of ad spend is what agencies typically charge to manage search. Ours is 18% with a $450 minimum, printed on this page.
Source: Southern Tide Media review of 10 top-ranking PPC agency pages, August 2026top-ranking PPC agency pages won’t show a price without a call. Zero of 10 show a sample report or say who owns your ad account.
Source: Same review, August 2026per month is what agencies typically charge a small business to manage search, according to their published rate cards. Useful context for what a search program should cost.
Source: Published agency rate cards, August 2026What’s included
Paid search is the most measurable advertising there is. It’s also the easiest to waste money on without noticing. Every search client gets the same set of work, on Google and Microsoft, on accounts you own.
Focus areas · Full-funnel marketing
Search audit & wasted-spend report
We read every search your ads showed up for, every bid and every setting before we change anything. You get the findings either way. If your current setup is fine, we’ll tell you.
Conversion tracking, rebuilt
Calls, forms, bookings and sales counted the same way in your site or CRM, Google Analytics and the ad platforms. Google’s bidding is only as smart as the conversion data you feed it.
Keyword & intent research
What your buyers actually type, sorted by how close they are to buying. Someone searching “best folding kayak” is researching; someone searching “folding kayak for sale” is ready. Each group gets its own bid, ad and landing page.
Campaign builds on Google & Microsoft
A clean account built to learn fast: Search ads, Shopping ads where they fit, and Google’s automated Performance Max campaigns with guardrails on. Then the same program copied to Microsoft, where clicks are often cheaper.
Negatives & search-term hygiene
Every month we read the actual searches that triggered your ads, block the ones that waste money (called negative keywords), and turn surprise winners into keywords of their own. This is what separates a worked account from a parked one. It’s itemized on the scorecard.
Brand & competitor bidding
When competitors bid on your business name, we defend it. Whether bidding on their names pays is a math question, and we run the numbers before we spend a dollar. Brand Protection watches who shows up on your terms.
Ad copy, extensions & testing
Headlines and descriptions written in-house, tested against each other, replaced when something beats them. We also fill the free extra lines under the ad (sitelinks, callouts and snippets) that most accounts leave empty.
Landing pages that match the search
The click is only half the job. We build and improve the pages your ads send people to. Because we build websites too, a landing page fix doesn’t wait on another vendor.
What a month on your search account looks like
If you can’t see what was done, you can’t tell whether you’re paying for anything. Here’s a typical month on a search account we run. Every item below shows up in your scorecard by name. See a sample monthly scorecard →
We read every real search that triggered an ad. Off-target ones get blocked; surprise winners become keywords. It’s the clearest sign an account is being worked.
We check spend against the month’s plan and your season, and adjust bids where the cost per lead or sale is drifting. If something is running hot or cold, you hear about it that day, not on the invoice.
Losing ads come out, winners get more budget, and tests get written up. The platforms’ automation does the around-the-clock math. A person decides what it means.
What changed, why, and what’s next, written by the people running the account. Weekly during ramp-up, then monthly.
The platforms we run
This page is search only. The wider program (Meta, Amazon) lives on Paid Media.
The search terms report, explained
This is the report that tells you whether an account is being worked. Every row is a real search someone typed that triggered an ad, and the call we made on it.
| Search term | Matched on | What happened | 2 Call |
|---|---|---|---|
| folding kayak for sale | Matched: folding kayak | 41 clicks · 6 sales | Kept |
| free kayak plans pdf | Matched: folding kayak | 63 clicks · 0 sales | Negative |
| kayak rental murrells inlet | Matched: kayak myrtle beach | 18 clicks · 0 sales | Negative |
| trunk size kayak | Matched: compact kayak | 9 clicks · 2 sales | New keyword |
| 4 pelican point outfitters | Matched: brand | 122 clicks · 31 sales | Kept · brand |
- Matched on. The keyword that caught the search. Google’s looser match settings catch searches you never intended to pay for. That’s why this report exists.
- The call. Kept, blocked, or promoted to its own keyword. Every row gets a decision, and the account gets smarter with each one.
- Wasted spend stopped. The dollar figure is the point. A search blocked this month doesn’t cost you again next month, so the savings add up.
- Brand terms. Your own name, defended. These are the cheapest clicks and the most likely to buy, and the first place a competitor will try to show up.
How we compare
We read the top-ranking agency pages selling search management. Every line on the left is a pattern we found there.
The typical PPC agency
- “Request a proposal” to hear a fee
- Silence on who owns the Google Ads account
- Impressions and clicks as the monthly report
- A list of blocked searches built once and never revisited
- Google only; Microsoft an upsell or an afterthought
- “AI-powered” as a buzzword, never shown
Southern Tide Media
- 18% of spend with a $450 minimum per channel, printed right here
- Your accounts, your data, your history, with admin access from day one. It stays yours if we part ways
- A search terms report you can read, with the wasted spend it stopped
- Blocked searches and new keywords every month, itemized on the scorecard
- Google and Microsoft run as one program, mirrored and priced together
- Performance Max with guardrails and a person reading the results
Where it starts
18% of ad spendManagement feeWith a $450 per month minimum per channel (Google and Microsoft each count as a channel), billed separately from your ad budget. You always see our fee and your media as two lines.
How pricing worksHow pricing works
One simple structure, and your ad budget is never part of our fee. For context: agencies typically charge 10 to 20% of ad spend to manage search, and about half the top-ranking firms won’t tell you a number without a call. Ours is right here.
With a $450 per month minimum per channel (Google and Microsoft each count as a channel), billed separately from your ad budget. You always see our fee and your media as two lines.
Paid directly to Google and Microsoft on your own accounts. We never mark it up. The accounts, the data and the history stay yours.
Landing pages, product feeds or integrations beyond the engagement are scoped in writing and approved before we start. Bundles cost less: see plans.
Bundling is cheaper than buying the pieces.
See plans & pricingHow long it takes
What to expect
Search ads get better with time and data. Anyone promising month-three numbers in week one is guessing. Here’s what the first year usually looks like.
Tracking rebuilt, account restructured, first campaigns live on Google (and on Microsoft where there’s enough volume). Expect some noise early: the platforms are learning, and so are we.
Blocked searches, bids, ads and landing pages change weekly. Cost per lead or sale settles, losers get cut, and it becomes clear where the profit is.
Proven searches get the budget, and we plan for your season before it arrives. Spend goes up when demand does.
Who we help
Full-service for everyone, specialists where it counts. These aren’t a menu. They’re the industries on our client roster today.
Hospitality & Resort
Heads in beds, direct bookings, and budgets that follow the season.
Explore →E-commerce & DTC
Shopping ads, Performance Max and Amazon, measured by return on ad spend.
Explore →Medical & Med Spa
Campaigns that book consultations and stay inside the ad rules.
Explore →Outdoor & Recreation
Product brands with a short season and a bigger competitor to beat.
Home Services & B2B
Bigger purchases, longer research, and sales that run through distributors.
Legal & Professional
Leads worth enough that one new client pays for the year.
Chambers & Nonprofits
Community organizations that need every dollar accounted for.
Restricted categories
Dentures, medical devices and other categories most agencies quietly avoid.
When you win, we win
Real search clients, real numbers. Ratios and rankings, sourced, with each client’s sign-off.
Outbidding the category leader — at a 5.9× return
2023 – 2026
A 599% return in a category Google restricts
2023 – present
Thirteen years of showing up with the numbers
2013 – present
Don’t take our word for it
“The Southern Tide Media team has smartly positioned itself as partners, versus “vendors.” Each step along the strategic path, I feel as if they are “all in” and have our best interests at heart.”
“Southern Tide Media increased our conversion rates on our SEO campaigns by 60% in short time… Brandon takes the worry out of all the technical jargon and translates that into workable applications you can understand as a business owner.”
“In every dealing I have ever had with Brandon Evans, he has been knowledgeable, fair, and has responded quickly. I would highly recommend using him for any of your business’s marketing or advertising needs!”
Questions, answered
Do I own my Google Ads account?
Yes, along with your Microsoft Ads account, your conversion data and your history. You have admin access from day one, and if we part ways, everything stays in your name. An agency that runs your ads from its own account can hold your history hostage. We won’t.
Should I just use Performance Max and let Google’s AI run it?
Performance Max is a tool, not a strategy. It’s good at finding the conversions you told it to value. It’s reckless when the conversion data is wrong or the guardrails are missing. We run it alongside regular search ads, with clean conversion data, your brand name excluded, and a person reading what it buys.
Why run Microsoft Ads at all?
The same searches happen on Bing and in Microsoft Copilot, often at a lower cost per click, and copying a proven Google program over takes a fraction of the effort. It counts as its own channel for the fee, so we add it when the volume justifies it, not by default.
Will you bid on my competitors’ names — or stop them bidding on mine?
We’ll run the numbers on bidding on competitors’ names and tell you whether it pays. Defending your own name is almost always worth it. Brand Protection watches who shows up on your terms each month.
How do you report, and can I see a sample?
A monthly scorecard in plain English: what changed, why, what it cost, what it earned, and what’s next. Weekly while we’re ramping up. Here’s a sample. The search terms report above is part of it.
Who actually works on my account?
The people you talk to. Strategy and the calls that matter are made by a person. The around-the-clock bid math is the platform’s automation plus our own. You’ll never be handed off to a junior you’ve never met.
How is this different from your Paid Media page?
Paid Media is the whole program: search, Meta, Amazon and retargeting run together. This page is the search channel in depth. Most clients start here and widen out when the numbers say to.
How do I know if my current agency is doing a good job?
Ask for last month’s search terms report, the list of searches they blocked, and the changes made in the last 30 days. If they can’t produce those, you have your answer. Our audit will show you what it should look like.