Is Google Ads worth it for a small business?

Yes, if your website converts and you track every enquiry. No, if you send clicks to your homepage and hope.

We run Google Ads for clients, so you might expect an unqualified yes. But we see as many businesses wasting money on ads as winning with them, and the difference is rarely the ads themselves. It’s what happens after the click.

When Google Ads is worth it

People search for what you sell at the moment they need it: “emergency electrician”, “air source heat pump installer”, “CNC machining UK”
Each job or order is worth enough to pay for twenty or thirty clicks
Each ad lands on a page about that exact service, not your homepage
You know your cost per enquiry, because conversions are tracked
Someone replies to enquiries within the hour

When it isn’t

Nobody searches for what you sell yet, so there’s no intent to buy
Your website doesn’t convert the visitors it already gets
The budget is too small to learn anything: a few clicks a day tells you nothing
Nobody will look at the account after the first month

What it really costs

Clicks for local trades and services typically cost £2 to £8 in the UK. Specialist business-to-business searches can be £10 to £20. On top of that is management, ours is from £750 + VAT a month plus set-up, or your own time. A sensible starting budget for a small business is £500 to £1,000 a month in clicks, run for three months, judged on the cost of each qualified enquiry rather than the number of clicks.

Ads should top up, not carry you

The businesses that get the most from ads are the ones that don’t depend on them. Eco Installer, a heat pump installer, gets three in four website enquiries without an ad click now, which is what makes the ads affordable. Woodford Recycling got six times the enquiries from a new website with no extra ad spend at all. Build the website and the follow-up first, then use ads to fill the gaps.

How to make Google Ads pay

Track conversions first. Form submissions, calls and booked calls. Without this you’re guessing.
Build a landing page per service. The page should answer the search, show proof and make enquiring easy.
Start narrow. Exact and phrase match on the searches that matter, and a long list of negative keywords for the ones that don’t: jobs, free, courses, DIY.
Reply fast. An instant text and email, then a human within the hour. Most jobs go to the first useful reply.
Judge it on enquiries, not clicks, and give it eight to twelve weeks before you decide.
Feed real outcomes back. Tell Google which enquiries became customers, and it finds you more of them.

Common questions

How much should a small business spend on Google Ads? Enough to get around a hundred clicks a month, so you can judge it. For most local businesses that’s £500 to £1,000 a month.

Google Ads or SEO? Both, in the right order. Ads bring enquiries this month. SEO and AI search take longer but keep working without a budget behind every click.

Do I need an agency? Not always. If you can give it an hour a week and you’ve set up tracking, you can run a simple local campaign yourself. Pay for help when the budget is big enough that mistakes cost more than management.

See how we run Google Ads, or get a free Growth Audit and we’ll tell you honestly whether ads are the right next step.