Be there when they search for you. 

It's set by your market, not by a rule of thumb. What matters is whether the cost per click in your industry, multiplied by how many clicks it takes to win a job, still leaves you ahead on what that job is worth. Some trades need a few hundred a month to see real movement; competitive legal or cosmetic terms need considerably more. I'll work that number out with you before you commit, and say plainly if the maths doesn't support starting.

Search is faster than most channels because the demand already exists — the first enquiries can arrive in the opening week or two, though I won't promise you a number or a date. Reliable decisions take longer. It takes four to six weeks to gather enough conversion data to tell a genuinely good campaign from a lucky one, and I'd rather you judged me on the second than the first.

Often, but not always. If your existing page loads quickly, matches what the ad promised, and makes enquiring obvious, it will do. If it's a general homepage that makes people hunt for the relevant service, the ads will underperform no matter how well the account is built — and I'll say so rather than spending months bidding into a page that can't convert.

Only where the account has the conversion data to steer it. Performance Max hands targeting decisions to Google's automation, which works well when it's being fed accurate conversion signals and badly when it isn't — it will happily spend a budget on the cheapest possible conversions if that's all you've told it to value. On a new account with weak tracking, it's usually the wrong first move.

Search terms reviewed and negatives added, bids and budgets adjusted against what a lead is worth, ad copy and landing pages tested one variable at a time, and the conversion tracking checked so the data stays trustworthy. Every change lands in a plain-English log — you can always see what was done in your account, and why.

Common, and usually for the same two reasons: nobody could explain where the money went, and leaving meant losing the account. So the ad accounts stay in your name and you keep them if we part ways, there's no lock-in contract, and you get a plain-English read each week on what changed and why. If you'd like a second opinion on the account you have now, book a clarity call and walk me through it — I'll tell you what I'd change, and in what order.