Search ads management in brief
You decide which searches are worth paying for. Someone writes ads for those searches, sets a budget, and connects the account to your quote form so each form fill is counted. Then, every week, that person reads what people actually searched, blocks the poor matches and adjusts.
That is most of it. The work runs in Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising or both, inside accounts that belong to you, and the ad spend is billed to your own payment method.
Negative keywords and the search terms report
The search terms report shows the actual queries that triggered your ads. Reading it is the single most useful routine task in a search account, and it is where wasted clicks become visible.
Each pass sorts terms into three piles. Good terms you are already covering. Good terms worth adding as their own keywords. Poor matches that should become negatives: jobs, salary, training, templates, competitor names you have decided not to bid on, services you do not offer.
Negatives can sit at campaign level, at ad group level, or in shared lists applied across campaigns. A careful manager also checks that a new negative does not block searches you want, because a single broad negative can switch off a whole service line without anyone noticing.
Account ownership comes first
Before anyone builds a campaign, settle who owns the account. The safe arrangement is simple: the Google Ads account is created under your business, billed to your payment method, and you hold admin access. The provider links its manager account to yours or is added as a user.
This matters later. The account holds years of keyword history, conversion data and ad tests. If it sits in a provider's name and the relationship ends, you may lose that history and have to start again.
The same applies to Microsoft Advertising, Google Tag Manager and GA4. Ask for access levels to be written into the agreement, and check now and then that you can still log in yourself.
Questions about search ads management
Do I need both Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising?
No. Most accounts start with Google Ads because it carries most US search volume. Microsoft Advertising can be added later, often by importing the Google campaigns and then adjusting settings. Whether it is worth the extra upkeep depends on your buyers and budget, which the service partner can talk through with you.
What are negative keywords?
Negative keywords stop your ads showing for searches you do not want, such as job searches, training courses or services you do not offer. They are added from the search terms report, which lists the real queries behind your clicks. Most managed accounts add to the negative list every week.
Should Google's automatic recommendations be switched on?
Many managers turn off auto-apply and look at each recommendation by hand. Some are useful, such as fixing a missing asset. Others widen targeting or raise budgets. Ask your provider how they handle them, and check the change history now and then to see what was applied.
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LinkedIn for B2B
Targeting by job title, industry and company size, with lead gen forms that flow into your CRM instead of a spreadsheet.
Forms that connect
Form submissions routed to the right inbox or CRM pipeline, tagged by source, with a clear thank-you page.
Lead routing
Form fills and platform lead forms sent into HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive with campaign source fields filled in.