A North London dental practice was spending £1,800 a month on Google Ads and averaging 6 new patient enquiries. Their cost per lead was £300.

The account had been running on broad match keywords for two years. 'Dentist London' was eating half the budget and bringing in clicks from across the country. There were no negative keywords, no location radius targeting, and the ads all pointed to the homepage. The landing page had no form and no call-to-action above the fold.

A full account restructure took four weeks. Exact and phrase match keywords only, all targeting within a 5-mile radius, dedicated landing pages for implants, Invisalign, and general dentistry, and conversion tracking wired to phone calls and form submissions. Month two produced 29 enquiries from the same £1,800 budget. Cost per lead: £62.

29 enquiries from £1,800 budget. Cost per lead reduced from £300 to £62. Same spend, 5x the results.
3x
Higher average CPCs in London vs UK national average
WordStream UK Benchmark 2024
65%
Of Google Ads spend wasted on irrelevant clicks in unaudited accounts
HubSpot PPC Report 2024
200%
Average ROI improvement after professional account restructure
Wordstream Agency Benchmark 2024
Plain English

Why most London Google Ads accounts are wasting money

Google Ads works on an auction. Every time someone searches, advertisers compete for the click. The auction is not just about who bids the most. Google rewards relevance: ads that match the search, landing pages that deliver what the ad promises, and accounts with strong historical performance. Most London small business accounts are structured the way Google suggests at setup, which is optimised for Google's revenue, not your cost per lead. Broad match keywords, auto-applied recommendations, smart campaigns without a clear goal. The result is an account that spends money quickly and reports impressions and clicks while the business owner wonders why the phone is not ringing.

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is I do not know which half.

John Wanamaker
Attributed, circa 1900. With proper conversion tracking, you can know.
With Google Ads, unlike the old days, you can know exactly which half is wasted. Conversion tracking tied to phone calls, form submissions, and sales tells you which keywords produce enquiries and which produce clicks. The work of PPC management is stopping the spend on the latter and scaling the spend on the former.
STAT
London CPCs are the highest in the UK by a significant margin. Legal, property, financial services, and medical sectors see average CPCs of £5 to £25 per click. Poorly structured accounts burn this budget on clicks that never convert. A properly managed account can reduce cost per lead by 40 to 70% without reducing spend.
Source: WordStream UK Industry Benchmarks 2024

Why London businesses need specialist PPC management

£25+
Average CPC for legal and financial terms in London
WordStream 2024
65%
Of ad spend wasted in poorly managed accounts
HubSpot 2024
4.4%
Average conversion rate for optimised London PPC landing pages
Unbounce 2024

London's competitive paid search landscape means that an unmanaged or poorly managed account is not neutral. It actively funds your competitors' market position. Every pound spent on a broad match keyword that does not convert is a pound your competitor did not have to spend to be more visible than you.

PPC sectors we manage in London

Legal and solicitors Dental and medical practices Property and estate agents Financial services Trade and home services E-commerce and retail Accountancy and professional services

PPC services
for London businesses

Google Ads management tied to the leads and revenue your business needs, not to impressions and clicks that do not convert.

Account audit and restructure

We audit your existing Google Ads account, identify where the budget is being wasted, and rebuild the campaign structure around the keywords and audiences that produce actual enquiries. Most audits find 40 to 60% of spend going to irrelevant traffic.

Search campaign management

Keyword research, match type strategy, negative keyword lists, ad copy testing, and bid management for search campaigns targeting London buyers. Every week we are reviewing what is working and reallocating budget toward it.

Conversion tracking setup

Phone call tracking, form submission tracking, and where applicable, revenue tracking wired to your Google Ads account. Without this, you are flying blind. With it, you know exactly which keywords and ads are producing your leads.

Landing page optimisation

We build dedicated landing pages for your most important campaigns. A landing page built for a specific search term converts at 3 to 5 times the rate of a homepage. We write the copy, structure the page, and test variations.

Google Shopping management

For e-commerce clients, Google Shopping is often the highest-returning paid channel. We manage your product feed, campaign structure, bidding strategy, and Performance Max campaigns alongside traditional search.

Monthly reporting

Monthly reporting on spend, clicks, conversions, cost per lead, and return on ad spend. Not a Google Ads dashboard screenshot. An actual analysis of what happened, what we learned, and what we are changing.

Questions from London businesses about PPC

What is PPC and how does it work?
PPC stands for pay-per-click. You pay Google a fee each time someone clicks your ad. The ads appear at the top of search results when someone searches for a term you have bid on. Done well, the revenue from each click far exceeds what you paid for it. Done badly, you spend the budget on clicks that never convert.
How much should a London business spend on Google Ads?
For most London service businesses, a minimum of £500 per month in ad spend is needed to gather enough data to optimise. Competitive sectors like legal, property, or financial services often require £1,500 or more per month to be competitive. Our management fee is charged separately and depends on the scale and complexity of your campaigns.
Why are our Google Ads not working?
The most common reasons Google Ads underperform are: broad match keywords attracting irrelevant traffic, ads pointing to a homepage instead of a specific landing page, insufficient negative keyword lists, and campaigns structured for Google's convenience rather than your business. We audit underperforming accounts and fix the structure before spending another pound.
How quickly will PPC generate leads?
PPC generates results immediately. Once campaigns are live and approved by Google, your ads can start appearing within hours. The first two to four weeks are optimisation: refining bids, pausing underperforming keywords, and improving landing page conversion. Most clients see a meaningful cost-per-lead reduction within the first month.
Do you manage Google Shopping campaigns?
Yes. For e-commerce clients in London, Google Shopping is often the highest-returning paid channel. We manage product feed optimisation, campaign structure, bidding strategy, and Performance Max alongside traditional search campaigns.

Ready to get more from your Google Ads budget?

Get a free PPC audit for your London business. We will show you exactly where your budget is going and what a restructured account would look like.