Dry spot #1
Clicks without customers
Your ad dashboard looks busy, but you can't point to the jobs or clients it produced.
Google Ads and Paid Social Managed for Leads, Not Clicks
Clicks are easy to buy. Customers are not. We plan, build and manage Google Ads, Local Services Ads and Meta campaigns around cost per lead and cost per customer, then make sure every lead gets followed up.
- Buttered Marketing
- Free tool inside
- Plugs into The Buttered System
- 9 deliverables
Quick answer
What is PPC management?
PPC (pay-per-click) management is planning, building and improving paid ads on platforms like Google Ads and Meta, where you usually pay per click, or Google Local Services Ads, where you pay per lead. Buttered Business manages campaigns for cost per lead and cost per customer, with conversion tracking and automatic follow-up on every lead through The Buttered System.
At a glance
| What it is | Google Ads, Local Services Ads and Meta campaigns managed for cost per lead, with conversion tracking and automatic lead follow-up. |
|---|---|
| Part of | Buttered Marketing |
| What’s included | 9 deliverables, itemized below |
| Best for | Home Services, Home Builders, Law Firms, Political Campaigns, Private Schools |
| Free tool | Ad Budget Calculator |
| Follow-up | Plugs into The Buttered System |
| Pricing | Custom quote, with exact pricing in writing before you commit |
If This Sounds Familiar, Keep Reading
Be honest: how many of these are happening in your business right now?
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Dry spot #2
Spend on the wrong searches
Broad keywords and loose targeting pay for people who were never going to buy.
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Dry spot #3
Paid leads that wait
Leads sit unanswered after hours, so you pay full price for a lead your competitor closes.
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Dry spot #4
Set it and forget it
Campaigns were built once and never tuned, while costs and competitors kept moving.
Every one of these has a fix, and it starts with seeing your own numbers.
Show Me My NumbersDry Toast vs. Buttered
Here’s what changes with Digital Advertising done right and connected to your follow-up.
Dry Toast
- Optimized for clicks and impressions
- Broad keywords that attract bargain hunters
- Ads that send everyone to the home page
- No tracking on phone calls
- Paid leads waiting until morning
Better with Butter
Buttered
- Managed for cost per lead and cost per customer
- Tight targeting with ongoing negative keywords
- Landing pages matched to each ad
- Calls, forms and bookings tracked to the keyword
- Automatic follow-up on every paid lead
What You Get, and What It Means for You
Features are nice. Outcomes pay the bills.
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Managed for cost per lead
We optimize for leads and customers, not impressions or cheap clicks.
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Tracking that tells the truth
Calls, forms and bookings are tracked back to the campaign, ad group and keyword.
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Tighter targeting
Negative keywords, locations, schedules and audiences trimmed to your best buyers.
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Pages that match the ad
Every key ad points to a landing page that keeps the promise the ad made.
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Follow-up on every paid lead
Paid leads flow into The Buttered System, so you get full value from every one.
How It Works, Step by Step
No mystery and no black box. Here’s exactly what happens after you say go.
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Step 1: Audit and plan
Review your current accounts or market, set targets for cost per lead and cost per customer, and size the budget.
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Step 2: Track first
Set up call, form and booking conversion tracking before spending a dollar, so every result is measurable.
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Step 3: Build
Build campaigns, ad copy, audiences and matching landing pages for each service and location.
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Step 4: Manage
Launch, then manage bids, keywords, search terms, audiences and creative on a regular schedule.
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Step 5: Report and scale
Report monthly on spend, leads, cost per lead and booked appointments, then scale what works.
Everything Included With Digital Advertising
Here’s the work, itemized like a diner receipt, so you know exactly what you’re getting.
9 items, zero mystery ingredients
Digital Domination
- Account audit, or market research for new accounts
- Conversion tracking for calls, forms and bookings
- Google search campaigns with keyword and negative keyword research
- Google Local Services Ads setup, profile management and lead disputes
- Meta (Facebook and Instagram) campaigns and audiences
- Retargeting for visitors who didn't convert
- Ad copy and creative testing
- Dedicated landing pages for key campaigns
- Monthly reports on cost per lead and booked appointments
Total Fully buttered
Exact scope and pricing in writing before you commit.
Why It Matters Now
Independent research on how buyers behave, and what slow or invisible marketing costs.
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$91
about the average cost per lead from search ads for home and home improvement businesses
Source: WordStream by LocaliQ, Search Advertising Benchmarks, 2026 (opens in a new tab)
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$130
about the average cost per lead from search ads for legal services
Source: WordStream by LocaliQ, Search Advertising Benchmarks, 2026 (opens in a new tab)
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55%
of home services businesses don't ask leads to buy or book the job
Source: Invoca Home Services Lead Conversion Benchmarks, 2026 (opens in a new tab)
Independent industry research — not Buttered Business client results. Tap a source to read the study.
Don’t Take Our Word for It. Take Theirs.
We could tell you we’re great. You’d expect us to. So here are our clients, in their own words.
For all your marketing needs, Sublime Digital Marketing and Ken Henderson to the rescue!
Everyone quoted here worked with founder Ken Henderson when his agency was called Sublime Digital Marketing Group. Same founder, new name. Quotes are excerpts, exactly as given. Results vary by business.
On this page 9 sections · 5 min read
Get Buttered!
A free call with a real human. We listen first, then tell you honestly whether and how we can help.
Book My Free Strategy CallThe full scoop
What Is PPC Management?
PPC management is the ongoing work of planning, building and improving paid ads so they produce customers at a cost you can afford. On Google Ads and Meta you usually pay per click. With Google Local Services Ads you pay per lead. Either way, the goal isn't traffic. It's booked appointments and signed customers.
Digital Domination is how Buttered Business runs paid search and paid social. We manage for cost per lead and cost per customer, track every call and form back to its source, and connect every paid lead to The Buttered System so none of them sit unanswered.
Why Paid Leads Melt Away
Ads cost real money per lead. WordStream by LocaliQ's 2026 benchmarks put the average search-ad lead at about $91 for home and home improvement businesses and about $130 for legal services. At those prices, every unanswered call or slow reply is expensive.
Many leads get lost after the ad has done its job. Invoca's 2026 home services benchmark found that 55% of home services businesses don't ask leads to buy or book the job. Better ads can't fix that. Better follow-up can.
That's why we look at the whole path: the search, the ad, the landing page, the call or form, and what happens next.
How We Do It
Track before we spend
We set up conversion tracking for calls, forms and bookings first. Without it, ad platforms optimize for whatever they can see, which is often cheap clicks. With it, we can see which keywords and audiences produce real leads.
Build tight campaigns
Campaigns are organized by service and location. We research keywords, add negative keywords to block searches that will never buy, set schedules and locations that match your service area, and write ads that make one clear promise.
Match every ad to a landing page
Sending paid traffic to your home page wastes money. Each key campaign gets a landing page that repeats the ad's promise, answers the obvious questions and makes calling or booking easy. Our web design team builds them to load fast on phones.
Use the right platform for the job
- Google search ads reach people actively looking for what you sell.
- Google Local Services Ads put home service and some professional businesses at the top of local results, billed per lead.
- Meta ads on Facebook and Instagram reach people before they search, and bring back visitors who didn't convert the first time.
Retargeting relies on ad pixels, so we'll flag when your privacy policy needs an update before it goes live.
Manage, test and report
We review search terms, bids, audiences and creative on a regular schedule, test new ads against old ones, and cut what doesn't produce leads. Each month you get a plain-English report on spend, leads, cost per lead and booked appointments.
Ads With the Rules Built In
Some industries carry extra advertising rules, and we plan for them from the start:
- Home builders: housing ads can't indicate a preference based on protected classes under the Fair Housing Act, and ad platforms limit how housing ads can be targeted.
- Home service companies: many states require a contractor license number in advertising. California's CSLB advertising guidelines are one example.
- Law firms: ads can't be false or misleading under rules modeled on ABA Model Rule 7.1, and many states add their own requirements.
- Political campaigns: federal campaign ads need paid-for-by disclaimers under 11 CFR 110.11.
We're not lawyers and this isn't legal advice, but we write and target ads with these rules in mind, and you approve everything before launch.
PPC Terms in Plain English
- CPC (cost per click): what you pay, on average, each time someone clicks your ad.
- CPL (cost per lead): total ad spend divided by the calls, forms and bookings it produced. This is the number we manage to.
- Conversion rate: the share of clicks that become leads. A better landing page raises it without raising your budget.
- Negative keywords: searches you tell Google to skip, like "free," "jobs" or services you don't offer.
- ROAS (return on ad spend): revenue from ads divided by what you spent on them.
- Cost per customer: ad spend divided by the customers it produced. The truest measure of whether ads are worth it.
When someone reports clicks and impressions but can't tell you your cost per lead or cost per customer, that's a sign the account is being managed for activity, not results.
Who It's For
Paid ads fit businesses that know what a customer is worth and want leads now, not in six months. Home service companies, home builders, law firms, private schools and campaigns are common fits, especially when The Buttered System is in place to answer every lead.
It's probably not for you if you can't commit a consistent monthly ad budget for at least a few months. Ads need time and data to improve, and small, stop-and-start budgets rarely give them either.
What We Won't Promise
We won't promise a specific cost per lead or number of customers before we see your market. Ad costs change with competition and seasons. We will promise tracking you can trust, steady management and honest monthly reports.
Where Digital Advertising Fits
Paid ads are the fastest lever in The Sizzle, the attract step of The Buttered System. They pair naturally with lead generation strategy, a clean CRM and sales pipeline, and AI voice agents that answer calls when your team can't. Plan your spend first with the free Ad Budget Calculator.
Keep reading: Speed to Lead: Why the First 5 Minutes Decide Your Sale, on our Marketing Wisdom blog.
Sources
- WordStream by LocaliQ, Search Advertising Benchmarks (2026) (opens in a new tab)
- Invoca, Home Services Lead Conversion Benchmarks Report (2026) (opens in a new tab)
- Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3604 (opens in a new tab)
- Contractors State License Board, Advertising Guidelines (opens in a new tab)
- American Bar Association, Model Rule 7.1 (opens in a new tab)
- 11 CFR 110.11, communications and disclaimers (opens in a new tab)
Digital Advertising for These Industries
Each industry has its own rules and buying cycle. Pick yours to see the playbook built for it.
Straight Answers About Digital Advertising
No jargon, no runaround. If your question isn’t here, ask a real human.
Still chewing on something?
Ask a real human. We answer in plain English and never send you down a jargon rabbit hole.
How much should I spend on Google Ads?
Work backward from your goals. Decide how many customers you want, divide by your close rate to get the leads you need, then multiply by your expected cost per lead. Our free Ad Budget Calculator does this math with industry benchmarks, and we'll recommend a starting budget once we know your market.
What does PPC management cost?
It depends on how many platforms, campaigns and locations we manage. Your ad budget is separate from our management fee, and you'll see both in writing before anything starts.
Are Google Local Services Ads worth it?
Often, for home services and some professional services. You pay per lead rather than per click, and your ad can show a Google badge. Responsiveness and reviews can affect how often you show, so answering every LSA lead fast matters. We judge LSAs by cost per booked job.
Google Ads or Facebook ads: which is better?
They do different jobs. Google search ads reach people actively looking for what you sell, so leads tend to be ready to act. Meta ads reach people who aren't searching yet, which helps with awareness, offers and retargeting. Many businesses use both, with budget weighted toward what produces customers.
How long before ads produce leads?
Campaigns can start producing leads soon after they're approved and live. The first weeks are about learning which searches, audiences and ads bring in qualified leads. Expect steady improvement as we cut waste and move budget to what works.
Can you take over my existing ad account?
Yes. We start with an audit of your current campaigns, tracking and search terms, keep what's working and fix what's wasting money. Fixing conversion tracking usually comes first, because every other decision depends on it.
Do you run ads for law firms, campaigns and home builders?
Yes, with their rules in mind. Lawyer advertising follows state bar rules, most of them modeled on ABA Model Rule 7.1. Federal campaign ads need paid-for-by disclaimers, and housing ads must follow the Fair Housing Act. We write and target ads accordingly, and you approve them before launch.
Get a Second Opinion on Your Ads
Book a free strategy call and bring your ad accounts or your goals. We'll look at your tracking, targeting and cost per lead, and tell you honestly what we would change. Starting fresh? Plan your budget first with the free Ad Budget Calculator.
Free. No obligation. No credit card. We never sell your information.
+100 Butter Points for running your audit
Not ready for either? Try the free Ad Budget Calculator
P.S. Planning a budget? The free Ad Budget Calculator works backward from the customers you want to the spend it takes, using 2026 search ad benchmarks. No email needed.
Prefer to talk to a human?