Speed
SEO compounds for months. Paid traffic runs the day the account goes live. If you need leads in 60 days — or you’re launching a new service and need to test demand — ads bridge the gap while the organic foundation matures underneath.
Charleston, South Carolina
Paid traffic that earns its keep.
Online ads can generate interest faster, but the traffic still needs a strong place to land. We run ads that match the website, target the Charleston metro honestly, and report on cost per lead — not impression vanity.
Paid visibility
Landing page alignment
Lead-focused reporting
+$300/mo
Flat management fee on top of the standard plan
$1,500/mo
Honest ad-spend floor below this, data’s too thin
CPL
Reported, not impressions cost per lead, every month
Paid traffic is the fastest channel to turn on — and the easiest one to waste money in. Most ad campaigns fail not because the targeting is bad, but because the offer is muddy, the landing page contradicts the ad, and the reporting tracks the wrong numbers. We run paid through the same lens we build sites: cost per lead, not impressions.
We manage Google Ads (Search and Local Service Ads) and Meta Ads for service businesses and contractors across the Charleston metro and the broader Lowcountry. Campaign strategy, audience targeting, ad copy, and landing page alignment all live with the same team that builds and maintains the site — so when conversion breaks, we fix the page, not just the bid.
Honest budget floor: ~$1,500/mo in Google ad spend is the threshold below which data is too thin to optimize against. Management is +$300/mo on top of the flat plan ($500 setup + $297/mo). If your market doesn’t support that spend yet, we’ll say so — the SEO + website foundation usually returns more first. See SEO vs Google Ads for the longer comparison.
Intent
Google Search ads land on the highest-intent moment available: someone is actively searching for the thing you sell. Local Service Ads narrow it further — pay-per-lead, not pay-per-click, with a Google Guaranteed badge above the organic pack.
Feedback
Every ad surfaces real data about what your market responds to — which headlines win, which offers convert, which audiences are wasted spend. That intelligence feeds back into the website, the SEO, and the GBP listing — not just the next campaign.
Google Ads management is an optional add-on at +$300/mo on top of the flat $500 setup + $297/mo plan. Ad spend goes directly to Google.
See full pricing →Platform breakdown
The three platforms, and when each one earns its budget.
Not every platform makes sense for every business. The decision is about where your customers are searching, what they’re searching for, and how you earn trust before they reach out.
Highest intent · most lead spend
Google Search Ads
Captures existing demand — people actively searching for the service. The highest-intent channel available, and where most of a local business’s ad budget should live. Service-area keyword campaigns produce the most qualified leads. Display is brand awareness only — don’t fund leads from it.
Lowest CPL for trades
Google Local Service Ads
Pay-per-lead, not pay-per-click. Appears above the organic pack with a Google Guaranteed or Screened badge. For plumbers, electricians, HVAC, roofing, and similar trades, LSAs typically deliver the lowest cost per lead of any paid channel — often by a wide margin. Verification process required.
Demand generation only
Meta Ads (FB / IG)
Generates interest instead of capturing it. Works for visual offerings (interior design, photography, fitness, hospitality), seasonal pushes, and retargeting visitors who didn’t convert. For pure service-business lead gen, Meta rarely beats Google — useful as a second channel, weak as the only channel.
How a campaign runs
Six steps from kickoff to consistent lead flow.
Paid traffic is a system, not a launch event. Most of the work happens after the ads go live — optimizing what’s working, cutting what isn’t, and feeding insight back into the page that’s receiving the traffic.
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Budget + market fit check
Before we open an account, we honestly assess whether ads make sense for your market and budget. Service-area CPCs, competitor pressure, expected CPL, and minimum spend to gather statistically meaningful data. If the numbers don’t work, we say so — and recommend SEO + GBP first.
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Landing page audit + alignment
The number-one reason ads fail isn’t the ad — it’s the page the click lands on. We audit the destination page first, fix conversion blockers, and make sure the ad headline, offer, and CTA promise are reinforced the moment the visitor arrives. Quality Score follows from this.
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Account structure + tracking
Campaigns split by intent (not by service type), ad groups tight enough that one ad maps to one keyword cluster, negative keyword lists built from day one. Conversion tracking wired through GA4 + GSC + tel-link tracking so every lead is traceable to source.
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Launch + first-week monitoring
First seven days are heavy-touch — daily checks on search terms, impression share, bids, and early conversion data. Most campaigns need 2-3 adjustments in week one before they stabilize. We’d rather catch a runaway keyword on day three than read about it in the month-end report.
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Weekly optimization
Search-term mining (new negatives, new positives), bid adjustments, ad copy rotation, audience pruning. We track CPL by campaign and adjust budget toward what’s converting. If a campaign can’t be made profitable inside the budget, we pause it — we don’t let losers run to pad management hours.
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Monthly report + strategic call
Written summary of CPL by campaign, conversion rate, budget pacing, and what changed. Not a 40-page screenshot dump — one page, plain language, with the next month’s decision pre-made. Insights from ads (winning offers, headline patterns) feed back into the site copy and the SEO plan.
When the ads team and the web team are the same team, the feedback loop closes inside a week instead of inside a contract renewal.
Reporting
The numbers most agencies send vs. the numbers that matter.
A 40-page report full of impressions and CTRs looks busy but tells you nothing actionable. Here’s what we cut, and what replaces it.
Common report
Vanity metrics
- Total impressions (an audience-size number, not a lead number)
- Click-through rate without conversion context
- Average position / impression share with no spend impact
- Quality Score charts without showing the fix
- Demographics dashboards with no decision tied to them
- Month-over-month trend lines that hide cost-per-lead drift
What we report
Decision-grade data
- Cost per lead, broken out by campaign and ad group
- Conversion rate from click to call or form submission
- Return on ad spend (where revenue tracking is wired)
- Budget pacing with a flag if we’ll under- or over-deliver
- Search-term wins and waste with the next-month action
- One-page written summary — what changed, what’s next
Pricing
Three honest paths, depending on who runs the ads.
Not every business needs us to manage their paid traffic. Here are the three paths we’ll genuinely recommend — including the one where we’re not the answer.
Path 1 · You run it
DIY with our landing page
Some operators are sharp at their own Google Ads account and just need a better page to send traffic to. We build the landing page inside the standard plan, you run the campaign. No management fee, no markup on spend. We’ll suggest this when your in-house team is already competent.
Path 2 · We manage
+$300/mo, flat
Account structure, ad copy, weekly optimization, monthly report — bundled on top of the standard $500 setup + $297/mo plan. Best when ads and the site need to evolve together. Ad spend goes directly to Google from your card; we never mark it up. Budget floor: ~$1,500/mo Google spend.
Path 3 · Hire a specialist
When scale warrants it
If you’re spending $10,000+ /mo in ads and need a dedicated paid-media specialist, you should hire one. We’ll happily build the landing pages, wire tracking, and coordinate — but we won’t pretend a generalist agency is the right answer at that scale.
Cities we serve
Baldwin Digital is based in Charleston, SC. We work with clients across the Charleston metro and the Grand Strand:
Charleston Metro
Grand Strand
FAQ
Common Google Ads questions
When do Google Ads actually make sense for my business?
When you need leads in the next 60-90 days, when you’re launching a new service and want to test demand quickly, or when SEO is already strong and ads can fill the search-volume ceiling. Skip ads when the website still can’t convert organic traffic — the same conversion problem will just burn paid budget faster.
What’s an honest minimum monthly ad spend?
For Google Search in the Charleston metro, ~$1,500/mo is the floor where you can gather enough data to optimize against in a reasonable timeframe. Below that, you might still get a lead or two, but the optimization cycle takes months instead of weeks. Local Service Ads can start lower because they’re pay-per-lead. Meta can start at $500-$1,000 if it’s a retargeting layer, not the primary channel.
Do you mark up the ad spend, or take a percentage?
No. Spend goes directly from your card to Google or Meta. Management is a flat $300/mo on top of the standard plan — it doesn’t scale with your budget, so we have no incentive to push you to spend more than the market supports.
Will ads work better with a stronger website?
Yes, dramatically. Quality Score (and therefore CPC) is influenced by landing page experience. A slow, unclear, or off-message landing page costs you double — lower Quality Score raises your CPC, and lower conversion rate raises your CPL. Most of the gain in our managed accounts comes from fixing the page, not the bid.
Should I run both SEO and ads at the same time?
Usually yes, but in sequence. New clients with weak sites should fix the site and start SEO first — that’s the foundation. Once the page converts and basic local visibility is in place, ads layer on top and produce much better CPL because they’re landing on a converting site. See SEO vs Google Ads for the longer breakdown.
How fast will I see results from Google Ads?
First leads usually arrive within the first week of launch. Account stability and predictable CPL typically take 3-4 weeks of optimization. We don’t promise specific cost-per-lead numbers up front because they depend on your service area, competition, and average job value — numbers we get a real read on inside the first 2 weeks of spend.
Are Google Local Service Ads worth it for my trade?
For plumbing, electrical, HVAC, roofing, garage doors, and similar home services in Charleston: yes, almost always. LSAs typically deliver the lowest CPL of any paid channel in those verticals, and the Google Guaranteed badge above the organic pack is hard to beat for trust. The setup requires license verification and a background check, which we walk you through.
What happens if a campaign isn’t working?
We pause it. We don’t leave underperforming campaigns running to fill management hours. If the platform fundamentally isn’t a fit (often Meta for pure service businesses), we’ll recommend cutting it and redirecting budget into something with a real CPL story.
Ready to start?
Request a free audit. Keep the report either way.
Twenty minutes, no contract, no pitch. We'll show you whether ads make sense for your market right now, what budget is honest for your space, and the highest-leverage three things to fix on the landing experience first — whether you hire us or not.