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Published January 29, 2025 · Last updated March 8, 2026
“I spent three thousand dollars on Google Ads last month and got two phone calls.”
I hear this at least twice a week. A business owner in Melbourne who threw money at Google, hoped for the best, and got burned. The budget’s gone, the leads never showed up, and now they’re wondering if the whole thing was a scam.
It wasn’t a scam. It was just poorly managed. And there’s a difference between a Google Ads campaign that’s been set up properly and one that’s been set up at all.
If that sounds familiar, this page is for you. If not, have a look at some of the other guides we’ve put together.
Before we get into the weeds, let’s clear something up. SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. It means paying for your business to appear at the top of Google when someone searches for what you sell. That’s it. No mystery.
The confusion comes from people using SEM and SEO interchangeably. They’re not the same thing. SEO is the organic side, where you earn your rankings over time. SEM is the paid side, where you buy them. Think of it this way: SEO is growing a garden. SEM is buying flowers at the market. Both get you flowers on the table, but the timing and the cost structure are completely different.
Most businesses need both. But when you need leads now, not six months from now, SEM is where you start.
I’ve audited hundreds of Google Ads accounts for Melbourne businesses. The same problems come up every time.
The targeting is too broad. A plumber in Coburg is paying for clicks from people in Sydney because nobody set up location targeting properly. You’d be surprised how often this happens. Or rather, you wouldn’t be surprised at all if you’ve looked at your own account lately.
The keywords are wrong. Someone told them to bid on “plumber” and now they’re competing with every plumbing company in Australia for a term that costs twelve dollars a click and converts at less than one percent. Meanwhile, “emergency plumber Coburg” costs two dollars and converts at fifteen percent. But nobody bothered to do the research.
Nobody is watching the account. The campaign got set up, the agency sent a nice report with some graphs, and then nothing happened for three months. Google Ads isn’t something you set and forget. It’s something you check on every week, adjust every fortnight, and rebuild every quarter.
The landing page doesn’t match the ad. Someone clicks on an ad for “kitchen renovations in Melbourne” and lands on a homepage that talks about everything the company does. That person hits the back button in three seconds. You just paid for that click and got nothing.
We don’t run the same playbook for every business. A tradie in Brunswick needs a completely different approach than an ecommerce brand shipping nationally. Here’s what our process actually looks like.
Is it phone calls? Form submissions? Online purchases? The answer changes everything about how the campaign gets built. We sit down with you, work out what a lead is worth to your business, and build backwards from there. If you’re spending five hundred dollars to acquire a customer who’s worth two hundred dollars, we need to fix the maths before we touch Google.
We find the terms your actual customers are typing into Google. Not generic industry terms that every national competitor is bidding on. The long-tail, location-specific searches where the intent is high and the competition is low. “Google Ads agency Melbourne” is one of those terms. There are hundreds of others in every industry.
The ad copy has to answer the exact question the searcher asked. If they searched “fix leaking roof Melbourne,” the ad should say something about fixing leaking roofs in Melbourne. Not “Quality roofing services for all your needs.” That kind of generic language is the reason your click-through rate is sitting at one percent.
Every campaign we run has a landing page that’s been built specifically for that search term. One page, one message, one action. No menus, no distractions, no “explore our services” links that lead people away from what they came for.
Campaigns get reviewed weekly. Underperforming keywords get paused. Budgets get shifted to what’s working. New ad variations get tested. This is the part most agencies skip because it takes time and attention, and time is money when you’re managing dozens of accounts.
If an agency can’t tell you your cost per lead within the first thirty days, something’s wrong. Here’s what a good SEM agency should be giving you:
A clear breakdown of what you spent and what you got for it. Not a PDF full of impressions and click-through rates. Impressions don’t pay your bills. Leads do.
Regular communication. If you haven’t heard from your agency in a month, they’ve forgotten about your account. We do fortnightly check-ins at a minimum, and you can reach us whenever you need to.
Honest advice about budget. If your budget is too low for the keywords you want, we’ll tell you. If your industry is so competitive that Google Ads might not be the right channel right now, we’ll tell you that too. There’s no point taking your money if we can’t deliver results.
Google Ads is usually where we start because the intent is highest. Someone searching for your service on Google is actively looking. But depending on your business, there are other platforms worth considering.
Facebook and Instagram Ads work well for businesses that need to build awareness or retarget people who’ve already visited their website. If someone came to your site but didn’t call, we can put your ad in front of them again while they’re scrolling through their feed. That gentle reminder is often all it takes.
LinkedIn Ads are more expensive per click but can be worth it for B2B companies. If you’re selling a service to other businesses, being able to target by job title, company size, and industry is hard to beat.
We manage all of these, but we’ll always be upfront about which platform makes sense for your situation and which ones would be a waste of money.
We won’t bury the pricing. Our management fees start from $990 per month plus your ad spend. The ad spend itself depends on your industry and your goals. Some clients spend a thousand a month, others spend ten thousand.
We’ll give you a straight recommendation on what you should be spending in your first conversation. No obligation, no pressure. If the numbers don’t work for your business right now, we’d rather tell you that than take your money.
You’ve got a good idea of how SEM works and what to look for in an agency. If you want to dig deeper into how Google’s ad platform actually functions under the hood, we’ve written a separate guide on that.
If you’re spending money on Google Ads and you’re not sure what you’re getting for it, or if you’ve been burned before and want someone to take a look at what went wrong, we’re happy to have that conversation.
You know where to find us. For more on this topic, see our guide on PPC agency ecommerce Australia.
