Google Ads for a small business in Newcastle: the arithmetic, and the four leaks.

You pay for several clicks per enquiry and several enquiries per job. That only works from a certain job value upwards, and the number is easy to work out beforehand.

It buys people who were already looking, which makes it the most direct channel and the dearest per person for the same reason.

What has to be true before it works

• People are already typing the words.

  This buys existing demand rather than creating it. If nobody is searching, social advertising is the right channel.

• One job is worth enough to carry it.

  Clicks to an enquiry, enquiries to a job, job value. A trade job clears it easily and a twenty dollar sale never will.

• The page asks for something.

  An obvious phone number and a form that arrives. Paying for visitors to a page that does neither is how advertising gets the blame.

• Somebody answers quickly.

  Paid enquiries go cold fastest, because the person clicked three advertisements in a row.

Loose matching, no negative list, advertising outside the area, and every click landing on the home page. Those four account for most of the waste in small accounts.

Almost every small account opened for a second opinion leaks in the same four places, all visible in one report.

The four

• Matching left too loose.

  Google decides which searches are close enough. Wide open, it buys clicks nobody would have chosen.

• A negative list nobody wrote.

  The words that should never trigger an advertisement. Free, jobs, courses, DIY.

• Advertising reaching outside the area.

  One setting includes people merely interested in Newcastle rather than people in it, and it spends quietly.

• Every click landing on the home page.

  The visitor has to go and find what they searched for. Some do.

The search terms report settles all four. It lists the words people actually typed, and a fortnight of it explains most bills.

Three things, and none of them cost anything. Skipping them is what turns a small budget into an invoice with nothing to show.

A small budget is not a reason to skip the setup. It is the reason it matters more, because there is no room for waste.

The three

• Enquiries counted, not guessed.

  Calls and forms both recorded, so the spend can be judged against something.

• The account in your own name.

  The history belongs to the business, so leaving stays inconvenient rather than expensive.

• One page per thing you sell.

  A click on a search about one service should land on that service.