Marketing spend
Is Google Ads worth it for a small business?
Often, yes. Ads put you in front of people searching right now, and the calls start quickly. But ads are rent: the results stop when the spend stops. The test is whether each customer they bring costs less than that customer is worth, and whether you're building anything you own alongside them.
What ads do well
Ads are the fastest way to reach people who are searching for what you sell today. You can switch them on this week and see calls this week. For a new business, a slow season or a new service, that speed is worth paying for.
Why ads are rent
Every click is paid for once and used once. When the budget stops, the calls stop, and nothing you paid for keeps working. Organic visibility, such as your Google Business Profile, reviews, your own website pages and your videos, works the other way: it's slower to build, but it keeps bringing customers after you stop paying for it.
How to tell if your ads pay back
- Work out what one new customer is worth to you over the first year, not just the first job.
- Divide your monthly ad spend by the number of new customers it brought that month. That's your cost per customer.
- If the cost per customer is well below what a customer is worth, the ads pay back. If it's close or above, something in the chain is leaking.
- Check the calls the ads bring. If they reach voicemail, you're paying for clicks you never answer.
When to build what you own alongside them
Keep the ads that pay back, and put part of the effort into things that keep working: reviews, your Business Profile, pages that answer the questions your customers search for, and short videos. Over time the organic side carries more of the load, and the ad budget becomes a choice instead of a dependency.
Questions owners ask
Is $500 a month enough for Google Ads?
It depends on what a click costs in your trade and area and on what a customer is worth to you. Work it backwards: how many new customers you want, what each one is worth, and what you can afford to pay to win one. That tells you the budget, rather than a round number.
Is $10 a day enough for Google Ads?
It can be enough to test a small local market, but in busy trades a few clicks can use it up by mid-morning. Measure the cost per new customer for a month before deciding.
How much should a small business spend on Google Ads?
Start from the number of new customers you want and what each is worth, then decide what each customer may cost to win. The budget follows from those numbers, and so does the share you put into organic work.
Why are my Google Ads not getting calls?
Common reasons: the ads show for the wrong searches, the page they send people to doesn't make calling easy, or calls are coming in and going to voicemail. Check your call log against your ad schedule first.
Tell us what a customer is worth and how many you want.
We'll work back from there to what each new customer should cost you.
Start your gap analysis