Is your business ready for Google Ads? A 12-point check before you spend
Short answer. You are ready to advertise when every place an ad sends someone works, someone answers when they call, and you can measure what the ads produce. The twelve checks below cover all three. If any of them fails, fix it before you spend on ads, not after.
Checked October 2026.
Why does readiness matter more than the ad?
You pay for a click the moment it happens. What decides whether that click becomes an enquiry is everything on the other end: the page, the form, the phone, the person who answers it. A page with placeholder text, a form that never arrives, a phone that rings out — you pay for the click either way.
Our rule is simple:
We do not spend a dollar of your ad budget until everything it sends people to is working.
The 12-point ready-to-advertise check
Brand and profiles
Your brand is applied everywhere a customer will see it — website, Google Business Profile, social profiles, email signatures and quote template.
Your Google Business Profile is claimed and verified, in your current brand, with the right hours and service area.
Your social profiles are branded and active, with at least four weeks of posts already published. A prospect who checks finds a business that is open and working.
Website
The website is live, with no placeholder text or stock filler on any page an ad could send someone to.
Every page has one clear next step — call, book or request a quote — visible on a phone without scrolling.
Each advertised service has its own landing page. No paid click lands on the home page.
There is proof on the site: case studies or project photos, for the visitor who checks before they call.
Testing and tracking
Every form and call link has been tested from a real phone, on the published site, and each enquiry arrives where it should.
Tracking is verified. Calls from ads (with a minimum call length), calls from the website, form submissions and any text-a-photo link are all recorded as enquiries.
You have a baseline. You know roughly how many enquiries a month you get today, so the first month of ads can be judged against something.
People
Someone named answers the phone and replies to enquiries within an agreed time, during the hours the ads run.
The team has room for more work. If it does not, start with a smaller budget.
How do you test a form properly?
Not in the website editor's preview. A preview that works is not evidence the live form works.
Use a real phone, on mobile data, on the published site.
Submit the form as a customer would, with a real name and number.
Check that the enquiry arrives, in the right inbox, and not in spam.
Tap the phone number on the site and make sure the call connects to the right person.
Do it again after any change to the site.
What should you track before ads start?
At a minimum: form submissions, clicks on the phone number from your website, and calls from the ads themselves. Google Ads lets you set a minimum call length for a call to count as a conversion, so a two-second wrong number is not counted as an enquiry.
If the phone is how most of your customers get in touch, tracking calls is not optional. Without it, ads that are working will look as though they are not.
What if you are not ready yet?
Fix the gaps first. Most items on this list are small jobs — a form re-tested, a profile updated, a landing page written. The expensive mistake is advertising while you fix them, because you pay for the clicks that land on the gaps.
How this fits into a Molten build
Every Molten build ends with this check, written down and passed, before any new ad spend. It is in the proposal and in the schedule of deliverables, so you can hold us to it.
To talk through where your business stands against the list, email us at hello@moltengroup.co.nz or visit moltengroup.co.nz.
Questions owners ask
Can I run Google Ads before my new website is finished?
You can, but you will be paying for clicks to a page you are about to replace, and you will have no clean baseline to judge the new site against. In most cases it is better to wait until the site passes the checks above.
How long should my social profiles be active before I advertise?
We ask for at least four weeks of published posts. People check a business's social profiles before they call, and an empty profile reads as a business that is not trading.
Do I need call tracking for Google Ads?
If most of your customers phone rather than fill in a form, yes. Without call tracking, the enquiries your ads produce by phone are invisible, and the ads will look worse than they are.
Should ads send people to my home page?
No. Each advertised service should have its own landing page that matches what the ad offered. A home page makes the visitor search again for the thing they clicked on.