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Google Ads brief

What we need to know before we spend a penny of your money on ads.

1
About seven minutes

Four short screens plus your contact details.

2
A proper look first

We check search demand and likely click costs in your area before we call, so the budget we suggest is grounded.

3
Budget, plan and fee

A recommended monthly spend, what we'd do with it, and our management fee stated separately. No contract tie-in.

Start the brief Print the questions instead

Before you start

Google Ads can bring in enquiries this week rather than next year, which is exactly why it is so easy to waste money on. An account pointed at the wrong searches, the wrong areas or a landing page that doesn't convert will spend your budget quickly and tell you nothing useful. So before we propose anything, we want to know what you are selling, where, what a lead or a sale is worth to you, and what has been tried before. That tells us whether ads make sense at all, and if they do, how much to spend and on what.

The brief takes about seven minutes. When you send it, we look at the searches, the likely cost per click in your area, your website and any existing account, then ring you within one working day with a recommended monthly budget, what we would charge to manage it, and a straight answer on whether it is likely to pay. We are a Google Ads certified agency and we have run accounts for tradespeople, mortgage brokers, restaurants and e-commerce shops, so the advice comes from accounts we have actually managed, not theory.

Google Ads brief

About 7 minutes · 5 short steps · your answers save in this browser as you go

Nothing here is compulsory. The more you answer, the closer the first quote is to the final one.

  1. 1What you want to advertise
  2. 2What a customer is worth
  3. 3Budget and what's been tried
  4. 4Your website and tracking
  5. 5How to reach you
Step 1 of 5What you want to advertise

Not everything you do belongs in an ad. Start with the work you want more of.

Why we ask: Ads work best pointed at a few high-value things, not the whole business.

Where should the ads show?

Why we ask: Area is the biggest lever on both cost and waste. Ads showing 40 miles outside where you'll travel are money gone.

Is demand seasonal, or steady year round?

Why we ask: We plan spend around your busy periods rather than spreading it thin.

Step 2 of 5What a customer is worth

This is the question most agencies skip, and the one that decides whether ads will ever pay for themselves.

Roughly what is a typical job, order or customer worth to you?

Why we ask: If a lead costs £40 and a job is worth £3,000, ads are an easy decision. If a sale is worth £30, the maths is tighter and we'll tell you.

Out of ten enquiries, how many become customers?

Why we ask: Combined with the value above, it tells us what we can afford to pay per lead.

Why we ask: We size the budget to the target, not the other way round.

Step 3 of 5Budget and what's been tried

The ad spend goes to Google. Our fee for running it is separate, and we'll state both clearly in the proposal.

Monthly ad spend you have in mind

Why we ask: Click costs vary enormously by industry. Some searches are 80p a click, some are £15. We check yours and tell you whether the budget is enough to learn anything from.

Have you run Google Ads before?

Why we ask: An existing account is a goldmine of data about what works and what doesn't. We'd rather build on it than start from nothing.

Anything else running?

Why we ask: Ads work best alongside the rest. If you're already paying for leads elsewhere, we compare the cost.

Step 4 of 5Your website and tracking

Ads send people to a page. If the page doesn't convert, the ads can't either.

Why we ask: We look at where the ads would land and whether it's fit to receive paid traffic.

Is there a page for each thing you want to advertise?

Why we ask: A dedicated landing page usually halves the cost per lead compared with sending clicks to the homepage. If pages are needed, they go in the proposal.

Can you currently tell which enquiries came from which source?

Why we ask: Without conversion tracking, nobody can tell whether the ads work. Setting it up is the first week's job if it isn't there.

How do customers mostly get in touch?

Why we ask: Each one needs tracking differently (calls especially), and it shapes the ad formats we use.

Step 5 of 5How to reach you

Last bit. Who should we come back to, and how? Your name and an email address are the only two things we need; everything else on this form is optional.

Why we ask: We send a copy of your answers here, so you have them too.

How would you rather we got in touch first?

We only use your answers to reply to you and prepare a proposal. No mailing lists, nothing shared outside Codesky. Privacy policy.

Why we ask what a customer is worth

Google Ads is an auction. Every click costs money, and the price is set by how much everyone else bidding on that search is willing to pay. Whether it is worth you joining that auction depends on one piece of arithmetic: what you can afford to pay for a lead, which is a function of what a customer is worth to you and how many leads become customers. A roofer whose average job is £4,000 can afford leads at £60 all day long. A takeaway whose average order is £25 has a much narrower window. We do this sum before we recommend a budget, and sometimes the honest answer is that ads are not the right spend yet and SEO or a better website would do more.

What we check before we call

Three things, using the answers in your brief. The searches people actually use for what you sell, and how much a click costs in your area: we look at the real numbers, not national averages. Your website, and specifically the pages the ads would send people to, because the landing page decides the cost per lead as much as the ads do. And any existing Google Ads account, if you give us access, because the history in it tells us what has already worked and what has burned money. We would far rather improve an account that has data than start one from scratch.

How we run accounts

Your ad spend goes to Google and stays in your own account, which you own. Our management fee is separate and stated in the proposal, so you always know what is being spent on clicks and what is being spent on us. We set up conversion tracking before the ads go live (calls, forms, bookings, sales), build the campaigns around the services you named, write the ads, and then spend the first few weeks cutting the searches that waste money and pushing the ones that bring enquiries. You get a monthly report in plain English: what was spent, what it produced, what we are changing. No contract tie-in. Our Google Ads service page covers the detail, and the PPC ROI calculator lets you run the arithmetic yourself before you send the brief.

Questions people ask before sending a brief

How much should I spend on Google Ads?

Enough to learn something. Click costs vary from under a pound to over £15 depending on your industry and area, so a budget that buys 300 clicks a month in one trade buys 30 in another. We check the real click costs for your searches before we suggest a figure. As a rule, if the budget can't generate a few dozen clicks a week, it is too small to optimise and we'll say so.

Is the management fee separate from the ad spend?

Yes, always. The ad spend goes to Google, in your own account. Our fee for setting up and running the campaigns is a separate, fixed monthly amount stated in the proposal. You should be suspicious of any agency that bundles the two, because you can't tell what is actually being spent on clicks.

How long before Google Ads brings in leads?

Ads can show the day they are approved, so the first enquiries often arrive within days. Getting the cost per lead down takes a few weeks of data: cutting the searches that waste money, improving the landing page, adjusting bids by area and time. Judge an account after six to eight weeks, not six days.

Do I need a landing page for Google Ads?

Usually yes. Sending paid clicks to the homepage makes people hunt for the thing they searched for, and many give up. A page built for the service in the ad, with the offer, the proof and a clear way to enquire, typically converts far better. If you don't have suitable pages, building them is part of the proposal.

Do you need access to my Google Ads account?

If you have one, yes. We ask for manager access rather than your login, so the account stays yours. If you don't have one, we create it in your name. Either way the account, its history and its data belong to you, and if you ever leave us you keep all of it.

Can you guarantee results from Google Ads?

No. We can forecast, based on search volumes and click costs, and we can show you what similar accounts have done, but an auction with your competitors in it cannot be guaranteed. What we do guarantee is honesty: proper tracking so you can see exactly what the ads produce, and a straight recommendation to stop if they aren't paying.

Prefer to talk first?

Ring 0800 699 0037, email hello@codesky.co.uk, or use the contact page. Or look at the other briefs: Website design brief and SEO brief.