Paid search & media.
Paid media should earn its place in the decision.
Measure paid media against the job it was bought to do.
Paid media can capture intent that already exists, create discovery before anyone searches, or keep a brand in consideration while customers compare. We decide what job the investment needs to do first, then choose the channel, audience, message and measurement to fit it.
Talk to a paid media specialistOur view
Paid media is not one job.
Some spend captures intent from people already looking. Some puts a brand in front of the right audience before they search. Some keeps a brand in the decision while customers compare. Those are different commercial jobs, measured differently, and they rarely belong on the same channel.
So the role comes first and the platform follows. A campaign type chosen because the platform recommended it this quarter is not a strategy, and it is usually where the money goes missing.
Recent work
Hobbies Direct
We rebuilt the account around product margin and intent, separated brand from non-brand, and scaled spend only where the economics justified it.
- +96%
- Paid revenueYear on year, 2026 · published case study
- 2×
- Spend scaled at constant ROASPublished case study
Where paid media can play
Six channels. One commercial decision.
Search
Captures explicit commercial intent from someone actively looking for what you sell. For lead generation and considered purchases this is where most of the return lives. On Google Search, and AI advertising such as ChatGPT Ads where it is commercially real.
The right first move when demand is proven and the margin can defend a click.
Shopping & commerce
Connects product demand, inventory and commercial signals where people shop. The feed is the campaign, so it is built around margin, and automated campaign types run governed rather than handed the wheel. On Google Shopping and Performance Max.
Right when you sell products and the unit economics support the click.
Video
Creates discovery and builds understanding where video explains better than text, and keeps reinforcing preference while buyers decide. It needs creative worth running and a margin story that can fund it. On YouTube.
Usually right once the intent-capture side is already profitable.
Demand generation
Reaches relevant audiences earlier in consideration, before an explicit search, and brings people back into the decision when they are ready. On Demand Gen.
Right when there is audience signal to work and a reason to bring people back.
Retargeting & display
Keeps a brand present while customers compare, leave and return, between the first visit and the decision. Judged on what it contributes to that decision, not on last-click vanity. On Display and remarketing audiences.
The low-cost presence that holds a position between the first visit and the sale.
Paid social support
Used where it serves the search programme: amplifying search-led content, retargeting people who arrived through search, or creating demand that search later captures. Never a standalone social service. On Meta, LinkedIn or TikTok.
Right when it has a clear job inside the search programme.
In practice
What changes in practice.
How we run paid differently
Four things that show up on the account.
Not positioning. These are the differences a marketing lead notices inside the first quarter.
Direct specialist access
You work with the senior specialist running your account. They are in the account, on the call, and writing the brief. No client-services layer translating between you and the work.
Revenue-first measurement
GA4 audience builds, server-side conversion tracking, and reporting reconciled against your own sales and finance numbers rather than the platform conversion count. The monthly briefing leads with revenue.
Automation, checked by a specialist
We automate the repetitive work, such as search-term reviews, negative keyword lists and account audits, so the specialist spends their time on judgement. Every change is reviewed before it goes live, and you can see each one in your account history.
Connected to the wider search system
Paid query data reveals demand and intent, organic visibility changes where paid spend is needed, and behaviour on AI, social and community surfaces affects where paid belongs. Paid can create demand that later shows up in search, and amplify content made elsewhere. Coordination, not bundling: where another capability is needed, it is scoped separately.
Measurement
Measure the job, not just the platform.
What we measure depends on what the spend was bought to do. When it is capturing intent, the measures are commercial and direct: qualified leads, sales, revenue, margin, cost per acquisition, and incremental return where it can be measured.
When it is creating discovery or reinforcing preference, the evidence is different: engagement from the target audience, branded demand, return visits, assisted conversions and downstream search behaviour, and commercial lift only where the evidence supports it. We say which of these are observed, which are derived and which are inferred, and none of them is presented as proof of cause on its own.
In practice
More enquiries were not the goal. Better ones were.
We filtered The Springs' paid search harder, let each source region stand on its own, then extended it to golf: a 34:1 blended return on ad spend.
- 34:1
- Return on ad spend
- +1,142%
- Event revenue growth
Client voice
I went in expecting another agency pitch deck. What I got was a P&L conversation, a clear ROAS target, and a paid search engine that delivered against it. 34:1 ROAS is not something I thought possible from Google Ads.
Firewire built the attribution framework before any content was created, so we always had clean data on what each channel contributed. The SEO wasn't cannibalising paid. It was bringing in customers we weren't reaching before. We would recommend them without hesitation.
We engaged Firewire to overhaul our SEO. They have incredible knowledge and understanding of SEO and have increased our organic traffic by 680%. Their work is high quality and produces results.
After a run of bad experiences with other competitors, Firewire were able to deliver results, doubling our organic leads, and have been a pleasure to work with. We highly recommend.
Selected clients
Before you brief us
Questions, answered plainly.
01 Will I work with a senior specialist or get handed to a junior?
The senior specialist assigned to your account is the person in the account and the person on the call. Strategy, execution and reporting come from the same team.
02 How fast will we see something move?
The first account changes happen quickly, usually within the first couple of weeks. How soon results follow depends on your conversion cycle, how healthy the account and tracking already are, the volume it runs, and whether a restructure has to go through a learning period. We will tell you what to expect for your account before anything changes.
03 Do we own our account and data?
Yes. We work inside your account, not a holding account, and you keep everything including historical data if the engagement ends.
04 When is paid media not the right move?
If there is no proven demand to capture and no budget to create it, fix the offer and the landing page first. If the unit economics do not stack up, paid amplifies the leak rather than fixing it. We would rather lose the engagement than take one that cannot work.
Within this capability
Ready when you are.
Be found first. Be chosen naturally.
Send us the account and the target, and we will show you where the money is going and what it is buying.