FREE PREVIEW · MODULE 1 · LESSON 1 · 15 MIN
When search ads fit your business
Search ads work best when people already search for what you sell; judge demand, economics and readiness before you spend.
Google search ads show your message to people at the moment they type a query, which makes them very different from social or display advertising. They work best when demand already exists: people know they have a problem and search for a solution, such as “emergency electrician”, “accountant for landlords” or “wide fit hiking boots”. They work poorly when your product is so new that nobody searches for it, or when buyers rarely use search to choose. Before spending anything, use Keyword Planner and the live search results to check that real people search for your services in your area.
Demand alone is not enough; the economics must work too. Search ads charge per click, and commercial terms in competitive markets can cost several pounds, euros or dollars per click, sometimes far more in fields such as law, insurance and home repairs. Use the top-of-page bid ranges in Keyword Planner as a rough indication, then compare them with what a customer is worth to you. If a typical sale brings in little profit and clicks are expensive, search ads may never pay unless customers buy again and again. The next lesson shows how to calculate that limit precisely.
Check your readiness as well. You need a landing page that matches what people search for, a way to respond quickly to enquiries and conversion tracking, so you can tell which clicks lead to customers. You also need patience and a test budget. As a rule of thumb, plan to run a new campaign for at least six to eight weeks and to collect a few hundred clicks before judging it, because early results swing widely. A budget that buys only three or four clicks a day will take months to tell you anything reliable about which keywords work.
Search ads tend to fit local services with urgent or high-value needs, specialist B2B services with clear search terms and online shops with distinctive products and healthy margins. They fit less well for low-priced impulse products, brand-new categories and businesses whose capacity is already full. A common mistake is starting Google Ads to fix a weak offer or a poor website; paid clicks magnify whatever happens on the page, good or bad. If your site does not turn visitors from referrals or organic search into enquiries, fix the offer and the page before buying traffic.
Example: a Glasgow locksmith and a novelty sock brand test the fit
Two fictional businesses in Glasgow checked whether search ads suited them. Kelvin Lock & Key found steady searches for “emergency locksmith glasgow” and top-of-page bids of about £3 to £7. An average job was worth £120, with half of that as gross profit, so each job left £60 to pay for advertising. With roughly half of callers booking, a lead could cost up to £30 before the business lost money, and the campaign was profitable by its second month. Tartan Toes, which sold novelty socks at £9 a pair, found almost no searches for its designs and bids of around £1 for generic sock terms. At a 2% conversion rate, each sale would cost about £50 in clicks, so the owner chose social media and gifting partnerships instead.
Illustrative example: the business, people and figures are fictional.Key takeaways
- Search ads capture existing demand, so confirm that people search for what you sell
- Compare likely click costs with what a customer is worth before spending
- Have a matching landing page, fast follow-up, tracking and a test budget in place first
Exercise
List your five most profitable services or products. For each, find three likely search phrases in Keyword Planner, note the top-of-page bid range and search each phrase to see who advertises. Mark each service as a strong, possible or poor fit for search ads, with one sentence explaining why.
Continue with 11 more lessons, module quizzes and 3 downloads.
Build, measure and improve profitable Google search campaigns on a small-business budget, without handing control to guesswork or to automation you do not understand. One payment of $89, lifetime access, 14-day refund policy.
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