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Let's TalkGoogle Ads Management Perth That Pays for Itself
Get your Google ads accounts driving leads and sales faster than ever, with management from an expert with over 18 years experience.
Semaphore Search provides Google Ads management for Perth businesses from $900 a month.
It’s run by Justin Clark, a specialist with 18 years’ experience and more than $60 million in ad spend managed. No lock-in contracts, no account managers, no juniors. The person you speak to is the person running your ads.
Trusted by CEO’s, CMO’s, business owners and start ups.
Book a free chat with me below.
Top: the monthly report you get sent.
Bottom: the search term work that actually saves you money.
Paying an agency to ignore your account? You’re not alone
Here’s the dirty secret of Google Ads management in Perth: a lot of accounts get set up once, switched to broad match, handed to whoever started at the agency last month, and then quietly left to run. You get a glossy monthly PDF, your cost per lead creeps up, and when you ask why, you get jargon.
I’ve spent 18 years inside Google Ads accounts, from $500 a month local businesses to some of the biggest ecommerce retailers in Australia and New Zealand. The problems I find when I take over an account are almost always the same: conversion tracking that counts the wrong things (or nothing), one campaign doing the job of ten, search terms full of junk nobody ever looked at, and budgets drifting to whatever Google’s automated suggestions fancied that week.
None of that is bad luck. It’s what happens when nobody who knows what they’re doing is actually looking after your account, which is spending your money.
What you get for your money
Google Ads management with Semaphore Search covers the whole job, not the highlights reel:
- A proper account structure built around how your customers actually search
- Keyword and search term management, including the unglamorous weekly negative-keyword work that saves you real money
- Ad copy written to sell, tested against variants, not set and forget
- Conversion tracking set up correctly, so decisions run on real numbers (calls, forms, sales, not clicks)
- Bid strategy and budget management matched to what a lead or sale is worth to you
- Landing page recommendations, because the ad only buys the visit; the page does the selling
- A monthly report in plain English: what was spent, what it returned, what happens next
- Direct access to me. No account manager relay, no ticket queue
Google Ads management pricing
Management starts at $900 a month, agreed up front, month to month. The fee depends on your ad spend and how much there is to manage, not on a percentage clip that rewards me for spending more of your money. Your ad spend is separate and goes straight to Google, in your own account, which you own. Always.
Not sure what shape your account is in? Start with the Google Ads audit . You get a documented list of what’s wrong, what it’s costing you, and what to fix first, whether or not you hire me afterwards.
If your budget genuinely isn’t ready for managed ads, I’ll tell you that in the first conversation and point you at what to do instead. Cheaper for you, better for my reviews.
A Google Ads agency in Perth that’s actually one specialist
Most of what a Google Ads agency in Perth sells you is overhead: account managers, sales directors, office plants. The person actually in your account is often the cheapest one in the building.
Semaphore Search is deliberately the opposite shape. It’s me, Justin, with a small pool of specialists I bring in when a job needs them. Founded in 2018, after well over a decade running search campaigns for brands like Vistaprint, Catch, Ovolo and Crystalbrook. When you call, you get the person who built your campaigns, knows why every keyword is there, and noticed what your cost per lead did on Tuesday.
That’s not a limitation, it’s the product. It’s also why I keep a deliberately short client list.
Still calling it AdWords? Same job, same person
Google renamed AdWords to Google Ads in July 2018. Same platform, same auction, same accounts. A shorter name, a few more campaign types, and that was the whole change. The job of making it profitable stayed exactly where it was.
Half of Perth never adopted the new name, and I understand why. I had spent ten years inside AdWords accounts before Google changed the sign; Semaphore Search was founded the same year the AdWords name was retired. So if you are looking for AdWords management in Perth, this is that, run by someone who was doing it back when it still said AdWords on the door.
The discipline that made AdWords accounts work is exactly what makes Google Ads accounts work now: keyword control, negative lists, bids that stay where you put them, conversion tracking that counts real enquiries. The platform has got more automated in the years since, which mostly means there are more settings quietly spending your money unless someone who remembers manual bidding is watching them.
Whatever you call the platform, the person managing it here is the same one who was managing it when the name was different.
How I manage your account
- Audit and research. Your account (if you have one), your market, your margins, what a lead is actually worth to you. I won’t touch a campaign until the numbers make sense.
- Build or rebuild. Account structure, keywords, match types, ad copy, extensions, and conversion tracking that measures what matters.
- Launch and stabilise. Tight budgets, tight match types, daily checks in the early weeks while real data comes in.
- Optimise, weekly. Search terms, negatives, bids, ads, audiences, devices, locations. Small boring improvements, compounding.
- Report and adjust, monthly. What was spent, what came back, what I’m doing next month and why. If something isn’t working, you hear it from me first.
Search, Shopping, Performance Max and the rest
Most Perth service businesses win on Search first, and that’s usually where I start: it catches people at the exact moment they’re looking for what you sell or the service you offer. From there, depending on your business:
- Shopping and Performance Max for ecommerce, fed by a properly maintained product feed
- Remarketing to bring back visitors who didn’t convert the first time
- Display and YouTube when awareness is genuinely the goal, not because they’re on a package checklist
- Microsoft (Bing) Ads as a quiet, cheaper second front once Google is working
You don’t pay for campaign types you don’t need. If Search plus remarketing does the job, that’s the recommendation you’ll get.
If you want Google and Microsoft Ads run together as one paid search channel, that’s the PPC management page.
Switching agencies? Your first 30 days
Most new clients aren’t new to Google Ads, they’re escaping someone. If that’s you, the handover is easier than you think, because you own your account (and if you don’t, that’s the first thing we fix).
Here’s how the first month runs:
- Week 1: access sorted, full audit of the existing account, conversion tracking checked against reality. Nothing gets changed until I know what’s actually happening.
- Week 2: the plan, in writing. What stays, what goes, what it should cost, what success looks like in numbers.
- Weeks 3 to 4: the rebuild goes live, watched daily. Wasted spend gets cut first because it’s the fastest win; growth comes once the leaks are plugged.
No blackout period, no “results take six months” hand-waving, no hostage negotiations over your own data. And because there’s no lock-in contract on either side, the pressure to keep earning your business never goes away. Which is rather the point.
Who this works for
Over 18 years I’ve managed Google Ads for local trades and home improvement companies, medical and allied health practices, professional services, B2B suppliers, hotels and travel brands, and ecommerce retailers from startup to the biggest names in Australia and New Zealand. Lead gen and online sales split my client base roughly down the middle.
The pattern that predicts success isn’t the industry. It’s a business that knows (or wants to know) what a customer is worth, has capacity to handle more work, and wants a straight answer about where its marketing money goes. If that’s you, we’ll get along fine.
Results from real Perth businesses
Shadeports (home improvement): five times the leads for the same monthly spend, after a rebuild of campaign structure and conversion tracking. In the owner’s words: “I now am getting 5 times more leads for the same money spent with Google.”
Across $60M+ of managed spend, the pattern holds: the money is usually already in the account, it’s just being spent on the wrong clicks.
Is Google Ads worth it in Perth?
Honest answer: it depends on your numbers, and anyone who says otherwise is selling something. Clicks in competitive Perth service industries commonly cost $3 to $60 and the ones actually worth buying mostly land between $12 and $35.
If your average job is worth $150 and you close one lead in ten, that maths is tight. If a customer is worth $2,000, Google Ads is very likely the fastest lever you can pull.
That’s the conversation we have before you spend anything: your margins, your close rate, your capacity. Google Ads done properly is a numbers decision, not an act of faith.
What a click actually costs in Perth
Between about $3 and $60, depending on what you sell. Everyone asks and almost nobody publishes it, so here are the real numbers, pulled from Google’s own keyword data for Perth in August 2026.
| Search term | Monthly searches | Average CPC |
|---|---|---|
| commercial cleaning perth | 590 | $61.47 |
| emergency plumber perth | 480 | $33.65 |
| roof restoration perth | 880 | $32.86 |
| electrician perth | 3,600 | $28.94 |
| conveyancing perth | 390 | $26.61 |
| plumber perth | 2,400 | $23.53 |
| removalists perth | 5,400 | $19.23 |
| solar panels perth | 2,400 | $17.91 |
| air conditioning perth | 1,300 | $16.71 |
| pest control perth | 2,900 | $13.21 |
| dentist perth | 2,400 | $12.68 |
| family lawyer perth | 2,400 | $11.66 |
| bathroom renovations perth | 1,900 | $8.26 |
| landscaping perth | 1,600 | $6.34 |
| car detailing perth | 1,900 | $3.32 |
Three things worth pulling out of that.
The spread is enormous. Car detailing sits near $3. Commercial cleaning sits above $60. That is a twenty-fold gap between two Perth businesses both “doing Google Ads”, which is why any advice about what you should spend, given without knowing what you sell, is worthless.
Click cost follows contract value, not effort. Commercial cleaning clicks are dear because one contract can run for years. Car detailing clicks are cheap because the job is worth a couple of hundred dollars. The auction has already priced in what your customer is worth, to your competitors at least. If your clicks are expensive, it is because someone else has done the maths and decided they are worth it.
Averages hide the ones that matter. “Plumber Perth” averages $23. “Emergency plumber Perth” averages $34, because whoever typed that has water across the kitchen floor and will ring the first number they see. The urgent version of your keyword always costs more and is almost always the one worth buying. Judging a whole account on its average CPC misses this completely.
One caveat, and it is a real one. These are averages across a month and across the whole city. What you actually pay depends on your Quality Score, the position you are aiming for, the time of day, and how many competitors happen to be bidding that week. Treat them as a starting range, not a quote. I refresh these figures every quarter and date-stamp them here when I do.
Whether any of these numbers count as expensive depends entirely on the arithmetic above: what a customer is worth to you, and how many of these clicks turn into one.
Figures: Google Ads keyword planner data, Perth, Western Australia. Last updated 18th August 2026.
Where we work
Semaphore Search is based in Bicton and manages Google Ads for businesses across Perth: Fremantle, Melville, Applecross, Cockburn, Joondalup, Osborne Park, Midland, the CBD and everywhere between. Distance doesn’t change the work, so clients across Western Australia and Australia-wide get the same service, with calls instead of coffees.
Semaphore Search
37 Foss Street, Bicton WA 6157
Phone: 0450 976 114
Email: justin@semaphoresearch.com
Hours: Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm AWST
Google Ads management FAQs
How much does Google Ads management cost in Perth?
Most Perth agencies charge between $500 and $2,500+ a month depending on ad spend and complexity. Semaphore Search starts at $900 a month, agreed up front, with no lock-in contract and no percentage-of-spend surprises. Your ad spend is separate and paid directly to Google.
What does the $900 a month include?
Full management: account structure, keyword and search term management, ad copywriting and testing, bid and budget management, conversion tracking, and a monthly plain-English report. The fee scales with account size and complexity, and you’ll know the exact number before anything starts.
How much should I spend on ads?
There’s no universal number; it depends on your industry’s click costs and what a customer is worth to you. As a rule, you need enough budget to buy meaningful data every week. In the first chat I’ll tell you honestly whether your budget can work, and if it can’t, I’ll say so rather than take it.
How long until I see results?
Leads usually start moving within the first few weeks. A fair read on performance takes about 90 days: conversion data needs to accumulate and bidding needs to settle. Anyone promising page-one dominance in week one is reading from a script.
Do I own my Google Ads account?
Yes, always. The account, the data and the history are yours. If we part ways, everything stays with you, in working order.
Am I locked into a contract?
No. Management is month to month. I’d rather keep clients with results than with paperwork.
How do you report on performance?
A monthly report in plain English: spend, leads or sales, cost per result, and what changes next. You also get direct access to me between reports, not an account manager relaying messages.
Why is my cost per lead so high?
The usual suspects: broad match left unsupervised, conversion tracking counting the wrong actions, ads pointing at a slow or generic landing page, and budget spread across too many campaigns. An audit finds which ones apply to you; most accounts have at least two.
Do you work with businesses outside Perth?
Yes. Semaphore Search is Perth-based but manages accounts Australia-wide. Reporting, calls and results work exactly the same wherever you are.
What is the difference between AdWords and Google Ads?
Nothing but the name. Google renamed AdWords to Google Ads in July 2018, it’s the same advertising platform, the same auction and the same accounts. If you’re searching for AdWords management in Perth, Google Ads management is the identical service. I spent my first decade in this industry calling it AdWords too, so you’re in good company.
How much does a Google Ads click cost in Perth?
Between about $3 and $60, depending on the industry. Google’s own keyword data for Perth (August 2026) puts car detailing near $3 a click and commercial cleaning above $60, with the clicks most worth buying landing between $12 and $35. The full table is further up this page, and whether any of it counts as expensive depends on what a customer is worth to you.
Stop paying for clicks that go nowhere
If your Google Ads feel like a tax rather than a sales channel, that’s fixable, usually faster than you’d think. Book a free chat, or start with the $500 audit and see exactly where the money is going.
Our service starts with a free chat or a no obligation Google Ads account audit.