Grow faster in a competitive, mobile-first marketplace with a partner that turns paid traffic into profitable customers. Korhogo Agency designs, implements, and scales Google Ads programs for brands that want predictable revenue growth across the whole of South Africa—from Johannesburg and Pretoria to Cape Town, Durban, and Gqeberha. Our approach blends rigorous data, sharp creative, and disciplined execution so your media spend compounds into lasting advantage and measurable ROI. Whether you are entering the market, relaunching after an internal attempt, or ready to scale beyond a plateau, we provide the people, processes, and platforms to get you there.
Why Google Ads Is the Fastest Path to Measurable Growth in South Africa
Search intent is the strongest buying signal available online. When South Africans actively look for products, services, or answers, appearing first with a compelling value proposition shortens the path to purchase and reduces wasted spend. Google’s ecosystem—Search, Performance Max, Shopping, YouTube, Display, and Discovery—covers the full funnel from awareness to purchase, allowing us to construct a cohesive acquisition engine rather than isolated campaigns.
What makes this channel especially effective in the local market is the breadth of device usage and the diversity of consumer needs across provinces, languages, and income brackets. South Africans move fluidly between mobile and desktop, price-compare in tabs, discover on YouTube, and transact via e-commerce or lead forms. With the right account architecture, negative keyword discipline, location precision, and message testing, your brand can intercept demand at the moment it matters and nurture undecided prospects until they convert.
Korhogo Agency specializes in translating that complexity into campaigns that produce clean signals, consistent volume, and stable cost per acquisition. We build the scaffolding—conversion tracking, feed health, creative frameworks, landing pages, and budgets—so your advertising can scale without losing efficiency.
What Korhogo Agency Delivers
We offer an end-to-end service built on three pillars: market intelligence, technical excellence, and commercial accountability. Every engagement is anchored in a bespoke growth plan aligned with your revenue targets and operational realities.
- Strategic planning: market sizing, competitor mapping, keyword demand modeling, and budget-to-outcome forecasting
- Technical foundation: tag implementation, consent mode, enhanced conversions, GA4, offline conversion imports, and call tracking
- Creative and messaging: value propositions, ad frameworks, copy variations, visual assets, and video storyboards
- Campaign build: Search, Performance Max, Shopping, YouTube, Display, and Discovery with the appropriate bid strategies
- Ongoing optimization: query mining, asset testing, bid tuning, audience layering, and funnel orchestration
- Reporting and governance: Looker Studio dashboards, weekly insights, monthly strategy reviews, and quarterly roadmaps
Your program is managed by a senior performance lead, supported by specialists in feed management, CRO, and data engineering. We collaborate closely with your sales and operations teams to ensure lead quality, fulfillment readiness, and feedback loops remain tight.
Local Market Intelligence You Can Use
Winning with paid media in South Africa requires sensitivity to regional differences, seasonality, language, and regulation. We bring practical context that shapes better decisions and ads that feel native to the market.
- Geographic nuance: Provincial and city-level performance varies. Gauteng’s dense commercial searches differ from the Western Cape’s tourism-driven demand or KZN’s service queries. We segment targets to protect budgets and surface winners early.
- Language and tone: English dominates, but Afrikaans and isiZulu/isiXhosa can unlock incremental reach and better Quality Score in specific regions. We test multilingual assets where they make economic sense.
- Device behavior: Mobile search volumes are high; we optimize for speed, readability, and click-to-call behaviors common in service categories.
- Seasonality: Retail peaks around Black Friday/Cyber Monday and December holidays; education surges late year and early Q1; travel and leisure swell around public holidays and school breaks. We plan inventory, promotions, and budget shifts accordingly.
- Compliance: We incorporate POPIA-friendly consent experiences and implement Google Consent Mode v2 to retain measurement fidelity while respecting user choices.
- Payments and currency: Ads reflect ZAR pricing and local payment norms; for e-commerce, we harmonize product feeds and merchant settings with South African tax and shipping structures.
Campaign Architectures Tailored to Objectives
No two businesses share the same path to profitable scale. We configure campaign types and bidding logic based on your sales cycle, margins, and data maturity.
For Lead Generation: High-Intent Search with Precision
We prioritize core non-branded terms with carefully pruned match types, robust negatives, and ad groups aligned to commercial intent. Responsive Search Ads follow a proven formula: problem framing, unique mechanism, proof, and call-to-action supported by strong assets like sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, images, and price extensions. We add call extensions for click-to-call and, where appropriate, lead form assets that sync with your CRM. Our lead framework includes spam-prevention filters, form-field calibration to balance volume and quality, and call recording/whisper prompts for qualification.
For E-commerce: Performance Max and Shopping as the Spine
We build a merchant feed that Google can reward: complete attributes, rich titles, clean categories, compelling images, and accurate shipping. We segment products by profitability, price bands, and lifecycle to protect margin and ensure bid aggressiveness matches expected return. Performance Max supplies incremental reach across inventory; we guide it with strong audience signals, creative inputs, and demand capture with brand+non-brand Search to prevent cannibalization. Remarketing lists and high-value segments ensure budget gravitates toward proven shoppers.
For Awareness and Consideration: YouTube and Discovery
YouTube’s reach in South Africa makes it a cost-effective way to build interest, educate, and differentiate. We deploy bumper and skippable formats, storytelling crafted for the first five seconds, and calls-to-action aligned to your funnel goal. Discovery ads complement this with native placements that blend into high-intent surfaces like Gmail and YouTube Home/Watch Next, accelerating mid-funnel engagement ahead of peak demand periods.
Creative That Converts: Messaging, Offers, and Visuals
Great media cannot rescue weak messaging. We develop value propositions that speak directly to customer anxieties and outcomes. For services, we emphasize speed, expertise, guarantees, local presence, and social proof. For products, we highlight price certainty, delivery times, warranty, and easy returns. Ads are built from modular copy blocks so we can test hooks, benefits, and proof at scale without losing narrative coherence.
Visual assets follow platform best practices: clear subject focus, brand presence in the first frame, legible text overlays, and square/vertical variants for mobile. For video, we employ a three-act structure compressed into 15–30 seconds: hook, credibility, and call-to-action, with brand introduced early to fight ad skipping. Our goal is to improve creative performance every sprint through disciplined testing and learnings applied across campaigns.
Measurement That Survives Signal Loss
Measuring effectively in a privacy-first ecosystem requires resilient instrumentation. We set up GA4 with server-side tagging where feasible, enhanced conversions for web and leads, consent mode, and offline conversion imports from your CRM. This lets Smart Bidding optimize to meaningful outcomes rather than proxy events.
- Primary conversions: purchases (with value), qualified leads, booked appointments, calls over target duration
- Micro-goals: add to cart, begin checkout, calculator engagement, quote requests, file downloads
- Lead quality loop: UTM/GCLID capture, CRM pipeline stages, and closed-won import to train the algorithm on downstream revenue
- Attribution: data-driven models in GA4, channel assist analysis, and media-mix context during seasonal swings
- Dashboards: Looker Studio views for executives and operators, refreshed daily with annotations for tests and market changes
The outcome is reliable analytics and bidding feedback that maintain efficiency despite cookie restrictions and consent opt-outs.
Bidding, Budgets, and Pacing for Sustainable Scale
We choose bid strategies according to data density and risk tolerance. Early programs may start with Maximize Conversions (with CPC ramps) to gather signals quickly, moving to tCPA or tROAS once stable. Mature accounts can run value-based bidding with margin-aware product splits and seasonality adjustments. Budget pacing is proactive; we protect winners, cap testing exposure, and reallocate spend weekly based on projected impact. Financial governance is built in—no surprises at month-end.
Audience Design and Remarketing That Respect POPIA
We create audience taxonomies that map to your funnel: cold prospects, engaged visitors, cart abandoners, high-intent searchers, and existing customers for cross-sell. Lookalikes and in-market signals help expand beyond current reach without diluting relevance. Our audience guidelines follow least-privilege principles: collect only what you need, disclose purpose clearly, and offer easy controls. For remarketing, we use appropriate membership durations, exclusion rules for converters, and ad sequencing that grows trust rather than repetitively chasing users.
Conversion Architecture: From Click to Customer
The best ads fail on slow or confusing pages. We evaluate landing experiences using heuristics specific to South African users: mobile speed under real networks, clarity of pricing in ZAR, delivery/service coverage by area, payment or financing options, and trust badges relevant to local shoppers. We implement form UX improvements (progressive disclosure, autofill, microcopy) and remove friction (unnecessary fields, captcha barriers). Our CRO process includes A/B testing frameworks for headlines, social proof, offer structure, and page layouts so we steadily raise conversion rates without sacrificing lead quality.
Technology Stack and Automation
Korhogo Agency pairs expert operators with tools that extend their impact. We deploy scripts and workflows for budget pacing, anomaly alerts, n-gram search term mining, placement exclusions, feed hygiene, and creative rotation. Carefully chosen automation keeps accounts clean and responsive while humans decide strategic direction and interpret nuance.
- Feed tools for Google Merchant Center: deduplications, rule-based title enhancements, and product exclusion logic
- QA scripts: broken URL checks, policy flag alerts, and sitelink validation
- Performance monitors: daily outlier detection and predictive alerts for sudden CPC or CVR changes
- Consent and tagging: tag audit dashboards to catch data drift early
Compliance, Policy, and Brand Safety
We build within Google’s policies for sensitive categories (health, finance, housing, employment) and manage age restrictions where required. POPIA compliance is folded into consent messaging and data retention practices. On Display and YouTube, we shield your brand with content exclusions, placement controls, and negative keyword overlays. Our job is to drive growth without reputational or regulatory risk.
Pricing and Engagement Models
Choose a structure aligned to your scale and growth stage:
- Starter: for emerging advertisers validating channel fit. Fixed monthly fee, defined test scope, and rapid 90-day learning plan.
- Growth: for funded or established brands seeking predictable volume. Monthly fee indexed to workload with targets for CPA/ROAS and clear SLAs.
- Scale: for multi-product or multi-region advertisers. Team-based retainer, custom data integrations, and experimentation budget.
All models include weekly reporting, monthly executive reviews, and a shared roadmap. We earn the next month with results and clarity.
Onboarding and Timeline
- Week 0–1: discovery, data access, analytics and tag audit, competitor and demand research
- Week 2: measurement implementation, feed work (if applicable), creative briefs, landing page recommendations
- Week 3: campaign architecture, ad asset production, QA, and launch
- Weeks 4–6: stabilization sprints, negative keyword mining, bid tests, audience calibration
- Weeks 7–12: scale plan, offer tests, automated rules/scripts, and expansion to YouTube/Discovery or additional regions
We operate with transparent change logs and annotated dashboards so every decision is visible and attributable.
Industry-Specific Playbooks
E-commerce
Merchant Center health is king. We fix feed disapprovals, enrich attributes, and align variant logic (size, color) for better matching. We split brand search, category, and product-specific campaigns to stop waste and give top sellers room to grow. Tactics include price benchmarking, dynamic remarketing, new customer acquisition bidding, and LTV-based segmentation when first-party data is available.
Professional Services
For legal, medical, home services, and consulting, we focus on booking requests and qualified calls. We craft ad copy to pre-qualify, use call-only variants during peak hours, and route lead data to your CRM with UTM fields. We add appointment booking tools and SMS follow-ups to reduce no-shows. Offline conversions (retained clients, procedures completed) feed bidding once data volume supports it.
Education and Training
Prospective student journeys are long. We build nurture paths: lead magnets, program guides, virtual open days, and counselor calls. Paid media mixes informational search terms, YouTube explainers, and remarketing that addresses funding, outcomes, and application timelines. We measure cost per enrolled student rather than just cost per lead.
Travel and Tourism
We time campaigns to public holidays and seasonal flows, using YouTube for inspiration, Search for intent peaks, and Display/Discovery for itinerary nudges. Clear cancellation policies, local experiences, and safety credentials are highlighted. For regional tourism boards and operators, geo-fenced messaging helps focus on domestic travelers during off-peak months.
Quality Score and Cost Control
Lower CPCs and higher ad ranks come from relevance and trust. We continuously align keyword-to-ad-to-landing page semantics, compress load times, and maintain high expected click-through. We prune underperforming assets, consolidate where data is thin, and expand where signal is strong. This discipline protects budgets and compounds efficiency over time.
Data Partnerships and CRM Integration
We collaborate with popular CRMs—HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho—to synchronize leads and outcomes. GCLID/GBRAID capture, server-side postbacks, and enhanced conversions allow the algorithm to recognize profitable patterns sooner. Lead scoring ensures your sales team focuses on the right prospects, while automated status updates help us suppress junk and double down on winners.
Offer Design and Value Engineering
Ads accelerate growth when the offer is irresistible. We test price framing (from vs. percent-off), bonuses, financing, free trials, and guarantees. For services, we use response-time SLAs and location promises. For retail, we calibrate shipping thresholds and bundle discounts to lift average order value without eroding margins. Offer testing is structured and time-boxed so you learn what moves the market—even beyond paid media.
Reporting You Can Act On
Our dashboards separate noise from signal. Executive views show the health of spend, revenue, and unit economics; operator views detail search queries, asset-level results, and experiment outcomes. Each weekly update includes a concise narrative: what changed, what we learned, what we are doing next. The monthly review revisits your commercial goals and resets the plan. It’s accountability in plain language backed by real data.
Frequently Asked Questions
How quickly will we see results? Most accounts see signal within the first two weeks and stable baselines by weeks 4–6. Lead gen can move faster than e-commerce where feed and creative improvements compound over time.
What budgets do you recommend? For validation, we advise setting a budget that can deliver at least 50–100 conversions per month at your target CPA, or a daily budget that supports 10–20 qualified clicks per core ad group. Scale follows once efficiency stabilizes.
Do we need new landing pages? Not always, but most programs benefit from targeted pages built for intent segments. We provide blueprints and can coordinate buildouts with your team or our partners.
How do you ensure lead quality? Multi-step forms, validation rules, call scoring, negative keyword governance, and offline conversion imports help the algorithm prioritize quality over volume.
Will you work with our in-house team? Yes. We integrate with marketing, sales, and dev teams, align on roles, and share a single roadmap to avoid duplication and blind spots.
Your Next Step with Korhogo Agency
If you are ready to turn paid demand into profitable growth, we will map a focused strategy that fits your goals and resources, set up the measurement to prove impact, and execute with precision. From high-intent Search to full-funnel YouTube, from feed optimization to on-site UX, from first click to repeat purchase, our work is designed to maximize long-term value—not just short-term wins. Book a consultation, share your targets and constraints, and let us show you how we’ll drive measurable gains in South Africa with disciplined, data-informed Google Ads. With the right inputs, relentless testing, and clear commercial guardrails, sustainable growth is the default outcome.
