Setup gets an account live. Management is the unglamorous monthly work that decides whether it stays profitable. Most Indian PPC accounts I look at do not fail from a bad build; they fail in month three, when nobody prunes search terms and bidding creeps up on terms that stopped converting.
The weekly hour that matters
One hour a week, same day, three things:
- Read the search terms report for anything that converted, and anything that spent above your target cost per lead.
- Add negatives for terms with real clicks and zero conversions, at campaign level unless a term converts in one ad group.
- Check budget-limited campaigns. If Google could not spend your daily budget on a profitable campaign, raise it there first.
That is the whole routine. Everything below is what to do when those checks surface something.
Search term hygiene
The search terms report is the highest-value screen in Google Ads and the most neglected. A useful rule: if a term has spent more than one-and-a-half times your target cost per lead and produced nothing, add it as a negative. The decision is asymmetric, since a false negative costs a few hundred rupees of testing, while ignoring an expensive irrelevant term costs that every week.
Indian search behaviour adds junk you will not see in English-language accounts. Transliterated brand names in Latin script, queries that are really job seekers, and competitor brand searches from people comparing prices. Also watch spelling variants, because “laptop repairs” and “laptob repair” are the same buyer.
Do this weekly for the first two months, then twice monthly once the leaks are closed. If you would rather not own this screen every week, it is the main thing a performance marketing retainer pays for.
Bidding strategy changes
Moving from manual or enhanced CPC to a conversion-based automated strategy is the standard progression, but it depends on data volume.
| Conversions per month | Sensible bidding approach |
|---|---|
| Under 15 | Manual or enhanced CPC, tight keyword lists |
| 15 to 50 | Maximise conversions, one campaign |
| Above 50 | Target CPA or ROAS, once margin is known |
The failure mode is jumping to target CPA at month one with 12 conversions recorded. The algorithm has nothing to learn from and will spend wherever it guesses cheapest, which is rarely where the money is.
Only set a target CPA or ROAS once you know what a conversion is worth in rupees. Your target has to sit below your margin per sale, not near your revenue. If a sale nets you ₹2,000 after goods and delivery, your target CPA is meaningfully below that, not at it.
When to pause an ad group
Rules rather than hunches:
- Zero conversions after spending 2x your target cost per lead, on two separate weeks.
- Average cost per lead more than double your account average, sustained three weeks.
- Click-through rate under 1% with conversion rate at zero, meaning the query and the ad are both wrong.
Do not delete. Pausing preserves history; deleting resets it and loses accumulated signal. If a paused ad group comes back at a materially better cost per lead, note that down.
Festival and seasonal adjustments
Indian demand is seasonal and the swings are large. Two to four weeks before Diwali, Holi or Dhanteras, raise budgets on proven non-brand terms by 20-30%, not 100%, because large jumps destabilise delivery. Raise bids on terms that convert fastest in that season, not on your highest-volume terms.
Around the wedding season, lead time matters more than bid. A business selling services needs the enquiry 6-8 weeks out, so budget pressure belongs on the top of the funnel earlier than on the close.
During and after a festival, cut spend on broad terms and keep spend on brand. Everyone bids for the same generic terms, and the auction is at its most expensive.
If you run an offer, make the GST-inclusive price and offer terms on the landing page match the ad exactly. A mismatch creates refund conversations that cost more than the media.
Quarterly jobs
Once a quarter, do four things daily management will not catch:
- Rebuild the negative keyword list from scratch rather than adding to it.
- Check search term overlap between ad groups and separate anything competing with itself.
- Test one new ad copy angle against your control, not two.
- Re-read the actual phone and WhatsApp enquiries against what the campaign promised. Mismatches mean the ad copy overclaims, which quietly raises your cost per lead.
FAQ
How often should I check my Google Ads account? Fifteen minutes daily for spend anomalies, one focused hour weekly for search terms and performance. Daily tweaking causes more harm than good.
Should I use automatic bidding? Only once your account has enough conversion data. Under 15 conversions a month, automated strategies have nothing to work with.
How do I know if I have too many ad groups? If two ad groups serve the same query and one has no conversions, you have too many. Consolidate by intent, not keyword volume.
What is a good return on ad spend? It depends on your margin, not a benchmark. Work out what a sale nets after goods, delivery and support, then set your target from that.
Is it ever worth pausing a campaign for a month? Yes, if the problem is not the ads. A site outage, stock-out or price change destroys performance whatever you do to bids. Fix that first.
Get Campaign Management Help
24Bit System manages search and Meta campaigns for Indian businesses, and monthly management is a separate job from the build. Details are on the performance marketing services page, or call +91 7840002466 to review what your account is leaking. If you have not launched yet, start with the Google Ads setup guide.
