Marketing & Web · Secondary service

Google Ads and paid social for Bay Area businesses

Advertising, paid ads and content that drive volume into your funnel.

The volume layer. Google Ads, Meta Ads, weekly optimization, branded social posts and SEO articles at the cadence written into your scope. Designed to fill the top of the funnel that your AI agent will then qualify.

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Quoted after your review Engagement term agreed in writing Ad spend separate

SEOD Growth

SPEND WITH
A CLEAR PURPOSE.

For businesses ready to test paid search or social, with a website that can convert and operations that can handle demand.

Check the destination first

Review the website, conversion path and capacity before paying for more traffic.

Build and improve the campaigns

Google Ads, Meta Ads, creative and content selected around the market, margins and business goal.

Track the business outcome

Conversion tracking, cost-per-lead reporting and review. Published timeline examples are not a promise of acquisition cost or return.

Advertising is scoped inside Growth. Media spend is separate and paid directly to the advertising platform. Term and budget are confirmed in the written scope.

Review my advertising plan

Explore the work and approach

See the business behind the brief

Domo Cafe uses food photography and direct routes to orders and catering. Explore its website; no advertising outcome is claimed here.

Explore this example

How you get this

Advertising is delivered inside SEOD Growth, scoped after a Business Growth Review, because budget and channel depend on the business and its margins.

SEOD Growth Get my Growth Review

Where this fits in the SEOD stack

An AI lead qualifier is only as useful as the leads coming in. Advertising generates the leads. The lead qualifier (Tier 1 or 2 AI agent) sorts them. Advertising also stands alone for clients without an agent.

What's broken when you call us.

The marketing infrastructure is there, site, profile, reviews. But the calendar is still inconsistent. Some weeks you're slammed; other weeks the back-of-house is playing cards. You've tried running your own Google Ads and burned $800 with nothing to show. You've "tried" social and your Instagram has 200 followers of friends and vendors.

That's Advertising.

What's included in Google Ads and paid social.

Google Ads management

Full account build or rebuild. Search + Performance Max campaigns. Negative keyword sculpting. Weekly optimization. Monthly reporting with cost-per-lead breakdown.

Meta Ads (Facebook + Instagram)

Lookalike audiences, geo-fenced local campaigns, creative variants tested weekly. For food businesses: mouthwatering photography optimized for feed scroll.

Branded social posts

Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Original content, designed in your brand voice, scheduled through Buffer or Later. You approve before anything goes live.

SEO articles

Long-form, research-driven, optimized for commercial keywords. These compound, and the compounding is the point: work done in month one keeps paying later. We do not publish a multiple, because the honest one depends entirely on where your baseline starts.

Email marketing

List setup (Mailchimp, Klaviyo, or Beehiiv, your call). Monthly newsletter template. Welcome automation for new subscribers.

ROI reporting

Every dollar tracked, ad spend, cost-per-click, cost-per-conversion, revenue attributed. Plain-English monthly review call.

Ad spend, the honest conversation.

The management fee covers management of your ads. The ads themselves are a separate cost that goes directly to Google and Meta on your credit card. We never touch that money.

What a business should budget for media depends on its margins, its market and what it is trying to move, which is why it is settled in the Business Growth Review rather than published as a range here. Nonprofits are a special case: Google Ad Grants can cover a meaningful share of search media, and we apply for it on your behalf.

We'll recommend a starting budget on the intro call and refine it every month based on what's actually working.

Prerequisites.

A website that can actually convert (if yours can't, start with Search visibility first).
Operations that can handle more traffic. If your current service is already strained, ads just create more complaints. That's what Operations fixes first.
A willingness to run a real test, minimum 3 months at the recommended budget. Ads that run for three weeks on a token budget don't produce data; they produce noise.

When the dollars start flowing

Every dollar tracked,
to the outcome it produced.

Paid is the lever that moves fastest, but most agencies set bad expectations on day one. Here's the actual rhythm.

Week 1

Account setup, first ads live.

Google Ads + Meta accounts audited or built
Conversion tracking + GA4 events deployed
3 ad sets live (search + remarketing + Meta cold)
Daily budget set to learning phase ceiling

Month 1

First conversions tracked.

Search-ad CPA stabilizing
Meta-ads exiting learning phase
Negative keywords reviewed against actual search terms
First A/B test live (creative or audience)

Month 3

CAC predictable.

CAC (cost to acquire one customer) reviewed against the agreed baseline
ROAS (revenue per ad dollar) measured against the campaign objective
Email retention sequence live
Budget reallocation across channels each Monday

Month 6

LTV / CAC validated.

Cohort LTV measured (not estimated)
LTV/CAC ratio measured and reviewed
Spend can scale up with confidence
Brand-search impact reviewed (paid alongside organic)

Cadence varies with seasonal demand, ad-account history, and daily-spend ceiling. We set realistic targets on the call, not at signup.

What you get every month

What an advertising scope can include,
once it is written for your business.

Most paid-media agencies treat your ad account like a slow cooker. Set it once, check on it monthly. We treat it like a kitchen line. Active management, every weekday. Below is everything we touch.

1. Google Ads: full account management.

We don't just monitor. We run it.

Search campaigns: brand, non-brand, competitor, generic intent
Performance Max optimization (asset groups, audience signals)
Display network targeting (placement audits, exclusion lists)
Smart bidding strategy management (Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize Conversions)
Quality Score optimization per keyword
Negative keyword refinement (ongoing)
Search query report reviewed regularly
Match-type optimization (broad → phrase → exact migration)
Ad extensions: sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, location, lead form, call
Audience layering (in-market, demographics, RLSA)
Conversion action setup + GA4 event tracking
Bid adjustments by device, location, day-of-week, time-of-day
Auction insights monitoring (impression share, top-of-page rate)
Account hygiene (campaign structure, naming conventions, label system)

2. Meta Ads (Facebook + Instagram).

Cold + warm + retargeting + lookalike, all managed.

Campaign structure audit (CBO vs ABO decisions)
Audience build: saved + lookalike + custom + retargeting
Cold-audience targeting refresh (interest stacking, exclusions)
Creative refresh cadence (typically 2-4 new variants per month)
Ad copy A/B testing as performance data accrues
Image vs video creative testing
Ad-set learning-phase management (50-conversion threshold)
Budget pacing across funnel stages (TOFU / MOFU / BOFU)
Pixel integration verification + event-tracking audit
Conversions API (CAPI) setup for iOS-14+ accuracy
Catalog ads for retail clients (DPA setup)
Frequency capping monitored (audience burnout prevention)

3. Content & creative.

Social posts and SEO articles at the cadence in your written scope.

Branded social posting cadence (set in your written scope, depending on platform performance and creative inventory)
Story-mode content rhythm (when creative assets are available)
SEO content published regularly (typically 1-2 articles/month, 1500+ words)
Blog content cluster strategy (topic + supporting pieces)
Ad creative copywriting (we write, you approve)
Image art direction (we shoot or sourced from your library)
Branded social templates (Canva or Figma source files)
Hashtag strategy (10-30 hashtags per content category)
Content calendar (Notion / Google Sheets)
Seasonal campaign planning on a rolling basis

4. Email automation & retention.

Existing customers cost less to sell to than new ones, and the gap is wide enough that most businesses under-invest in the cheaper side.

Welcome sequence (3-5 emails for new subscribers)
Post-visit thank-you + review request flow
Win-back sequence (lapsed customer reactivation)
Referral program email flow
Monthly newsletter (you-approved content)
Birthday/anniversary triggers
Cart abandonment (for retail/DTC clients)
Email-list hygiene (suppression list management)
Subject line A/B testing on monthly sends
Klaviyo / Mailchimp / Constant Contact integration

5. Reporting & access.

Every dollar accounted for. No 30-page PDFs.

Active campaign monitoring (we see issues before you do)
Weekly Monday performance email (1 page, decision-needed at the end)
Monthly attribution report: every channel × every conversion × revenue × ROAS
Mid-month 5-min Loom walkthrough
Quarterly 45-min strategic review with Eric
Quarterly cohort LTV / CAC deep dive
Quarterly channel-mix re-evaluation
Quarterly brand-search lift report (paid driving organic)
Live performance dashboard (auto-pulled from Google + Meta + GA4)
Direct founder access for ad-hoc questions

Ad spend is separate (you pay Google and Meta directly, we don't mark it up, no hidden margin). The management fee is purely management + content + creative + reporting.

Optional add-ons

Beyond the base. Discussed during consultation.

Anything below is priced individually. We'll only suggest one if your numbers say it's the next move. Pricing transparent, no markup tax.

TikTok Ads

For DTC, restaurants, and lifestyle brands targeting under-35.

LinkedIn Ads (B2B)

For professional services, B2B SaaS, and recruiting. Account-based marketing setup.

YouTube Ads

In-stream, bumper and Shorts ads. Best for visual-heavy categories.

Programmatic display + CTV

Hulu, connected TV and programmatic display. Local and retargeting buys.

Influencer campaigns

Local Bay Area micro-influencers. We source, brief, manage and attribute.

Video creative production

Short ad-ready video and longer story video. For Meta Reels, TikTok and YouTube Shorts.

Loyalty + referral programs

Build out on Smile.io, ReferralCandy, or a custom flow.

SMS marketing

Compliant opt-in flow with transactional and promotional SMS via Klaviyo or Postscript.

Each add-on is scoped on the consultation call. We don't push them. They're available when the underlying numbers say it's time.

Important. Read this

Results will vary by business.

The numbers, milestones, and outcomes referenced on this page are illustrative ranges based on the middle 80% of past engagements. Every business is different. Outcomes depend on your starting point, industry, competitive density, location, market timing, your team's responsiveness, and factors outside any agency's control (algorithm changes, ad-platform policy shifts, local economy). We work toward realistic targets we set together on the consultation call.

What we DO commit to: we ship the work streams listed above on a regular monthly cadence, we report transparently every week and month, we explain the "why" behind every decision, and we tell you the truth even when it's uncomfortable. If we're not the right fit, we'll say so on the first call and refer you to someone better matched.

Past client outcomes published on this site (case studies, vertical-outcome bands, testimonials) describe what those specific businesses experienced. Your results may be higher, lower, or simply different. We'll set realistic targets together on the consultation call.

Common questions.

How fast do ads work?

Paid campaigns need enough conversion data to evaluate. The learning period and results vary with budget, market, creative and the customer journey. How long content takes to rank is not a fixed number, and anyone quoting one is quoting an average of engagements that are not yours. Four things govern it: the authority the site already has, how contested the query is, how much of the site already ranks, and whether the page is new or a rewrite of something Google has seen before. We tell you which of the four is your constraint before a word is written, and we report the leading indicators every month rather than pointing at a date.

What if my ad spend is tiny?

If your ad budget is too small to buy meaningful data, ads aren't the right tool yet. We'll redirect you to organic-first tactics (Search visibility) until the business can support a proper test.

Can you work with my current ad account?

Yes. We audit it first, preserve historical data, and take over ownership. You keep the account if you ever leave.

What's the social post content look like?

We shoot or art-direct the photos (food, people, product). We write the copy in your voice. You approve. We post. For nonprofits, we lean heavily on storytelling (beneficiaries, volunteers, outcomes).

Can I add more posts / articles?

Yes. Additional posts and articles are scoped into the plan rather than sold as line items, and they are quoted with the rest of the work after your Business Growth Review. We'll never upsell something we don't think you need.

★★★★★

"We went from 2 to 3 calls a week to 25 potentials a week in just a year. We started seeing results in 3 months of SEO."

, NorCal Shiba Rescue · Read the case study →

Best for

Businesses with a working site that need volume. Pair with an AI agent for the highest impact.

Add-on

Close the loop with an AI agent.

Bundle with the Manage tier to qualify the inbound your ads create.

Learn about AI Agents →

Built by operators, not engineers. Eric Lee, 16 years in F&B operations, $54M+ in annual P&L managed across BCD Tofu House, Gen Korean Barbecue, Sake2Me Sushi, and Obaba Fresh. We know which ad spend is worth chasing and which is a trap.

Ready to be busy?

We'll look at your current ad history (if any), your website, and give you an honest read on whether Advertising is the right move.

📞 Call or text Eric