Google Ads

Ads for when the phone has to ring now.

Search is the long game and it is the better one. Ads are what you run while it is still coming, or when the phone has to ring now. You pay Google for the click. You pay us a flat fee to run it. Both numbers are on this page.

See where you stand first Work out your break-even

Free. The audit comes back by email within a business day. No call unless you ask.

Free check

See where you turn up when a customer searches your trade in your suburb.

No ad gets written until we know who you’re selling to, what the other operators in your patch already say, and what you can say that they can’t. You get that in writing before an ad goes out. What that means before we start.

What it costs

$997

One-off, to build the account and connect the tracking

$897

Per month to run it, flat, month to month

0

Percent taken off your ad spend

The management fee does not move with your spend. Spend a thousand a month or ten thousand, the fee is $897 either way. If someone quotes you a percentage of spend, ask what their fee does when your spend goes up.

The ad spend is yours and it never comes through us. It goes on your card, straight to Google. We do not invoice it, mark it up or resell it.

The account is opened in your name. Not inside an agency account with your campaigns rented out of it. If you stop with us, the account, the spend history and the lead-tracking data stay where they are, with you.

Not registered for GST. The price you see is the price you pay.

What the $997 sets up

  • The account, in your name, with your billing on it and our access by invitation rather than a password.
  • Call and form tracking connected, so a phone call and a form are counted as leads rather than clicks. Without it you are counting visitors and guessing.
  • Search campaigns built around the trades and the suburbs you actually want, not an off-the-shelf list of search words.
  • Searches you don’t want blocked before a dollar goes out, so you are not paying for the searches that were never going to become a job.
  • The page the ads point at, checked — the same check every page we build goes through, with the results in writing.
  • A written record of how it was set up, so you can open your Google Ads account yourself and see it.

What the $897 a month buys

  • What people actually typed, read every month, and the wrong searches blocked. Not what a list said they would type.
  • Budget and click prices moved to where the jobs are coming from, and away from where they are not.
  • Ad wording rewritten around what is bringing in enquiries, on a schedule you know about.
  • A one-page report in plain English — what went out, what came back, and what a lead cost.
  • A missing figure and a zero never look the same on that report. If a number could not be read that month it is marked missing, not printed as nought.

Paid monthly in advance, month to month, no lock-in contract, and it stops with 7 days’ notice by email.

Straight up, before the quote

The part we won’t dress up

Ads stop the day you stop paying for them. That is the whole difference between ads and the site. The site keeps working when you stop the retainer; the ads do not keep running when you stop the spend. If someone sells you ads as an investment, ask what you own when the spend stops.

We can’t tell you what a lead will cost before we have run it. Your trade, your suburb and the week of the year all move it. A number quoted before any money has gone out is a guess made with your money.

If the arithmetic doesn’t work, we will say so instead of taking the setup fee. That is what the calculator below is for, and it is free whether or not you ever talk to us.

Before you spend anything

Work out what a click is worth to you

Your average job, your margin, your quote-to-job rate. It tells you what you can afford to pay for a click and still make money. If that number is lower than what a click costs in your trade, ads are the wrong spend this month and we will say so.

Your break-even click

$1,800

35%

40%

8%

$20.16

Break-even means exactly that. At this figure the job earns
you nothing. Anything you pay under it is your margin. Clicks that become an enquiry is the hardest number to know before ads have run, so start low if you’re unsure.

The same calculator sits on its own at the break-even calculator, free, no email, whether or not you ever run ads with us.

Where ads sit next to everything else

Now

Google Ads

You pay to show above the free results, today. It works while you are paying and stops when you stop.

Months

The site and local search

Slower, and it keeps working after you stop paying. How local search works

Later

Social ads

Same rate, same terms, a different place to find people. What you get

Ads do not need a website from us and a website does not need ads. If you only have room for one this year, run the free audit first — it tells you which one you are actually losing.

Questions people ask before they run ads

How much is it?
$997 once to build the account and connect the tracking, then $897 a month to run it. The ad spend is separate, it goes on your card straight to Google, and we take no cut of it. Not registered for GST. The price you see is the price you pay.
Does the fee go up if I spend more?
No. It is $897 a month whether you spend one thousand or ten. If someone charges a percentage of spend, ask what their fee does when your spend goes up.
Whose Google Ads account is it?
Yours. It is opened in your name with your billing on it, and we work in it by invitation rather than with a password. Stop with us and the account, the history and the lead-tracking data stay where they are.
What will a lead cost me?
Nobody can tell you that before it has run, and a number quoted up front is a guess made with your money. What can be worked out first is what a click is worth to you: your average job, your margin and your quote-to-job rate give you the most you can pay for a click and still make money. The calculator on this page does that, free.
Do I need a website from you to run ads?
No. The ads do need somewhere to land that answers the search and asks for the job, so if what you have now will not do that we will say so before you spend anything.
What happens if I stop?
The campaigns stop when the spend stops, and that is the honest difference between ads and a website. The account, the data and the tracking stay with you.

The first step is the same either way

Find out whether ads are the thing you are actually missing.

Your business name and your suburb. We check where you turn up, who is beating you, and what it would take to change that. You get the answer whether or not you ever talk to us.

Run my free audit See the whole price list

Free. The audit comes back by email within a business day. No call unless you ask.