Landing-page experience
21 of 21 above average
The ads land on the category pages built for SEO: they match the search, load fast on a phone and answer delivery and care questions.
Google Ads case study · online shop
Aquatropics: 7p clicks from SEO and Google Ads working together
Aquatropics is a London aquatics shop. We run its Google Ads, SEO and website AI assistant. Here is how pages built for search, careful use of Google’s automation and daily monitoring brought its clicks down to a few pence, with the real numbers from Google.
- average cost per click
- 7p
- 27,274 Google Search clicks, 1 April–24 October 2026
- click-through rate
- 26.13%
- Whole account, 25 September–24 October 2026
- purchases tracked
- 2.6×
- In the 29 days after our September changes, against the 29 days before
- keywords with Quality Score 8–10
- 19 of 21
- Read from Google Ads on 25 October 2026
Source: Google Ads, account 738-047-9515, managed from Hand On Web’s Google Partner manager account. “Purchases” are the GA4 purchase events Google Ads imports, not audited sales. We don’t publish the client’s spend or sales figures.
The last 30 days in Google Ads
Thousands of clicks at a few pence each
These are the figures Google Ads shows for the whole account. Over 25 September–24 October 2026 the ads were seen 32,363 times and clicked 8,458 times, at 5.9p a click. On 24 October 2026 alone: 360 clicks at 4.4p.
All campaigns25 September–24 October 2026
- Clicks
- 8,458
- Impressions
- 32,363
- Avg. CPC
- 5.9p
- CTR
- 26.13%
Before and after
Half the price per click, more than twice the purchases
On 26 September 2026 our team changed how the account uses Google’s automation (see the timeline below). Here are the 29 days either side, for the whole account.
| 28 August–25 September 2026 | 26 September–24 October 2026 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average cost per click | 12.6p | 5.6p | -55% |
| Clicks | 7,827 | 8,295 | +6% |
| Click-through rate | 13.65% | 26.19% | +12.5 points |
| Purchases tracked | Baseline | 2.6× the baseline | +160% |
| Ad cost per purchase | Baseline | 18% of the baseline | -82% |
October is a different month from September, and other things can affect sales, so treat this as a strong signal rather than a controlled test. Purchase value for every pound of ad spend rose about 9-fold over the same windows.
Seven months of Search
More clicks every month, for less
Monthly clicks on the Search campaign (bars) and the average cost per click (line), 1 April–24 October 2026. October runs to the 24th. 89% of the clicks come from phones.
Search clicksAverage cost per click
A cheap niche, and cheaper still
Well under the going rate
Fish searches are cheaper than most. Google’s own Keyword Planner gives the UK average for each. Aquatropics pays a third of it.
| Search | UK searches a month | UK average CPC | Aquatropics paid | QS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| tropical fish | 22,200 | 19.2p | 6.9p | 9 |
| tropical fish for sale | 5,400 | 18p | 7.6p | 8 |
| tropical fish online | 1,600 | 22.1p | 6.8p | 8 |
| buy tropical fish online | 880 | 21.4p | 6.2p | 8 |
| aquarium fish for sale | 480 | 16.7p | 7.8p | 8 |
UK averages: Google Keyword Planner, October 2025 to September 2026. Paid: keyword average, April to October 2026.
Why it works
The SEO work shows up in the ad price
Ranking well organically does not lower what you pay for ads. Quality Score does. Google rates every keyword on three things, and two of them come straight from the website.
Expected click-through rate
18 of 21 above average
Headlines use the words people search, like “Tropical Fish For Sale UK” and “Next-Day Live Fish Delivery”. CTR runs above 20%.
Ad relevance
14 of 21 below average
Our next fix. All the keywords sit in one ad group, so one set of ads serves them all. Splitting it by theme should lift this too.
Two channels, one set of pages
SEO already wins the long, specific searches. “betta fish for sale” ranks around position 7 and brings 100 to 250 organic clicks a month. The broad searches like “tropical fish for sale” still sit on page two organically, so the ads cover them while SEO catches up. Both send people to the same pages, which is why improving a page helps twice.
Organic Google clicks
- Jul 254,714 · pos 14.5
- Oct 2511,104 · pos 5.5
- Jan 2618,439 · pos 4.6
- Apr 2613,723 · pos 5
- Jul 2611,841 · pos 6.5
- Oct 2611,557 · pos 5.3
Search Console, aquatropics.co.uk, web, all countries. October 2026 runs to the 23rd.
What we did, and when
From 1% click-through to 26%
From July 2025
SEO on the category pages
Organic Google clicks rose from 4,714 in July 2025 to 18,439 in January 2026, and average position moved from 14.5 to 4.6. These are the pages the ads later sent people to.
Nov 2025 – Mar 2026
The wrong network
The campaign ran mostly on Google’s Display network. Its click-through rate was about 1.2% and it tracked no purchases. We include this because it shows how much the setup matters.
1 April 2026
Our team rebuilt it for Google Search
We moved the campaign to Google Search only, with keywords for buying searches, bids capped by hand at 10p to 25p, and purchases imported from Google Analytics. Click-through rate jumped above 20% in the first month.
26 September 2026
Our team switched off the broad automation
Performance Max was costing 25.3p a click at 7.4% CTR, against 6.5p on Search. We stopped it, turned off AI Max and automatically written ad text, and halved the daily budget.
5 October 2026
Automated bidding, on real purchase data
With clean purchase tracking in place, the Search campaign moved to Google’s value-based bidding. Automation now works inside limits we set: our keywords, our ads, our landing pages.
Monitoring around the clock
The account is watched every day, not once a month
Cheap clicks don’t stay cheap on their own. Searches change, competitors arrive and Google adds new automatic settings. Four things keep watch.
AI reads the data every day
Our AI agents go through the Google Ads, Search Console and Google Analytics data daily, flag waste and suggest changes. A person approves and makes every change.
A website assistant answering 24/7
The AI assistant on the Aquatropics site has held about 1,600 customer conversations since late July 2026. The questions customers ask feed the ad text and the page content.
Watching how ad visitors behave
Visitor recordings and analytics show where people from the ads hesitate or leave, so we fix the landing pages, not just the ads.
Alerts when something moves
Automatic alerts flag spend, cost per click or conversions moving outside their normal range, so problems are caught quickly, not at the end of the month.
What’s next
Still room to grow
- Split the ad group by theme to lift ad relevance, the one part of Quality Score still below average.
- Show for more searches. In the last 90 days the ads appeared for about 12% of the searches they could have, mostly because of the deliberately small daily budget.
- Keep the pages ahead. Every category page improved for SEO lowers the ad price too, so the SEO and ads plans stay one plan.
Can this work for your business?
Most businesses won’t pay 7p, because most markets cost more. The method carries over: pages that match the search, Google’s automation switched on only where the data is good, and someone watching every day. We are happy to look at your account and tell you what we would change first.
Questions about this case study
How much did Aquatropics pay per click on Google Ads?
Its Google Search campaign averaged 7p a click across 27,274 clicks from 1 April to 24 October 2026, and 5.9p across the 30 days to 24 October. Google Keyword Planner puts the UK average for the same searches at 17p to 22p a click.
Why are Aquatropics’ clicks so cheap?
Two reasons. It is a niche with fewer advertisers than most, and Google rates the ads highly: 19 of the 21 scored keywords have a Quality Score of 8 to 10, and the landing pages are rated above average on all 21. A higher Quality Score means Google charges less for the same position.
Does ranking well on Google lower the cost of ads?
Not directly. Organic rankings are not part of the ad auction. The SEO work helps because the same category pages that rank organically are the pages the ads send people to, and Google scores those pages as above average for landing-page experience.
What changed on 26 September 2026?
Our team stopped the Performance Max campaign, turned off AI Max and automatically written ad text on the Search campaign, halved the daily budget and, on 5 October, moved the campaign to value-based bidding. In the 29 days after the change the account paid 55% less per click, got 6% more clicks and recorded 2.6 times as many purchases.
Is Google’s automation bad for small advertisers?
No. Aquatropics now uses Google’s automated value-based bidding, because the shop tracks real purchases for it to learn from. What we switched off was the broad automation that chose its own searches, placements and ad text. Automation works best inside limits a person sets.
Can the same approach work for a local service business?
The principles carry over: relevant landing pages, careful search terms and the right level of automation. Local service searches usually cost more than 7p, and a business with few online sales may suit manual bidding better, as our Chester Property & Garden Maintenance work shows.