The Client
Ike's Security and Lock is a mobile locksmith in the Portland metro area of Oregon: car lockouts, car keys and transponder programming, home and commercial locks, rekeying and emergency calls, 24 hours a day. A local, licensed operator in one of the most crowded and most fraud-ridden categories in Google Ads.
He came to us in June 2026 after years with another agency. On paper the account looked healthy. In reality, nobody could tell a real customer from a website visitor.
The Problem: An Account That Was Grading Its Own Homework
When we audited the account, the problem was not the budget or the bids. It was that the numbers themselves could not be trusted:
- Taps counted as leads. The main "lead" conversion was a tap on the phone number. A tap is not a call, and it is certainly not a booked job, but the account counted every one and bid on them. That is how the old reports showed 30% to 40% "conversion rates" on Search.
- No way to separate real jobs from noise. Real phone calls, form submissions and page interactions were all mixed into the same totals. The previous agency could report thousands of "leads" for a single local locksmith, a number no service area of this size could ever produce.
- Landing pages that did not convert. The ads sent people to pages built by the old agency: slow, cluttered and generic, with no clear way to call from a phone in the middle of a lockout.
- Local Services Ads and the Business Profile left on autopilot. The two placements where emergency customers actually look first were not being managed at all.
What We Rebuilt, in Two Months
Tracking That Counts Jobs, Not Clicks
We rebuilt conversion tracking around what actually produces revenue: calls from ads, calls from the website, Local Services Ads phone leads and completed intake forms. Phone-number taps were taken out of bidding. For the first time the owner could see exactly how many real customers his ads were producing, and what each one cost.
A Tight Search Campaign
We replaced the sprawl with one tightly structured Search campaign built around the jobs Ike's actually does, automotive keys and lockouts first, then home and commercial work, on exact and phrase keywords in his real service area. Out-of-area towns were cut, and the schedule was set to the hours his crew can take jobs.
Local Services Ads, Managed
Local Services Ads sit above everything else on an emergency search, with Google's verification badge next to the business name. We took them off autopilot: service categories, service area, hours and budget matched to what the business can deliver. Local Services phone leads grew from 41 in June to 143 in the first 26 days of September.
Google Business Profile Performance Max
Ike's was one of the first clients we launched a Google Business Profile Performance Max campaign for. It promotes the Business Profile itself, the map listing customers see when they search "locksmith near me", and turns it into a source of leads it had never produced before. 52 leads on $245 of spend.
New Landing Pages
We built new landing pages around the services he offers, designed for someone standing next to a locked car with a phone in their hand: the phone number up top, the service they searched for as the headline, real reviews, licensed and insured, upfront pricing and a short intake form. The conversion rate doubled as soon as they went live, and in September alone they produced 45 calls and intake forms.
The Results
| Since June 2026 | |
|---|---|
| Verified leads (real calls, Local Services leads and forms) | 656 |
| Local Services phone leads, June vs September | 41 to 143 |
| Google Business Profile Performance Max | 52 leads on $245 |
| New landing pages, September | 45 calls and forms |
The best measure of all is not in the account. Within weeks, Ike's was booking more jobs than his crew could handle, and the owner started asking us to pause the campaigns on days he was fully booked. For a local service business, that is the problem you want to have.
Key Takeaways
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If the tracking is wrong, everything is wrong. An account that counts phone taps as leads will bid for taps. Fixing conversion tracking was the first and most important change we made.
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For emergency services, the top of the page is Local Services Ads and the map. Managing Local Services Ads and running a Google Business Profile Performance Max campaign put Ike's where emergency customers look first.
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Landing pages are half the result. The same clicks produce twice the leads when the page is built for a customer in a hurry on a phone.
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Two months is enough to turn an account around when the work starts with an honest audit instead of a better-looking report.
About This Campaign
Live PPC Ads has managed this account since June 2026: Google Ads Search, Local Services Ads, Google Business Profile Performance Max and landing pages, with daily optimization through our Ad Campaign Concierge™ system.
Industry: Locksmith & Security Platforms: Google Ads, Local Services Ads Location: Portland metro, Oregon Account Duration: June 2026 to present