Google Ads on a small-business budget, with a ceiling you set

How we think about paid search

Every ad click has a price set by an auction. That price depends on how many businesses want the same search, not on your margins. A dentist and a gift shop face very different auctions, and a cleaning company bidding on "house cleaning Burlington" competes with regional brands as well as local ones.

So we start with your numbers:

If ads deliver enquiries at $45, there is room to grow. At $95, the campaign is losing money unless the repeat value is higher than you think. Our marketing budget guide shows how to find each of these numbers in your own records.

Who it suits

Ads work well for:

• New businesses that need customers before local search has had time to build.
• High-value services where one customer is worth hundreds or thousands of dollars, such as clinics, tutoring programmes, home services and professional services.
• Seasonal offers with a short window, such as patios, holiday catering, spring clean-ups or back-to-school programmes.
• Searches people make by name, such as a specific product, treatment or service.

They suit businesses less where the average sale is small and customers rarely return, unless the ad is very tightly targeted.

What's included

1. Account setup or audit in your own Google Ads account, with billing in your name.
2. Conversion tracking for calls, direction clicks and email clicks, set up following Google's conversion tracking guidance, so we judge ads on enquiries rather than clicks.
3. Location targeting drawn around your real trade area. Google's location targeting settings let us choose between people physically in an area and people who have shown interest in it; for most local businesses we target people located in or regularly in your area.
4. Search terms and negatives: a short list of phrases with buying intent, plus a growing list of searches to exclude, such as job seekers or people looking for free options.
5. Ads and landing pages matched one to one, so a person searching for a service lands on that service's page on your website.
6. A capped test, usually four to six weeks, with a written spending limit.
7. Monthly reporting in plain language: spend, enquiries, cost per enquiry and what we changed.

Timeline

• Week 1: numbers, tracking, targeting and the ad and page plan.
• Weeks 2–6: the capped test, with weekly checks on search terms and spend.
• Week 7: a decision. Scale, adjust or stop, based on cost per enquiry against your ceiling.

How we measure results

We measure cost per enquiry and, where you can record it, cost per new customer. Clicks and impressions are only useful as early warning signs. We also ask you to log how many enquiries become customers, because a campaign with cheap enquiries that never buy is not a good campaign.

Mistakes to avoid

• Letting Google's default settings choose your audience. Broad matching and wide location settings can spend a small budget on people who will never visit Burlington.
• Counting clicks as success. A click is a cost, not a result.
• No negative keywords. Without them, ads show for job searches, free advice and unrelated products.
• Starting ads before fixing the basics. If your Google Business Profile and site are weak, ads send paying visitors into a leaky bucket.
• Running without an end date for the test. Put the stop-or-scale decision in your calendar before spending the first dollar.

To see whether ads make sense for you, call, text or email us with your average sale and roughly where your customers live. We'll give you a straight read on the maths.