UK paid search consultancy

Google Ads, run by the person you hired

Independent PPC management for UK businesses. Flat fees, no account managers, and your account stays yours.

14 years In paid search — agency, in-house, independent
£100k+ Largest monthly ad spend managed
0% Of your ad spend taken as fee

What I do

Four services. Buy them separately or together.

Account audits

Fixed fee. Wasted spend, tracking accuracy and structural problems, ranked by impact.

Google Ads management

Search, Shopping, Performance Max and Demand Gen. Reported against revenue, not clicks.

Conversion tracking

GA4, Tag Manager, enhanced conversions, offline import. Numbers that match your business.

Shopping & feeds

Merchant Center, feed optimisation, product segmentation. The feed before the bidding.

How it works

01

Free review

Read-only access. Within days, a written summary of what's working and what's leaking. No pitch deck.

02

Fix the foundations

Tracking, then structure, then waste. No point optimising toward a conversion that's counting the wrong thing.

03

Iterate on evidence

Search terms, ad tests, budget shifts. Monthly write-up in plain English.

Who it's for

Businesses spending £1,000 to £30,000 a month. Big enough for the data to mean something. Small enough that an agency would hand you to its most junior person.

  • B2B, where leads take weeks to close and quality beats volume
  • Local and service businesses — trades, clinics, professional services
  • E-commerce running Shopping and Performance Max
  • Anyone with an agency they're no longer sure about

Common questions

How much does PPC management cost in the UK?

Three models: flat monthly retainer, percentage of ad spend (typically 5–10%), or one-off project fee. Small business retainers commonly start around £400–£800 a month. London agencies charge 30–45% more than equivalent providers elsewhere.

Search Lucid charges flat fees only. Percentage-of-spend pricing rewards the manager for growing your budget, whether or not that's the right call.

What's a realistic minimum ad budget?

Around £1,000 a month for most UK service businesses. Below that, smart bidding gathers data too slowly to optimise, and you can't separate a real trend from noise.

How long until Google Ads works?

Traffic starts within hours. Smart bidding needs roughly 30 conversions in 30 days to optimise reliably. Judge a new account at 60–90 days.

Do I own my Google Ads account?

With me, always. Campaigns are built in your account, under your billing, with consultant access granted through a manager account.

Some agencies build inside their own account — you lose every year of history the day you leave. Check before you sign anything.

PPC or SEO?

PPC buys placement and charges per click. Traffic within hours. SEO earns placement over three to six months and costs nothing per click.

Most businesses want both. PPC search query data is one of the best inputs into an SEO plan — it shows which terms produce revenue, not just volume.

Do you work outside the UK?

UK clients, though campaigns often target Ireland, the EU and North America. GMT/BST, billed in sterling.

Start with a free review

Read-only access to your account. A written summary of where the money goes. An honest answer on whether paid search is worth it for you.