Paid search puts you at the top of results for chosen terms, immediately, for as long as you pay. It is the fastest visibility available and it is rented rather than owned. Expect several weeks before costs settle, expect to pay for some clicks that were never going to convert, and expect it to fail entirely if the page it sends people to does not work.
What you are buying
Position in the results for terms you choose, charged when someone clicks rather than when the advertisement is shown.
The genuine advantage over search optimisation is speed. Optimisation takes months and the visibility persists. Advertising takes hours and the visibility stops the moment the budget does. Neither replaces the other, and businesses that treat advertising as a substitute for a site that gets found end up renting attention permanently.
What it costs
Cost per click varies enormously by trade and area, and general figures are close to useless. What matters is not the click price but whether the arithmetic works, and you can establish that from your own numbers before spending anything.
Work backwards. Take the gross margin on an average customer, decide what share you are willing to trade to win one, and that is your ceiling per acquisition. Then estimate how many clicks it takes to produce an enquiry, and how many enquiries become work.
A business earning $2,000 margin per customer, willing to spend a fifth, can afford $400 per customer won. If one in four enquiries becomes work, that is $100 per enquiry. If one in twenty clicks enquires, that is $5 a click. Whether that is comfortable or impossible in your category is knowable in an afternoon.
The mistake that wastes the first month
Advertising into a site that does not convert.
Paid traffic behaves like any other traffic. If the landing page does not answer whether you cover their area, whether you can come soon, and roughly what it costs, people leave. The difference is that you paid for each of them.
This is why the sensible order is to fix conversion first and advertise second. A site converting at one percent doubling to two halves the cost of every enquiry, permanently, and that improvement applies to the free traffic as well. The reasoning is set out in what conversion rate means for a service business.
The second mistake: sending everyone to the homepage
Someone who searched for a specific service in a specific area should land on a page about that service in that area, not on a homepage listing eight things.
The homepage forces them to navigate, and a proportion will not. Every additional step between the click you paid for and the enquiry is a place to lose someone whose visit you have already bought.
What to expect over the first three months
| Period | What normally happens |
|---|---|
| Week one | Traffic immediately, inefficient spend, and a lot of clicks from searches you did not intend |
| Weeks two to four | Negative terms added, wasted spend falling, first enquiries arriving |
| Month two | Cost per enquiry becoming readable and starting to improve |
| Month three | A stable figure you can judge, and a decision about whether to scale or stop |
Judging it in week two is the common error. The first weeks are the system learning and you paying for that learning, which is normal rather than a fault.
The unglamorous work that decides the outcome
- Excluding terms you do not want. Without this you pay for searches containing words like jobs, free, DIY, salary, and the names of competitors. This list is built continuously and it is where most savings come from.
- Tight geographic settings. The default radius reaches further than most trades will travel, and a click from outside your area is money spent on a job you would decline.
- Scheduling. If nobody answers overnight, paying for clicks overnight buys enquiries that go cold.
- Recording enquiries, not clicks. Without conversion tracking you can see spend and traffic and cannot see results, which makes every subsequent decision a guess.
Where it fits
Advertising works best in two situations. When you need visibility now, such as a new business, a new service, or a season starting sooner than content can be built for. And when a specific high-value service justifies paying for each enquiry.
It works least well as a permanent substitute for being findable, because the cost never falls and the moment you stop, you are invisible again. The sensible pattern for most small businesses is advertising to cover the gap while the slower work builds underneath it.
Before you start
Confirm your own form delivers and your phone number dials correctly. Know your ceiling per enquiry. Have a page for the service you intend to advertise. Set up conversion tracking so the results are readable.
Those four take an afternoon and they are the difference between a campaign you can judge and a monthly charge nobody can evaluate.
Frequently asked questions
How much do search ads cost for a small business?
Click prices vary too much by trade and area for a general figure to help. Work out what you can afford per customer from your own margin, then judge any quoted cost per enquiry against that.
How long before search advertising works?
Traffic arrives immediately, and the cost per enquiry usually takes six to twelve weeks to become efficient and readable. Judging it in the first fortnight means judging the system while it is still learning.
Should ads point at my homepage?
No. Someone searching a specific service in a specific area should land on a page about that, since a homepage forces navigation and every extra step loses a share of the visit you paid for.
What wastes the most advertising budget?
Not excluding unwanted terms. Without a growing list of exclusions you pay for searches containing words like jobs, free, DIY, and competitor names, none of which will ever become work.
Should I fix my website before advertising?
Yes. Paid traffic behaves like any other traffic, and a site that does not convert simply loses people you paid for. Improving conversion also lowers the cost of every enquiry permanently.
Is advertising better than SEO?
They do different jobs. Advertising buys visibility immediately and stops when payment stops. Search work takes months and persists. Most small businesses use advertising to cover the gap while the slower work builds.
West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.
Thinking about running ads?
We check the arithmetic works for your margins first, build the landing page, and set up tracking so you can actually judge the result.
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