An SEA agency makes sure your search engine ads earn more than they cost. Not by "optimising the campaign", but by getting three things right: which searches you pay for, what the visitor sees next, and whether your measurement honestly shows what an enquiry or order is worth. Without that last part, everything stays guesswork with a dashboard attached.
Short answer: we are an SEA agency from Eindhoven with one team for ads, landing pages and measurement. You get a single point of contact, the people who make the plan also run it, and the account stays yours.
What an SEA agency does
SEA stands for Search Engine Advertising: advertising in search results, in practice mostly Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising. An agency takes on four types of work.
| Part | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Strategy and measurement | Goals, what an enquiry may cost, checking conversions and values |
| Account setup | Campaign structure, keywords, exclusions, bid strategy |
| Creative | Ad copy, assets and, for webshops, the product feed |
| Landing pages | The page behind the click and the conversion on it |
That last point is where most agencies stop and where the return is actually made. Buying traffic to a page that doesn't deliver on the ad's promise is the most expensive mistake in this channel.
When an SEA agency adds something
Advertising is direct, measurable and can be switched off again tomorrow. That is its strength and its risk at the same time: within a few weeks you can neatly spend a lot of budget on visitors who will never buy.
- Stopping waste. In almost every account we take over, part of the budget goes to search terms without buying intent or to products with too little margin. That is profit without spending an extra euro.
- Steering on margin instead of revenue. A ROAS of 6 can be loss-making and a ROAS of 2 healthy. Once gross margin is in the measurement, campaigns get optimised differently.
- Learning faster than organic. SEA tells you within weeks which message and which search term make money. That is immediately useful for your website and your SEO.
- Scaling without guessing. Once you know what an order may cost, growing becomes a choice instead of a risk.
The sum behind every decision
There is one number you have to supply yourself that no agency can invent: what a lead or order may maximally cost you. That is the gross margin per order, multiplied by the chance that an enquiry becomes a customer. Without that ceiling, every report stays an observation.
Worked example: if your gross margin per order is €400 and one in four enquiries becomes a customer, an enquiry is worth a maximum of €100 to break even. If you want margin on top, you're looking at €60 to €70. KPIs and goals explains how you set that ceiling, measurement and attribution how you make sure the numbers underneath it are correct.
Where SEA usually goes wrong
- Measurement can't be trusted. Double-counted conversions or missing values make every optimisation directionless.
- Everything on revenue, nothing on margin. Without margin in the figures you don't know whether a good-looking campaign actually makes money.
- Too many campaigns, too little data. Fragmentation means no single campaign gets enough conversions to learn from.
- The landing page doesn't do its job. See conversion optimisation and A/B testing in the checkout.
- Broad keywords without intent. Someone searching "what is x" is at a different point in the process than someone typing "supplier x price".
What to ask before you choose an SEA agency
- "What do you check in the first week?" Expect: conversions, values, double counting, search terms, structure. Not: "we'll set up new campaigns."
- "What may an order cost, and how do you get to that number?" A good agency asks about your margin and works backwards from it. Anyone who names a ROAS target without knowing your margin is guessing.
- "When do you tell us to stop?" There should be a limit, expressed in money.
- "What will change on our website?" Something should change. Otherwise only the account gets optimised, not the conversion.
- "Whose name is the account in?" Answer: yours. Always, including history and conversion settings.
Warning signs: a fee as a fixed percentage of media budget with no agreements about results, no direct access to your own Ads account, reporting on clicks and CTR alone, and "raising the quality score" as a goal in itself.
How we approach it
We've been based in Eindhoven (Willemstraat 1) since 2010, advising on digital, marketing and AI — and then carrying it out too. For SEA that means:
- We start with measurement, not with campaigns. If conversions and values don't add up, adjusting is pointless.
- Ads, landing pages and measurement sit in one team. That is exactly the combination a separate specialist usually has to wait for.
- We report on enquiries, orders and margin, not just impressions and clicks.
- Accounts, data and delivered work are yours, and we document the way of working so it keeps functioning without us too.
- Honest advice about what is not needed. If search volume is too low or margins too thin, we say so, even if it means less work for us.
Not looking for an agency but for temporary reinforcement? Take a look at freelance, interim or coaching — or read what an SEA specialist actually does.
When we fit — and when we don't
Yes if you want one party that keeps ads, website and measurement together, and if you're willing to look at margin figures.
No if you're only looking for someone to execute what's already fixed without thinking along, or if the expectation is that a thin proposition will still pay off with paid traffic. Advertising strengthens what works; it doesn't fix a proposition that isn't landing.
Want to know where it's leaking for you?
Book a free strategy session. We'll look together at your account, your search terms and the page behind the click, and you'll hear where the money is disappearing — whether we work together afterwards or not. Prefer to have your site reviewed first? Start with the website scan.
Frequently asked questions about an SEA agency
What does an SEA agency actually do?
An SEA agency manages your search engine ads: it decides which search terms you advertise on, builds the campaign structure, writes ads, excludes waste and steers towards results. A good agency also looks at the landing page and conversion measurement, because that is where the return is made.
What's the difference between an SEA agency and an SEO agency?
An SEA agency buys visibility with ads: immediate effect, you pay per click. An SEO agency builds organic visibility with content, technology and authority: it takes longer, but you don't pay per visitor. The combination works best, because SEA shows within weeks which search terms make money, and that is the best brief for your SEO.
What does an SEA agency cost?
That depends on your media budget, the number of campaigns and whether measurement and landing pages also need attention. We'd rather give a realistic picture in a conversation than a figure without knowing your situation. What we do advise against: a fee as a fixed percentage of your media budget, because that puts the incentive on spending more instead of delivering more.
How fast does SEA deliver results?
The first clicks and enquiries come in within days. According to Google, an automated bid strategy needs enough conversions to work reliably, so expect that steering for return is only possible once that data exists. How fast that happens depends mainly on your conversion volume.
Does the Google Ads account stay ours?
Yes. The account, its history, conversion settings and all delivered copy and pages are yours. An agency that won't put your account in your name makes you dependent for no good reason.
Does SEA also work for B2B with long sales cycles?
Yes, but then measurement matters more than the campaign. In long sales cycles, a form submission says little; you want to know which enquiries became customers. Connect your CRM to your measurement and steer on qualified enquiries instead of totals. See also B2B in Eindhoven.
Can you work alongside our own marketing team?
Yes, we do that often. Sometimes we take over SEA only, sometimes we coach someone who does it in-house, and sometimes we only execute the parts that don't fit in-house. Coaching is often more effective than outsourcing.
Sources
- Google Ads Help: about Smart Bidding — what automated bidding needs to work.
- Google Ads Help: search terms report — where you see what you're really paying for.
- Google Ads Help: tracking conversions — the foundation every goal rests on.
- Microsoft Advertising Help — for the second search network in the Benelux.
Questions, or just want to spar?
We're happy to think along — call, email or drop by in the heart of Eindhoven.