Google Ads
Capture High-Intent Searches Before Your Competitors Do
When an owner or facility manager searches for a firm like yours, Google Ads can put you at the top of the page that same day. We build and manage tightly targeted campaigns for AEC firms, so your budget goes to qualified searches instead of job seekers, students, and DIY questions.
Where paid search fits
Paid Search Works for AEC Firms When It's Narrow
Google Ads has a reputation in the AEC world as an expensive way to attract the wrong clicks. That reputation is usually earned by broad campaigns: generic keywords, no negative keywords, and ads that send visitors to the homepage. Engineering searches are low in volume and high in value, so there's little room for waste.
Run narrowly, paid search is one of the few channels that reaches buyers at the exact moment they're looking. It's especially useful for launching a new service line, entering a new geography, supporting a hiring push, or generating inquiries while SEO builds organic visibility.
Google Ads is one of the channels we manage under our Growth Marketing retainer.
What we manage
Campaigns Built for Qualified Inquiries
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Keyword Strategy and Negatives
We target specific service, market, and location combinations and maintain extensive negative keyword lists to block job seekers, students, salary research, and unrelated industries. In AEC, what you exclude matters as much as what you bid on.
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Geographic Targeting
Campaigns focus on the regions where you can actually deliver work — by state, metro area, county, or radius around your offices — with separate budgets for priority markets.
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Ad Copy That Qualifies
Ads that state what you do, who you do it for, and where, so the wrong prospects self-select out before they click. We lead with your real differentiators and credentials, not generic claims.
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Dedicated Landing Pages
Paid traffic deserves a page built for it: one service, one audience, proof from relevant projects, and a clear inquiry path. We build or optimize landing pages so clicks turn into conversations.
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Conversion Tracking
Form submissions, proposal requests, and calls from ads are tracked as conversions and tied back to keywords, so bids and budget follow what produces inquiries rather than what produces clicks.
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Recruiting Campaigns
When hiring is the bottleneck, separate search campaigns aimed at engineers in your markets can send candidates directly to your careers pages, complementing your job board listings.
How it works
From Setup to Steady Optimization
Google Ads is managed monthly as part of a Growth Marketing retainer. Budgets are agreed with you up front and reviewed every month.
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Weeks 1–2
Research and Setup
Keyword and competitor research, account structure, conversion tracking, and landing page review. If you already have an account, we audit it before changing anything.
- Deliverables
- Account audit
- Keyword and negative keyword plan
- Conversion tracking
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Weeks 3–4
Launch
Campaigns go live with measured bids and tight targeting. In the early weeks we review search terms closely, adding negatives and cutting waste as real data comes in.
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Month 2+
Optimize
Bid adjustments, ad testing, and budget shifts toward the campaigns producing inquiries, with monthly reporting and clear recommendations.
What we measure
Reporting on Leads, Not Clicks
Click-through rates are diagnostics. We report on what the spend actually produced:
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Qualified Inquiries
Form submissions, proposal requests, and calls from prospects that match your target clients.
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Cost per Inquiry
What each qualified inquiry costs, by campaign and by market.
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Search Term Quality
The actual searches triggering your ads, and what we've excluded to protect the budget.
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Landing Page Conversion
How effectively paid visitors turn into inquiries, and where pages can improve.
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Pipeline Influence
Paid search inquiries that turn into proposals and projects, when your CRM lets us track them.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Google Ads work for engineering firms?
It can, when campaigns are narrow. Search volume for engineering services is lower than in consumer categories, but intent is high and project values are large. The keys are precise keywords, aggressive negative keywords, and landing pages built for the specific service being advertised.
How much should an AEC firm spend on Google Ads?
It depends on your markets, how competitive the terms are, and how many inquiries you need. We size a starting budget after keyword research shows realistic search volumes and costs in your geography, then adjust based on cost per qualified inquiry.
How do you keep job seekers from clicking our ads?
Negative keywords are the first line of defense: terms like jobs, careers, salary, internship, and resume are excluded from service campaigns. Ad copy that clearly names the service and audience also discourages irrelevant clicks. If hiring is a priority, we run a separate recruiting campaign so those searches reach your careers page on purpose.
Should we run Google Ads or invest in SEO?
They solve different problems. Google Ads produces visibility immediately and stops when spending stops, while SEO takes longer but keeps working. Many firms start with paid search to generate early inquiries and learn which terms convert, then use that data to prioritize SEO.
Can you take over our existing Google Ads account?
Yes. We start with an audit of account structure, keywords, search terms, and conversion tracking, then recommend fixes before making significant changes. Accounts that have run without close management often have wasted spend that can be redirected.
Get started
Put Your Firm in Front of Buyers Searching Right Now
Tell us which services and markets you want to grow. We'll show you what search demand looks like and how a focused campaign would work.