Cost per lead for trades: how to connect calls and forms to booked jobs
You probably know what you spend on marketing but not what each job cost to win. A week's setup that traces enquiries back to their source.
PPC management that pays for itself, measured in jobs and sales.
We run ads to the number you care about: what it costs to win a job or make a sale. If we cannot track it, we do not spend it.
- Cost per lead
- £25.00
- Cost per won job
- £62.50
Ad cost against the margin on one job
£57.50 left per job. Worth running.
An estimate from the four inputs only. Repeat work and lifetime value would make a higher cost per job worth paying.
Who this is for
The mechanics are the same whether the goal is an order or a phone call. The details are not, so we treat them separately.
E-commerce brands
Google Shopping, Performance Max and Search ads judged on profit, not just sales.
- Feed optimisation and product segmentation
- Bids and budgets set from what each product earns
- Searches for your own name kept apart from new-customer searches
- Ads shown again to visitors and past customers
Local service businesses
Search and Local Services Ads for the jobs you want, in the areas you cover, at a cost per lead you can live with.
- Local Services Ads setup and review management
- Call-only and click-to-call campaigns
- Ads only in the postcodes you cover, at the hours you answer the phone
- Landing pages that match the ad, with one clear action
What we actually do
- Tracking before spend
- Every form, call, chat and sale tracked, with a different phone number for each advert so you know which one rang. Where your job system allows, we tell Google which enquiries became paid work.
- Lead qualification, not lead counting
- Calls under a minimum duration, supplier and spam calls, and form submissions that are clearly junk are excluded before they reach your report or Google's bidding. Campaigns then optimise towards enquiries that could become work, and you pay attention to the right number.
- Structure for control
- Campaigns split by intent, service and location so budget can be moved to what works. Negative keyword lists built from your actual search terms, reviewed weekly.
- Landing pages that match
- An ad for emergency call-outs should not land on your homepage. We build or adapt pages per campaign, and treat them as part of the account, not someone else's problem.
- Bid to a business number
- A target cost per lead or per sale, set from your margins and how many quotes you win, and adjusted as data comes in. We use automated bidding where it helps and override it where it does not.
- Reporting you can check
- Monthly report in plain English: spend, leads or sales, cost per result, and what we changed. You own the ad account and every asset in it, always.
How an engagement runs
Account and tracking audit
Existing account review or new build plan. Tracking installed and tested before any budget goes live.
Launch
Campaign structure, ad copy, extensions, audiences and landing pages live within two to three weeks of kick-off.
Optimise
Weekly search term reviews, bid and budget changes, ad tests and landing page tweaks. Small, frequent, measured.
Scale or stop
Monthly review against the target. If it is working we scale into new services or areas. If it is not, we say so and change course.
What you get
- Conversion, call and form tracking setup with GA4 handover
- Lead qualification rules and call recording review
- Campaign build or restructure in your own ad account
- Ad copy, extensions and landing pages
- Weekly optimisation log
- Monthly report: spend, leads or sales, cost per result
- Local Services Ads setup and review process (trades)
We charge a flat management fee, never a percentage of spend, so we have no reason to spend more of your money than the results justify.
Is the campaign worth running?
Paid search is the easiest channel to judge because everything is measurable within weeks. The calculation we run with every client before spending a pound is cost per qualified lead, divided by close rate, against what a customer is worth.
If a qualified lead costs £25 and four in ten become jobs, a job costs £62.50 to win. Against a £250 job with £120 margin that is clearly worth doing. Against a £70 job it is not, and we would tell you.
For e-commerce the same logic applies to return on ad spend measured against margin, not revenue. A campaign at 4x return on a 25% margin product breaks even. The same campaign on a 60% margin product is highly profitable.
Lifetime value changes the answer. A customer who books an annual service, or reorders three times a year, justifies a higher cost per first job than the first job alone suggests.
We share the working spreadsheet, with your numbers in it, before launch. If the maths does not work we will say so rather than run the campaign.
Further reading
Local Services Ads and Google Business Profile: the two levers for trades
For installers, repair firms and local trades, two Google products do much of the heavy lifting. How they work together and where businesses get them wrong.
Preparing your e-commerce store for Q4: a practical guide
Plan stock, dispatch capacity and promotion margins before peak orders arrive. How to prepare inventory, marketing and operations for Q4.
Questions we get asked
What budget do I need to start?
Enough to get statistically useful data within a month. The figure depends on what clicks cost in your market and area, which we can look up before you commit, and we will tell you honestly if the market is too expensive for the budget you have in mind.
How do you charge?
A flat monthly management fee agreed up front, based on the account's complexity. Ad spend is paid by you directly to Google. We do not take a percentage of spend.
Do we own the ad account?
Yes. The account, the conversion tracking, the landing pages and the data are yours. If we part ways you keep everything and we hand over documentation.
Can you track phone calls from ads?
Yes. Each advert shows its own tracked phone number, and we record call duration so short wrong-number calls do not count as leads. Where your job system allows, we tell Google which calls became paid jobs.
What about Local Services Ads with the Google Guaranteed badge?
For eligible trades in the UK we set up and manage Local Services Ads alongside Search. They charge per lead rather than per click and often deliver the cheapest qualified enquiries, but they need active review management to keep ranking.
Get a cost-per-lead estimate.
Tell us your service and area and we will send back what the clicks cost, what a lead is likely to cost, and whether we think it is worth it.
Tell us what you need