Marketing and presence
Paid advertising
Should you pay for search and online advertising, and how do you avoid wasting money?
Six short steps. No email or account.
- Who needs it
- Businesses with capacity to fill and a clear enough margin to pay for a lead.
- When it matters
- Once you can answer the phone reliably and know what a job is worth. Not before.
- Compare first
- Cost per job, not per click
- Matters most when
- growing, mature
Is this the right tool for you?
Referrals and organic visibility are slow and uneven. Paid advertising puts you in front of people searching right now, but it is easy to spend heavily on clicks that never become customers if the targeting, budget and follow-up are not controlled.
Signs you need it now
- You need more work than referrals bring, and need it soon.
- You are opening a new location, service or area with no visibility there.
- You have spent on ads before and could not tell what it produced.
- Your calendar has predictable slow seasons you want to fill.
When another area fits better
- You would rather pay per enquiry than manage campaigns yourself. Read the buying leads guide
- You run ads but cannot tell which ones bring customers. Read the where customers come from guide
Recognise two or more of these? Sort out paid advertising next.
Tell us how your business runs and get a plan that puts paid advertising in order with everything else: what to set up first, your must-haves and what to compare.
What matters at your size
Working alone
Start small with a fixed daily budget, a tight service area and only your most profitable services. Track every call and form from the ads before spending more.
A small team
Campaigns per service with a landing page for each, call tracking and a regular review of search terms and results. Decide whether you or a manager runs it.
Several teams or locations
Budgets by location and season, conversion tracking tied to booked jobs and revenue, and a specialist or agency accountable for results.
How the way you work changes the choice
- Urgent local trades
- Ads that make it easy to call, shown only in your service area and hours you can answer. Pause ads when you cannot take the work.
- Higher-value projects and professional services
- Fewer, more expensive enquiries. A strong landing page and fast personal follow-up matter as much as the ad.
- Shops and ecommerce
- Ads that show products, location or offers, tied to what is actually in stock.
What to compare
Cost per job, not per click
The only number that matters is what an acquired customer costs against their value.
Management fee structure
Percentage of spend creates an incentive to spend more. Understand the model.
Account ownership
Ensure the ad account is yours, so history survives changing agency.
Cost and setup effort
- You pay the ad platform directly for clicks or calls, plus any management fee; know both before you start and set a hard budget cap.
- Setting up tracking of calls and forms comes first. Without it you cannot tell a good campaign from a bad one.
- If you hire a manager, keep the ad accounts in your business's name and ask for reporting in booked jobs, not clicks.
Trade-offs to weigh
- Run it yourself or hire a manager
- Managing your own ads saves fees but takes regular time and skill; a manager saves time but you must still check the results.
- Search ads or display and social ads
- Search ads reach people already looking; display and social ads build awareness among people who are not, and convert more slowly.
- Paid or organic
- Paid brings work quickly and stops when you stop; organic is slower but compounds. Most businesses do both.
When to sort it out
Once you can answer the phone reliably and know what a job is worth. Not before.
Your next step
Answer six short questions about how your business runs. You get an operating plan: where paid advertising fits among your priorities, the must-haves to hold every option to, and what to compare when you choose.
Often decided alongside
Other parts of marketing and presence.