Blackout Research
Utah Google Search Ad Destination Experience Study 2026
A public methodology release for an observational study of how verified Google Search advertisers guide prospective customers toward a meaningful next action.
Study Purpose
What this research is designed to examine
This study is designed to document observable practices across public destinations associated with qualifying Google Search advertising creatives from Utah organizations. It will examine destination specificity, message continuity, conversion actions, visible proof, service-area clarity, form friction, consent behavior, and publicly observable measurement technology.
The research is observational. It is not designed to determine which company performs better, rank individual organizations, or establish advertising effectiveness, conversion rate, revenue, profitability, cost per lead, lead quality, or causation.
Planned Research Design
The formal study targets a balanced Utah sample
These are study-design facts, not findings. The formal candidate frame, sample, observations, reliability review, and final dataset are not complete.
Planned Formal Sample
Six industries and six geographic groups
Industries
- Home Services
- Legal
- Healthcare / Elective Medical
- Professional Services
- B2B SaaS / Technology
- Education / Training
Geographic Groups
- Salt Lake County
- Utah County
- Davis / Weber
- Southwest Utah
- Northern Utah
- Statewide / Online Utah
Advertising qualification period: July 1, 2026 through September 30, 2026.
Industry is assigned before deterministic sampling. Sampling geography reflects an organization's documented Utah operating identity, not customer reach, ad targeting, shipping range, or an SEO location page.
Destination Methodology
Direct evidence and verified proxies are reported separately
Google Ads Transparency Center can support verification of qualifying advertising creatives, but the literal final paid-click URL is not always publicly exposed. The frozen methodology therefore uses a three-state evidence hierarchy rather than guessing from a display path.
Direct
Publicly observable creative-to-destination evidence
The actual final destination is directly and publicly observable through an approved non-chargeable source tied to the selected creative.
Verified Proxy
A deterministic same-domain best match
When the literal paid-click destination is not exposed, one advertiser-controlled same-domain public page may qualify only when every frozen proxy condition is supported and no equally plausible destination remains.
Verified Proxy does not prove the exact paid-click routing or final URL used by the live advertisement.
Candidates are excluded when the advertised concept is too ambiguous, several destinations remain equally plausible, a generic homepage is used for a specific-service creative, or the destination is on an unrelated registrable domain.
Calibration
The observation rules were tested before formal collection
The original calibration tested the primary observation definitions. A separate proxy-focused calibration then tested the amended destination-evidence procedure across 12 cases: 9 Verified Proxy decisions and 3 Exclude decisions.
All primary proxy decision fields reached 100% exact agreement across two separate passes performed by the same research process. This is reported as deterministic repeatability under the amended rule—not independent-human inter-rater reliability.
Every organization and domain used in either calibration cohort is permanently excluded from the formal candidate frame, formal sample, and reliability subset.
Formal Reliability Design
A locked second pass cannot begin immediately
After the 120 formal Pass 1 observations are complete, a deterministic 18-organization reliability subset will be locked. Each selected organization receives a separate second observation pass without exposure to the first-pass values.
The frozen methodology requires at least seven full days between the relevant Pass 1 and Pass 2 observations. The completed findings release date therefore depends on when formal Pass 1 is finished; this page does not promise a date that the observation timestamps cannot support.
Research Safeguards
Public evidence without synthetic customer activity
Interaction safeguards
- No intentional paid-ad clicking
- No form submissions or synthetic inquiries
- No calls, chats, bookings, or logins
- No optional marketing or analytics consent accepted for research
Interpretation safeguards
- No company ranking or best/worst list
- No unavailable evidence treated as a negative result
- No causal claims from observational evidence
- No assumption that detected technology is configured correctly
Planned Final Report
The same URL will become the completed study
After all formal gates pass, this canonical page is expected to be updated with a validated executive summary, findings with numerators and denominators, authoritative source tables, supported industry observations, Direct versus Verified Proxy distribution, formal reliability results, limitations, citation guidance, and researcher and publisher attribution.
No final or preliminary Study #2 result is being inferred from calibration data or from an incomplete formal dataset.
Researcher & Publisher
Blackout Marketing & Consulting
Benjamin Nieporte, Founder & Principal Strategist, is the principal researcher. Blackout Marketing & Consulting is the publisher. Blackout is based in Lehi, Utah.
Citation and Research Use
Cite this methodology release
Preferred citation
Nieporte, Benjamin. “Utah Google Search Ad Destination Experience Study 2026.” Blackout Marketing & Consulting, 2026. Research-in-progress methodology release.
https://blackoutconsulting.com/pages/utah-google-search-ad-destination-experience-study-2026
Archived research protocol
This methodology release is preserved as a versioned public research record on Zenodo.
Archival citation
Nieporte, B. (2026). Utah Google Search Ad Destination Experience Study 2026: Research Protocol (Version protocol-v0.3-frozen-2026-09-30). Blackout Marketing & Consulting.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23111984
Version DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23111984
All versions:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23111983
Zenodo record:
https://zenodo.org/records/23111984
Researchers, journalists, and practitioners may quote or reference this methodology with clear attribution to Blackout Marketing & Consulting and a link to the original publication. Please do not describe this release as completed findings or use the planned sample targets as observed results.
Publication status: Research in Progress. This page documents the approved study design, destination-evidence methodology, calibration, safeguards, and planned reliability process. Formal Study #2 findings have not yet been released.
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