Ask ten agencies what Google Ads cost and you'll get ten versions of "it depends" followed by a pitch. It does depend, but nobody shows you what it depends on. So here are real numbers from accounts we manage right now.
Across our trades accounts, cost per click currently runs between £2.50 and £3.12 for most home services searches. Emergency work costs more per click because everyone wants those jobs, but it also converts higher because the person searching has water coming through the ceiling.
One of our Kent home services clients generated 622 leads across two months at £9.41 each. That's not a cherry picked week, it's a two month average from the dashboard, and it's what a properly built account with thousands of negative keywords and a dedicated landing page produces.
Two businesses can pay identical amounts per click and get wildly different costs per lead, and the difference is almost always the landing page. A typical trades homepage converts 1 to 2% of visitors. Our best performing trades landing page converts 10.84%, roughly 1 in 9 clicks becoming an enquiry. Same click cost, five to ten times the leads.
Simple maths: at £3 a click and a 10% conversion rate, £900 of monthly ad spend produces roughly 30 leads. The same £900 pointed at a weak homepage produces 6. Before you ask "how much do ads cost", ask "where do my clicks land", because that answer decides whether the ads are expensive or cheap.
One more thing worth knowing: your ad spend should always be paid directly to Google in your own account, separate from any management fee. If an agency wants the ad budget paid to them, ask why.
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