Google Ads for a small business: what it costs and how not to waste money

How Google Ads works

“Google Ads” is searched 135,000 times a month in France, and “Google AdWords”, its former name, still 3,600 times. The principle has not changed: on the Search Network, you choose keywords, you write ads, and Google auctions them on every search.

With cost-per-click (CPC) bidding, you are charged for each click. You set a maximum CPC: Google states that the amount actually paid does not exceed it and is often lower, sometimes much lower.

Price is not the only criterion. Ad Rank combines your bid, the quality of the ad and of the landing page, minimum thresholds and the context of the search. Google puts it plainly: a more relevant ad can win a better position, at a lower cost, than a competitor who bids higher.

• Quality Score, rated from 1 to 10 per keyword, sums up three components: expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience.
• Each component is rated “above average”, “average” or “below average”, compared with other advertisers on the same searches over the last 90 days.
• Google points out that it is a diagnostic tool: it does not itself feed into the auction. But its three components tell you where you are losing money.

How much Google Ads costs: estimate before you pay

“Google ads prix” (Google Ads price) is searched 320 times a month in France, “google ads tarif” (Google Ads rates) 110 times. Google publishes no price list: the size of your bids and budget is up to you alone, and the cost of a click varies widely from one trade to another. In our data, a click on “serrurier” (locksmith) costs €30 on average, against €0.27 on “coiffeur” (hairdresser).

A worked example, with values chosen for illustration (only the click cost is real data): a plumber sets €500 a month. At the average cost of €8.42 a click, that buys about 59 clicks. If 8% of visitors call or write, the plumber gets 4 enquiries, which is €125 per enquiry. Against an assumed margin of €250 per job, the campaign can pay, provided enough enquiries turn into signed jobs.

1. 1
   The cost of a click: Google’s Keyword Planner gives, for each keyword, an estimate of monthly searches and of what showing the ad costs on average. It requires your billing details to be filled in.
2. 2
   The contact rate: the share of your site’s visitors who call, write or buy. Measure it on your current traffic; without a measurement, start from a cautious assumption and correct it after two to four weeks.
3. 3
   The value of a customer: the margin on a sale or a job, and what a customer brings in if they come back.
4. 4
   The test budget: enough clicks to see a few enquiries come in, on a single area and a handful of keywords. The budget is set per day.

A first campaign that does not waste money

For a small business, the easiest campaign to read is a Search Network campaign: your ads only show on searches you have chosen. The settings that matter most:

1. 1
   Intent keywords: the trade, the precise service, the city (“dépannage chaudière Lyon”, boiler repair Lyon), rather than broad terms that attract the merely curious.
2. 2
   A real geographic area: the one where you work or deliver, not the whole of France by default.
3. 3
   Negative keywords from the start: Google gives the example of an optician who excludes “swimming goggles” and “shooting glasses”. Negative keywords do not cover close variants: add plurals and synonyms yourself.
4. 4
   One landing page per ad: the page for the service searched for, with a tappable phone number and a short form, not the home page.
5. 5
   Conversion tracking before the first euro: calls, forms, purchases. Without it, there is no way to know which keywords pay.

The search terms report: where the money goes

A keyword is what you target; a search term is what the person actually typed. The search terms report shows the searches that triggered your ads, with their clicks and conversions. Google states that terms that are too rare are left out for privacy reasons.

Read it every week at the start, then every month: every search that spends without ever converting is a keyword to exclude, and every search that converts well deserves its own keyword and, often, its own page on your site.

When advertising pays, and when it does not

Advertising buys visits straight away, for as long as you pay. It pays when the cost of an enquiry or a sale stays below the margin it brings in; it does not when the landing page drives away the visitors you are paying for.

It does not buy a place in the organic results. Google states it unambiguously: a site’s presence in its search results has nothing to do with whether its owner advertises on Google, and no site is included or ranked in exchange for payment.

• Good use: testing an offer or an area before investing content in it, covering a short season, appearing on searches where you do not rank yet.
• Bad use: paying for clicks over the long term on searches where your site could rank organically, or sending clicks to a page that does not answer the search.
• Warning sign: a Quality Score where landing page experience is “below average”. The problem is on the site, not in the ad.