Why a search account needs regular attention
Search campaigns drift if nobody watches them. New search terms appear every week. A competitor rewrites its ads. Google adds a setting and switches it on by default, or a landing page form breaks and conversions quietly stop recording.
Management is the habit of checking these things on a schedule instead of finding out from a billing statement. In practice someone works in your Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising account, reads the search terms report, adds negative keywords, adjusts bids or bid strategy targets, replaces weak ads and confirms conversions are still coming through. They keep a short log of what changed and why, so you can follow along and pick it up yourself if you ever take the account back in house.
Bidding, budgets and conversion actions
These three settings are linked, and most problems in small accounts come from one of them being out of step with the others.
Conversion actions come first. Each one counts an event, such as a quote form submission. Only the events you would call a lead should be marked primary, because automated bidding learns from whatever is marked primary.
Bidding can be manual or automated. Automated strategies such as Target CPA need a steady flow of conversions to work; a new account with little data often starts on manual or enhanced CPC and moves later.
Budgets are set per campaign as a daily average. Google can spend above that on a busy day and below it on a quiet one, so the manager checks spend against the month rather than the day.
Decisions only you can make
A provider can run the account, but some choices belong to the business. Expect to be asked about these early.
Budget. How much you are willing to spend on clicks each month, and whether that changes by season.
Services. Which work you want new requests for, and which you are already turning away. Advertising a service you cannot staff wastes spend.
What a lead is. A form fill with a work email might count; a newsletter signup probably should not. This choice drives conversion tracking and therefore how automated bidding behaves.
Claims and wording. What you are comfortable saying in an ad, and what your industry or counsel says you cannot.
Questions about search ads management
Do I need both Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising?
No. Most accounts start with Google Ads because it carries most US search volume. Microsoft Advertising can be added later, often by importing the Google campaigns and then adjusting settings. Whether it is worth the extra upkeep depends on your buyers and budget, which the service partner can talk through with you.
What are negative keywords?
Negative keywords stop your ads showing for searches you do not want, such as job searches, training courses or services you do not offer. They are added from the search terms report, which lists the real queries behind your clicks. Most managed accounts add to the negative list every week.
Should Google's automatic recommendations be switched on?
Many managers turn off auto-apply and look at each recommendation by hand. Some are useful, such as fixing a missing asset. Others widen targeting or raise budgets. Ask your provider how they handle them, and check the change history now and then to see what was applied.
You keep the accounts and the data. Ask a service partner to quote the hands-on work.
Ask for a quoteOther services
Paid social
Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn campaigns planned around your offer, with creative refreshed on a schedule and spend watched weekly.
Landing pages and forms
Single-purpose pages for your ads, with a clear offer, a short form, consent text and conversion tracking set up together.
Tracking audits
A check of what your tags count today, what they miss and what they count twice, with a written list of fixes.