Paid ads that book jobs, not just clicks

Google Ads vs Meta Ads: which should you choose

Google Ads captures people who are already searching for what you offer right now — someone typing your service into Google has high intent, which is why it tends to convert well but costs more per click. Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram) work differently: you're reaching people based on who they are and where they live, not what they're actively searching for, which makes it better for building awareness, offers and retargeting than for catching someone mid-emergency. Most local businesses get the best results running Google Search or Local ads for immediate demand, and using Meta to stay visible to people who've already shown interest.

How much should you actually spend

There's no single right number — it depends on how much competition exists for your keywords in your area and what a single job is actually worth to you. As a rough starting point, most local service accounts need somewhere in the region of £750–£1,500 a month in ad spend before there's enough data to optimise properly and see steady, predictable lead flow. Spending less than that isn't necessarily wasted, but it usually means slower learning and less consistent results while the account finds its feet.

Why most PPC campaigns waste money

The single biggest reason is bidding on broad, generic keywords without proper negative keyword lists — you end up paying for clicks from people who were never going to become customers. The second biggest is sending that traffic to a generic homepage instead of a page built specifically to answer the exact question that ad promised. And the third is simply not tracking which clicks actually turned into calls or bookings, so budget keeps getting spent on what looks good rather than what actually works.

What good landing pages actually look like

A landing page built for ads should answer one question: can this business do the specific thing I searched for, in my area, and how do I contact them right now. That means a clear headline matching the ad, a short explanation of the service, some visible trust signals like reviews, and one obvious way to get in touch — a form, a click-to-call number, or both — without asking visitors to dig through a full site menu to find it. We build and test these pages as part of every PPC account rather than treating the homepage as good enough.

How we measure success beyond clicks

Clicks and impressions look good in a screenshot but don't pay the bills — calls and bookings do. Every account we manage tracks cost per lead and, where possible, estimated return on ad spend, not just click-through rate. We report on what actually happened: how many calls came in, what they roughly cost to generate, and what we changed as a result. If a campaign is technically 'performing' by click metrics but not generating real enquiries, that's treated as a problem to fix, not a result to celebrate.

How we structure a new PPC account

Before a single ad goes live, we build the account properly: researching the exact keywords worth bidding on, building out negative keyword lists so budget doesn't leak to irrelevant searches, structuring campaigns around distinct services rather than one broad catch-all group, and installing proper conversion tracking so every call and form fill can actually be attributed back to the ad that generated it. Skipping this groundwork is the single most common reason new accounts underperform in the first few months — not the platform, the setup.