The spend first. Then what it actually bought.
Two accounts we run, read straight out of Google Ads on 26 August 2026. $8,752.48 through one since we took it over in June and $7,372.70 through the other since 1 February — and, sitting with every figure, a plain sentence about what it does not mean.
What you are about to see, and where it came from
Two Google Ads accounts, both ours to run. Both were read live on 26 August 2026, off the campaigns table inside each account — not lifted from a report we wrote about ourselves. The first account is measured from 1 June 2026, the day we took it over, because counting somebody else's four months would flatter us — the four months before us are on the page too, so you can see what changed. The second starts on 1 February 2026. The businesses are described, not named, and that was a deliberate choice.
What $8,752.48 in ad spend tracked back
A boat charter and snorkel tour operator
Florida Keys · books trips online · account taken over 1 June 2026 · 1 Jun – 26 Aug 2026
| Ad spend put through the account | $8,752.48 |
|---|---|
| Impressions | 99,075 |
| Clicks | 8,418 |
| Click-through rate | 8.50% |
| Conversions recorded | 1,393.96 |
| Cost per conversion | $6.28 |
| Conversion value tracked back | $82,412.46See what this figure does and does not mean |
| Tracked value against spend | 9.4 : 1 |
| The four months before we took it over | 7.4 : 1 |
Figures as reported in the Google Ads account, read on 26 August 2026 from the campaigns table total row. Window: 1 June – 26 August 2026, from the day the account was taken over. The comparison row covers 1 February – 31 May 2026 on the same account: $10,775.56 spent, $79,751.27 tracked back. Nothing rounded, estimated or modelled.
We publish the number we can check
On the second account the platform counted $67,406.89. The revenue that account actually recorded was $52,061.03 — about $15,300 less. Most agencies would print the bigger one and stop. The return below is worked out from the smaller one.
A grazing-board and event catering brand
San Francisco Bay Area · corporate and private events · 1 Feb – 24 Aug 2026
| Ad spend put through the account | $7,372.70 |
|---|---|
| Impressions | 83,041 |
| Interactions | 9,960 |
| Interaction rate | 11.99% |
| Conversions recorded | 290.60 |
| Cost per conversion | $25.37 |
| What the platform counted as conversion value | $67,406.89See what this figure does and does not mean |
| Revenue the account actually recorded | $52,061.03 |
| Real revenue against spend | 7.1 : 1 |
Figures as reported in the Google Ads account, read on 26 August 2026 from the campaigns table total row. Window: 1 February – 24 August 2026. Revenue is the account's own revenue column, not conversion value.
Read live, out of the account
Both sets of figures were read on 26 August 2026 from the campaigns table total row, signed in as the agency. They are not a screenshot of a report we built about our own work, and nothing on this page was rounded to make it sit better.
- Read from the campaigns total row, both accounts, the same day
- Every figure printed exactly as the account reports it
- No rounding, no modelling, no projections
Where the start line comes from
The charter account is measured from the day we took it over, not from the day it opened. The four months before us are published beside it at the same weight, so the improvement is something you can check rather than something we assert. An all-time ratio on that account is left off the page entirely — value tracking there recorded almost nothing until late January 2026, so it would average six untracked years against a handful of tracked ones.
- Charter figures drawn from 1 June 2026, the day we took the account over
- The four months before us published beside them, at 7.4 to 1
- The all-time ratio deliberately not published
What we count, and what we refuse to count
Most advertising results are a screenshot of the most flattering number in the account. Here is the rule we hold to instead, and it is the reason one of the figures above is lower than it could have been.
We don't count an add-to-cart as revenue. A platform will happily value a begin-checkout at the full price of the order. That is how a number ends up a quarter bigger than anything the business ever banks.
Where there is a revenue column, that is what we publish. The catering account has one. It is lower than what the platform counted, and it is the figure its return is worked out from.
Where there is no revenue column, we say so. The charter account has no verified revenue figure, so its total is called conversion value on this page and never sales.
We leave out a ratio the tracking cannot support. That account has run since 2020, but value only started reporting in 2026 — so the all-time figure is not on this page.
The questions we'd ask if we were you
Because it is their revenue, not ours to publish. We described what each business does and roughly where it is, which is enough to judge whether it looks anything like yours. If you want more than that, we will walk you through the live accounts on a call — that is a much better look at it than a name on a web page.
No. Two accounts is two accounts, and neither is a promise. Both sell something people decide on quickly — a boat trip, a catering platter for an event — in markets where demand already exists. A longer sales cycle, a thinner margin or a smaller market changes the arithmetic completely.
It is what the ad account is told each action is worth — not money that arrived in the bank. If a form fill is set to $50, the account adds $50 whether or not anybody paid. That is why the charter figure is described as conversion value, and why the catering figure is taken from that account's separate revenue column instead.
The charter account starts on 1 June 2026 because that is the day we took it over. Anything earlier is somebody else’s work, and counting it would flatter us — so the four months before us are published beside ours instead, at 7.4 to 1 against our 9.4 to 1. The catering account has been ours longer and starts on 1 February 2026. There is a second reason the charter figures could not go back further anyway: before late January that account recorded almost no conversion value at all, five months in a row under $200, so any earlier ratio measures the tracking rather than the advertising.
Yes — ask, and we will share the screen and pull these same windows up live, including the months that were worse than the average. Everything on this page is a total row you can watch us click on. That is the whole reason it is set out as a ledger rather than as headlines.
The same rows, every month
What you have just read is what a report from us looks like: the account's own totals, the window they cover, and the sentence saying what they do not mean. No slide deck, no chart of a number we chose because it was going up.
What this doesn't mean for you
Two accounts is two accounts. Nothing here is typical, average or promised. Both of these businesses sell something people buy quickly, in a season when they are already looking for it — a different market, a thinner margin or a three-month sales cycle changes the arithmetic completely. An average across seven months also hides the weeks that were worse than the average, and there were some; ask and we will go through them month by month rather than pick the good ones.
We don't guarantee a return on ad spend, and anyone who does is guessing with your money. What we will do is tell you before we start whether we think your budget is big enough to be worth spending, and show you the same total rows every month afterwards. How we run Google Ads sets out what that looks like.
Want your account read this honestly?
Tell us what you sell and what you are spending now. We'll look at the account, say plainly whether paid search is worth it for you, and show you the figures either way.
Talk about your ads