Google Ads Audit & Growth Proposal. Enter the access passphrase to continue.
Since the June 2026 in-house rebuild, the live account is tight: brand behind a negative wall at 96–100% impression share, automation off, manual CPC, US-Search-only. The problem isn't clutter — it's that paid demos record no attribution, so nothing can optimize toward pipeline, and roughly $2.5–3K/month of the envelope sits unspent with no converting home while booked demos have fallen from ~29/mo to ~13/mo.
The Google Ads tag may only fire via GTM; the conversion hangs off a fragile calendar iframe, not the thank-you page; demo & chat share one label. Paid demos land with null attribution.
~29 demos/mo (March) → ~13 (July) — a real demand drop, not a tracking artifact. Reversing it is worth more than any bid tweak.
Under pace four months running (~$10K accumulated). The job is converting coverage inside the $5–6K/mo ceiling — not more budget.
We ran an independent trailing-12-month review of the live account, benchmarked it against B2B SaaS growth programs, then reconciled every finding against the materials your team shared.
This account has twice been burned by optimizing to the wrong metric — a page-view "conversion" that reported 500–1,000/mo of nothing, and a Max Clicks era that bought 10,000+ clicks (including "how to gain clientele as a barber") and zero demos. Success here is narrow and clear.
Recent live numbers (per your Supermetrics pull, Apr 21 – Jul 19). Platform conversion counts and values from earlier eras are unreliable, so we lead with the trustworthy read.
In the last six months: 15 demos + 14 trials on ~$21K spend. The complete list of converting search terms is five entries — four are brand, one is a competitor term.
Your July 30 site audit found this, and our review agrees: paid demos land with no usable attribution, so neither Google's bidder nor the AI loop can optimize toward pipeline. These are specific, fixable defects.
nuxt-gtag nests the ID wrong; auditing container GTM-PFX29QG is step zero.With no conversion signal, Maximize Conversions blind-bid rare variants (up to $48 on a brand variant) — which is exactly why the account is on manual CPC today.
A first-party attribution cookie shipped July 22; trustworthy reads arrive late August. The highest-leverage single fix is mirroring the Ads conversion onto the thank-you page. This is a workstream, not a prerequisite — campaigns keep running on manual CPC with PostHog/HubSpot demo counts as ground truth.
The instinct with a small account is to "clean it up." But the live account is already clean. The real gap is that non-brand has no proven, converting home — and the category demand everyone assumes is there mostly isn't.
~29/mo in March → ~13/mo in July, before any tracking changes. A real demand drop — the thing most worth reversing.
Zero of ~25 recent won/lost customers found Churnkey via category search. Several target terms nearly rank organically — cheaper to win at $0/click.
ProfitWell Retain rebranded under Paddle; Churn Buster is defunct. The "alternatives" cluster is small but has converted (e.g. retentionx).
Unusually for an audit, this is mostly good news — and it changes the plan from "rebuild everything" to "point good assets at a fixed measurement rail."
Live Brand RSA rates Excellent; a library of Excellent/Good RSAs and Demand Gen videos sits paused, ready to redeploy.
US/English/Search-only, Display & partners off, AI Max & broad-match off, exact+phrase only. No geo/device waste to find — targeting is already tight.
The ~33 legacy "zombie" campaigns are paused with an archive list already drafted — a decision to execute, not a mess to untangle.
Your Q1 2026 LinkedIn data reinforces the same lesson as the Max Clicks era: top-of-funnel awareness plays don't produce pipeline at this stage, and paid is a small part of how buyers actually find Churnkey.
| Q1 2026 LinkedIn (killed) | Result | Read |
|---|---|---|
| Spend | $8,747 | ~1–2% of blended channel mix |
| CTR / CPC | 0.28% / $26.19 | ToFu video/awareness, not intent |
| Conversions | 6 (~$1,458 each) | Learning cohort, not pipeline scale |
The good news: on structure and discipline, the live account already matches how strong B2B SaaS programs operate. The gap is measurement and a proven non-brand motion.
| Dimension | Churnkey today | B2B SaaS growth benchmark |
|---|---|---|
| Structure & settings | Disciplined, hardened ✓ | Strict taxonomy, automation controlled |
| Bidding | Manual CPC (signal-starved) | Conversion-based, fed by clean signal |
| Conversion signal | Open circuit — no paid attribution | Pipeline / revenue-mapped, offline import |
| Primary KPI | Booked demos (right metric ✓) | Pipeline & cost-per-opportunity |
| Non-brand motion | Unproven, no working home | Measured, intent-segmented, gated tests |
Benchmark reflects patterns across comparable B2B SaaS growth-focused Google Ads programs; directional, not a single account.
Verify GTM, mirror the conversion onto the thank-you page, split demo/chat, land the app-side attribution. Unlocks honest reporting and the eventual return to conversion-based bidding.
Rebuild non-brand around the intent that has actually converted — alternatives + Stripe-operational — and deploy the idle ~$2.5–3K/mo against it.
Protect brand efficiency, tighten LP→demo flow (the $/schedule-a-demo/ CRO test), and route category intent to the cheapest channel — often organic.
Re-instrument the daily routine against the new attribution signal under our oversight — so it optimizes demos, not rank proxies.
Measurement first, because everything else depends on it. Then converting coverage. Scale only within the envelope, only once demos are trustworthy.
Ordered by dependency: measurement unblocks coverage; coverage unblocks any return to conversion-based bidding.
A fixed-fee foundation project, then a month-to-month management retainer — priced competitively for a specialist B2B SaaS engagement at this budget, and sized to the $5–6K/mo media envelope.
Excludes media spend (paid directly by Churnkey within the $5–6K/mo envelope). Market context: B2B SaaS management retainers commonly run $1,250–2,500/mo at this spend tier (specialists $4–8K for larger accounts); a comprehensive audit + measurement + rebuild project of this scope typically runs ~$4–8K. Priced competitively within those ranges.
Directional targets, not guarantees — paid contributes a modest share of pipeline and depends on demand, demo follow-through, and sales capacity. The commitment is to the process: honest measurement, disciplined coverage, and pipeline-first reporting.
Confirm scope and the operating model. Kickoff within the week.
GTM verified and the conversion fixed with your engineers — step zero.
Non-brand rebuilt, envelope deployed, weekly pipeline readout live.