How to run Google Ads for your construction business

Google Ads is the fastest channel for a UK construction business that wants more enquiries this week. Set it up well and you can have a steady flow of homeowners and contractors landing on your website by Friday. Set it up badly and you can burn £500 in a weekend with nothing to show for it. The difference is not the budget. It is the structure of the account, the keywords you choose, the times you advertise, and what happens after someone clicks. This guide is written for UK trade businesses — scaffolders, electricians, roofers, plumbers, gas engineers, groundworkers, joiners — and walks through the practical decisions that separate Google Ads campaigns that pay back from ones that drain the bank account.

Should a UK trade business be using Google Ads at all?

The honest answer is: only if your operations can absorb the leads, and only if the alternative is worse. Google Ads brings demand to your door faster than anything else. It does not bring you cheaper leads than word of mouth, organic Google search, or a strong directory listing. So Ads make sense in a few specific situations.

You are a new business and have no organic visibility yet. You have a quiet period between contracts and need work to bridge the gap. You are entering a new geographic area where your reputation has not landed yet. You have a higher-margin service (emergency callouts, specialist commercial work, regulated trades like gas) where the cost per lead is comfortably absorbed. Or you have a specific time-sensitive promotion or accreditation milestone you want to push.

What does not work: spending on Google Ads when your phone capacity, quoting capacity, or job throughput is already maxed out. Ads will keep generating leads regardless. If you cannot follow up within an hour, those leads are wasted, and you are paying for them anyway.

Search Network is the only network that matters for trades

Google Ads has multiple networks: Search, Display, Shopping, YouTube, Performance Max, and others. For a UK trade business, the only one that consistently produces commercial leads is the Search Network — the text ads that appear above the regular Google results when someone searches.

Display ads put your message on third-party websites that are part of Google's display network. The audience is not searching for your service; they are reading something else. Click-through rates and conversion rates are an order of magnitude lower than Search. Performance Max sounds tempting because Google does the targeting for you, but in practice it bundles every network together and can spend most of your budget on Display before producing a single Search lead. Performance Max sometimes works for established businesses with significant data, rarely for trade businesses just starting out.

For your first six months on Google Ads, run only Search campaigns. Do not enable the Display network as a "partner" inside a Search campaign — Google offers this and it almost always loses money for trade businesses. Disable it explicitly in every campaign.

Keyword strategy: long-tail and local

The single biggest mistake new advertisers make is bidding on broad single-word keywords like "scaffolding" or "electrician". The clicks are expensive (often £5-£15 each), the search intent is unclear (are they looking to hire, looking for jobs, doing research?), and the geographic radius covers half the country.

The pattern that works for trades is local long-tail. Instead of "scaffolding", bid on "scaffolding hire Plymouth", "scaffolding contractor Devon", "scaffolding for roof repair Newton Abbot". The clicks are cheaper (£1-£4), the searcher knows what they want, and they are clearly in your service area. Long-tail keywords also avoid the competitive auction inflation around the head terms.

Build your keyword list from three sources.

Your services. List every service you offer, every type of customer you serve, every variation of how someone might describe what you do. A scaffolding company might cover "scaffolding hire", "scaffold erection", "tower scaffolding", "industrial scaffolding", "domestic scaffolding", "roof scaffolding", "chimney scaffolding". Each is its own keyword.

Your geography. List the towns, cities, and postcodes you cover. Pair every service keyword with every geography to create your matrix. "Scaffolding hire Plymouth", "scaffolding hire Tavistock", "scaffolding hire Ivybridge" all become separate keywords.

The Google Keyword Planner. Free inside your Google Ads account. Type a few seed keywords, set the location to your service area, and Google returns the actual search volumes and suggested bid ranges. Use it to validate which keywords are worth targeting and which have effectively no demand.

Match types: phrase and exact, never broad

Google Ads has three keyword match types: broad, phrase, and exact. Broad match (the default) will show your ad on any search Google considers loosely related. For trades, this means your ad for "scaffolding hire Plymouth" might show on searches for "Plymouth jobs", "Plymouth Argyle scaffold seats", or "scaffolding training". You will pay for clicks that have no chance of converting.

Phrase match (the keyword in quotes, "scaffolding hire Plymouth") shows your ad only on searches that include the keyword phrase or close variants. This is the right default for most trade campaigns.

Exact match (the keyword in brackets, [scaffolding hire Plymouth]) shows your ad only on the exact keyword or a very close variant. Use it for your strongest converting keywords once you have data.

Use phrase match for everything until you have at least 30 days of data. Then move your top performers to exact match for tighter control. Never use broad match unless you have an experienced PPC manager and a generous budget for testing.

Negative keywords: what you do NOT want to advertise on

Negative keywords are searches where you do not want your ad to appear. For trades, the negative list is critical and is the single biggest lever for reducing wasted spend.

Common negatives for any UK trade campaign:

• "job", "jobs", "vacancy", "vacancies", "career", "careers", "salary", "wages" — people looking for work in your trade, not customers
• "course", "training", "qualification", "certification" — people researching how to enter your trade, not customers
• "diy", "how to", "tutorial" — people who want to do it themselves
• "free", "cheap", "second hand", "used" — generally a bad fit for commercial trade work
• "definition", "meaning", "wikipedia" — research traffic
• Competitor names if you do not want to advertise on direct competitor searches

Add negatives at the campaign level so they apply across every ad group. Review the search terms report weekly for the first two months and add new negatives every time you see a search that should not have triggered your ad.

Geographic targeting: tighter than you think

Set your location targeting to "Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations" (not the default "Presence or interest"). The default includes people who have ever shown interest in your area — including people on the other side of the country who once searched for somewhere near you. The setting most trade businesses want is the tighter "Presence" option.

Then choose your geography carefully. Do not just tick a county. Use radius targeting around your base, or tick specific towns and cities you actually cover. A scaffolder based in Newton Abbot might target a 25-mile radius rather than the whole of Devon. Tight geography means you avoid bidding on areas you do not want to drive to.

Ad scheduling: do not advertise when you cannot answer the phone

If your business answers the phone 7am to 7pm Monday to Friday and 9am to 1pm on Saturday, your ads should run only during those hours. Every click outside those hours is paid for and the lead is cold by the time you ring back. Set up ad scheduling in the campaign settings and turn ads off overnight and on Sundays.

If you are running Ads to capture emergency callouts (locked out of property, water leak, electrical fault), the opposite logic applies — those keywords should run 24/7 because the searcher needs help right now. Split emergency keywords into their own campaign with 24/7 scheduling and call-only ad formats.

Ad copy: speak to a specific person doing a specific job

Generic ads (e.g. "Scaffolding services. Call now.") get ignored. Specific ads get clicks. Specificity comes from three places: the location ("Scaffolding hire across South Devon"), the service ("Domestic scaffolding from £180 per week"), and the proof ("NASC member, £10m public liability, CISRS scaffolders").

Each ad should include the keyword in the headline (so it appears bold in the results), the location, and a clear call to action. Use both call extensions and location extensions to give the searcher the option to ring you directly from the search results without clicking through to your website. For trades, calls convert at much higher rates than form submissions.

Test multiple variations of every ad. Google Ads will rotate them and show you which has the higher click-through rate. Replace the loser. Keep iterating.

The landing page is half the campaign

The landing page is where the click turns into a phone call or a quote request. A weak landing page wastes every click in front of it. Two specific things make landing pages work for trade businesses.

First, the landing page must match the ad. If the ad says "Scaffolding hire Plymouth", the landing page should be about scaffolding hire in Plymouth. Not your homepage, not a generic "services" page, not a form. A page that names the service and the location, includes proof (insurance, accreditations, photos of recent jobs), and offers an obvious way to make contact.

Second, the contact options need to be friction-free. A click-to-call phone number that works on mobile (where most of your traffic comes from). A short form (name, phone, postcode, brief description) rather than a long one. A WhatsApp link if you respond on WhatsApp. The fewer fields and clicks between the search and the lead, the higher your conversion rate.

Many trade businesses spin up a single landing page per service per area. A scaffolder might have separate pages for "Scaffolding hire Plymouth", "Scaffolding hire Newton Abbot", "Scaffolding hire Tavistock". Each is genuinely about that area, with relevant images, local proof points, and a click-to-call number. Match the ad to the landing page to the search intent and your conversion rate triples.

Tracking: phone calls are conversions too

Google Ads will not improve your campaigns unless it knows what is converting. If you only count form submissions, you are missing most of your trade leads — most of which come by phone.

Set up call tracking through Google Ads. The platform provides a forwarding number that records and counts phone calls from ads as conversions. Set the conversion to count calls longer than 60 seconds (filters out wrong numbers and quick hang-ups). Once Google has 30+ conversions of data, the algorithm starts optimising for what actually generates calls, and your cost per lead drops noticeably.

If you have a CRM, push leads from your forms into it automatically and tag them by source. Six months later, you can see which Ads keywords actually became paying jobs, not just which generated form fills. Lead-to-job conversion is the metric that matters; everything else is a proxy.

What to spend

The right starting budget depends on your average job value and how much capacity you have to absorb leads. As a rough rule of thumb for UK trades: £500 to £1,000 per month is the floor where you can generate enough data to learn what works. Below £500 you will not see enough clicks to know which keywords convert. Above £2,000 per month you should probably have a PPC manager rather than running it yourself.

Aim for a cost per lead of 5-15 percent of your average job value. If your average scaffolding hire is worth £600, paying £30-£90 per lead is reasonable. If your average new-build commercial scaffold is £30,000, paying £200-£500 per lead is comfortable. Below those ratios you are losing money; above them you are leaving margin on the table.

The slow-burn alternative: SEO and directories

Google Ads is fast and expensive. SEO and directory listings are slow and cheap. Both are useful, in different proportions, depending on where you are in your business.

If you have just launched and need leads in the next month, run Ads. If you have been trading for a year, have a website with some content, and are seeing organic traffic, the marginal money is often better spent on SEO content (a strong blog post about something your customers search for) and on building citations in directories. The SEO traffic compounds over time and costs nothing per click. The Ads traffic stops the day you stop paying.

Most successful UK trade businesses run a combination: a modest Ads budget to capture immediate-intent searches, plus ongoing investment in SEO content and a strong directory presence to build organic visibility over 12-24 months. Complys runs a public directory of UK compliant trades and contractors; if you are looking for a free way to be found by main contractors and homeowners, your free Complys profile is one of the cheapest distribution channels available to a UK trade business.

The compliance angle

One of the most effective ad copy techniques for UK trades is to lead with proof. Mention your insurance amounts, your accreditations (CHAS, SMAS, Constructionline, NASC), your competence cards (CISRS, Gas Safe, ECS), and your years in business. Anyone searching for a contractor knows there are bad ones, and proof in the ad copy filters out tyre-kickers and attracts serious enquiries. The catch is that proof has to be true — claims you cannot back up with documents will get you a ranking penalty from Google and reputational damage when a customer asks to see the certificate.

This is where having your compliance organised matters for marketing. If you can produce your certificates instantly, your ads can confidently lead with proof. Our scaffolding compliance guide covers the documents most contracts require, and Complys keeps them in one place with automatic expiry alerts so you can always show what you claim.

Common mistakes that cost UK trades money

• Bidding on broad keywords without negatives. Wastes 40-60 percent of budget on irrelevant clicks.
• Pointing all ads at the homepage. Loses the relevance bonus and tanks conversion rates.
• Running ads 24/7 when you cannot answer the phone after hours.
• Targeting too wide a geography. Wastes money on areas you do not actually cover.
• Not tracking phone calls as conversions. Means the algorithm cannot optimise for what actually works.
• Not reviewing the search terms report. Negatives are added once, never reviewed, and the same wasted searches recur.
• Setting the daily budget too low for too few keywords. Spreads spend so thin nothing learns.
• Enabling Display partners inside Search campaigns. Almost always burns money for trade businesses.

Avoid those eight and you are ahead of the majority of trade businesses running their own Ads. The rest is iteration: review weekly for the first three months, adjust keywords and bids based on what converts, tighten geography and scheduling, and let the algorithm optimise once it has data.

When to bring in a professional

If you are spending more than £2,000 per month on Google Ads, or your business runs in multiple regions, or you have specialist services with high job values, the return on hiring a PPC manager is normally positive. Expect to pay £400-£800 per month for management of a £2-5k spend, and look for an agency with construction or trades experience rather than a generalist. The wrong PPC agency is worse than running it yourself.

Below £2,000 per month, running it yourself with this guide and the Google Keyword Planner is usually the right call. Spend the difference on better landing pages, professional photography, or building out your free Complys directory profile for organic discovery alongside your paid traffic.