The process, as a timeline
The first 90 days of a Manchester Google Ads account
What we build, what we change and what you see, week by week, on an account we run.
Ninety days is how long it takes to know whether Google Ads works for a Manchester business, and the time is spent in four unequal phases: two weeks stopping waste and proving that calls, forms or bookings are counted; two weeks reading daily while the account learns; a month letting bidding chase real outcomes; and a month held steady so the third report can be judged. Each phase ends with something you can read, and the third ends with one of three words. The 3-month minimum on the monthly plans is this timeline, and nothing else.
Days 0 to 14: stop the waste, prove the counting, agree the plan
In the account
- Access through a manager-account request you approve; nothing is rebuilt until ninety days of search terms have been read line by line.
- The wrong searches excluded the same day: courses, jobs, the boroughs you do not serve, the towns beyond them.
- Tracking proved with a real call and a real form or booking, each counted once. Consent Mode set so the counting survives the cookie banner.
- Location set to presence, the map drawn by borough and postcode district, auto-apply switched off, search partners and display expansion off.
- The structure agreed in writing: one campaign per goal, ad groups by intent, phrase and exact match first.
- The first campaigns live by the end of the fortnight, with the ads written to the searches and a call asset in your hours.
What you see
A one-page plan before anything spends, an email when the campaigns go live, and a WhatsApp message if a search term needs your decision.
Days 15 to 30: read daily, touch bids rarely, measure the page
In the account
- Search terms read every morning while the account learns; negatives added daily, not weekly, because a new account in a big city finds new nonsense every day.
- Bids and budgets left alone so the learning period can finish. Changing them every few days keeps the strategy learning forever.
- The landing page measured on a phone and, on Growth and above, changed where the data says so: the number higher, the form shorter, the image smaller.
- Impression share and cost per outcome watched, not acted on, until there is a month of clean data behind them.
What you see
Day 30: the first written report. Spend, outcomes, cost per outcome, what was excluded, what Google suggested and was refused, and the one question we need you to answer: what an outcome is worth.
Days 31 to 60: let bidding learn from real outcomes, test the ads
In the account
- Bidding moved to a target cost per outcome once there are around thirty conversions to learn from; on a smaller account, manual bids with a tighter map instead.
- Ad copy tested one change at a time: a headline that names the borough, a price, an opening-hours line. Judged on cost per outcome after a fortnight, not on click-through rate.
- Budget shifted between campaigns and boroughs by impression share and cost per outcome: more to what produced, less to what did not.
- Second goal or second engine considered: a Shopping campaign, a bookings campaign, Microsoft Ads. Only where the first campaign's numbers earn it.
What you see
Day 60: the second report, with the month before beside it. Cost per outcome by campaign and by borough, and the question of whether the diary or the vans can take more.
Days 61 to 90: the judgement month
In the account
- The account held steady enough to be judged: no structural changes, so the third report compares like with like.
- Offline outcomes uploaded where you have them: which calls became jobs, which leads became customers, what they were worth.
- Every recommendation from Google read and, mostly, declined in writing: broad match, budget increases, Performance Max as a replacement for Search.
- The map corrected by evidence: boroughs that produced nothing dropped, boroughs that produced cheaply given more.
What you see
Day 90: the third report, and a recommendation in one of three words: scale, hold or stop, with the reason. After that the plan is monthly and you leave with a month's notice, account intact.
At Manchester prices
Why the first fortnight matters more here than in a market town
Clicks in a city with ten boroughs and a lot of competitors cost more than clicks in a town with three plumbers, so the searches that could never buy cost more too. A radius that swallows Warrington, a location setting on interest, a conversion action counting page refreshes: in Manchester each of those is expensive by the end of week one, which is why they are fixed in week one and not raised at a monthly meeting.
The same density is the reason the third report can be trusted. There are enough searches in Greater Manchester for most sectors to collect the thirty or so conversions a month that a bid strategy needs, which is not true everywhere, and it means the judgement on day 90 rests on data rather than on patience.
After day 90
Monthly, with the same routine and a month's notice
The weekly search terms read, the monthly report and the refusal of Google's suggestions carry on unchanged. What changes is the pace: one experiment a month with a written hypothesis, a second goal or a second engine when the first has earned it, and the map corrected each quarter from where the outcomes came.
The results page walks through the three reports of this timeline for a hypothetical Stockport clinic, with every figure labelled as illustrative, so you can see what each one would ask you to decide.
Questions about the first 90 days
Why 90 days before a judgement?
Because a month goes on stopping waste and proving the counting, a month on letting Smart Bidding learn from clean data, and a month on comparing like with like. A verdict in week three is a verdict on noise, in either direction. The three-month minimum on the monthly plans exists for exactly this reason.
What do you need from me in the first 90 days?
Access to the account and the website, a real answer to what a call, sale, booking or lead is worth, ten minutes a month to read the report, and honesty about which leads were real. The report is unfinished without the worth line, and it asks for it every month.
Can I see results before day 30?
You see clicks the first day and enquiries in the first week if the page and the tracking are right, and we message you when the first ones arrive. What you cannot see before day 30 is a cost per outcome worth acting on, and we will not pretend otherwise.
What if the account is a takeover, not a new build?
The 90 days are the same shape, but the first fortnight is heavier: an existing account usually has a year of search terms nobody read, a conversion action counting the wrong thing and a location setting on interest. Those go first, and the report on day 30 shows what they cost.
What does the first 90 days cost?
Three months of the tier your spend falls in, £249, £399 or £599 a month excluding VAT, plus £199 once for the build, plus the ad spend paid to Google on your card. There is no charge for the report and no percentage of spend.
What if day 90 says stop?
Then the report says why: the clicks are too dear for the margin, the page cannot convert at any price, or the searches do not exist in Greater Manchester in the numbers needed. You keep the account, the tracking and the negative lists, and we say what to do instead, which is sometimes SEO and sometimes nothing.
Say what the ads are for. The fee and the first three changes come back in writing.
Calls, sales, bookings or leads, roughly what you spend, and the part of Greater Manchester you sell to. Daniel Stoychev reads it himself and answers within one working day with the tier, the fee and what he would change first. Already spending? The free check reads your account in 72 hours.