Google Ads for small business: the basics and the research before you spend

Google Ads for small business works when two things are true: people already search for what you sell, and your margins can carry the price of their clicks. Google Ads is Google’s advertising platform. You choose the searches you want to appear on, write an ad and pay each time someone clicks it, which can put you in front of buyers within days.

I will be honest: Google Ads is not that tricky. The interface is crowded, but the mechanics fit in a few paragraphs. What makes the difference is a bit of research before you spend: who you want to reach, what they type, and where you should be seen so that more of the clicks turn into clients.

This guide covers the basics, that research and the settings I would choose for a first campaign. It is part of my guide on how to get more clients.

Google Ads for small business: how the auction works

Each time someone searches, Google runs an auction between the advertisers whose keywords match that search. The winners appear among the results, usually above or below the unpaid ones, marked as sponsored. On a Search campaign, you pay only when someone clicks, which is why this kind of advertising is also called pay-per-click, or PPC.

The highest bid does not automatically win. Google ranks ads on the bid, the quality of the ad and of the page it leads to, and the context of the search. A relevant ad can therefore take a better position for less money than a vague one.

Quality Score: the grade to watch

Google gives each keyword a Quality Score from 1 to 10. It is built from three parts, each rated above average, average or below average:

Google calls the score a diagnostic tool rather than an input to the auction, but it measures what the auction rewards: a part rated below average tells you whether to fix the ad or the page.

When Google Ads is worth it, and when it is not

Google Ads sells access to demand that already exists. It suits a small business when:

• people search for what you sell in words you can predict, often with a place attached: “emergency plumber Croydon”, “boiler repair Leeds”, “accountant for landlords Bristol”;
• the need is urgent or the decision quick, so the click comes from someone ready to call;
• one client is worth clearly more than the clicks it takes to win them;
• you have a page that answers the search, and an hour a week to watch the account.

It is the wrong tool when nobody searches yet: a new kind of product needs awareness first, which social ads are built for, as my Google Ads vs Facebook Ads comparison explains. It is also weak in narrow B2B niches, where searches are rare and your buyers could be listed by name: there, compare PPC with cold email before you pay for clicks.

Last, ads stop the day you stop paying. Rankings take longer to build but keep bringing visits without a bill per click, and my SEO vs PPC comparison helps you split the money between the two.

The research to do before you spend a penny

This is where I would put your first hours, before any ad budget. Most of it costs nothing but time.

1. Describe the client, then the words they type

Write one sentence about the client you want: what they need, where they are, how urgent it is. Then list the searches that person would type, and sort them by intent:

You bid on the left column. The right one becomes your first list of negative keywords: the searches you tell Google never to show your ads for.

To find the words people actually use, I run Deep Research on what people in a niche complain about most and which words keep coming back. Those words go into the ads and onto the page, so that the people who click recognise their problem straight away.

2. Check searches and click prices in Keyword Planner

Keyword Planner is free inside a Google Ads account, and you can use it without running a single ad: my Google Keyword Planner tutorial shows how. Set the location to the area you really serve, then read two things for each keyword:

• the average monthly searches: if almost nobody searches, there is little to buy (an account that spends little sees a range, such as 1K–10K, rather than an exact figure);
• Top of page bid (low range) and Top of page bid (high range): roughly the 20th and 80th percentiles of the bids that put an ad at the top of the page over the last 30 days. It is an estimate, not a price list, and it is missing for keywords with little bidding history.

3. Look at who already advertises

Search your main keywords and note who appears, what they promise and where their ads lead. Google’s Ads Transparency site lets you look up an advertiser by name or website and see the ads it runs.

Then I open Semrush and look at the keywords advertisers pay for and what each click costs them, which shows the keywords that work best. I then double down on those keywords with SEO rather than ads. For a campaign, the same figures give you a second opinion on the click prices Google estimates. My Semrush review looks at whether the paid plans are worth it.

4. Work out what you can pay for a click

Before choosing a budget, work out what one click is worth to you. You need three figures:

what a new client brings you, after costs    £600
× share of enquiries that become clients     × 25%
× share of visitors who send an enquiry      × 5%
= the most you can pay for a click           £7.50

These are round numbers to show the arithmetic, not benchmarks: use your own, and be pessimistic if you have none yet. Then set the result against the top-of-page bids. If the high range is well above it, you have three ways out: a page that converts better, narrower keywords or another channel.

Prepare the landing page and the tracking first

Send each group of keywords to a page about exactly that service, not to your home page: someone who searched “boiler repair Leeds” should land on boiler repairs in Leeds, with prices or the next step, and a phone number they can tap. My comparison of a landing page vs a website explains when a dedicated page is worth building.

The page also has to make you look serious. When I design a website, I want my client’s prospects to take them seriously from the first screen, which also cuts down the haggling over price. A paid click is a first impression you have already paid for.

Then set up conversion tracking, before the first click. Decide what counts as a result (a form sent, a tap on your phone number, a call from the ad), add the Google tag to your site and create a conversion action for each. Test them yourself, and accept the cookies on your own banner when you do: in the UK and France, visitors who refuse cookies are measured only in part, or not at all, depending on how the tag handles consent. Without tracking, Google can only chase clicks, and you will never know which keyword brought the client.

Choose the right campaign type

The list of campaign types is longer than a small business needs:

Google is also cutting back its support for Smart campaigns, the simplified campaigns it long offered small businesses. Since 3 August 2026, new ones can no longer be created through the Google Ads API, which third-party tools use to build campaigns, and Google points advertisers to Search or Performance Max instead. Whatever your account still shows, I would start with Search: you choose the keywords, you see the searches and you keep control. A mobile app has a campaign type of its own: my guide to Google App campaigns explains how they work and what to budget.

Check the AI Max settings

AI Max for Search is not a campaign type but a set of options inside a Search campaign: matching searches beyond your keywords, writing ad text from your site, and sending visitors to the page Google judges most relevant (Final URL expansion). According to Google’s AI Max help page, switching AI Max on also turns on text customisation and Final URL expansion by default, and Google said it would start upgrading campaigns that use text customisation to AI Max automatically from September 2026.

On a first campaign with a small budget, I would leave it off. You want to learn which searches pay before Google looks for others, and every click should land on the page you prepared. If it is on, you can switch off text customisation for the campaign (which also stops Final URL expansion) and the wider search matching for each ad group.

Set up your first Search campaign

These are the settings that matter most:

1. Networks: untick the Display Network. I would leave out search partners too, until results on Google itself show the campaign works.
2. Locations: the area you serve, as a town, a region or a radius around your address. In the location options, reach people who are in or regularly in that area, not people who have only shown interest in it.
3. Bidding: until conversions come in, focus on clicks (Maximise clicks) with a maximum cost per click bid limit at or below the figure from your maths. Move to conversion bidding once the tracking has some to work with.
4. Ad groups and ads: one ad group per service, each with a handful of closely related keywords and a responsive search ad. That ad takes up to 15 headlines of 30 characters and 4 descriptions of 90, which Google combines and tests: repeat the search in the headlines (“Boiler repair in Leeds”) and give a reason to choose you (a same-day visit, a fixed quote).
5. Assets: add sitelinks, callouts, your phone number and your address, so that the ad takes more space and offers more ways in.

Match types and negative keywords

Each keyword carries a match type, which decides how far Google can stretch it:

boiler repair leeds      broad: related searches, as Google sees them
"boiler repair leeds"    phrase: searches that include its meaning
[boiler repair leeds]    exact: searches with the same meaning

Start with phrase and exact. Exact no longer means the exact words: it covers close variants with the same meaning, such as a plural or a different word order. Broad match gives Google the most freedom, which pays off once conversion data can guide it and tends to waste a small budget before then.

Negative keywords do the opposite: they stop your ad from showing. Add your list before launch, and remember that they do not match close variants: excluding “jobs” does not exclude “job”, so add the plurals and common spellings yourself.

How the daily budget works

Google sets no minimum spend. You choose an average daily budget, which is not a strict daily cap. On a busy day, Google can spend up to twice that amount, but over a month it never charges more than 30.4 times it, the average number of days in a month, and credits back anything delivered beyond that, as Google Ads Help explains. With £15 a day, one day can cost £30, but the bill for the month cannot go above £456.

Choose the figure from what you are ready to spend to learn, not from what you hope to win, then check what it buys. At £7.50 a click, £15 a day is two clicks, about 60 a month: at the rates above, three enquiries and not quite one client. With too few clicks the test tells you nothing, so give it a fixed length that buys enough of them.

The first weeks: read, cut, adjust

The real work starts after launch. Once a week:

• Read the search terms report. It shows the searches that actually triggered your ads. Add the irrelevant ones as negative keywords, and give the good ones a keyword of their own.
• Pause what spends without results. I would stop a keyword that has spent what a client is worth to you without a single enquiry.
• Check the Quality Score columns, which stay hidden until you add them to the keywords table, and fix the part rated below average.
• Watch what visitors do on the page. I use Microsoft Clarity to see where people engage, whether they came for something specific and which parts make them leave, so I can tell whether the copy, a picture or the layout needs fixing.
• Change one thing at a time, so that you know what made the difference.

Once conversions come in regularly, you can test what Google pushes by default, such as conversion bidding, broad match or AI Max, one at a time, against what already works.

Before you spend: a checklist

• One sentence describing the client you want, and the words they type.
• Searches and top-of-page bids checked in Keyword Planner, against the most you can pay per click.
• One landing page per service, with the phone number in view.
• Conversion tracking tested with a real form and a real tap on your number.
• One Search campaign: Display Network off, phrase and exact match, negative keywords in, AI Max checked.
• A daily budget, a test length and a stop rule, written down before launch.
• A weekly slot in your diary for the search terms report.

If the clicks come but the calls do not, look at the page before you raise the budget. And give this channel a fair test before you add another: a channel you only half run teaches you nothing. When you do add one, my tutorial on tracking your funnel with UTM links and GA4 shows which channel brings booked calls.