Google Search Ads for Lead Generation: The Foundation

Search Ads are the workhorse of Google Ads for lead generation. For most businesses, 70-80% of your advertising budget should go here. Why? Because Search Ads deliver high-intent traffic at a predictable cost, and they scale reliably.

When someone searches “emergency plumber” or “divorce lawyer near me,” they’re not casually browsing. They need help, and they need it now. That’s the traffic you want—people actively searching for exactly what you offer.

This article covers the complete foundation for building Search campaigns: how to structure campaigns, which settings matter, and how to set everything up for maximum performance. We won’t dive deep into keyword selection or ad copywriting here—those get full chapters later (Chapters 4 and 5). But by the end of this article, you’ll understand the strategic framework that makes Search Ads work.

Why Search Ads Work So Well for Lead Generation

Search Ads work because of three factors: high intent, control, and predictability.

High intent means people are actively looking for what you offer. They typed a search query into Google because they have a problem and need a solution. Compare that to social media advertising, where you’re interrupting someone scrolling through their feed. On Facebook, they’re looking at vacation photos, not thinking about hiring a plumber. On Google, they’re literally searching “plumber near me.” The intent couldn’t be higher.

Control means you decide which keywords trigger your ads, what your ads say, how much you bid, and where people land after clicking. You’re not at the mercy of an algorithm deciding who might be interested. You’re targeting people based on exactly what they’re searching for.

Predictability means Search Ads scale reliably. If you’re profitable at $2,000/month in ad spend, you can likely scale to $5,000/month and maintain similar performance. Results are consistent and measurable.

Compare Search Ads to other channels. SEO is slow—it takes months to rank organically. Social media is interruption marketing with lower intent. Local Service Ads work great but are limited to specific categories. Search Ads work for virtually any service-based business, deliver results immediately, and scale predictably.

When I was running my furniture business, Search Ads were 75% of our total advertising budget. We tested Facebook, we tried Display, we experimented with local magazine ads. Nothing delivered the consistent ROI that Search Ads did. People searching “contemporary sectional sofa” were ready to buy. Social media viewers scrolling past our ad? Not so much.

Campaign Structure Best Practices

Let’s start with the hierarchy. Understanding this structure is critical:

Account → Campaigns → Ad Groups → Keywords & Ads

Your Google Ads account is the container for everything. Inside the account, you create campaigns, which each have their own budget, location targeting, and settings. Inside each campaign, you create ad groups, which contain tightly themed sets of keywords and the ads that show for those keywords.

How to Structure Campaigns

The question I get most often is: “How many campaigns should I have?”

The sweet spot for most businesses is 2-5 campaigns to start. More than that and you’re over-complicating things. Fewer than that and you lose the ability to control budgets and settings for different services or strategies.

Here’s how to think about structuring campaigns:

Structure by service type if you offer distinct services with different margins or conversion rates. For example, an HVAC company might run separate campaigns for “HVAC Installation” (high-value jobs) and “HVAC Repair” (lower-value emergency calls). This lets you allocate more budget to installation and bid more aggressively for those higher-value keywords.

Structure by geography if you have multiple locations or serve different areas with different competition levels. A contractor serving both Los Angeles and San Diego might run separate campaigns for each city to control budgets independently and use location-specific landing pages.

Separate branded from non-branded campaigns. Your branded campaign (people searching your business name) should be separate from non-branded (people searching for services). Branded searches are cheaper and convert better, so you want to track performance separately.

Some general good ideas to think about:

Do you want to layer brand messaging into your search campaigns? If you’re building awareness, having a strong branded search presence reinforces your name when people return after seeing your ads elsewhere.

If you have different services, structuring them in different campaigns with different landing pages is a good idea. Someone searching “kitchen remodeling” shouldn’t land on your bathroom remodeling page. Match the search intent to the landing page.

Testing landing pages is important. Sometimes sending traffic directly to service-specific pages performs best. Other times, going to local location pages (if you have multiple locations) works better to reinforce that you’re in their area. And sometimes the homepage is the best representation of your company and all the services you offer, so that converts highest.

The key is to test results based on different landing page approaches, see what conversion rates perform the highest, and then optimize from there. Don’t assume—test.

Ad Group Organization

Within each campaign, organize ad groups by tight themes—5 to 15 keywords per ad group, all closely related.

For example, a plumber might have these ad groups within their “Emergency Plumbing” campaign:

“Emergency Plumber” ad group (keywords: emergency plumber, 24 hour plumber, urgent plumbing)
“Burst Pipe Repair” ad group (keywords: burst pipe repair, broken pipe emergency, pipe leak fix)
“Drain Cleaning Emergency” ad group (keywords: emergency drain cleaning, clogged drain service, blocked drain repair)

Why tight themes matter: When your keywords closely match your ad copy, and your ad copy closely matches your landing page, Google rewards you with a higher Quality Score. Higher Quality Score means lower cost per click and better ad positions. We’ll cover Quality Score in detail shortly.

Naming conventions save time. Use a consistent structure like [Service]_[Location]_Search. Examples: “HVAC-Installation_LA_Search” or “Plumbing-Emergency_OC_Search.” This makes reporting and optimization much easier when you’re managing multiple campaigns.

Common Structure Mistakes

The biggest mistake I see: businesses running Smart Search campaigns. Small business owners often use Smart campaigns because that’s what Google’s setup wizard pushes. Smart campaigns are hard to configure precisely and don’t perform as well as standard Search campaigns. If you’re currently on a Smart campaign, switch to a standard Search campaign. You’ll have more control and better results.

Too many campaigns creates over-complication. I’ve seen accounts with 30 campaigns for a single-location service business. That’s unnecessary and makes optimization impossible.

One massive campaign with everything gives you no control. All your budget is pooled, you can’t prioritize high-value services, and you can’t see which services are profitable.

Start with 2-5 campaigns. You can always split them later if needed.

Essential Campaign Settings

Once your campaign structure is planned, you need to configure settings correctly. These decisions affect performance dramatically.

One critical thing before we dive in: negative keywords. Setting up a list of negatives that are immediately associated with your campaign structure is a good idea. There are negative keywords you should add from day one—words like “free,” “DIY,” “how to,” “jobs,” “careers,” “salary,” “cheap.” Having a negative keyword list applied immediately means you can continue adding to it as you discover irrelevant searches, and it protects you from wasting money on unqualified clicks from the start.

Networks

Search Network: YES. This is where your ads appear on Google search results.

Search Partners: Start without them, test later. Search Partners are other search engines (like AOL) that partner with Google. The quality varies, so start with just Google Search, then test partners once you have data.

Display Network: NO. Don’t enable Display in your Search campaigns. Run Display separately if you want to test it. Mixing them dilutes your budget and muddies your data.

Location Targeting

This is critical. Only show ads in areas you actually serve.

Set your service area as a radius around your location (10 miles, 25 miles, whatever you serve) or specify zip codes. Don’t claim you serve areas you don’t—you’ll waste money on leads you can’t fulfill.

Use “People in or regularly in your targeted locations,” NOT “People interested in your targeted locations.” This setting is easy to miss but crucial. If you select “people interested in,” Google will show your ads to someone in New York searching “plumber in Los Angeles” because they’re interested in Los Angeles. That’s a wasted click.

Exclude areas you don’t serve. If there’s a neighboring city you can’t reach, exclude it explicitly.

Ad Schedule

Match your ad schedule to your business hours. If you can’t answer the phone on Sundays, don’t run ads on Sundays. There’s nothing worse than paying for clicks and calls when no one is available to respond.

For advanced users, you can adjust bids by time of day. If calls during business hours convert better than after-hours calls, bid higher during the day.

Devices

Leave mobile, desktop, and tablet all enabled initially. After you gather data, you can adjust bids by device. For example, if mobile converts at a lower rate, you might reduce mobile bids by 20%.

Bidding Strategies

Start with Manual CPC (Cost Per Click). This gives you control and helps you learn what keywords actually cost in your market. You set a maximum bid for each keyword, and Google charges you only when someone clicks.

After you have 30-50 conversions, switch to automated bidding like Maximize Conversions or Target CPA. Google’s automation works, but only when it has enough conversion data to learn from. Starting with automation on day one means Google is guessing. Starting manually lets you learn, then automate.

Budget

Calculate your daily budget based on your monthly budget divided by 30.4 (average days per month). If your monthly budget is $3,000, your daily budget is roughly $100.

Common mistake: budget too low to compete. If you’re in a competitive market and you set a $20/day budget, your ads won’t show frequently enough to generate meaningful data. Start conservative but realistic—usually $50-100/day minimum for most service businesses.

Audience Targeting (Optional)

You can layer audiences onto Search campaigns without limiting who sees your ads. For example, add a remarketing list and bid 20% higher for people who’ve visited your site before. They’re more likely to convert, so paying more makes sense.

You can also layer in-market audiences (people Google thinks are shopping for your service) but don’t target them exclusively. Use audiences to adjust bids, not to restrict who can see your ads.

Ad Extensions: Critical for Performance

Ad extensions are additional information that appears with your ads—phone numbers, links to other pages, reviews, pricing. Extensions are free. They don’t cost extra, but they dramatically improve performance.

Use every extension that’s relevant:

Sitelink extensions add links to other pages below your ad (Services, About Us, Contact, Reviews).

Callout extensions are short selling points like “Licensed & Insured,” “24/7 Emergency Service,” “Free Estimates.”

Structured snippets show categories of what you offer (Services: HVAC Installation, Repair, Maintenance).

Call extensions show your phone number and enable mobile click-to-call. One note here: sometimes call extensions (the number that shows up directly in the ad) get more spam calls than calls that come from your website. It might be worth testing with call extensions on versus off to see if it’s better to give the phone number only after they click through to your website.

Location extensions are tied to your Google Business Profile and show your address.

Price extensions show pricing if appropriate for your business.

Review extensions pull from third-party review sites and display your star rating.

Image extensions are also good to use if they’re available for your campaigns. They add another thumbnail right next to the ads that helps make them more eye-catching and improves click-through rate.

Why extensions matter: They take up more space on the search results page. More space = more visibility = higher click-through rate. Higher click-through rate = better Quality Score = lower costs. And they’re free.

In my furniture business, adding extensions increased our click-through rate by 30-40%. Same budget, 30% more clicks. That’s free traffic.

One more important thing: Make sure your business name and business logo represent you correctly. Often the business name in Google Ads is different than your brand name, and you need to align that properly. Also, if your logo is too small or not easy to read when displayed next to ads, examine the logo for the best representation so it shows up correctly.

Quality Score and Why It Matters

Quality Score is Google’s rating of your ads on a scale of 1-10. It’s based on three factors:

Expected click-through rate (will people click your ad?)
Ad relevance (does your ad match the search query?)
Landing page experience (is your landing page relevant and fast?)

Why Quality Score matters: Higher Quality Score means lower cost per click and better ad positions. Two advertisers bidding the same amount for the same keyword will pay different prices based on Quality Score. The advertiser with Quality Score 8 might pay $5 per click. The advertiser with Quality Score 4 might pay $10 per click for the same position.

Quality Score can save you 30-50% on ad costs.

How to improve Quality Score:

Keep ad groups tightly themed so keywords match ads closely
Use relevant landing pages that match the keyword and ad
Ensure good user experience (fast loading site, mobile-friendly, clear call-to-action)

We covered landing page speed in the Search Console article—slow sites hurt Quality Score. Fix technical issues before spending on ads.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Starting with broad match keywords wastes money. Use exact and phrase match to start (we’ll cover match types in Chapter 4).

One ad group with 100 keywords kills Quality Score. Keep ad groups tight.

Not using extensions. They’re free and dramatically improve performance. Use them all.

Automated bidding too early. Wait until you have 30-50 conversions.

Wrong location targeting (using “people interested in” instead of “people in”).

Sending all traffic to your homepage. Send people to the most relevant page for their search.

The Foundation Is Set

Search Ads are the foundation of lead generation with Google Ads. Master this campaign type before layering on others. Get the structure right, configure settings correctly, use extensions, and focus on Quality Score.

We didn’t cover keyword selection strategy or ad copywriting here—those get dedicated chapters (4 and 5) because they’re deep topics. For now, understand the framework.

Next, we’ll cover the other campaign types: Local Service Ads, Display, Remarketing, Performance Max, and YouTube. These complement Search Ads but shouldn’t replace them. Search is where you start, and for most businesses, it’s where you’ll spend the majority of your budget for the long haul.