What Is PPC Management? A Plain-English Guide for Australian Small Businesses
PPC management is the ongoing work of planning, building, tracking and adjusting pay-per-click advertising so that your ad spend produces enquiries at a cost your business can afford. PPC (pay-per-click) is advertising where you pay each time someone clicks your ad, most commonly through Google Ads, Google’s advertising platform.
If you run the ads yourself after hours, or you’re about to hand them over, the management fee is the part that rarely gets explained. This guide covers what a PPC manager does each week, how agencies in Australia charge, and what you should be able to see in your first 90 days.
Star Digital Marketing is a full-service digital marketing agency in Spring Hill, Brisbane, that works as an outsourced marketing department for small and medium businesses across Australia. Paid advertising is one of our seven services, so this is how we’d explain it across a desk.
What does a PPC manager actually do?
A PPC manager decides where your ad budget goes each week and removes the parts of it that are being wasted. The work splits into setup, which happens once, and management, which doesn’t stop.
The setup work, before any money is spent
- Set a target cost per lead. Cost per lead is the average ad spend it takes to produce one enquiry. We ask what a customer is worth to you, and how many enquiries become customers, before we suggest what to spend.
- Install conversion tracking. Conversion tracking records which clicks turned into calls, form submissions or bookings. Without it, nobody can tell you which keywords produce customers.
- Choose keywords and exclusions. Negative keywords are searches you tell Google not to show your ad for, such as people looking for jobs or free advice.
- Write the ads and check the landing page. A landing page is the page someone arrives on after clicking. It should match the ad’s promise and load quickly, because a slow or generic page wastes a click you’ve already paid for.
Tracking and remarketing (showing ads to people who have already visited your site) involve collecting visitor data, so privacy obligations may apply to your business. The OAIC’s Australian Privacy Principles are the place to start, and your own adviser can tell you how they apply.
The weekly work
Each week, a PPC manager reviews the account and changes it. Our PPC management services page sets out the full method. In short, the weekly routine covers:
- Reading the search terms report (the actual phrases people typed before clicking) to cut waste and find new keywords.
- Adjusting bids and moving budget toward what is converting.
- Testing new ad variations against the current ones.
- Refining audiences, and changing landing pages where the data points to them.
Ad wording is a job in its own right. That’s why our copywriting team writes the ads and landing pages, and the person managing the bids doesn’t have to.
Google Ads features change often. At the time of writing, Google Ads Help is the current reference for how bidding, keyword matching and tracking work. It’s worth a look before you take anyone’s word for it, ours included.
Already running ads and not sure what an enquiry costs you? Call 1300 859 066 or email sales@stardigitalmarketing.com.au and we’ll tell you what we’d look at first.
How much does PPC management cost in Australia?
PPC management in Australia is usually charged in one of three ways: a flat monthly fee, a percentage of your ad spend, or a hybrid of the two. In every model, the management fee is separate from the ad spend, which you pay to Google or Meta.
We haven’t quoted market rates here. Fees vary with the size and complexity of the account, and we won’t invent a benchmark. What we can show is how each model behaves.
Fee model | How it works | Tends to suit | Ask before you sign |
|---|---|---|---|
Flat fee | The same management fee each month, whatever you spend on ads | Steady budgets and owners who want a predictable bill | What happens to the fee if the account grows or a second platform is added? |
Percentage of spend | The fee is a set share of your monthly ad spend | Budgets that rise and fall through the year | Does the fee rise when spend rises, even if the workload doesn’t? Is there a minimum fee? |
Hybrid | A base fee, plus a percentage above an agreed level of spend | Accounts that are growing | Where is the threshold, and what does the base fee cover? |
A worked example, purely to show the arithmetic: if an agency charged 10% of spend and you spent $3,000 on ads in a month, the management fee would be $300 and your total outlay $3,300. Those figures are illustrative, not a market rate.
Whichever model you’re quoted, ask whether setup, tracking, landing page work and reporting are included or billed separately.
Is PPC management worth it for a small business?
PPC management is worth paying for when the waste it removes and the enquiries it adds are worth more than the fee. That depends on your margins, your market, your budget and your starting point, so nobody can honestly promise it in advance.
Here’s a quick test with made-up numbers. For example, if a new customer is worth $2,000 to you and one in four enquiries becomes a customer, each enquiry is worth about $500 before your costs. If ads and management together bring enquiries in for well under that, the sums work. If they can’t, we say so before you spend.
What is the minimum ad budget worth starting with?
The minimum worth starting with is a budget that buys enough clicks each month to show which keywords convert. That depends on what clicks cost in your industry and area, so we give you a figure for your situation on the first call instead of a blanket number.
Common worries, answered plainly
- “An agency costs more than doing it myself.” Compare it with the alternatives: a marketing hire, or freelancers whose work doesn’t join up. Our specialists are already assembled, with one point of contact and one monthly invoice.
- “I’ll lose control of my accounts.” You own your ad accounts, analytics, domain and website. Our director runs businesses of his own, and you can read how we work and who runs the agency.
- “I’ll be locked in.” Ask any agency for its term and exit conditions in writing before you sign.
- “I’ve been burned before, and I couldn’t read the reports.” Ours is a short plain-English monthly summary: spend, enquiries, cost per enquiry, what we changed and what’s next.
- “I’m too small, or I’ll be oversold.” We tailor the work instead of selling bronze, silver and gold packages. We also ask how many more customers you can handle, so ads don’t bring more enquiries than you can service.
PPC or SEO: which should come first?
Ads suit a business that needs enquiries soon, and SEO suits one building for the long term. SEO (search engine optimisation) is the work of improving your website so it appears in unpaid search results. SEO takes months, while ad campaigns take weeks to optimise.
Because one team runs both for our clients, ad data shows which keywords convert, and those get priority in our SEO work.
What should you see in the first 90 days of PPC management?
In the first 90 days you should see tracking that works, waste being cut, and a cost per enquiry you can compare against your target. You should not expect a guaranteed number of leads from anyone.
Period | What should be happening | What you should be able to see |
|---|---|---|
Days 1–30 | Target cost per lead agreed, tracking installed and tested, campaigns built and launched | Proof that calls and forms are being recorded, and the first search terms your ads appeared for |
Days 31–60 | Weekly search term reviews, negative keywords added, ad variations tested, budget shifted | Your first monthly report, with what was changed and why |
Days 61–90 | Decisions made on real data: what to scale, pause or rebuild | Cost per enquiry against your target, and a plain recommendation for the next quarter |
The pace depends on the strategy call, the agreed plan and how much data your budget generates. Accounts with fewer clicks take longer to read.
Find out what PPC management would look like for your business
The first conversation is diagnostic. We ask what a customer is worth, how many more you can handle and where your enquiries come from now. If ads aren’t worth doing yet, we’ll say so.
Book a free strategy call and quote, call 1300 859 066, or email sales@stardigitalmarketing.com.au. It’s 30 minutes with no obligation, followed by a written, plain-English action plan that’s yours to keep whether or not you proceed.
Frequently asked questions about PPC management
What is PPC management?
What does a PPC manager actually do?
How much does PPC management cost in Australia?
Is PPC management worth it for a small business?
What is the minimum ad budget worth starting with?
