Paid Advertising Services
Ad Empowerment
SEO builds long-term visibility. Paid ads get you in front of the right people right now. We set up, manage, and optimize your ad campaigns across Google, Facebook, Instagram, and Bing so every dollar works harder, bringing you qualified leads instead of wasted clicks.
Below, you’ll find our rates, details on each paid ad service, and a closer look at why paid ads are worth considering, how we manage campaigns and what you should expect to spend. We’ve also included answers to common questions and video testimonials from clients who have been with us for years.
Ad Services Available
Rates
We’re transparent about our pricing because we think you deserve to know what you’re getting into before you pick up the phone.
Google and Bing Ads Management: For smaller campaigns, our management fee runs $350 to $500 per month, all-in. No commission on your ad spend, no hidden fees.
As campaigns grow in scope and budget, management is $300 per month plus a commission of 10-14% on your ad spend. We’ll tell you exactly where you fall before we start.
Setup fees: If we’re building a new campaign from scratch or taking over one that needs significant restructuring, there is typically a one-time setup fee of $750 to $1,000 in the first month. This covers the research, keyword strategy, ad copywriting, conversion tracking, and campaign architecture needed to get things running properly. Not every client needs this, and we’ll let you know upfront if you do.
No long-term contracts: After an initial three-month kick-off period, our ad management is month-to-month. We ask for those first three months because that’s the minimum time needed to gather meaningful data, optimize your campaigns, and demonstrate real results. After that, you stay because we’re delivering value, not because you’re locked in.
A note about who manages your campaigns: Every campaign we take on is managed personally by our paid ads specialist, who has been doing this for over 22 years. Your account won’t be handed off to a junior team member, farmed out to a subcontractor, or run by automated software. When you have a question, you’re talking to the person who actually manages your ads.
Ad account reviews, consultations, and other platforms: These vary based on what you need, so we quote them individually. Reach out and we’ll give you a straightforward number with no obligation.
All ad spend is always billed directly to you by the ad platform. We never mark up your ad spend or run it through our accounts. You see every dollar.
Google Ads Management
Google Ads is the most direct way to reach people who are actively searching for what you offer. When someone types a query into Google with the intent to buy, hire, or learn more, your ad can appear right at the top of results.
We handle the entire process: keyword research, ad copywriting, campaign structure, bid management, and ongoing optimization. Whether you need search ads, display ads, shopping campaigns, or remarketing, we build a strategy around your specific goals and budget. Monthly management includes adjustments to target phrases, negative keywords, and bid rates, along with reporting so you can see exactly how your campaigns are performing.
All ad spend is processed by your credit card directly through Google, giving you complete transparency.
Facebook Ads Management
Facebook advertising lets you reach your ideal customers based on their interests, demographics, behaviours, and location, even before they start searching. This makes it a powerful tool for building awareness, generating leads, and staying in front of people who have already visited your website through retargeting.
We create and manage campaigns that are tailored to your audience and objectives, whether that is driving traffic to a landing page, generating form submissions, or building local awareness. We handle the targeting, ad creative direction, budget allocation, and ongoing optimization to make sure your investment delivers results.
Instagram Ads Management
Instagram is one of the most effective platforms for reaching people through visual storytelling. Ads on Instagram can promote your business to a highly engaged audience, and because Instagram and Facebook share the same advertising platform, campaigns can be coordinated across both for maximum reach.
We manage Instagram ad campaigns focused on your goals, whether that is local visibility, website traffic, or lead generation. We handle targeting, creative direction, and ongoing performance optimization.
Bing/Microsoft Ads Management
Bing powers search on Microsoft Edge, Yahoo, and a number of partner sites. It is often overlooked by advertisers, which means lower competition and lower cost-per-click for many industries. The audience also tends to skew slightly older and higher-income, which can be a significant advantage depending on your market.
We set up and manage Bing Ads campaigns using the same careful, data-driven approach we apply to Google. For many clients, adding Bing to their paid search strategy delivers incremental leads at a fraction of the cost.
Google Ad Account Review
Already running Google Ads but not sure if your campaigns are performing as well as they should? We will tell you.
Our paid ads specialist will conduct a thorough review of your existing account, covering account structure to make sure campaigns, ad groups, and keywords are well-organized and aligned with your business goals; ad copy to assess relevance and engagement; campaign performance trends to identify what is working and what is underperforming; bid strategy to determine whether you are maximizing results for your budget; conversion tracking to confirm it is set up correctly and accurately measuring results; and budget allocation to ensure your spend is going where it will have the most impact.
You will receive a clear, honest assessment and actionable recommendations. No sales pitch, just straight answers about what is working and what could be better.
Paid Ads Consultation
Not ready for full campaign management? We offer consultation options so you can get expert guidance on your own campaigns.
Monthly consultation: One hour per month with our paid ads specialist to answer questions, review your campaigns, or help with anything related to paid advertising. This is a great option if you are managing campaigns yourself but want an expert to check your work and point you in the right direction.
Quarterly consultation: Three hours in a designated month for a deeper dive into your ad strategy, performance review, or campaign planning. Ideal for businesses that run their own campaigns but want periodic expert input.
If you need help beyond your consultation hours, additional time is available starting at $150 per hour.
Why Paid Ads?
There are two ways to be found on Google: the free method, which means working your way up in organic search results over time, and the paid method, which lets you pay for ads that put you at the top of results right away. Both are valuable, and they work best together.
Paid ads are particularly useful when you need to raise awareness of a new service or product quickly, when you are entering a new market and can’t wait months for organic rankings to build, or when you want to cover key searches that your SEO efforts have not yet reached. In other words, paid ads fill the gaps while your organic presence grows, and they keep working alongside SEO once it gains traction.
That said, paid ads are not magic. Anyone who promises instant results without careful management is not telling you the whole story. The difference between wasted money and strong returns comes down to how campaigns are set up, monitored, and optimized over time. That is where we come in. We treat your ad budget the way we treat our own: carefully, strategically, and with a clear focus on getting you the best possible return.
How We Manage Your Campaigns
Research and Setup
Every campaign starts with identifying the right target phrases for your business. We research lower-competition niche keywords that can drive traffic at a lower cost, write compelling initial ads, and take care of all setup. We also set up conversion tracking so we can measure what actually matters: leads, calls, and sales, not just clicks. Conversion points are chosen based on a discussion with you about what success looks like for your business.
Launch and Learn
We start with a conservative budget to generate the data we need. For many clients, that means as little as $200 to $500 for the first month. There is no guessing. We let the data tell us what is working before we scale up. We are extremely careful with your money, and we can work with just about any budget.
Optimize and Scale
This is where the real value shows up. Each month, we adjust your campaigns based on real performance data: refining target phrases, adding negative keywords to filter out irrelevant traffic, adjusting bid rates, and expanding your keyword selection to maximize conversions within your budget. You receive monthly reports with clear status updates and recommendations.
Ongoing Partnership
Paid ads are not a set-it-and-forget-it service. Markets shift, competitors change their strategies, and your business evolves. We stay in regular communication about results and adapt your campaigns accordingly. You always know what we are doing and why.
What Should You Spend on Ads?
This is the first question most people ask, and we are happy to answer it honestly.
We typically start at a very low spend for the first month to generate the optimization data we need. For some clients, that is as little as $200. For others, $500 to $1,000 makes more sense depending on the market. The point is, we don’t ask you to gamble a large budget upfront. We let the data guide us toward the right spend level for your business.
Your ad spend is always billed directly to your credit card by the ad platform, whether that is Google, Meta, or Microsoft. You see exactly where every dollar goes. Our management fees are separate and transparent. There are no hidden markups on your ad spend.
Over time, as we gather data and optimize your campaigns, we work toward improving your return on ad spend so you get more results for the same investment, or the same results for less.
Frequently Asked Questions About Paid Advertising
How long before I see results from paid ads?
Unlike SEO, paid ads can drive traffic within days of launching a campaign. You will start seeing data almost immediately. That said, the real value comes from optimization over the first two to three months as we gather performance data and refine your targeting, ad copy, and bid strategy to maximize your return. Think of the first month as building the foundation and the following months as turning that foundation into steady, measurable results.
Do you require long-term contracts for ad management?
No. Like all of our services, paid ad management is month-to-month with no locked-in contracts. We believe our work and results should earn your continued business. If we are not delivering value, you are free to walk away. That approach has kept many of our clients with us for over a decade.
How do I know my ad budget is not being wasted?
Three ways. First, we set up conversion tracking from day one so we can measure real business results: form submissions, phone calls, and sales, not just clicks. Second, you receive monthly reports with clear data on what is performing and what we are doing to improve it. Third, all ad spend is billed directly to your credit card by the ad platform, so you see exactly where every dollar goes. There are no hidden fees or markups on your ad spend.
Can I run paid ads and SEO at the same time?
Yes, and we recommend it. SEO builds your long-term organic visibility while paid ads cover gaps and generate leads right away. Together, they give you the strongest possible search presence. Paid ads are also especially useful for testing which keywords and messaging convert best, which can inform your SEO strategy. Many of our most successful clients use both.
What is the difference between your management fee and the ad spend?
Our management fee covers all of the strategy, setup, optimization, reporting, and ongoing campaign work we do on your behalf. The ad spend is a separate amount you pay directly to Google, Meta, or Microsoft for the actual ad clicks. These two costs are always kept separate and fully transparent. You will never wonder where your money is going.
Do I need a landing page created for my ads?
It depends on the situation. If you’re promoting a specific offer that doesn’t have a dedicated page on your website, a custom landing page will almost always perform better than sending ad traffic to a general page. The same is true if your current website pages aren’t converting visitors into leads or customers very well. Sending paid traffic to a page that isn’t built to convert is like paying to fill a leaky bucket.
There are other situations where a landing page makes sense, too. If you’re targeting a specific audience segment that needs different messaging than your main site provides, or if you want to test a new service or market before building it into your full website, a focused landing page gives you a clean, measurable way to do that.
That said, many of our clients get strong results by sending ad traffic to existing pages on their site, especially if those pages are already well-structured and clearly communicate what you offer. We’ll give you an honest recommendation based on your specific goals. If a landing page is the right move, we’ll provide a custom quote based on what you need.
Testimonials
“After several years of conducting my own pay per click campaign, I decided it was time to bring in professionals. My company was growing and my attention was needed in other aspects.
After a search of several months, we narrowed our options down to a few companies. StepForth stood out in terms of cost-effectiveness and in terms of ease of communicating with their key people.
We’ve now been with StepForth for about 13 years. Over that time, we’ve been very happy with their pay per click management with the results they have provided for us. We’re able to work with them to regularly choose the keywords and the parameters of the ad campaigns without the necessity of monitoring performance on a daily or weekly basis. And I get detailed monthly reports and advice that helped me to track whether given ad campaign is succeeding or is worth the budgetary investment. I came to StepForth clearly understanding my target market and knowing that I wanted a partner that I could work with to regularly manage the campaign. You see, I believe it’s important to be hands-on with all of my campaigns to obtain the best results and StepForth has come through for us. I would certainly recommend StepForth to any business that wants to increase quality traffic to their website and is looking for a long term partner that they can rely upon.”
– James Train, President, EZ Flow Foam Systems Inc.
“Hi, I’m Dr Dale McDonald, I’m the clinical director of Elite Sport Performance, Calgary PRP Clinic and the Knee Clinic, which is Alberta’s only private knee clinic. I’ve been in practice for 18 years and over that time have wasted scads of money on magazine ads and newspaper ads and basically any number of different ways to throw money needlessly away on advertising that, quite frankly, didn’t work. We’ve ascribed to the notion of just simply doing a good job clinically in allowing that to generate referrals both from physicians as well as from existing patients. And thankfully, that’s been a very reliable and robust way to grow a practice. But with the advent of our Knee Clinic in 2010, we began to look for ways to improve our scope of reach across the country. And so naturally, we turned to search engine optimization. I dabbled with a couple of different search engine optimization providers and got burned pretty badly on three separate occasions. Finally, and with great trepidation, I was introduced to Ross Dunn from StepForth, and all of my nervousness began to dissipate the more I spoke with him. He clearly is a guy who knows exactly what he’s doing, and his company is very professional. I’ve had nothing but good success with them. And I can share with you that in the first six months after having started with Ross, our return on investment was 35 to 1. That actually is far superior to what we were getting. Not only in terms of existing physician referrals, but also our existing patient referrals combined, we began to see more new patients just from our actual, SEO work with Ross. And now here we are, years later. The relationship is going beautifully well, and I believe we’re still (I checked just the other day) at a 17 to 1 return on investment for the money that we spend. So, I use that as a pretty clear indication that I’m actually, being helped by the right people and that my money is being put to very, very good use. I look forward to many more years to come and hopefully this information is of some use to somebody else. Thank you.”
– Dr. Dale Macdonald, Clinical Director
“My name is Greg Estherhai, and I’m the owner of Foresite Sports. We are an insurance broker that specializes in the niche insurance space. We have a few different brands each with a website, that we rely heavily on online marketing for those sites. We have actually been working with StepForth consistently for the last 15 plus years and have been very happy. And it’s my pleasure to be able to give a, really wholehearted review of StepForth and their services. We started back in the early 2000s, working with Ross and Scott and their team there at StepForth and our goal at the time was, to have the very first website that we had put together to simply have it ranked well organically within Google and Bing. And, that was our focus at the outset, and we simply had some keywords that we wanted to perform well for and went to them on that, and we were very happy. Right at the beginning of our relationship, they were able to sort of educate us and give us pointers and obviously a direction and a plan for how we could do that. And we were very successful in doing that with that very first website that we put together. We have since put up. I’d say three or four other websites since then and worked with StepForth on those now each of those brands targeting different terms based on the insurance product that we’re selling. And we’ve just been very happy. We love the communication, the customer service that we get every time we’re working with StepForth. They produce. The results are not immediate. Anybody who tells you that they will be immediate, they’re not telling you the truth. But StepForth sticks with it and helps us. And like I said, um has been great and just being able to set our expectations, provide us with a plan and a strategy to achieve our goals, which has been awesome. So definitely a wholehearted recommendation for StepForth and their team. Thanks, guys, for all the great work all these years,”
– Greg Esterhai, Owner, Foresite Sports Inc.
I have used StepForth for the last few years for AdWords marketing and they have been very helpful in keeping my ads at the top of the page and costs low. For my small operation this has removed a lot of stress and allowed me to concentrate on my clients.”
– Peter Bailey
“StepForth has definitely helped us out here at Boca Bearings when it comes to our online marketing campaigns. Over the past 10 years StepForth has continued to achieve great results for us using Google Ads and their paid search marketing program. Their correspondence and feedback on PPC search marketing and other search related services has been great during our time with them and we here at Boca Bearings hope it continues moving forward into the new year.”
– Jason Flanzbaum
After a search of several months, we narrowed our options down to a few companies. StepForth stood out in terms of cost-effectiveness and in terms of ease of communicating with their key people.
Show more
We’ve now been with StepForth for about 13 years. Over that time, we’ve been very happy with their pay per click management with the results they have provided for us. We’re able to work with them to regularly choose the keywords and the parameters of the ad campaigns without the necessity of monitoring performance on a daily or weekly basis. And I get detailed monthly reports and advice that helped me to track whether given ad campaign is succeeding or is worth the budgetary investment. I came to StepForth clearly understanding my target market and knowing that I wanted a partner that I could work with to regularly manage the campaign. You see, I believe it’s important to be hands-on with all of my campaigns to obtain the best results and StepForth has come through for us. I would certainly recommend StepForth to any business that wants to increase quality traffic to their website and is looking for a long term partner that they can rely upon.”
– James Train, President, EZ Flow Foam Systems Inc.
“Hi, I’m Dr Dale McDonald, I’m the clinical director of Elite Sport Performance, Calgary PRP Clinic and the Knee Clinic, which is Alberta’s only private knee clinic. I’ve been in practice for 18 years and over that time have wasted scads of money on magazine ads and newspaper ads and basically any number of different ways to throw money needlessly away on advertising that, quite frankly, didn’t work. We’ve ascribed to the notion of just simply doing a good job clinically in allowing that to generate referrals both from physicians as well as from existing patients.
Show more
And thankfully, that’s been a very reliable and robust way to grow a practice. But with the advent of our Knee Clinic in 2010, we began to look for ways to improve our scope of reach across the country. And so naturally, we turned to search engine optimization. I dabbled with a couple of different search engine optimization providers and got burned pretty badly on three separate occasions. Finally, and with great trepidation, I was introduced to Ross Dunn from StepForth, and all of my nervousness began to dissipate the more I spoke with him. He clearly is a guy who knows exactly what he’s doing, and his company is very professional. I’ve had nothing but good success with them. And I can share with you that in the first six months after having started with Ross, our return on investment was 35 to 1. That actually is far superior to what we were getting. Not only in terms of existing physician referrals, but also our existing patient referrals combined, we began to see more new patients just from our actual, SEO work with Ross. And now here we are, years later. The relationship is going beautifully well, and I believe we’re still (I checked just the other day) at a 17 to 1 return on investment for the money that we spend. So, I use that as a pretty clear indication that I’m actually, being helped by the right people and that my money is being put to very, very good use. I look forward to many more years to come and hopefully this information is of some use to somebody else. Thank you.”
– Dr. Dale Macdonald, Clinical Director
“My name is Greg Estherhai, and I’m the owner of Foresite Sports. We are an insurance broker that specializes in the niche insurance space. We have a few different brands each with a website, that we rely heavily on online marketing for those sites. We have actually been working with StepForth consistently for the last 15 plus years and have been very happy. And it’s my pleasure to be able to give a, really wholehearted review of StepForth and their services.
Show more
We started back in the early 2000s, working with Ross and Scott and their team there at StepForth and our goal at the time was, to have the very first website that we had put together to simply have it ranked well organically within Google and Bing. And, that was our focus at the outset, and we simply had some keywords that we wanted to perform well for and went to them on that, and we were very happy. Right at the beginning of our relationship, they were able to sort of educate us and give us pointers and obviously a direction and a plan for how we could do that. And we were very successful in doing that with that very first website that we put together. We have since put up. I’d say three or four other websites since then and worked with StepForth on those now each of those brands targeting different terms based on the insurance product that we’re selling. And we’ve just been very happy. We love the communication, the customer service that we get every time we’re working with StepForth. They produce. The results are not immediate. Anybody who tells you that they will be immediate, they’re not telling you the truth. But StepForth sticks with it and helps us. And like I said, um has been great and just being able to set our expectations, provide us with a plan and a strategy to achieve our goals, which has been awesome. So definitely a wholehearted recommendation for StepForth and their team. Thanks, guys, for all the great work all these years.”
– Greg Esterhai, Owner, Foresite Sports Inc.
“I have used StepForth for the last few years for AdWords marketing and they have been very helpful in keeping my ads at the top of the page and costs low. For my small operation this has removed a lot of stress and allowed me to concentrate on my clients.”
“StepForth has definitely helped us out here at Boca Bearings when it comes to our online marketing campaigns. Over the past 10 years StepForth has continued to achieve great results for us using Google Ads and their paid search marketing program. Their correspondence and feedback on PPC search marketing and other search related services has been great during our time with them and we here at Boca Bearings hope it continues moving forward into the new year.”
Want to know how to get Google
to know, like, and trust your website?
Case Studies
SEO & Paid Ads
How we Helped a Plastic Manufacturing Company Achieve a 254% Increase in Organic Search Traffic
Audit, SEO & Paid Ads
Our SEO techniques helped a physiotherapy clinic improve search engine rankings, leading to increased online presence and relevant traffic.
Audit, SEO, & Authority Building
Driving remarkable results: a client in the automotive industry experienced a 186% growth in their organic search traffic.