// GOOGLE ADS FOR TRADIES
Google Ads for tradies works when every dollar is judged on booked jobs. That means paying only for searches from people who need the work done in your area, tracking the calls, and sending each click to a page about that job. Web Blend runs it for $650/month + GST. Your ad spend goes straight to Google.
Updated: 1 October 2026
// THE SHORT ANSWER
The account was set up once. Google widened the matching. The tracking counted page views and short calls as leads. Nobody read the search terms again. The monthly report still looks fine, and the phone does not ring more.
What fixes it: the account is built around the jobs you want, judged on enquiries that become work, and checked every week. That is the whole service. There is no secret setting.
What it is not: a promise of a cost per lead before we have seen your trade, your area and your numbers. Anyone quoting one sight unseen is guessing.
// YOUR TRADE CHANGES THE BUILD
A burst pipe at 6am and a backyard landscape are both trade jobs. They are not the same search, the same customer or the same conversion. The account is built for the way your work actually gets booked.
Plumbers, electricians, locksmiths, gasfitters, roof leak repairs
Builders, landscapers, painters, solar, pools, air conditioning installs
Plumbing is the clearest emergency case. See Google Ads for plumbers for the search terms, hot water campaigns and after-hours rules we use.
// A REAL ACCOUNT BUILD
Electrical & air conditioning · Joondalup, WA
Every keyword was checked against live Perth volume and cost per click before it went in. That cut the plan from eleven ad groups to seven that can each get enough clicks to read. Switchboard work runs Perth wide because the travel is priced into the quote. Faults stay inside a sixteen-suburb corridor, because one sparky cannot do a same-day callout across the whole city.
These are build facts, not results. We do not publish lead or job figures for any client until they have given written permission. In plumbing, we run the ads for Plumbed Right and set up Google Ads with conversion tracking for Bay Plumbing & Drainage.
// WHAT WE BUILD AND RUN
A blocked drain and a hot water replacement are different customers with different job values. Each job worth chasing gets its own ad group, ads and landing page, so spend can follow the work you want.
We read what people actually typed, not just the keyword list. Apprenticeships, wages, DIY how-tos, supplier searches and the wrong suburbs go on the negative list before they eat the budget.
Most tradie leads ring. Calls from the ad and from the website are recorded as conversions, with a minimum call length so a two-second hang-up is not counted as a lead.
Targeting is set to people in your area, not people interested in it. Quoted work and urgent work can run on different maps, because one van cannot do a same-day callout across a whole city.
The ad sends people to a fast page about the job they searched for, with the phone number one tap away and your licence and reviews on show. Not a cluttered homepage.
Where your job system allows it, completed jobs are matched back to the ad click, so bidding learns from paid work instead of every enquiry. ServiceM8 accounts can do this today.
// SET THE BUDGET BACKWARDS
“Is $100 a day enough?” has no answer until you know three numbers from your own business. Work backwards from them and the budget sets itself.
The worked example is in what a good cost per lead is for a plumber or electrician, and the two costs of running ads are broken down in how much Google Ads cost for tradies.
// THE OPTIONS
| WHAT YOU WANT | GOOGLE ADS, RUN BY WEB BLEND | LEAD MARKETPLACE | DIY GOOGLE ADS |
|---|---|---|---|
| The lead is yours alone | Yes, it comes to your number | Often shared with other businesses | Yes |
| You pay for | Clicks to Google, plus a flat monthly fee | Leads or a membership | Clicks to Google, plus your evenings |
| Search terms checked weekly | Yes | Not applicable | When you find time |
| Calls tracked to the ad | Set up before spend starts | Inside their platform only | Often missing |
| You keep the asset | Account, history and landing pages | Your profile on their site | Account and history |
Weighing up a marketplace? Our take on whether hipages is worth it runs the numbers.
// PRICING
The fee is the same every month and covers the build, keywords and negatives, call and form tracking, the landing page and plain-English reporting. We never take a percentage of your ad spend, so we have no reason to push a bigger budget than the work needs.
Already running ads? Start with the Google Ads audit for tradies. It is $290 + GST, delivered as recorded videos by the next business day once we have access, and credited against eligible implementation work.
// QUESTIONS
Budget, ownership and whether ads suit your trade, answered before you ask.
Get in touchYes, when the account pays for searches from people who need the job done in your area, the calls are tracked, and the click lands on a page about that job. They stop working when the ads match loose searches, run outside the hours you answer the phone, or report every form fill as a win. The trade matters less than the setup.
There are two costs. Your ad budget is paid straight to Google and you set it. Web Blend's management is $650/month + GST, the same every month. The fee makes sense from roughly $1,500 a month of ad spend upwards. Below that, more of the money should go into the ads themselves, and we will say so.
It depends on what a click costs in your trade and city, and on what a booked job is worth to you. The honest way to set a budget is backwards from your own numbers: job value, close rate and the cost of a click in your area. We work that out before you spend, rather than quoting a daily figure blind.
Google Ads puts your own business in front of the person searching, and the lead goes only to you. A lead marketplace sells access to an enquiry that other businesses may also receive. Many tradies run both for a while, then move spend toward whichever produces cheaper booked jobs once both are tracked properly.
Yes. The Google Ads audit for tradies is $290 + GST, paid once, with recorded video walkthroughs of what your account is spending on. If Web Blend then quotes implementation of $1,500 + GST or more and you accept within 30 days, the fee is credited. The full conditions are in the audit terms.
Yes. The account stays in your name and your billing goes straight to Google. If we ever part ways, you keep the account, the history and everything built in it.
// GO DEEPER
Emergency search terms, hot water, after-hours scheduling and the job-value maths for plumbing.
Google Ads audit for tradies, $290 + GSTSix checks on an account that is already running, credited if you go ahead.
Getting bad leads from Google AdsFive checks that find where poor-fit enquiries enter the account.
Call-only ads are endingWhat replaces call ads before they stop showing in February 2027.
AI Max for tradiesWhat it changes about keyword matching, and when it is worth testing.
ServiceM8 Google Ads trackingSend completed ServiceM8 jobs back to Google Ads as conversions.
Looking for the general service overview? See Google Ads management.
// BOOKED JOBS, NOT CLICKS
Tell us your trade, your area and the work you want more of. We will come back with a realistic budget and a plan, or tell you straight if ads are not the right first step.
Get a quote