Is Google Ads worth it for a small local business?
It depends on a few numbers you probably already know. Here's how to work it out before you spend a penny.
Short answer: it can be. It depends on your numbers.
Longer answer: here's how to work it out.
When Google Ads works well
Google Ads is at its best when people actively search for what you do. Someone with a leaking roof searches "roofer near me". Someone whose boiler has packed up searches "boiler repair" plus their town. They need someone now, and they're looking.
If that's how your customers find a business like yours, Google Ads puts you in front of them at exactly the right moment. That's hard to beat.
When it's harder
If nobody searches for what you sell, because it's new or because people don't know they need it, Google Ads has much less to work with. The same goes if your customers mostly come through referrals and never search at all.
The numbers that matter
You don't need a spreadsheet. You need three numbers:
- What a customer is worth to you. Not the price of the job. The profit.
- How many enquiries turn into customers. One in two? One in five?
- What you could afford to pay for an enquiry. If a customer is worth £400 in profit and one in four enquiries becomes a customer, an enquiry is worth up to £100 to you.
These are example numbers. Yours will be different.
Then the question is whether Google Ads can get you enquiries for less than that. If it can, it's worth it. If it can't, it isn't, no matter how good the ads look.
I've written more about this in how much should a first Google Ads campaign cost?
The only way to know for sure
You can estimate all day. The only real answer comes from running a campaign properly and looking at the data.
That's why I run pilot campaigns: three months, set up properly, with proper tracking, so you can decide on real results instead of guesswork.
And if the numbers don't add up for your business, I'll tell you before you spend anything.