Raleigh PPC Campaigns Built to Turn Clicks Into Customers
More phone calls and booked work from Google search, and now from AI search too.
Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, and Meta campaigns for Raleigh service businesses, engineered around the only metric that pays back: revenue per booked lead, not click volume.
Latest case study below: +76% Google Ads conversions on a 2.29% spend increase.
- Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Meta, LinkedIn. Every channel where the cost-per-lead math closes
- Conversion tracking wired to your CRM, not just Google Ads (GA4 + CallRail + offline imports)
- Dedicated landing pages per intent. The home page is not a landing page
- Monthly reporting tied to leads and revenue. Google Partner. 5.0 across 30+ Google reviews
Partner
How a 78-year-old Gulf Coast glass company drove 76% more Google Ads conversions on a 2.29% spend increase.
Raleigh service businesses face a Research Triangle auction where IBM, SAS, and the UNC and Duke health system bids all compress CPCs that local trades and dental practices also have to clear. The Dixie Glass campaign shows what disciplined PPC management does to that math.
Dixie Glass, a third-generation Mississippi Gulf Coast glass company in business since 1946, came to Lithium with Google Ads campaigns that were spending without producing tracked conversions. We rebuilt the campaigns around proper conversion tracking, tightened the keyword and match-type strategy, deployed dedicated landing pages, and wired CallRail through to GA4. Over twelve months, on only a 2.29 percent ad spend increase, Google Ads conversions climbed 76 percent and the campaign conversion rate landed at 15.57 percent.
DIXIE GLASS — GOOGLE ADS REBUILD
Three things Raleigh PPC programs miss that we don't.
Raleigh's Research Triangle CPCs leave no room for sloppy tracking.
Triangle business-services CPCs run $8 to $13 versus a national $5.58 average, driven by IBM, SAS, Cisco, and the broader tech and biotech auction that local trades have to clear. The math only closes when conversion tracking is shipped properly. Phone calls, form fills, and booked appointments all wired through to GA4, with CallRail as the system of record.
Raleigh buyers don't click generic ad copy.
ITB residents in Five Points and Hayes Barton, Cary and Apex tech families, and the North Hills new-money buyers all reach the search bar with different incomes and different expectations. Ad copy that names the specific service, the neighborhood, and a real offer consistently lifts Quality Score in this market. Generic Raleigh headlines underperform against the relocation buyer pool that knows what good campaign creative looks like.
Raleigh PPC math closes on cost per booked lead, not impressions.
Triangle PPC budgets vaporize on click volume in a hurry. We report leading indicators weekly during launch, then leads, cost per lead, and revenue every month. The strategy call is built around what the CRM recorded against actual UNC Health, Duke Health, IBM, and SAS competitive context, not a vanity dashboard.
Ranking for queries that do not convert
In Raleigh, where Bay Area business-services CPCs run $7 to $12, every wasted click is a measurable dollar lost. Lithium’s PPC programs are built around the cost-per-lead math first, click volume second.
Technical debt blocking growth
Service-business buyers prefer to tap a phone number rather than navigate a menu to find one. A site missing a click-to-call link in the hero, and a sticky mobile bar that keeps it within thumb reach during scroll, loses the calls you paid to earn through ads.
Generic content that says nothing local
A PPC campaign without proper conversion tracking, dedicated landing pages, and negative-keyword discipline is invisible in your CRM dashboard. The clicks may be there, the impressions may be there, but the booked work is flat. That is where most of the Raleigh ad spend silently leaks.
No measurement tied to revenue
Buyers decide whether to keep scrolling in about five seconds. A site that shows no reviews, no project photos, no service-area clarity, and no trust signal in the hero loses every time to a competitor who placed a single five-star rating in the right spot.
Eight things we ship inside every Raleigh PPC retainer, not as upsells.
A Raleigh PPC program needs every line item in this list working together. Triangle CPCs penalize every gap. One neglected layer (tracking, negatives, landing-page speed) can flip a campaign from profitable to wasteful in a single week of growth-stage spending.
Conversion tracking, properly wired
GA4 events on every form and click-to-call. CallRail call tracking with call quality scoring. Server-side conversion imports for Google Ads. Offline-conversion imports from your CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce, GoHighLevel). The algorithm cannot optimize toward leads it cannot see.
Dedicated landing pages per intent
Landing pages built for the buyer behind the keyword, not the home page. Single offer above the fold, tap-to-call thumb-zone-friendly, one form, one CTA, and a load time under 2.5 seconds on a mid-tier Raleigh mobile network. Every high-intent keyword cluster gets its own page.
Keyword strategy + match-type discipline
Keywords mapped to buyer intent (research, comparison, decision) and tied to estimated revenue per lead. Match-type discipline that prevents broad-match drift from eating budget on the wrong queries. Monthly negative-keyword review from the search-terms report.
Ad copy + Responsive Search Ads
Ad copy that names the actual service, not “quality work.” Responsive Search Ads with the maximum asset count, manual headline pinning where intent demands it, sitelinks tuned to Raleigh buyer language, and structured asset extensions. Every variant tagged for A/B analysis.
Geo-targeting + audience layering
Geo-targeting at the suburb level, not the metro level. Bid modifiers tuned to your actual conversion data across the neighborhoods you serve. Audience layering with in-market segments, remarketing pools, and customer-match uploads from your CRM. The right click, the right place, the right time, at the right bid.
Bid management + remarketing
Manual control on high-intent keywords, Google’s tCPA and tROAS automation where the data supports it. Remarketing audiences segmented by funnel stage, with display, YouTube, and Discovery campaigns layered on top of search for Raleigh buyers who clicked but did not convert. The full funnel, not just the first click.
Reporting tied to revenue, not vanity
Looker Studio dashboard updating daily on impressions, clicks, conversions, conversion rate, and ROAS by campaign and ad group. Call quality scored and reviewed monthly. Monthly written report ties everything back to leads delivered, cost per lead, and revenue. The same numbers Lithium uses internally to manage your program.
Optimization cadence that pays back
Daily monitoring during the first 30 days, weekly after that. Bid adjustments, ad copy rotations, and budget reallocations happen on real data: search-terms reports, conversion data by ad group, landing-page conversion rate, device and audience performance. Every change is logged and tied to a measurable outcome.
The verticals where our Raleigh PPC playbook turns clicks into customers most reliably.
Raleigh’s economy splits between the IBM, SAS, and Cisco-anchored tech corridor in RTP and Cary, the UNC Health and Duke Health system gravity (including Rex Hospital and Duke Raleigh), the NC State and Wake County educational orbit, plus the residential service economy that supports a Triangle metro that has consistently ranked among the fastest-growing in the country. These are the verticals where our PPC programs deliver the most consistent cost-per-lead math.
HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and roofing trades in Raleigh stay busy across an Inside the Beltline (ITB) housing stock that includes Five Points and Hayes Barton 1920s bungalows, the post-war North Hills inventory, and the rapidly expanding new-build inventory in Cary, Apex, and Holly Springs. We build emergency-intent call-only campaigns, suburb-level geo-targeting, and tap-to-call landing pages that load fast on mobile. Cost per lead typically lands $75 to $145 once optimized.
Independent dental and medical practices in Raleigh operate in the gravity of UNC Health (Rex Hospital), Duke Health (Duke Raleigh), and WakeMed. We run procedure-specific ad groups, insurance-friendly landing pages that name the actual carriers accepted, and conversion tracking through booking platforms. Spanish-language ad variations earn meaningful lift across the Wake County Latino population, particularly in dental and pediatric verticals.
Raleigh contractors handle a mix of ITB historic-home renovations in Hayes Barton and Five Points, new-build remodels and ADU work in Cary and Apex, and the steady flow of relocation-driven kitchen and bath projects. We run project-type ad groups, image and YouTube creative shot with real Raleigh project photography, and quote-form landing pages with realistic price-range expectation setting for a market where Triangle relocations have pulled average project budgets sharply higher.
Raleigh attorneys handle a heavy mix of corporate law tied to the IBM, SAS, and Research Triangle Park employer base, family law, personal injury, and immigration. We run practice-area campaigns tied to real buyer intent, write ad copy that meets North Carolina State Bar advertising rules, and tie consultation-booking landing pages to CallRail. The Triangle’s relocation buyer pool means H-1B and immigration practices justify dedicated multilingual campaigns.
Raleigh’s restaurant scene clusters across the Glenwood South entertainment district, the Warehouse District around Morgan Street, North Hills, and the Cary Park area. Triangle dining gravity pulls from a high-income tech demographic that responds well to OpenTable and Resy conversion tracking, event-driven scheduling tied to NC State sports and downtown concert schedules, and geo-fenced ad groups around the entertainment districts.
Auto repair, body shops, and detailing in the Raleigh metro serve a long-commute population running between Cary, Apex, RTP, and downtown daily. We run emergency-intent call-only campaigns, OEM-targeted ad groups (the tech-employer demographic skews toward European OEMs in this market), parts-and-labor landing pages, and dynamic call extensions during business hours. Geo-targeting extends across the I-440 Beltline to capture commuter searches before drivers pass an exit.
Raleigh’s specialty retail concentrates at North Hills, Cameron Village, Crabtree Valley Mall, and the Cary Park shopping district. We run Google Shopping campaigns with product feeds, local-inventory ads, store-visit conversion tracking, and remarketing audiences segmented by product category. Performance Max takes the awareness layer; manual search captures the high-intent buyer at the higher Triangle income range.
Raleigh’s B2B economy is one of the deepest in the Southeast. IBM, SAS, Cisco, Red Hat, and the broader Research Triangle Park and biotech ecosystem create long-cycle, account-based buying patterns that PPC has to support, not lead. We run LinkedIn-paired Google Ads campaigns, gated-content lead-gen funnels, and long-cycle attribution wired through HubSpot or Salesforce. Cost per qualified opportunity matters more than cost per first-touch click in this auction.
From audit to optimized campaigns, with weekly check-ins through the first month.
Profitable PPC is a compounding system, not a one-time launch. The Lithium process starts with an audit and conversion-tracking rebuild, then ships campaign optimizations on a weekly cadence with monthly reporting that ties impressions to booked work.
Audit and strategy
We pull your Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, GA4, CallRail, and CRM data and audit your current campaigns against impression share, conversion rate, quality score, and search-terms waste. We map your service mix, real Raleigh buyer journeys, and revenue per lead. You receive an audit deliverable in week one with priorities ranked by impact.
Conversion infrastructure
Before we touch ad copy, we wire conversion tracking properly. GA4 events on every form and click-to-call, CallRail through to Google Ads, server-side conversion imports, and offline-conversion imports from your CRM. The algorithm cannot optimize toward leads it cannot see, so this gets done first or everything else compounds slower.
Campaign build
Ad groups structured by buyer intent, ad copy with the maximum Responsive Search Ads asset count, dedicated landing pages built for each high-intent keyword cluster, geo-targeting at the suburb level (tuned to the neighborhoods you actually serve), and a baseline negative-keyword list. Every campaign launches with a 30-day optimization plan already mapped.
Launch and learning phase
We build your Raleigh campaigns from the ground up: ad groups by intent, ad copy with the maximum Responsive Search Ads asset count, sitelinks tuned to Raleigh buyer language, geo-targeting at the suburb level, and dedicated landing pages for the highest-intent keywords. Every campaign launches with a baseline negative-keyword list and a 30-day optimization plan already mapped.
Ongoing optimization
Daily monitoring during the first 30 days, weekly after that. We optimize on search-terms reports, conversion data by ad group, landing-page conversion rate, device and audience performance, and quality score drift. Bid adjustments, ad copy rotations, and budget reallocations happen on real data, not gut feel. Every change is logged and tied to a measurable outcome.
Measurement and monthly iteration
Monthly written report tied to leads, cost per lead, and revenue from paid search. Strategy call with DJ Van Zanten to set the next month’s priorities. The strategy adjusts every thirty days based on what is actually moving the phone in Raleigh. Not what looks good on a vanity chart.
What a Raleigh service-business owner actually gets, by PPC approach.
Transparent pricing. Management starts at $500/month, separate from your ad spend.
Typical Raleigh service businesses run $500 to $1,500 per month in management on top of $2,000 to $5,000 in monthly ad spend. Pricing scales with monthly ad spend, channel count (Google, Microsoft, Meta, LinkedIn), and how much landing-page production work the campaign needs. You will see the math on the first call. No haggling, no hidden upsells.
Service businesses Lithium runs PPC for.
Willard Power Vac
“Lithium Marketing has been amazing for our business. They have greatly increased our web traffic and helped us land hundreds of jobs.”
Drake’s 7 Dees
“Cost per lead is down, lead quality is up, and the monthly reports actually mean something. Lithium runs our Google Ads like they own the business.”
Rickabaugh Construction
“Working with Lithium Marketing has been awesome.”
Raleigh PPC, straight answers.
A properly built Raleigh campaign starts producing tracked conversions within the first week of launch. The first 30 days are a learning phase where Google’s algorithm calibrates on real Triangle data, including the seasonal effects of NC State and the relocation-driven demand cycles. Cost per lead typically stabilizes by month two and improves through month three as negative-keyword lists tighten and landing pages get conversion-rate-tested. We report weekly during the first month, monthly after that.
Research Triangle business-services CPCs run $8 to $13 against a national $5.58 average, driven by IBM, SAS, Cisco, and the broader tech and biotech auction. The buyer pool is wealthier than the North Carolina state average and decision-ready, especially the relocation buyer who arrives with higher project budgets. PPC works in Raleigh when the conversion infrastructure is built properly. It fails when an agency optimizes for click volume on a market that punishes click waste. Properly run Raleigh campaigns deliver cost per leads under $120 in trades and under $275 in legal.
Management starts at $500 per month, separate from your ad spend. Typical Raleigh service businesses run $500 to $1,500 per month in management on top of $2,500 to $6,000 in monthly ad spend. The number depends on monthly ad spend, channel count (Google, Microsoft, Meta, LinkedIn), and how much landing-page production work the campaign needs. You will see the math on the first call. No haggling, no hidden upsells.
No reputable PPC agency guarantees a specific cost per lead, because both the auction and your offer move it. What we guarantee is the work: conversion tracking shipped properly, dedicated landing pages per intent, monthly negative-keyword review, weekly bid optimization, and reporting tied to revenue per lead. The cost-per-lead curve bends downward when the work is done right, on a predictable timeline.
Quality Score is Google’s estimate of how relevant your ad and landing page are to the keyword. It directly affects your cost per click and ad position. We optimize Quality Score on three vectors: expected click-through rate (better ad copy, headline pinning where intent demands it), ad relevance (tight ad-group themes, one core keyword set per ad group), and landing-page experience (dedicated pages per intent, fast mobile load, message-match with the ad). A 7+ Quality Score on high-volume keywords often saves Raleigh clients 30 to 50 percent on cost per click compared to a 4 or 5.
Three layers. Leading indicators: impressions, clicks, click-through rate, Quality Score, search impression share in the Raleigh and Research Triangle auctions. Mid-funnel: conversion rate by ad group, conversion rate by landing page, call quality scoring. Revenue: leads delivered, cost per lead, ROAS, revenue attributed to paid via offline conversion imports from your CRM. The dashboard updates daily and the written report ships monthly with a strategy call.
Daily campaign monitoring during the first 30 days (weekly after), bid and budget optimization, ongoing ad copy and creative testing, landing page conversion-rate optimization, monthly negative-keyword review tuned to Triangle geo, audience segmentation refinement, call quality scoring, monthly reporting tied to leads and revenue, and a strategy call with DJ Van Zanten. Raleigh retainers above the base tier include landing page production and CRM offline-conversion wiring.
Yes. PPC is the fastest channel for a new Raleigh business because it does not depend on review history or earned visibility, both of which compound slowly against the entrenched Triangle competition. A new business with a real offer, a clean landing page, and proper conversion tracking can produce tracked leads within the first week. We typically pair an aggressive PPC launch with a measured SEO build over the next six months so the blended cost per lead drops as earned visibility compounds.
Your Raleigh PPC strategy call is run by DJ Van Zanten, not handed to a junior account manager.
DJ Van Zanten joined Lithium as co-founder in 2018 and leads the strategic side of every client partnership. His approach is real-talk consulting: map out a simple, actionable plan, identify the revenue opportunities that matter most, and translate the technical work into business outcomes you can measure. Behind DJ on every Raleigh PPC program, co-founder Kurt Schell directs the technical and content execution, drawing on more than twenty years of SEO, PPC, and conversion-rate work. The strategy call you book is the actual call you take, with the person who will be calling the shots on what to prioritize, what to ignore, and how to measure progress.
Get a free 30-minute Raleigh PPC audit.
On the call we look at your current Raleigh PPC campaigns against impression share, conversion tracking depth, search-terms waste, landing-page conversion rate, and the actual cost per lead your CRM is recording against the Triangle auction reality. You leave with a specific 30-day plan, whether or not you decide to work with us. There is no slide deck and no sales pitch.
- No-obligation 30-minute call with DJ Van Zanten, not a junior
- Written priority list of the top 5 to 10 changes that will move leads
- Google Partner with a 5.0 rating across 30+ Google reviews