Many property business owners start by managing Google Ads themselves. Some succeed. Most find that what looks like a manageable platform from the outside is considerably more complex once real budget is involved. Here is an honest breakdown of both sides.
What managing it yourself actually involves
Keyword research and match type decisions. Campaign structure and ad group architecture. Negative keyword list building and maintenance. Bid strategy selection and monitoring. Ad copywriting and testing. Quality Score management. Conversion tracking setup, QA, and ongoing accuracy checks. Landing page assessment. Weekly optimisation from the Search Terms report. Each of these is a discipline in its own right.
The case for managing it yourself
Lower cost. Full transparency. Direct learning about how your market searches. If you have the time to learn properly and are running a relatively modest budget where the management overhead is proportionate, DIY is defensible. Some business owners do it well.
Where DIY Google Ads typically goes wrong
- Broad match keyword creep: terms like 'renovation' triggering irrelevant searches at scale
- Ignoring the Search Terms report: the most valuable data in the account, rarely reviewed
- No conversion tracking, or tracking that fires incorrectly
- Choosing Smart Campaigns for simplicity: these spend budget with minimal transparency
- Wrong bidding strategy too early: Maximise Conversions with no conversion data goes nowhere useful
- No meaningful negative keyword list from day one
What a specialist brings
Structural knowledge that avoids the common mistakes from the first week. A faster path to efficient cost per lead. Campaign architecture built to scale. Sector-specific experience of what converts in property specifically. Time returned to you for running your business.
The cost-benefit question
A specialist charges a monthly management fee. For that fee to be justified, the campaign needs to perform well enough to cover it. The question is not whether specialist management costs money. It is whether the improved performance more than covers the cost. For most property businesses spending over £1,000 per month on ads, the answer is yes.
The hybrid approach
Some specialists will build and hand over: set the account up with the correct structure and pass it back for day-to-day management. This is a reasonable option for business owners who want the structural foundation but prefer to manage it themselves going forward. It reduces ongoing cost while avoiding the most expensive setup mistakes.
If you want to understand what a professionally built property Google Ads campaign looks like and what is included in ongoing management, the Google Ads management service page covers both.
Not sure whether to manage it yourself or bring in a specialist?
Colonnade offers both full management and build-and-hand-over options. The right choice depends on your budget and available time.