Losing impression share to rank simply means:
Google didn’t think the click was worth paying for at your target efficiency.
That is not a problem; that is how efficiency is maintained.
The only metrics that matter are the business metrics
We prioritised:
- Bookings
- Cost per conversion
- Conversion rate
- Call quality
As these improved, Google naturally allowed the campaign to enter more auctions, leading to better visibility without reckless bidding.
This mindset is why the campaign scaled efficiently, not wastefully.
Why These Results Are Not “One-Size-Fits-All” And Why Data Matters More Than Assumptions
One important thing to understand is that the performance seen in these first 50 days isn’t a universal template. Every business behaves differently in Google Ads depending on factors like:
- The level of local vs national competition
- Average search intent in the industry
- Seasonality
- The strength of the offer
- Consumer urgency
- And the advertiser’s historical account data
In this case, the client had no previous Google Ads history, meaning we started on a clean slate. That can be both a challenge and an advantage: there’s no past performance to build from, but there’s also no legacy inefficiency to fix.
Because the system had no historical data to learn from, having a clean structure, clear intent signals, and a conversion-focused landing journey was essential. Every optimisation decision came directly from early behaviour patterns, not assumptions.
What doesn’t work, and what most advertisers still do, is guess.
We didn’t guess.
All decisions in this campaign were made from data, not assumptions.
Every adjustment we made came from what the numbers were actually telling us:
- Real search behaviour
- Conversion patterns
- Impression diagnostics
- Auction insights
- Call quality
- Geography-based performance
- Early conversion signals
We didn’t rely on “best practices” blindly.
We didn’t inflate bids, hoping for more reach.
We didn’t chase impression share because it “feels good.”
We let data lead the strategy, and the strategy led to consistent bookings.
And that’s the core takeaway:
Proper Google Ads is not about doing more it’s about doing what the data supports.
The Results (First 50 Days)
Across the first 50 days, the campaign produced:
- 70 total conversions
- £8.24 cost per conversion
- 26.52% conversion rate
- 264 high-intent clicks
- 12 form submissions + the rest engaged calls (over 1 minute)
Based on the pricing, most training bookings fall between £150 and £200 per person. This means each conversion represents meaningful commercial value, not just an interaction. This financial context highlights how efficient performance compounds into real business impact even when starting from scratch, with no historical Google Ads data.
Most importantly:
The client saw a clear and noticeable lift in booking enquiries.
Not theoretical.
Not modelled.
Real enquiries from people intending to book.
Even with strong regional competition, the campaign maintained solid visibility, but without us overspending just to inflate impression share.
We prioritised the right metrics, and the results followed.
What This Case Study Shows
You don’t need to outspend competitors.
You don’t need to appear in every auction.
You don’t need to chase vanity metrics that sound good in theory but kill CPA in practice.
You need:
- Proper structure
- Proper intent alignment
- A landing experience that converts
- A data-driven bidding setup
- A focus on business outcomes, not auction metrics
When those fundamentals are done properly, 50 days is enough to build real momentum.
If You Want Proper Google Ads (Not Guesswork), Let’s Talk
We help service-based businesses and local brands generate consistent, high-quality enquiries that turn into bookings.
- consistent
- cost-efficient
- strategically sound
- protected from wasted spend
If you want to see what proper Google Ads can really deliver in your first 50 days, get in touch, and we’ll build something meaningful together.
📞 Call us on 0191 492 3526
