One of the first questions trade business owners ask us is:

How much do I need to spend on Google Ads?

Our answer is normally pretty direct.

For an established trade business that genuinely wants Google Ads to produce a consistent flow of leads, we recommend starting with a minimum advertising budget of $100 per day.

That works out to approximately $3,000 per month in ad spend.

Could you run Google Ads for $20 or $30 a day?

Yes.

But if you are an established electrician, plumber, HVAC company or home service business operating in a competitive area, that budget may disappear after one or two clicks.

You will technically be running Google Ads.

You just might not be collecting enough traffic, leads or data to work out what is actually producing results.

WHY DO WE RECOMMEND AT LEAST $100 A DAY?

There is no magic setting inside Google Ads that suddenly makes a campaign work when it reaches $100 per day.

The reason we recommend this as a starting point is that established trade businesses need enough budget to compete for high-intent searches and collect meaningful data.

Your customers might be searching for:

• Emergency electrician near me
• Blocked drain plumber
• Air conditioning installation
• Commercial electrical maintenance
• Hot water system replacement
• Level 2 electrician
• Switchboard upgrade
• Commercial plumber
• Ducted air conditioning installer

These are valuable searches.

The person searching often has an immediate problem, a project in mind or a genuine need for a contractor.

That also means other trade businesses want to appear for the same searches.

A $100 daily budget gives the campaign more room to compete, test and learn.

WHAT HAPPENS WITH A $30 DAILY BUDGET?

Let’s say you set your Google Ads budget at $30 per day.

Depending on your trade, location and competition, a click could cost a significant chunk of that budget.

You might receive one or two clicks before the daily budget is gone.

Neither person may call.

One might be looking for a job.

One might be comparing prices.

One might be outside your real service area.

One might click the ad, get distracted and never come back.

That does not necessarily mean Google Ads failed.

It may mean the campaign did not receive enough opportunities to produce a result.

If your advertising only appears for a small part of the day, you could also miss the customer who searches later and is ready to book.

Your competitors with larger budgets can continue appearing after your ads stop showing.

YOUR BUDGET NEEDS TO MATCH THE SIZE OF YOUR BUSINESS

If you are a one-person operation looking for one extra job occasionally, you may not need an aggressive advertising campaign.

But that is not who TradiesGO primarily builds campaigns for.

We work with established trade businesses.

You may have:

• Five, 10, 20 or more people in the team
• Multiple vehicles on the road
• An office team
• Software subscriptions
• Equipment repayments
• Warehouses or commercial premises
• Weekly wages that need to be covered
• Capacity that needs to be filled

A business with 15 technicians cannot build its lead-generation strategy around a budget designed to produce the occasional enquiry.

The advertising investment needs to reflect the size of the operation and the amount of work required.

WHAT CAN $100 A DAY ACTUALLY DO?

A $100 daily budget gives you approximately $3,000 per month in advertising spend.

The exact number of clicks and leads this produces will depend on:

• Your trade
• Your location
• The services you advertise
• Local competition
• The quality of your website
• The strength of your offer
• Your campaign structure
• Your landing pages
• Your reviews and reputation
• How quickly your team responds

There is no honest way to guarantee that $100 per day will produce a specific number of jobs.

But it gives the campaign more room to collect information and show us:

• Which searches generate enquiries
• Which services attract the best leads
• Which suburbs perform well
• Which ads customers respond to
• Which landing pages convert
• Which enquiries become booked jobs
• Where budget is being wasted

Once we have enough meaningful data, we can make better decisions.

$100 A DAY IS THE STARTING POINT, NOT ALWAYS THE FINISHING POINT

For some trade businesses, $100 per day will be enough to get started.

For others, it will not be enough to capture the available demand.

A plumbing company targeting emergency searches across Sydney will have different budget requirements from a builder targeting high-end renovations in two suburbs.

An electrical company wanting residential call-outs will have a different strategy from one pursuing commercial maintenance contracts.

Your budget may need to increase when:

• You are targeting a large service area
• Your market is highly competitive
• You advertise several services
• Your team needs a high volume of work
• You have added vehicles or technicians
• Your campaigns regularly run out of budget
• Your cost per click is high
• The campaign is producing profitable jobs
• You want to expand into another location

If you spend $100 per day and consistently generate profitable work, the next question is not:

How can we reduce the budget?

It may be:

How much further can we scale this while maintaining the right return?

DO NOT SPREAD $100 ACROSS EVERYTHING

A common mistake is trying to advertise every service across every suburb with a limited budget.

You might offer:

• Residential electrical work
• Commercial electrical work
• Emergency call-outs
• Switchboard upgrades
• EV chargers
• Solar
• Level 2 services
• Lighting
• Maintenance contracts
• Data and communications

If all those services are pushed into one campaign across an enormous service area, $100 per day can become thin very quickly.

Instead, the budget should be focused on the services that best support the business.

Ask:

• Which jobs do we want more of?
• Which jobs are most profitable?
• Which services have enough demand?
• Which jobs can our team deliver well?
• Which suburbs do we want to grow in?
• What work do we not want?
• Which services are worth paying to advertise?

A focused $100 daily budget is far more useful than spreading the same money across every service your licence allows you to perform.

YOUR AVERAGE JOB VALUE MATTERS

The right advertising budget also depends on what a new customer is worth.

If your average job is worth $300, you need to manage acquisition costs differently from a business where an average project is worth $15,000.

But you should not only look at the first invoice.

A customer who books a small job today might later return for:

• More repairs
• A switchboard upgrade
• An air conditioning replacement
• Planned maintenance
• Work at another property
• Commercial servicing
• A referral to another customer

For commercial trade businesses, one good relationship can create years of repeat work.

That is why the value of a lead cannot always be judged by the first job alone.

MORE BUDGET WILL NOT FIX A BAD CAMPAIGN

Spending $100, $200 or $500 per day does not guarantee good results.

More budget can make a strong campaign grow.

It can also make a weak campaign waste money faster.

Before increasing the budget, make sure the campaign has:

• Accurate location targeting
• Relevant keywords and search intent
• Strong negative keywords
• Clear ads
• Proper call tracking
• Reliable conversion tracking
• Dedicated service pages
• A mobile-friendly website
• Clear calls to action
• A process for reviewing lead quality

The office team also needs to respond quickly.

There is no point paying to generate urgent plumbing or electrical leads if calls go unanswered and form enquiries sit in an inbox for two days.

Google Ads creates the opportunity.

Your team still has to turn that opportunity into work.

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF THE $100 A DAY IS WORKING?

Do not judge the campaign only by how many clicks it received.

And do not stop at the number of leads.

You need to know:

• How many phone calls came through?
• How many forms were submitted?
• How many enquiries were genuine?
• How many were inside the service area?
• How many matched the services you want?
• How many leads were qualified?
• How many quotes were sent?
• How many jobs were booked?
• What revenue did those jobs produce?
• What was the actual return on the advertising spend?

A campaign generating 40 cheap leads is not necessarily better than a campaign generating 15 strong opportunities.

Those 40 leads might include price shoppers, job seekers, irrelevant enquiries and people outside the service area.

The 15 stronger leads might become profitable jobs.

Lead quality matters more than a cheap cost per lead.

GOOGLE ADS BUDGET AND MANAGEMENT FEES ARE DIFFERENT

Your $100 daily budget is the money paid to Google to show your ads.

It does not normally include:

• Campaign management
• Landing page creation
• Call tracking
• Website work
• Reporting software
• CRM integrations
• Strategy and optimisation

When comparing Google Ads proposals, make sure you understand what portion is paid directly to Google and what portion covers management and supporting services.

A cheap management fee does not help if the campaign is poorly structured, badly tracked or attracting the wrong work.

SHOULD A NEW TRADE BUSINESS START AT $100 A DAY?

Not every business is ready to invest $3,000 per month into advertising.

Before starting, you need to consider:

• Can you answer and follow up the leads?
• Do you have the capacity to complete more work?
• Do you know which services you want to grow?
• Is your website ready to convert traffic?
• Can the business afford to properly test the campaign?
• Do you have enough cash flow to avoid panicking after one quiet week?

Google Ads should not be treated like putting $100 into a poker machine and hoping a job falls out.

It is a marketing system that needs time, tracking, testing and ongoing optimisation.

If the business cannot commit to a realistic testing budget, it may be better to wait and prepare properly than run a tiny campaign that never gathers momentum.

IS $100 A DAY ENOUGH?

For many established trade businesses, $100 per day is a sensible minimum starting point.

It gives the campaign enough room to compete, gather data and begin producing a consistent flow of opportunities.

But it is still only the starting point.

The right budget depends on:

• Your trade
• Your location
• Your competition
• Your service mix
• Your average job value
• Your available capacity
• Your growth targets
• The quality of your campaign

The goal is not to spend the least amount possible.

The goal is to invest an amount that gives the campaign a genuine opportunity to generate profitable work.

WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOUR TRADE BUSINESS SHOULD SPEND?

TradiesGO specialises in Google Ads for established trade and home service businesses.

We work with electricians, plumbers, HVAC companies and other trade businesses that want more than clicks and cheap leads.

We want to know which campaigns generated genuine opportunities, which leads became booked jobs and what those jobs were worth.

If you are ready to invest at least $100 per day and want to build a stronger lead pipeline, let’s talk.