Who it is for
PPC for small business: what a budget under £1,000 a month can and cannot do
At a cost per click of £1.50, £750 a month buys about 500 clicks; at a 5% conversion rate that is 25 enquiries, or £30 an enquiry before any fee. Every small budget lives or dies on that arithmetic, which is why we spend it on one Search campaign, at phrase and exact match, in the hours you can answer the phone. Small accounts are managed on the Starter tier at £249 a month for spend up to £1,000, and the fee does not change if the spend goes up within the band.
The arithmetic
Work backwards from what an enquiry is worth
Start with a customer. If an average job is worth £400 to you and you win two enquiries in five, an enquiry is worth £160, and the account is profitable if it costs less than that, including our fee. At £750 of spend plus £249 of management, the account has to produce seven enquiries a month to break even and twenty to be clearly worth it. On the numbers above it produces twenty-five. That margin is thin enough that a leaking Search Terms report, a broken conversion action or a slow landing page turns it negative, which is the whole reason a small account needs someone reading it every week.
The CPC is not a guess. Before we quote, we pull the expected cost per click for your searches in your area from Google's Keyword Planner and put it in the reply, so the arithmetic is done on your numbers rather than an average. If the CPC in your sector makes the sums fail at your budget, the reply says so, and often the honest answer is a Google Business Profile and a few months of SEO instead.
Three rules for a small account
- 1One campaign, one service, one area. The service you make the most on, in the area you can reach, with ten to twenty keywords at phrase and exact match. A second service gets its own campaign only when the first is capped.
- 2Search only. No Display, no Performance Max, no remarketing until the Search campaign has run out of impression share. A small budget split three ways learns nothing.
- 3Run in the hours you answer. An ad schedule that follows the phone, not the clock. Paying for a call at 9pm that goes to voicemail is paying for a competitor's customer.
What we do not do on a small account
The things that look like more and cost like more
- Broad match on day one. It spends the month's budget on the first day on searches nobody would buy from. Phrase and exact until the negatives and the conversion data exist.
- A hundred keywords. Twenty well-chosen ones get the same customers and a readable Search Terms report.
- Bidding on your own name. If nobody else does and you rank first, that click is free without an ad.
- A landing page with a menu. The ad goes to a page about that service, with a number at the top. The homepage is for people who already know you.
- Google's recommendations. Every one of them is designed to spend more. They are read and mostly declined, with the reason in the report.
When to grow, and when to stop
Impression share says which
The Search campaign reports the share of eligible searches your ads were shown for and why they were not: lost to budget, or lost to rank. When share is lost to budget and the cost per enquiry is under what an enquiry is worth, spending more buys more customers at the same price, and the report says so with the number. When share is lost to rank, more budget buys nothing; the fix is the ads, the Quality Score and the landing page.
If after three months the cost per enquiry sits above what an enquiry is worth on searches we have already cleaned, the report says so and recommends stopping.
Related
Where this connects
Questions from small businesses
Is £500 a month enough for Google Ads?
For one service in one area, usually yes, if every pound goes on Search, the match types are tight and the phone is answered. It is not enough for three services across a county, or for a sector where a click costs £8. The quote reply gives you the CPC for your searches from Google's own planner before you commit to anything.
Why not spread the budget across Search, Display and Performance Max?
Because a small budget split three ways teaches none of the campaigns anything. Smart Bidding needs conversions to learn from; a Search campaign with all of the budget gets there in weeks, three campaigns sharing it may never get there. Search first, and the others only when Search is capped.
Can I pause it in a quiet month?
Yes, and we will say when you should: a holiday, a fully booked diary, a month when the team is short. Pausing loses some of the bidding's learning, which we explain, and it is still better than paying for calls you cannot take.
Do you take one business per sector and area at this level?
Yes, the exclusivity applies on every monthly plan: one business per sector and area, confirmed personally in the reply. It matters more on a small budget, not less, because a second client in the same auction would push your CPC up.
Tell us the job you want more of and the area. The reply has the CPC and the sums.
Before you spend anything you will know what a click costs for your searches, how many enquiries the budget should produce, and whether it adds up.