How Much Should a Local Business Spend on Google Ads?
Start With Your Numbers, Not a Budget
The biggest mistake businesses make is picking a budget based on what feels comfortable, without checking whether that number can actually work. Google Ads is a numbers game. Before you set a budget, you need to know two things: what a new customer is worth to you, and how many leads it typically takes to win one.
Let's say you're a plumber and the average job is worth €800. If you close one in three leads, each lead needs to cost you less than €267 to stay profitable. That gives you a ceiling to work within.
Most local service businesses we work with find that a cost per lead of €30–€80 is realistic with a well-managed campaign. That means a monthly ad spend of €500–€1,500 is usually enough to generate meaningful results — as long as the campaign itself is set up correctly.
What Happens If You Spend Too Little?
There's a floor below which Google Ads simply won't work. If your budget is too small, you won't collect enough data to optimise your campaigns, your ads will barely show up, and you'll run out of budget by early afternoon — missing the peak search hours entirely.
As a rule of thumb: if you can't commit at least €400–€500 per month in ad spend, it's worth waiting until you can. Running a campaign on too small a budget often leads to disappointing results that aren't actually the platform's fault.
Quality Over Volume
A common instinct is to spread budget across as many keywords as possible to cast a wide net. In practice, a tightly focused campaign targeting high-intent keywords in your specific area almost always outperforms a broad campaign with the same budget.
More targeting means less waste. And less waste means more of your budget goes toward people who are actually ready to call.
Should You Include Management Costs in Your Budget?
Yes. If you're working with an agency or a specialist to manage your campaigns, factor that into your thinking. Good management costs money — but it also makes the difference between a campaign that burns through budget and one that consistently brings in new jobs.
The question to ask isn't "can I afford management fees?" but "what does it cost me to keep managing this myself, in time and in missed opportunities?"
A Simple Starting Point
If you're just getting started, here's a straightforward framework based on your average job value:
Under €500 per job — Google Ads may be difficult to make profitable
€500–€1,500 per job — Start with €500–€800/month in ad spend
€1,500+ per job — €800–€2,000/month gives you real room to scale
These are starting points, not rules. Every business and market is different. But getting the logic right before you launch saves you from spending money on a campaign that was never going to work at that budget level.
