Google Ads Specialist
PPC that goes beyond clicks and conversions.
I’m Matt James. I’ve worked in paid search since 2014, helping businesses understand what happens after the click and use that data to improve PPC performance. My background includes nearly five years at loveholidays. Today, I co-run Acquisition Intelligence, working across travel, lead generation and other performance-focused businesses.
Started working in PPC
At loveholidays
Monthly budgets managed per account
Acquisition Intelligence offices
What I work on
Four problems I spend most of my time on.
Travel and lead generation accounts share one difficulty. The ad platform records a conversion long before the business knows whether the sale made money.
Travel PPC
Demand moves with school holidays, weather, flight schedules and news from a destination. Budgets and bids have to follow those shifts by route and departure date. Account structure should keep a weekend city break apart from a high-value tailor-made trip.
Lead generation
A form fill is where the work starts. I look at which enquiries the sales team qualifies, how long qualification takes and which campaigns produce bookings. Bidding to raw lead volume rewards the cheapest enquiries, and those are rarely the ones you want.
Measurement
Offline conversion imports and GA4 data joined to CRM or reservation records. The goal is a conversion signal built on booking value or margin, returned to Google Ads quickly enough for bidding to learn from. Search and Performance Max perform as well as the signal they receive.
AI in day-to-day marketing
Search term analysis across large accounts, checks for spend and tracking anomalies, faster reporting. People still make the budget decisions.
How the work gets done
I lead the strategy. Acquisition Intelligence delivers the work.
I co-founded Acquisition Intelligence in 2024. Every account has a delivery team behind it. I stay close to strategy, measurement and the commercial questions. Day-to-day management, builds and reporting sit with the team.
This site
Matt James
Founder and specialist. Writes about travel PPC, lead quality and measurement. Leads strategy on agency accounts. Works across Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, GA4, BigQuery and Looker Studio.
The agency
Acquisition Intelligence
Runs Google Ads, Microsoft Ads and Meta campaigns for travel, finance and insurance businesses in the UK and Germany.
From people I have worked with
“What sets Matt apart is his ability to combine his technical skills with excellent communication. He has an exceptional ability to analyse data and use it to make informed decisions, which was instrumental in optimising campaigns.”
Naim Dinarkhail · Head of PPC, loveholidays
“Matt’s knowledge in the field of PPC campaigns is second to none and I would highly recommend getting him on board with any campaigns you might have as he will definitely bring the results you desire.”
Morne Van Der Merwe · Creative Developer, AGCS
Writing
Articles on Google Ads, bidding and measurement.
A selection from the blog. The full archive includes Google Ads setup guides for more than 25 industries.
Want a second opinion on a travel or lead generation account?
Book a call. We will talk through the account, the tracking and the numbers your business cares about.
What happens next
Discovery call
You tell me about the business, the goals and where PPC falls short.
Audit
With read access to Google Ads, Analytics and Merchant Center, the agency team and I review current performance.
Proposal
We meet again to go through the findings and a plan for working together.