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Insights

Paid search, plainly.

Notes on Google Ads from eighteen years on the dials — profit over vanity metrics, plain talk, no jargon. The stuff I'd tell you over a coffee.

Most PPC content online is written to rank, not to help — recycled checklists, "10 tips" round-ups, and screenshots of dashboards that never mention what happened to the bank balance. This is the opposite. Most posts here come from real accounts, real clients and decisions made with imperfect data. Occasionally, the lesson starts with a conversation about AI. Sometimes that means turning ad spend off rather than on. Sometimes it means arguing with Google's own automation. The through-line is always the same question: did this make the client more money, or did it just make the report look better? If you manage your own Google Ads account, or you're trying to work out whether your agency is doing the same, these are written for you.

00630 October 20266 min readNew · AI & Accountability

My AI invented a childhood. What about your ad budget?

It claimed its first film was Crocodile Dundee. At twelve. One problem: the AI never had a childhood. What does that mean for trusting its recommendations?

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00520 October 20266 min read

Google's given you the controls. Do you know which way to turn them?

Google Ads now lets advertisers prioritise channels and guide budget allocation. More control is useful. Knowing where the next pound should go is the real skill.

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00418 October 20264 min read

Who still has the keys to your Google Ads account?

Who really has access to your advertising accounts? Permissions, offboarding, AI tools and the board-level case for accountability.

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00325 August 20264 min read

Two identical orders. Two totally different customers

A £50 order from a first-time buyer and a £50 order from your best repeat customer look the same in a conversion feed. They shouldn't be treated the same.

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00225 August 20264 min read

Google's letting you argue with Performance Max

An alpha test gives advertisers a dial to push back on which channels PMax favours. Welcome control, and a new way to shoot yourself in the foot.

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00124 June 20264 min read

Your Google Ads report looks great. So where's the money?

On vanity metrics, the one number that actually matters, and why a tidy dashboard can quietly hide a leaking account.

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