Ads, Only After The Path Is Sealed
Ads are a hose. They fill a sealed bucket faster than almost anything else in this book, and they empty your wallet into a leaking one just as fast.
Your ad account login, a laptop, your phone and the lead log from Chapter 3.
The weekend version.
You need your ad account login, a laptop, your phone and the lead log from Chapter 3. If you cannot log in to your own ad account, stop here and go to Chapter 14 first.
Screenshots of the screens named in these steps are being prepared and will carry the date they were taken.
1Follow the last inquiry
Before you touch the account, trace the most recent inquiry from wherever it started to whatever it became. Write down where it stopped if it did not become a job. That is your leak, and it comes before any change to the ads.
2List every campaign
For each one write its status, daily budget, end date and the last thirty days of results. If any campaign has an end date you did not choose, remove it or decide on purpose to keep it.
3Check the budget split
If a small budget is spread across many campaigns, write down which one or two campaigns match the work you most want, and plan to put the money there, or combine some of these campaigns so fewer of them share the same budget. Fewer campaigns does not mean fewer ads. You can and should have numerous ad groups in each campaign (Facebook calls them ad sets), and Google decides what to serve up.
4Read the search terms
Look at the last thirty days. Mark the searches that match your work and the ones that do not. Add the ones that do not as negatives.
5Read your negatives
Go through the list of words you have told the account to avoid. Look for anything that blocks your own trade, your own town or your own name.
6Untick auto-apply
Find the setting that lets the platform apply recommendations on its own, and turn it off. Every switch on that page should be off. The platforms move this setting around, so where it lives today is on the companion page for this chapter.
7Check the networks
Open each Search campaign’s settings and find Networks. If the Display Network box is checked, your search ads are also running on other people’s websites and apps, where a search budget quietly disappears. Uncheck it. Search Partners can go too unless you have a reason to keep it.
8Set the schedule to your hours
Ads run when someone can answer, or when your after-hours reply is tested and working.
9Check your own name
Search your business name on your phone. If a competitor’s ad sits above you, a small campaign for your own name goes on the list.
10Compare the count
Put last month’s reported conversions next to last month’s lines in your lead log. If they disagree by a lot, the next stop is Chapter 11, not a bigger budget.
Before you change anything, take a screenshot of each campaign’s settings. If a change goes wrong, you can put it back the way it was without guessing.
A few negatives we see work well in almost every local service account: job seeker words (jobs, hiring, careers, salary), do-it-yourself words (DIY, how to, tutorial), training words (school, course, class, certification) and supply words (parts, supplies, wholesale). Add the towns you do not serve, and "free" if you do not do free work. Treat it as a starting list, not a paste-in. Check each word against your own search terms first, because a word that is junk for a roofer can be a real customer for a supply house. And be careful with "cheap" and "near me." Those often bring in real buyers.
Where the two settings live today.
The book names the settings and keeps the menu paths here, because the ad platforms move them. Checked October 24, 2026.
Auto-apply
Google Ads: open Recommendations in the left menu, then the Auto-apply tab at the top. Every switch on that page should be off. If a suggestion is worth taking, you take it yourself and you know what changed.
Networks
Google Ads: open a Search campaign, then Settings, then Networks. Uncheck the Display Network. Search Partners is a judgment call, and the chapter explains how to make it.
The ads health checklist.
The weekend version as a checklist. Tick each one as you finish it, and take a screenshot of each campaign’s settings before you change anything.
Ads health checklist
Saves on this device as you go. Nothing is sent to us.
Check it took.
in a private window on your phone, search your trade and town during the hours your schedule says you are running. Then search again outside those hours. Your ad should usually show for the first and not the second, and if you click it, it should land on a page that lets a stranger ask for an estimate with one thumb. Then do a test inquiry from that page and watch it arrive once in your inbox and once in your count.
Where it stops being a weekend job.
The handoff is a decision rule, not a phone number. What failed, who fixes it, and the proof to ask for. Use it on anybody, including us.
You cannot tell what the ads produced in booked work, or the account is doing things you did not ask for: budgets moving, campaigns appearing, settings changing, results reported that do not match your phone. Or you are not sure where to turn off auto-apply, or whether your Search campaigns still have the Display Network and Search Partners boxes checked.
Someone who will sit down and show you the search terms report and the conversion settings, not just a dashboard with a line going up. An employee who is comfortable in the account can do it. So can the provider you already pay, if they will walk you through it, or us. The competence to look for is someone who talks about searches and inquiries before they talk about clicks.
A monthly one-page report that ties spend to inquiries to booked work, using the same definitions as your lead map from Chapter 11. One page. What was spent, how many real inquiries came from it, and what those inquiries became. If the report only shows impressions and clicks, it is not the report you asked for. Ask also for two screenshots: the auto-apply page with everything switched off, and each Search campaign’s network settings with the Display Network unchecked.
Ryan, I tried Google Ads and it didn't work
I believe you. I also want to ask what "didn’t work" looked like, because in the accounts we open it usually turns out to be one of a few things, and only one of them means ads are wrong for you.
Sometimes the ads worked and the bucket did not. Clicks came in, landed on a homepage, and left. Nobody was counting, so nobody knew.
Sometimes the account was counting the wrong thing. It reported dozens of conversions that were taps on a phone button, page views or the same form counted twice, and the platform went looking for more of the people who tap and leave. Chapter 11 is that whole story.
Sometimes the money was spread too thin. A small budget split across many campaigns, each one starved before it could learn which searches paid.
Sometimes the ads ran while nobody could answer. Evenings and weekends, calls going to a voicemail box that was full.
Sometimes it was the end date, the negative keyword, or the recommendation nobody remembered accepting.
And sometimes, honestly, it did not work because your town is small, the searches are few and the jobs come from referrals anyway, and that ad spend is better off spent on a different platform. That is a real answer, and it is fine. For most service-based businesses, however, that is rarely the case, and you cannot know which of these it was until you look. Most of them are fixable in a weekend.
Tools and next.
The two tools the book points to, then the chapters on either side of this one.
Elevated Page Check
Click it on any page for a score out of 100, the fixes that matter most, and eight tabs that show the headings, links, photos, schema, share preview and business details behind the page, in plain English. Nothing here for it to check. Before you turn ads back on, run it on the page the ads land on and clear the Fix list first. Nothing it reads leaves your computer.
How it works and where to get it →Done for youFree online presence report
Your listing, your business details, your reviews, your site speed and the heat map, scored from the outside. It asks for your email so we can send it.
Get the report →Nearby chapters
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
Page last updated October 26, 2026. The steps get updated when Google changes something. Found a step that no longer matches your screen? Email ryan@elevatedideas.com or call or text (217) 724-8153.
Maintained by Elevated Ideas, a U.S.-based agency in Jacksonville, Illinois. All chapters.
Seal the path, count the right thing, then turn on the water.
The free online presence report is the one thing in the book we ask you to let us run: the outside view of your listing, your details, your reviews, your speed and the map.
Prefer to talk? Call or text (217) 724-8153 or email ryan@elevatedideas.com.