How much should a tradie spend on Google Ads?

Every week an electrician or a landscaper asks some version of this question on a call. The honest answer is that the number depends on three things you already know and one thing we look up together. Here is the method, so you can run it yourself before you talk to anyone.

Start with the job, not the budget

Pick the job type you want more of. Not everything you do, one thing. For most electricians that is switchboard upgrades or EV chargers. For solar it is battery add-ons. For a cleaner it might be pre-sale pressure washes. Write down the average invoice for that job and the gross margin on it.

Now write down how many enquiries for that job you normally need to win one. If you do not know, assume one in three for a trade with a good reputation and one in five if you are quoting against several others.

Look up what a click costs where you work

Google's Keyword Planner shows a cost per click range for searches like switchboard upgrade plus your city. In metro Australia the trades sit roughly in the single-digit to low-double-digit dollar range per click, with emergency and commercial terms higher. Regional areas are usually cheaper. Use the top of the range for planning.

Then assume that somewhere between one in eight and one in fifteen clicks becomes an enquiry if the landing page is built for the job. If the ad sends people to a generic home page, assume worse.

Do the arithmetic

1. Cost per enquiry is roughly click cost multiplied by ten.
2. Cost per job is cost per enquiry multiplied by the number of enquiries you need to win one.
3. Compare cost per job with the gross margin on that job. If the margin is three times the cost or more, the campaign is worth running.
4. Monthly budget is the cost per job multiplied by the number of extra jobs you want per month, with a floor described below.

The floor below which the data is useless

Google Ads learns from conversions. If the budget only buys a click or two a day, the campaign never collects enough data to improve and you end up judging it on luck. The practical floor for a single job type in a metro area is a budget that buys at least two to three clicks a day. Below that, spend the money on missed-call text-back and reviews first.

Three mistakes that waste the budget

• Sending every click to the home page. A page for the job converts several times better than a page about the business.
• No call tracking. Most trade enquiries are phone calls. If calls are not tracked, the report shows half the picture.
• Spreading one small budget across six job types. Pick one, prove it, then add the next.

What a first month should look like

Month one is about proving which searches turn into enquiries and which enquiries turn into jobs. Expect the cost per job to be higher than the long-run number. Months two and three are where it comes down, as negative keywords stack up and the account learns. If a provider promises a cost per job in week one, ask how they can know.

If you want this worked through with live numbers for your suburbs, book a call. The budget conversation takes ten minutes and you leave with a figure you can defend.