Conversions were never set up properly.
The platform reports form fills it cannot verify and calls it a lead. Nobody has checked whether those became customers.
For Houston service businesses · Flat monthly fee
Google & Meta ads management in Houston that shows you which spend made money.
No campaign goes live until conversion and call tracking is installed and tested. We run one channel for six months, and at day 60 you see exactly what the ads produced. If it is not working, you can walk.
Book a 20-minute call
Bring your current spend and what you are getting for it. We will tell you straight whether we would take it on.
- Flat fee, never a % of spend
- You own the ad account
- Real exit at day 60
Why ad accounts stall
The reporting problem comes before the ads problem.
Phone calls go uncounted.
For most service businesses the phone is the main conversion, and it is the one the account tracks worst.
Spend is spread across two platforms too thin to optimize.
Neither one gathers enough data to learn, so both underperform and the budget gets blamed.
Leads arrive and nothing happens for hours.
You pay for the click either way. What happens in the next five minutes decides whether you paid for anything.
You cannot optimize a number you are not measuring correctly.
Results
Two accounts, two channels, shown line by line.
One on Google where the phone is the conversion, one on Meta where the calendar is. Same discipline: the reporting follows the lead past the click.
Google Ads · Dental practice, Tennessee
The phone rang 136 times in a month.
Three campaigns, a front desk that answers, and one in five first-time callers becoming a patient.
$1,940
ad spend
136
inbound calls
101
first-time callers
~25
new patients
August 2026. Blended cost per new patient across all channels that month was $77.60. That is not a cost per patient from advertising alone.
- Inbound calls136
- First-time callers101
- New patients~25
Bars to scale. About one in four first-time callers became a patient.
Meta ads · SBA Loan Guy, Texas
470 leads at $4.08. Fifty-six booked.
Six weeks on $100 a day, one offer, every lead tracked from the form through to a confirmed appointment.
$1,918
ad spend
470
leads captured
56
appointments booked
$34.24
per appointment
1 September to 10 October 2026. Every appointment booked in the period was confirmed. Appointment counts are not a measure of revenue or closed business.
- Leads captured470
- Appointments booked56
- Appointments confirmed56
Bars to scale. $4.08 per lead, $34.24 per booked appointment.
Both accounts are specific to their market, budget, offer and how fast leads were handled. Neither is a projection of what your account would do.
See more Idea Farm client resultsWant this line-by-line view of your own account?
Book a 20-minute callHow six months runs
Tracking first. Then spend. Then an honest review.
Click any stage of the six months to see what happens in it.
- Days 1–14
Tracking, audit and build
Conversion tracking installed and tested, call tracking in place, existing account audited, campaigns and creative built. No budget goes live until tracking passes a real test, not a screenshot of a tag.
- Days 15–60
Launch and optimize
One channel, live. Weekly optimization against conversion data rather than clicks. You get a live dashboard you can open any time instead of waiting for a monthly PDF.
- Day 60
The review, and your exit
We sit down with the numbers. What the ads produced, what it cost per conversion, and what happened to those leads after they came in. If the data says this is not working, you can end it here and owe nothing further. We would rather you leave at day 60 than resent us at day 180.
Your exit point - Days 61–120
Fix or scale
Either we scale what is working, add the second channel, or we go fix what is breaking between the lead arriving and the sale closing. This is the stretch where the account has enough history to make real decisions instead of guesses.
- Days 121–180
Compound it
Six months of clean conversion data is where automated bidding finally earns its keep. Budgets move to what produced customers, not what produced clicks, and the monthly report starts answering questions instead of raising them.
What Google and Meta ads management includes
- Conversion and call tracking, installed and tested
- Account audit, or a full build if you are starting fresh
- Campaign build, keywords or audiences, ad copy and creative
- Landing page review and recommendations
- Weekly optimization
- Live reporting dashboard
- Monthly call with the owner
What is not included
- Your ad spend, which you pay the platform directly
- SEO and content
- Social media management
- Website design and development
Media budget is never marked up and never runs through us. You see what Google and Meta actually charged.
Investment
Flat management fee, not a cut of your budget.
Percentage pricing means we earn more when you spend more. That is a bad incentive and you should not accept it from anyone. Our fee is flat.
Setup
$1,500
One time. Tracking, audit and build, before anything goes live.
Where everyone starts One channel
$2,500/mo
Google or Meta. Weekly optimization, live dashboard, monthly owner call.
Second channel
+$1,000/mo
Added when the first one is working. Both channels is $3,500 a month.
Minimum ad spend of $5,000 a month, paid by you directly to the platform. Below that, management fees stop making sense and we will say so rather than take the account. Six-month initial term, month to month after that, with a genuine exit at day 60 if the data says it is not working.
Accountability
What the fee buys you in reporting, every month.
We will not promise you a lead count, a cost per lead or a revenue figure before we have seen your data. Anyone who does is guessing with your money. Here is what you will see instead.
- Spend, by campaign and channelWhat went out, where it went, and what changed from last month.
- Conversions and cost per conversionMeasured against tracking we installed and verified, including phone calls.
- Lead quality, not just lead countHow many of those conversions were real prospects. A cheap lead that never answers is not a win.
- What we changed and whyPlain language. No jargon wall, no screenshot of a platform dashboard passed off as analysis.
Monthly reportSample layout
Spend by campaign
Verified conversions
Lead quality
What we changed and why
Not sure your budget fits? Ask on the call. If it does not, we will say so.
Book a 20-minute callFit
Who this works for.
A good fit
- Service businesses, roughly $500K to $10M
- $5,000 a month or more in ad budget
- Someone can answer a new lead quickly
- The owner makes the budget decision
- You want to know what worked, not just that something ran
Not a fit
- Budget under $5,000 a month
- You want a guaranteed number of leads in writing
- You cannot commit past a 60-day look at the data
- You want to run Google and Meta at once on a small budget
- Leads will sit for a day before anyone calls
If the left column sounds like you, twenty minutes will tell us both whether this works.
Book a 20-minute callQuestions
Google and Meta ads management questions people ask before they book.
How much does Google Ads management cost?
Ours is $2,500 a month for one channel, plus a one-time $1,500 setup for tracking, audit and build. A second channel is $1,000 a month on top. The fee is flat and never a percentage of your ad budget, because percentage pricing pays an agency more when you spend more.
What is the minimum ad spend?
$5,000 a month, paid by you directly to Google or Meta. Below that the management fee is too large a share of the total for the arrangement to make sense, and we will tell you so rather than take the account.
Am I locked into a contract?
Six-month initial term, month to month after that. At day 60 we review the actual numbers, and if the data says it is not working you can end it there and owe nothing further.
Who owns the ad account?
You do. Campaigns, conversion tracking, call tracking and historical data stay in your account under your billing. If you leave, nothing has to be rebuilt from scratch.
Should I run Google Ads or Meta ads first?
One at a time. Google suits businesses whose customers are actively searching for the service. Meta suits businesses that have to create the demand with an offer. Splitting a budget under $10,000 a month across both usually means neither platform gathers enough conversion data to optimize.
How long before ads start working?
Nothing is live for the first two weeks while tracking is installed and tested. The first real read on performance is day 60. Six months is the term because that is roughly how long an account needs clean conversion data before automated bidding earns its keep.
Do you guarantee a number of leads?
No, and you should be wary of anyone who does before seeing your data. What we commit to is what gets reported every month: spend by campaign, conversions and cost per conversion against tracking we verified, lead quality rather than lead count, and what we changed and why.
Do you work with businesses outside Houston?
Yes. We are based in Houston, Texas and most clients are Texas service businesses, but the work is remote and the channel does not care where your office is. More about The Idea Farm.
Reviews
What clients say about working with The Idea Farm.
Reviews across all of our services, not only ads, pulled live from our review profile.
Twenty minutes. Bring your spend, we will tell you straight.
If your account is already working, we will say so and you can keep your money. If it is not, we will tell you what we would change before you sign anything.
Book a 20-minute call