Google Ads for accountants, timed to the tax calendar
Most accountancy searches arrive in waves: self assessment in January, year end, VAT quarters, Making Tax Digital. An account that spends the same every week pays full price in the quiet months and runs out of budget in the busy ones.
Get your free auditThe diagnosis
Where accountancy ad budgets go
The most common fault is advertising the practice rather than a service. "Accountant [town]" is the most expensive search a practice can buy and the least specific. A sole trader who needs a tax return, a landlord facing Making Tax Digital and a growing limited company each search differently, and each should see an ad and a page written for them.
The second is timing. Demand for tax return help rises sharply towards the 31 January deadline and falls away after it. An account with a flat monthly budget either misses the peak or wastes money outside it.
The third is price shoppers. Searches for the cheapest possible tax return or a free accountant bring people who leave at the first quote. Where your fees are not the lowest in town, those searches are excluded rather than paid for.
Before any budget is set, work out the most a new client is worth paying for.
Scope
What is included
Campaigns by client type
Sole traders, landlords, contractors and limited companies in separate campaigns, each pointed at the page that speaks to them, so the budget goes where your fees are.
A budget that follows the calendar
Spend raised ahead of self assessment, year end and other deadlines you want to win work from, and reduced when demand falls, agreed with you in advance.
Tracking that counts new clients
Form submissions and calls over a set length as conversions, with a value where you can estimate one, so bidding works towards clients rather than clicks.
Negative keywords, maintained
Jobs, training, free calculators, HMRC helpline searches and the cheapest-possible searches excluded, and the search terms report read throughout the month.
Ads that set fair expectations
Fees stated where you publish them, no claims you cannot back up, and every ad approved by the practice before it runs.
Monthly reporting
Spend, enquiries, cost per enquiry and, where your practice software allows, the clients they became. What I changed and why, in plain English.
Search intent
What the account should be buying
Illustrative examples rather than keyword data. The last line matters as much as the others.
- accountant for self assessment tax return near me
- landlord accountant [your town]
- contractor accountant fixed monthly fee
- Making Tax Digital accountant for sole traders
- accountant for a small limited company
- And what it should not: accountancy jobs, AAT courses, free tax calculators
What happens next
What happens after you get in touch
- Step 01
Audit
Your site, your rankings, your ad account and your analytics, and a written account of what is wrong. You get the report whether or not you hire me.
- Step 02
Agree the target
One number we are both working to, usually cost per enquiry or enquiries per month. Not sessions, not impressions, not rankings on their own.
- Step 03
Do the work
Technical fixes first, because content on a broken site does nothing. Then the pages and campaigns that go after the searches worth having.
- Step 04
Report monthly
What moved, why it moved, what happens next, and an honest note on anything that cannot be measured.
Straight answers
Common questions
- Is Google Ads worth it for a small practice?
- It can be, if each new client is worth enough over the years they stay with you and the account buys specific searches rather than the generic ones. I will tell you after the audit whether the numbers work for your fees, rather than take a budget and hope.
- When should we spend most?
- In the weeks before the deadlines your clients face, which for most practices means the run-up to 31 January. The exact shape depends on which client types you want more of.
- Should we advertise our prices?
- If your fees are competitive and published on your site, saying so in the ad filters out people who will not pay them and raises the quality of what is left. If they are not published, the ad should not invent a figure.
- Do you charge a percentage of ad spend?
- No. That model rewards spending more of your money. It is a fixed monthly fee.
- Who owns the account?
- The practice does, always. I work in your account with my own access, and if we stop working together you keep it, with its history.
- Should we do SEO or Google Ads first?
- Ads bring enquiries within weeks and show which services and searches actually convert. SEO takes months but costs nothing per click once it ranks. Many practices start with ads around a deadline while the SEO work builds.
More for accountants
Free audit
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A written audit of your site, your rankings and your ad account, back within five working days, plus a call to walk through it.
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