Local service businesses have an advantage that national advertisers would pay a lot for: intent is high, competition is finite, and the geography is small enough to control. The mistakes are also predictable, and almost all of them come from copying a setup designed for e-commerce.
Start with the phone, not the keyword
For a heating engineer or an emergency locksmith, the conversion is a phone call, not a form. Set up call tracking with a dedicated number, define a call longer than 60 seconds as a conversion, and import it into Google Ads. Without that step the algorithm optimises for the wrong signal and you will conclude that ads do not work for your trade.
Radius, not the whole federal state
Use a radius around your actual service area, typically 20 to 40 kilometres, and set location targeting to presence rather than interest. Then check the location report every month: you will usually find two or three municipalities that convert twice as well as the average, and they deserve their own campaign with a higher bid.
Campaign structure that survives a small budget
- One search campaign per service line, for example heat pumps, bathroom renovation, emergency service.
- Exact and phrase match for the money terms; broad match only once you have at least 30 conversions per month to feed the algorithm.
- A separate brand campaign so competitors bidding on your name do not distort the numbers.
- Manual CPC or maximise clicks for the first four weeks, then switch to target CPA once conversion data exists.
- A negative keyword list with jobs, training, salary, free, DIY and instruction terms, reviewed weekly.
The landing page decides the cost per lead
Sending traffic to the homepage is the single most common way to waste a local budget. Each service line needs a page that repeats the search term in the headline, shows the service area, names a price range or a starting price, and puts a phone number in a sticky position on mobile. Around 70 percent of local searches happen on a phone, so the button has to be reachable with a thumb.
Doubling the conversion rate of the landing page is always cheaper than doubling the media budget.
What a realistic budget buys
In competitive trades a click costs 2.50 to 9 EUR in Germany. With a landing page converting at 8 percent, a lead costs between 30 and 110 EUR. At 800 EUR per month that is roughly 7 to 25 qualified enquiries. Decide before launch what a lead is worth to you, and stop the campaign if the number stays above that after eight weeks of optimisation.
Alongside the paid budget, do not neglect the free half of local search. A complete Google Business Profile with real photos, correct opening hours, service categories and a steady flow of reviews often outperforms the paid campaign for near-me searches. Ads and the profile reinforce each other: the same searcher sees you twice, and the click-through rate on both improves. Adding location extensions and call extensions to your ads pulls the two even closer together, and both are free to use.
A weekly routine that takes 30 minutes
- Read the search terms report and add negatives.
- Check the top three competitors in the auction insights.
- Listen to two recorded calls to judge lead quality, not just lead count.
- Move budget from the campaign with the worst cost per lead to the best one.
That routine, done consistently for three months, usually improves cost per lead by 25 to 40 percent. Nothing about it is clever. It is simply the work that most accounts never receive. Put the thirty minutes in the calendar and treat them like a customer appointment, because an unattended account drifts within a few weeks.
