Google Ads for Tradesmen: UK Costs, Set-Up and When It Pays

Google Ads for tradesmen can be brilliant or a very expensive way to find out your website doesn't work. The difference is rarely the ads themselves. It's what they're aimed at, what they land on, and whether anyone's counting the calls.

So let me be upfront: I don't sell ad management. I build websites and do Local SEO for trades. This is a straight guide to how pay-per-click works for plumbers, roofers, electricians and builders in the UK, what it costs, how to set it up without burning money, and when I think you'd be better off putting the money somewhere else.

How Google Ads work for a trade business

You'll hear it called PPC (pay-per-click), and PPC for tradesmen works the same way as it does for anyone else. Google Ads is an auction. You choose the searches you want to show up for ("boiler repair Sheffield", "emergency roofer"), write an ad, and set a budget. When someone searches, Google runs an auction between everyone bidding on that search and shows the winners at the top and bottom of the results, marked "Sponsored".

You pay when someone clicks. Not when they ring, not when they book. A click from someone who reads your page and leaves costs the same as one that turns into a £4,000 boiler swap.

The winner isn't only whoever bids most. Google also weighs how relevant your ad and page are to the search, so a tight, relevant campaign can pay less per click than a sloppy one.

It's worth knowing what Google Ads is not:

• It's not the map pack. The three businesses on the map are free listings from Google Business Profiles. You can't pay to be in them, though ads sometimes appear alongside.
• It's not Local Services Ads. Those are the "Google Verified" boxes at the very top of some trade searches, and you pay per lead rather than per click. I've covered them in Google Local Services Ads in the UK.

How much do Google Ads cost for tradesmen in the UK?

There's no price list. Clicks cost whatever the auction says, and that depends on your trade, your town, the time of day and how many others are bidding. Google doesn't publish an average. What you can do is look at what people who run trade campaigns are reporting, and check your own area for free (more on that below).

These are rough UK cost-per-click ranges published by UK marketing firms in 2026, based on Google's Keyword Planner and their own campaigns. Treat them as estimates, not quotes.

The pattern is what matters more than the exact numbers. Emergency searches cost the most because the person searching is ready to pay now. Routine, planned work costs less per click. London and the South East sit at the top of every range.

Check your own area for free

Google's Keyword Planner shows a low and high "top of page bid" for any search in any area you choose. You need a Google Ads account to use it, but you don't have to run an ad. Ten minutes in there with your trade and town tells you more than any blog post, mine included.

What your budget actually buys

You set an average daily budget. Google's help page on daily costs says a campaign "might spend up to twice your average daily budget" on a given day, but over a month you'll spend no more than 30.4 times your daily budget.

So a £20 a day budget means up to about £608 a month. Here's a worked example, with numbers I've made up to show the sum:

• £608 at an average of £6 a click buys about 100 clicks.
• If 1 in 10 clicks turns into a call or form, that's 10 enquiries at about £61 each.
• If you win 1 in 3 of those, that's 3 or 4 jobs at roughly £180 to £200 of ad spend each.

Worth it on a £3,500 re-roof. A disaster on a £120 tap repair. Run that sum with your own job values before you spend a penny, because it decides everything else.

Google Ads for plumbers, roofers, electricians and builders

The mechanics are the same for every trade. What changes is which searches are worth paying for.

PPC for plumbers

Google Ads for plumbers comes down to two very different kinds of search. Emergency searches ("burst pipe", "no hot water", "emergency plumber") are the most expensive clicks, but the person will often book within minutes if you answer. Planned work ("combi boiler replacement", "bathroom installation") costs less per click and is worth far more per job, but people compare quotes.

If you only do emergencies in the day, schedule your ads for the hours you can answer. Paying £20 for a 2am click that goes to voicemail is just a donation. If you do gas work, put "Gas Safe registered" in the ad: it's the first thing a careful customer checks. If you're still building a steady flow of plumbing work, my guide to getting plumbing leads covers the other routes too.

Google Ads for roofers

Roofing search is lumpy. A windy weekend sends "roof repair" and "slipped tiles" searches through the roof, so to speak, and a still summer flattens them. Ads are useful precisely because you can turn them up after a storm and down when you're booked.

The money for roofers is in bigger jobs: re-roofs, flat roof replacements, chimney work. People researching those want to see photos of your work and some idea of price before they ring, so a strong page for each job matters more for roofing PPC than for almost any other trade.

Google Ads for electricians

Electricians have a wider spread of job types than most: EICRs for landlords, consumer unit upgrades, rewires, EV chargers, fault-finding. Each deserves its own ad group and landing page, because someone searching "EICR for landlords" and someone searching "full rewire cost" want completely different things.

Put your scheme membership (NICEIC, NAPIT or whoever you're with) in the ad text. It's a trust signal people look for, and it costs nothing to mention.

PPC for builders and construction

Extensions, loft conversions and renovations are big-ticket, but people spend months deciding. A click today might be a job next spring, which makes cost per job hard to measure and easy to get wrong. For builders, ads tend to work best on specific, high-intent searches ("single storey extension builders [town]") rather than broad ones like "builder".

Commercial construction PPC is a different game again. Many larger contracts come through tenders, frameworks and relationships rather than someone searching Google, so check where your best jobs actually come from before you pay for clicks.

Setting up a campaign that doesn't waste money

Google makes it easy to start and easy to overspend. These are the settings I'd check, in order.

1. Start with one service in one area

   Pick the job you most want and the area you most want it in. One campaign, one tidy group of searches, one landing page. Prove it works before you add anything.

2. Use a Search campaign

   Choose a Search campaign so your ads show to people who've typed what you do. Check the Networks setting and switch off the Display Network to start with, so your budget isn't spent on banner ads on random websites.

3. Set your location properly

   Google offers two options: "Presence or interest" and "Presence". Google's location targeting help recommends the broader "Presence or interest" for search. For a local trade I'd test "Presence", which shows ads only to people in or regularly in your area, so you're not paying for someone in Spain researching their mum's roof in Rotherham.

4. Pick your match types deliberately

   Broad match is Google's default, and it lets Google show your ad on searches it thinks are related, which can be a long way from what you meant. Phrase match ("boiler repair") and exact match ([boiler repair sheffield]) give you more control. Google explains all three in its keyword match types page.

5. Add negative keywords from day one

   Negative keywords stop your ad showing for searches you don't want. There's a starter list below.

6. Write ads that say three things

   What you do, where, and why you. "Emergency Plumber in Sheffield. Gas Safe, 4.9 Stars, Usually With You Within the Hour" (only if it's true) beats "Quality Plumbing Services".

7. Add a call button and your hours

   Add your phone number to the ad so people on phones can ring straight from it, and set your ad schedule to the hours someone can answer.

8. Turn on conversion tracking before you go live

   If you can't see which clicks became calls, you can't tell good spend from bad. More on this below.

Negative keywords every trade should add

Every trade gets clicks from people who were never going to hire anyone. Job hunters, students, DIYers. Add these as negatives before you spend a penny:

• Jobs and training: jobs, vacancies, salary, apprenticeship, course, training, qualification, NVQ
• DIY: how to, DIY, yourself, tutorial, video, YouTube
• Freebies and parts: free, cheap parts, wholesale, Screwfix, Toolstation, B&Q
• Wrong customers: any town you don't cover, and any service you don't offer ("commercial" if you're domestic only, or the reverse)

Then check the search terms report every week for the first couple of months. It shows the actual searches people typed before clicking. You'll find oddities nobody would predict, and every one you add as a negative is money saved for good.

Landing pages: where most ad money is wasted

Sending ads to your homepage is the most common mistake I see. Someone searched "flat roof repair". They want a page about flat roof repairs, in their area, with a phone number. If they land on a homepage about "quality roofing since 1998" and have to hunt, a lot of them go back and click the next ad, and you've paid for the privilege.

A good landing page for a trade ad has:

• The service and town in the headline, matching the ad.
• A phone number at the top that works with one tap.
• Photos of your own work on that type of job.
• Reviews, accreditations and how quickly you can come out.
• A rough idea of price, or what affects it.
• A short form for people who'd rather not ring.

If people are reaching your site and the phone still isn't ringing, my ten-minute check for a website that isn't bringing in enquiries will usually show you why. And if you need pages built properly, that's what my websites for tradesmen are for: one page per service, made to turn a visit into a call.

Call tracking: count jobs, not clicks

Most trade enquiries are phone calls, and phone calls are the hardest thing to track. If your Google Ads account only counts form fills, it'll happily spend your budget on whatever gets forms and ignore what gets calls.

• Call reporting. Google can show a Google forwarding number on your ad so it can count calls that come from it. Google explains it in its help pages on call reporting.
• Calls from your website. Track taps on your phone number on the landing page as conversions.
• Forms. Track form sends, and make sure the thank-you message actually loads.
• Your own records. Ask every caller where they found you, and note which ones booked. That's the only way to work out cost per job, which is the only number that matters.

When Google Ads make sense and when Local SEO wins

I'm biased here, so I'll give you both sides straight.

Ads make sense when you need work this month, when you're launching a new service or area, or when your jobs are valuable enough that even pricey clicks pay. They're also a fast way to find out which searches turn into jobs, which is useful information for SEO later.

Local SEO tends to win long term because you're not paying per click. Once you rank in the map pack and the ordinary results, the calls keep coming without a meter running. It takes time though: my guide to how long local SEO takes sets out the honest timeline.

Plenty of trades do both: ads to keep the diary full now, SEO so that in a year they need fewer ads. If you want to compare every option, including lead sites, social media and Local Services Ads, my lead generation guide for tradesmen puts them side by side.

Should you run it yourself or pay someone?

On a small budget, doing it yourself is realistic if you're willing to learn and check it every week. The settings above will save you from the worst mistakes. The risk is that ads are easy to set up and hard to run well, and Google's suggestions tend to push you towards spending more.

If you pay someone, a few things I'd insist on:

• You own the Google Ads account. They should have access to yours, not run it in theirs. If you part ways, your history goes with you.
• You know the management fee and the ad spend separately. Some packages blend the two, so you can't see how much of your money reached Google.
• They report cost per enquiry, and ideally cost per job. Not just clicks and impressions.
• No long contract before anything's proven. A month or three to test is fair. Twelve months up front isn't.

Those are the same warning signs I'd look for in an SEO, for the same reasons.

Google Ads for tradesmen: common questions

How much should a tradesman spend on Google Ads?

Enough to get a fair test, and no more than you can afford to lose while you learn. Work backwards from your job value: if a job is worth £400 profit and you're happy spending £100 to win one, your cost per click and conversion rate tell you how much budget that needs.

Is PPC worth it for plumbers?

Often, for emergency and boiler work, if you can answer the phone and your landing page is good. Less often for small jobs, where one or two wasted clicks eat the margin.

Are Facebook ads better than Google Ads for trades?

They do different jobs. Google Ads reach people searching for a trade right now. Facebook ads reach people who weren't looking, which suits visual, planned work like kitchens, bathrooms and garden landscaping more than emergencies. I've covered the social side in social media for tradesmen.

Do Google Ads help my free rankings?

No. Paying for ads doesn't move you up the map or the ordinary results. Google says plainly that there's no way to pay for a better local ranking.

My honest take

Google Ads are a tap. Turn it on and water comes out, at a price, for as long as you keep paying. That's useful, and for some trades in some months it's the right call. But the trades I'd want to be in five years' time are the ones that don't need the tap running to stay busy.

I don't manage ads. What I do is the part that makes ads cheaper and less necessary: Local SEO for tradesmen at £495 a month with no contract, and websites built to turn visits into calls. If you'd like to know whether you're better off with ads, SEO or both, the free Search Opportunity Review is a good place to start.