0413 107 893When someone searches "blocked drain Perth" or "emergency electrician near me", they're not researching. They need someone today, and they'll call one of the first businesses they see. That's why Google Ads works so well for trades. The intent is already there. Your job is simply to be the phone that rings.
Simple doesn't mean easy, though. We've audited plenty of tradie accounts over the years, and most of them share the same handful of expensive problems. Here's what actually matters.
What it costs
Trade and home service clicks in Australia typically run $8 to $30 each. Emergency services like plumbing, electrical and locksmiths sit at the top of that range, because the jobs are urgent and the competition knows it.
At those CPCs, a workable starting budget is $1,000 to $2,000 per month in ad spend for a single service area. That buys enough clicks for Google's bidding to learn, and for you to judge results on data rather than vibes. For a full breakdown of click costs and budgets by industry, see our guide to how much Google Ads costs in Australia.
The maths that matters is cost per job, not cost per click. If clicks cost $15, one in five callers books, and your average job is $600, you're paying roughly $75 to win $600 of work. Run that calculation for your own numbers before deciding Google Ads is "too expensive".
The four mistakes we fix in almost every tradie account
1. Broad keywords bleeding budget. The biggest single cause of wasted spend in trade accounts is loose keyword targeting. Broad match on "plumber" will happily serve your ad to people searching for plumbing courses, plumbing supplies, DIY fixes and jobs at plumbing companies. None of them will ever hire you. Tight keyword themes plus an aggressive negative keyword list is where most of the savings live. With Google auto-upgrading campaigns to AI Max this year, supervising your search terms matters more than ever.
2. Sending paid clicks to the homepage. A generic homepage makes a $15 click shop around. A dedicated landing page for the exact service searched, with your phone number at the top, your service area, photos of real jobs and a couple of reviews, makes them call. This is such a consistent difference that we build dedicated landing pages for our clients at no extra cost.
3. Broken or missing call tracking. Most tradie jobs arrive by phone, yet many accounts only track form fills, or track nothing at all. If Google can't see which clicks became calls, its automated bidding optimises blind. Fixing conversion tracking is often the highest-return hour ever spent on a trade account.
4. Running ads 24/7 across too wide an area. If you won't drive to Mandurah for a $150 callout, don't pay for clicks from Mandurah. If nobody answers the phone after 6pm, don't pay top dollar for 9pm clicks. Location and schedule settings are boring, which is why they're so often wrong.
Google Ads vs word of mouth
Every tradie we've worked with started on referrals, and referrals are great. Free, pre-sold, loyal. The problem is you can't turn them up. When the pipeline goes quiet, word of mouth has no dial. Google Ads is the dial. More budget, more calls. Less budget, fewer calls. The tradies who grow past the feast-and-famine cycle usually run both. Referrals as the base, paid search as the throttle.
What results look like when it's set up right
The pattern we see is consistent. Fix the targeting, fix the tracking, build a proper landing page, and results move fast. Across our accounts we've achieved conversion rates up to 24%, and in one rebuild we cut cost per lead from $452 to $68 within two months. That's 12 times more leads from the same budget. One campaign restructure across 7 Australian cities hit a 27% peak conversion rate. Trades are consistently among the best-performing accounts we manage, because the buying intent is so strong once the waste is stripped out.
Want it handled while you're on the tools?
You didn't get your ticket to spend evenings fiddling with match types. We've been managing Google Ads since 2016. Everything is done in-house from Perth with no outsourcing, fees start at $499 per month flat with no commissions and no lock-in contracts, and we build your landing pages free. Read why we're rated the best Google Ads agency for tradies in Australia, or if you're local, see our Google Ads management Perth service and book a free strategy session.