From Zero to $1M+ Monthly in Paid Search
No historical data. No prior campaigns. No quality score history. Just a blank slate and a mandate to build Windstream’s paid search program for its business division from the ground up.
The Challenge
Building a Channel That Doesn’t Exist Yet
When I joined Windstream, the business internet division had no paid search presence. The channel had previously been managed by an external vendor using outdated manual bidding tactics and the conversion tracking wasn’t set up to measure what actually mattered — phone calls that sales agents could convert into new customers.
Starting a paid search program from scratch presents a unique challenge: Google’s algorithm rewards accounts with conversion history. New accounts start with low quality scores, which means higher CPCs and less efficient spend during the critical early period when you can least afford waste.
The goal was to build the right foundation from day one — clean tracking, the right bidding strategy, and a keyword architecture that could grow efficiently as the algorithm learned.
The Starting Point
Zero campaign history. No quality scores. No conversion data for the algorithm to learn from. Manual bidding from the vendor had left no useful baseline. The only assets available were the brand, a landing page, and a target CPL of $70.
The Business Context
The business division needed phone call leads — sales agents could upsell and convert significantly better over the phone than through self-serve digital flows. The KPI wasn’t form fills or traffic. It was calls that turned into signed business internet customers.
The Approach
Foundation First, Scale Second
The biggest mistake when building a new paid search program is trying to optimize before you have data. I built the program in deliberate phases — each one creating the foundation for the next.
The Build Plan
Fix the Foundation — Tracking and Conversion Setup
Before launching a single campaign, partnered with the web team to implement call tracking pixels and ensure all conversion events were firing correctly. Set phone calls as the primary conversion objective in Google Ads and validated that revenue signals were feeding back into the platform accurately. The algorithm is only as good as the data you feed it — getting this right first was non-negotiable.
Data Gathering Phase — Manual CPC with Broad Coverage
Launched with manual CPC bidding and a deliberately broad keyword structure to start gathering conversion data. The goal of the first 30 days wasn’t efficiency — it was building enough conversion history for the algorithm to learn from. Added negative keywords daily to eliminate irrelevant traffic and keep quality high during the learning period.
Switch to Target CPA Bidding at $70
Once 30+ days of conversion data had accumulated, switched from manual CPC to Target CPA bidding with a $70 CPL goal — working backward from the revenue per customer to find the acquisition cost that kept the business profitable. The algorithm now had clean conversion signals and enough history to optimize intelligently toward the right outcomes.
Geographic and Audience Segmentation
Analyzed subscriber penetration by zip code to identify where Windstream had heavy market presence versus where it was underrepresented. Built separate campaigns for underserved zip codes where incremental spend would drive new customer acquisition, versus high-penetration areas where the return on additional spend was diminishing. Reallocating toward underserved markets drove disproportionately higher returns.
Prove Value, Scale Budget
With blended CPL running at $60-65 — meaningfully below the $70 ceiling — I built a data-driven case for budget expansion. Presented unit economics to leadership: at our proven CPL, every incremental dollar was producing a predictable number of new customers profitably. Leadership increased the budget based on demonstrated performance, not projections.
The Results
A Channel Built to Scale
The program grew from a blank slate to one of Windstream’s most productive acquisition channels — with budget growth driven entirely by proven performance.
Budget and Revenue Growth
Key Insight
The Takeaway
“The best way to earn more budget is to prove what incremental spend actually produces. I didn’t ask leadership to trust a hypothesis — I showed them the unit economics. At our proven CPL, every incremental dollar was producing a predictable number of new customers profitably. That’s how you scale a channel: prove it first, then grow it.”