Don’t burn $5,000 learning what we already know. A practical Google Ads playbook for founders with a real budget and no time.
Most startups waste their first $5,000 in Google Ads on broad-match keywords and generic landing pages. Here’s the shortcut.
Step 1 — Pick the lowest-funnel keywords
Skip ‘project management software’. Bid on ‘asana alternative for agencies’ or ‘project management for architects’. Lower volume, 5x the conversion rate.
Step 2 — One landing page per campaign
Never send paid traffic to your homepage. Build a focused landing page with one offer, one CTA, and one form. We’ve seen conversion go from 1.2% to 7.4% with this single change.
Step 3 — Track conversions, not clicks
Set up Google Tag Manager + GA4 + conversion events the day you launch. If you can’t measure cost-per-lead, you’re not running ads — you’re donating.
Step 4 — Kill bad keywords weekly
Every Monday: open the search terms report, add the junk to negatives. Most accounts cut 20-30% of waste in the first month doing just this.
Run it like a science experiment. The accounts that win are the ones that iterate the fastest.