“I tried Google Ads and it didn’t work.” I hear this from tradies all the time. Nine times out of ten, Google Ads wasn’t the problem. The setup was. For trades, where customers search with real urgency, a well-built account can be one of the most profitable things you ever spend money on. A badly built one just quietly drains your bank account.
Here are the nine mistakes I see most often, and how to fix each one.
1. No call tracking
If you can’t see which ads produced phone calls, you’re flying blind. Most trade leads come by phone, and Google can’t tell you what’s working unless calls are tracked properly. Set up call tracking and conversion tracking before spending a cent.
2. Sending clicks to the homepage
Someone searching “blocked drain near me” wants to see “blocked drains fixed today, call now”. Not your company history. Send each ad to a page that matches what they searched, with your number at the top and a button to call.
3. No negative keywords
Without negative keywords you pay for clicks from people searching “plumbing apprenticeship”, “electrician jobs” or “how to fix a leaking tap myself”. A good negative keyword list is one of the biggest budget savers in any trades account.
4. Advertising to areas you don’t service
If you’re on the Gold Coast, paying for clicks from Brisbane is money in the bin. Use radius or suburb targeting and exclude the areas you won’t drive to.
5. Running ads when nobody answers
Ads running at 2am with voicemail on the other end waste money. Schedule ads for when you can actually pick up, or use a service and an automatic missed-call text-back so the lead isn’t lost. I cover how that works in my automation guide.
6. One campaign for everything
Lumping every service into one campaign means the budget flows to whatever’s cheapest, not whatever’s most profitable. Split campaigns by service, like emergency callouts, hot water or switchboards, and bid harder on the high-value ones.
7. Ignoring the landing page
Even perfect ads fail on a slow or confusing page. It needs to load fast on a phone, show your number, show your reviews and licence, and make the next step obvious. For many tradies, fixing the page doubles the results without spending more on ads.
8. Setting it and forgetting it
Google Ads needs regular attention: checking search terms, adding negatives, adjusting bids, testing new ads. An account left alone for three months is usually wasting money on searches you’d never have chosen.
9. Judging it on clicks instead of jobs
Clicks, impressions and click-through rate don’t pay your bills. What matters is the cost per lead and the cost per booked job. My budget guide for tradies shows exactly how to work those out.
Quick self-check
Ask yourself:
- Can I see how many calls my ads produced last month?
- Do I know the cost of each booked job?
- Is my ad radius limited to where I actually work?
- Does each ad lead to a matching page?
If you answered “no” to two or more, there’s almost certainly money to be saved and jobs to be won.
Want me to look at your account?
If you’ve got an existing account, I’ll review it for free and tell you honestly what’s working, what’s wasting money and what I’d change. If you don’t have one yet, I’ll tell you whether it makes sense. I run Google Ads for tradies with no lock-in contract, and you own your account. Book a free strategy call.
If you’re comparing options for who should manage it, my checklist on choosing someone to run your ads will help.