How Long Does It Take To Succeed With Google Ads? (Episode 527)

Chris Schaefer opens this solo episode of The Paid Search Podcast with a direct answer to a question he hears constantly: "How long does it take to be successful with Google Ads?" His blunt answer is three months. The first month is for testing and failure, the second for applying those learnings, and the third for optimization. He argues that a month is too short to know anything and a year is too long to wait. If that was all you needed, he says, you could stop listening. But the real substance of the episode is about what "success" actually means—and why both speeding toward it and crawling toward it can be equally disastrous.

The Trap of Speed: Broad Keywords and Low Hurdles

Schaefer’s first example of a "fast" approach uses the home services industry, specifically pest control. To get quick results, an advertiser would choose the most generic, high-volume keywords: "pest control near me," "pest control services," "pest control [city]." There is no creativity or strategy here, just brute force. To accelerate things further, the advertiser would set a very low bar for a conversion. Instead of requiring a form fill, a quote request, or an appointment booking, the landing page might just display a phone number. The goal is to minimize friction between the click and the conversion.