Paid search is the fastest way to put an offer in front of someone who is already looking for it — and the fastest way to spend a month’s budget on the wrong searches. For B2B services, where a single inquiry can be worth thousands, the setup matters more than the bidding. This checklist covers what we put in place before a campaign goes live.
1. Decide what a conversion is before you build anything
A conversion should be an action that moves a buyer towards a sale: a form submission, a booked call, a phone call longer than a minute. Page views and button clicks are not conversions. Write down the one or two actions that count, make sure each one can be measured, and agree what a reasonable cost per conversion would be. Every later decision depends on this.
2. Build campaigns around one service each
Mixing services in a single campaign makes the data unreadable. Each service gets its own campaign, its own budget and its own landing page, so you can see which one actually produces inquiries at an acceptable cost. If you only have budget for one, start with the service where search demand and margin are clearest.
3. Use match types deliberately
- Exact and phrase match for the searches that describe your service and a buying intent (“outsourced payroll provider”, “ISO 27001 consultant UK”).
- Broad match only when you have conversion data for Google to learn from, and always with a strong negative list.
- Avoid single-word and generic keywords; they attract job seekers, students and people looking for free tools.
4. Write the negative keyword list on day one
Negative keywords are where B2B budgets are saved. Before launch, add the obvious ones: “free”, “jobs”, “salary”, “course”, “template”, “definition”, competitor names you do not want to pay for, and consumer terms that overlap with your service. Then review the search terms report every week for the first month and add to the list.
5. Make the landing page finish the ad’s sentence
The page a visitor lands on should repeat the promise of the ad in the headline, explain the service in plain language, show who it is for, and offer one clear next step. Sending paid traffic to a generic homepage is the most common reason B2B campaigns produce clicks and nothing else. Keep forms short: name, company, work email and one question is usually enough.
6. Set up tracking you can trust
Conversion tracking should be tested with a real submission before launch, and the result should appear in both Google Ads and your analytics. If calls matter, use call tracking or at least call extensions with a minimum duration. Tag the campaign URLs consistently so inquiries can be matched to campaigns in your CRM later.
7. Separate search from everything else
Display, video and Performance Max have their place, but not in the first month of a B2B search campaign. Turn off search partners and the display network on search campaigns, and keep brand terms in their own campaign so they do not inflate the numbers of the generic ones.
8. Plan the first-month review before launch
Agree in advance what you will look at after thirty days: search terms and the negatives they suggest, which ads earned clicks, which pages produced inquiries, and the cost per qualified lead rather than the cost per click. That review, not the launch, is where the campaign economics are decided.
This is the process we follow on paid acquisition engagements. Campaigns run in accounts that belong to the client, budgets are agreed in writing and reviewed monthly. If you would like a review of an existing account, tell us about it.