A radio spot costs the same no matter what your industry.
Banners at the bus stop, along the highway or on the side of a building cost the same whether you’re a dentist or sell socks.
But Google Ads™ Isn’t One Of The Ordinary Advertising Channels.
It’s built as an auction marketplace, and the commodity that Google™ sells are website visitors. How much you should spend on Google Ads™, therefore, it depends a lot less on the channel itself and more on your industry.
Instead of seeing “Google Ads™” as what you’re spending money on, then you need to realise that you’re spending money on a lot of mini-markets inside Google™ – keywords. Each keyword group will come with its set of prices and factors to consider.
When you bid for clicks (website visitors) with Google™, you’re not bidding for the same clicks as everybody in the world. You’re only bidding for the clicks that are relevant to you, and your competitors.
When it comes to how much you should spend on Google Ads™, it, therefore, doesn’t matter how valuable a sock store thinks that a potential customer clicking on their ad is. It matters how much you and your competitors believe a potential customer is worth, and those customers will have wildly different values depending on the industry.
This results in wildly different answers when you ask how much you have to spend on Google Ads™. The answer is: It depends, and what it depends on will be uncovered here. Read on...
Even though there isn’t an official minimum ad spend on Google Ads™, it doesn’t mean that you should automatically start working with $2 or $5 as a daily budget. Over the years, we’ve heard the following argument regularly:
“I just want to test with a small budget and if it works then I will increase my budget.”
Even though the theory behind this makes sense, it doesn’t translate well into real life. If we compare it with traditional advertising, then it compares to saying that you’ll buy a small classified text-based ad in a newspaper. And if you get any results from that tiny ad, then you will buy the big full-page ad.
The logic that the small, inexpensive ad has to produce results to buy the bigger, more expensive and more efficient ad is flawed at its core. The more expensive something is (especially when the pricing is auction-based), the higher value it should have under ideal circumstances.
Note: we’re not saying that you always derive the true value of products/services during auctions, so let’s not get caught up on semantics.
Our usual recommendation for starting budgets in Ads ranges from $1,000 to $10,000 per month.
The final number depends on your industry, the cost-per-click that you’ll find in it and how likely you are to succeed. The better equipped you are to build and optimise Google Ads™ campaigns, the higher your starting budget should be.
If you’re just starting out with your business for the first time and have never used Ads before, you should go for a lower budget unless you hire help. If you on the other side have worked with Ads before and seen success, then you can start off with a higher budget.
As you increase the money you spend on Google Ads™ you will receive more clicks, which in return will give you more data to work with. And if there is one thing that you’ll find valuable, then it’s having data.
A mistake we often see is advertisers using a small monthly budget, but never really succeed. Over a year, they might have spent $12,000 with little to show for it.
If they instead had taken the $12,000 and invested it in a single quarter ($4,000 per month) it would benefit them in two distinct ways:
You will be able to see in a shorter time frame whether an advertising channel will produce workable results or not.
You’re more likely to succeed because you will be able to compete on even terms with other advertisers.
Some industries are notorious for having keywords with a very high cost per click. Some keywords are upwards of $25-30 – PER CLICK!
This isn’t the average though, but a couple of industries are up there:
The keywords for these industries range from $10 to $30 on average. If you only commit to $1,000 per month for any of these industries, then you will not receive any noticeable results and will most likely categorise Google Ads™ as a non-functional marketing channel at best (or a scam at worst).
RECOMMENDED BUDGET
The recommended budget depends on what the average cost-per-click is in your industry and the geographical area you’re looking to target.
If you’re basing your cost per click, and thereby budget, off the wrong keywords then you will end up being overly optimistic in terms of how little budget you need. The good keywords – the ones that attract new customers – are also more expensive than other keywords.
For example, if you are a cleaning company you shouldn’t use the keyword cleaning, but instead go after keywords that are more specific and have a higher intent to purchase like:
These keywords will be more expensive because there is a higher competition. They have a higher competition because there is a higher ROI associated with the keywords. A potential customer is much more likely to be looking after an actual cleaning company if they use keywords like cleaning company in Melbourne vs. keywords like cleaning, maid, etc.
There is a huge difference in the cost per click that you will find for various keywords.
Let’s go with the example that you’re a local cleaning company. The first list of keywords represent keywords that are typically used by searchers to find more information.
Informational keywords
At the same time, if we review the average CPCs for keywords that are typically used by searchers that are ready to purchase, then the cost per click goes up with more than 1,000%:
Ready to buy keywords
That’s why it’s so important to base your cost per click and thereby budget on the right keyword list.
Note: If you are a cleaning company and can’t recognise the CPCs that we're listing here, then remember that there are differences in prices based on your Quality Score, geographical targeting, and your ad position.
Ad Spend | Campaign Management | Set Up | |
|---|---|---|---|
$1-$1500 p/m | $299 p/m | $399 now only $199* | Ideal for small business |
$1501-$3000 p/m | $399 p/m | $499 now only $299* | Most popular plan |
$3001-$5000 p/m | $499 p/m | $599 now only $399* | For bigger budgets |
$5001-$10000 p/m | 10% | 10% | Perfect for medium sized business |
Our usual recommendation for starting budgets with Google Ads™ ranges from $1000 to $10,000 per month. The final budget depends on your industry, what Google charges per click and how likely your business will succeed.
If your budget is more than $10,000 p/m please call our team (02) 7208 9091.
*Offer expires 31.01.26.
You missed out!
All Google Ads™ campaigns are managed by trained professionals who have had at least 10 years experience and include the following:
Commitment is 90 day trial then month to month.
You will be billed monthly as follows:
Month 1: Ad Spend + Campaign Management + Set Up
Month 2/ongoing: Ad Spend + Campaign Management
No lock in contracts
Our team are so confident we will get you the best results and high ROI, if you get new customers during the 90 day trial simply continue on a month to month renewable agreement with no locked in contracts.
Be seen by local customers at the very moment that they're searching on Google™ for the things you offer.
