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Google Ads for tradiesMost trade ad budgets leak in the same five places.
Google Ads works properly for trades. Someone's hot water has gone, they search, they ring the first business that looks like it can help, and the job is booked inside ten minutes. Very few kinds of advertising are that direct.
It also wastes money faster than anything else you can buy, and almost always for the same handful of reasons. Here they are, and what to do about each one.
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Five leaks, in the order they cost you most.
None of these are exotic. We see the same five on nearly every trade account we're handed, including ones that have been running for years with somebody managing them.
You're bidding on one job when you want another
"Emergency plumber" and "bathroom renovation" are two different businesses. One is a $300 callout from someone panicking, the other is a $20,000 job someone has been thinking about for six months. Run them in the same campaign with the same ad and the same budget, and the emergency searches will eat the lot, because there are more of them and they click faster.
You're paying for clicks from suburbs you won't drive to
Google's default is a radius far wider than most tradies actually service, and it also targets people merely "interested in" your area, not just people in it. If you won't cross the river for a job, every click from the other side is money burnt before the phone even rings.
Your ads run while you're asleep
A 2am click on an emergency search is worth real money if someone answers. If it goes to voicemail, you paid for a lead that rang the next bloke thirty seconds later. Either the ads run when you answer, or someone answers when the ads run. Running both blind is the expensive option.
Everyone lands on your homepage
The ad says "blocked drains" and the click lands on a homepage listing twelve services with a photo of a van. The customer has to hunt for the thing they searched for, and most won't. The click cost the same either way.
Nobody follows up the quote
This is the biggest one and it has nothing to do with Google. You pay for the click, you answer the call, you go and quote, and then the job goes quiet. Three days later they book whoever rang them back. You already paid for that lead twice: once to Google and once with your afternoon.
What a properly set up trade account looks like.
Whether you do this yourself or hand it over, this is the shape it should be in.
Split emergency from planned
Separate campaigns, separate budgets, separate ads. The urgent work pays for itself fast; the big jobs need a longer runway and different words.
Draw the radius you actually drive
Your real service area, not Google's suggestion, and set to people physically there rather than people interested in it.
Match the hours to who answers
If the phone gets answered until 6pm, the ads run until 6pm. If you take after-hours emergency work, that's its own campaign at its own rate.
Negative keywords, from day one
"How to", "DIY", "jobs", "apprenticeship", "salary", "courses", "near me free". Every one of those is a click you pay for and never wanted.
A page per job type
The blocked drain ad goes to a blocked drain page that says the price range, the area, and a number to ring. Not the homepage.
Track which jobs actually pay
Call tracking on the ads so you know that emergency work costs you $40 a lead and renovations cost $180, instead of guessing.
Follow up every quote automatically
A message at three days and one at ten. This wins more work than any keyword change you will ever make.
Doing it yourself?
We've written the full step-by-step setup, from creating the account through to billing verification, with the settings that matter for a trade business called out at each step. It's free and there's no form in front of it.
Read the setup guideWhat it costs, and when ads aren't the answer.
Two separate numbers. Your ad budget goes to Google, and for most trades somewhere from $1,000 a month is where it starts doing real work. Below that you're spread too thin to learn anything. That money is yours and we never touch it.
Then there's us. We run the ads along with your website, your Google listing and your social, for $6,000 a year. Not per service, not a percentage of your ad spend, and no lock-in.
And the honest part: if your Google listing is out of date and your website doesn't say what you do, ads are the wrong first spend. They amplify whatever is already there, so pointing them at a dead end just makes you lose money faster. We'll tell you that at the walkthrough rather than after you've paid for a month of clicks.
Ads, website, Google and social, all handled. Ad budget is separate and stays yours.
20 minutes, on site. Or ring 0489 946 704.