Service
Google Ads for builders: paid clicks for the jobs worth paying for, and none for the rest
Ads are the fastest way to put a builder at the top of a search, and the fastest way to spend a month's profit on price-checkers. The difference is the job type, the landing page and whether the call is tracked. We run ads for extensions, lofts and conversions with a page and a phone behind them, and we say no to “builder near me”, because the map of 3 wins that for free. Set-up and management are included on the Multi-location tier at £799 a month, and available on request with Local and Growth.
When we say yes
Where a click is worth paying for
- Extensions, lofts, garage conversions
- High job value, a homeowner who has decided to spend, and a search that says so. A click at a few pounds is cheap against a job worth tens of thousands.
- A new firm with a new site
- Ads bring the first enquiries while the pages earn their place. Three months of ads is a bridge, not a habit.
- A specialism people search for by name
- Timber frame, basement conversions, listed-building work. Small volumes, serious buyers, little competition on the click.
- A quiet season
- January and February for extensions, when planning is being thought about. Cheaper clicks and homeowners with time to talk.
When we say no
Where the spend is a donation
- 'Builder near me' and 'builders <town>'
- The map pack sits above the ads, the click is dear, and half the searches are small jobs and price-checks. The profile wins this for free.
- A site with no job pages
- An ad for extensions landing on a homepage that says 'all aspects of building work' loses the click. Fix the landing page first, or the spend is a donation.
- No way to track a call
- If we cannot see which ad rang the phone, we cannot tell you whether it paid. Call tracking goes in before the first pound.
- Firms that cannot answer the phone on site
- An ad enquiry at eleven in the morning wants a person by two. If nobody can, the click was wasted, and we say so before starting.
How a campaign is built
One job type, one area, one landing page, one tracked number
The campaign that pays is narrow. It does not sell “building services”; it sells rear extensions in three towns to people who typed those words, lands them on the extensions page with photos of one, and rings a number we can see in the report.
01
Search terms
Extensions, lofts, conversions, by town. Exact and phrase match. A negative list that removes jobs, courses, DIY, prices and the names of national firms.
02
Landing page
The job page on your site, or one we build for the campaign if the site lacks it. Photos of the job, the towns, a form and the number above the fold.
03
Tracking
A tracking number and form events, so calls and enquiries are counted per ad, not guessed.
04
The monthly read
Spend, clicks, calls, forms, cost per enquiry by job and town. Scale what paid, pause what did not, and say which in plain English.
What we measured
What homeowners search for, and what a click costs
Google Keyword Planner, United Kingdom, average monthly searches over the twelve months to August 2026, pulled September 2026. The bid is Google's own top-of-page estimate, shown in pounds. These are national figures: a business with a local radius sees a fraction of each, so read the ratios between the rows, not the totals.
| Search | Searches a month | Click costs (£) | Competition | The searcher is |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| builders merchants near me | 110,000 | £0.12 to £0.94 | Medium | buying materials, not a customer |
| builders near me | 18,100 | £1.15 to £4.63 | Medium | browsing, no job named |
| garage conversion | 6,600 | £0.96 to £4.03 | Medium | planning a job |
| resin driveway cost | 5,400 | £0.82 to £3.76 | High | pricing the job |
| loft conversion cost | 4,400 | £0.89 to £3.53 | Medium | pricing the job |
| conservatory cost | 3,600 | £1.17 to £3.55 | High | pricing the job |
| garage conversion cost | 2,900 | £0.51 to £1.89 | Medium | pricing the job |
| local builders | 2,400 | £1.14 to £4.24 | High | browsing, no job named |
| loft conversion near me | 2,400 | £1.70 to £10.83 | Medium | ready for quotes |
| single storey extension cost | 2,400 | £0.55 to £2.18 | High | pricing the job |
| house extension cost | 1,900 | £0.75 to £3.37 | High | pricing the job |
| find a builder | 1,600 | £2.69 to £6.44 | High | ready for quotes |
| extension builders near me | 880 | £2.66 to £15.18 | High | ready for quotes |
| loft conversion companies | 880 | £2.24 to £17.40 | Medium | ready for quotes |
Bids converted to pounds from Google's euro estimate at the ECB reference rate of 22 September 2026, 1 euro = 85.78p.
The biggest number is not your customer
“Builders merchants near me” is searched 110,000 times a month by people buying bricks and timber, and Google's default matching will happily show a builder's ad to them. It is a negative keyword before the campaign goes live, and the first thing we check in any account we take over.
Cost searches outnumber near-me searches
Extension, loft, garage conversion, driveway and conservatory cost searches add up to about 25,000 a month, homeowners pricing a job before they ring anyone, at bids under £4.29. A cost guide with real ranges ranks for those for nothing and is the cheapest enquiry a builder ever gets.
The expensive clicks are the ready buyers
“Extension builders near me” costs up to £15.18 a click and “loft conversion companies” up to £17.40, on small volumes, because the searcher wants quotes this week. Those are the ad groups, each landing on its own page, and they are worth the price only if that page answers the job.
Sequence
Ads on top of the free engine, never instead of it
The profile is free and moves in weeks. The job pages are earned and last for years. Ads sit on top: fast, rented, and gone the day you stop. Used in that order they pay; used first they teach an expensive lesson. The order, and the prices, are on the pricing page.
Questions builders ask us
How much should a builder spend on Google Ads?
Enough to learn something in a month, which for most builders is a few hundred pounds of clicks on one job type in one area. We scale what works and stop what does not. The management fee is on the pricing page; the click spend goes to Google directly and we never mark it up.
Ads or SEO first?
The profile first, because it is free and fast. Then the job pages. Ads on top when there is a page worth landing on and a phone that answers. A firm that does ads with no pages pays for the same lesson every month.
Do you run Local Services Ads?
The 'Google Guaranteed' ones. Yes, where they are available for the trade in your area and the background checks are done. They sit above everything and charge per lead; for extension work they can beat search ads. It depends on the area and we test rather than assume.
Will you run adverts inside ChatGPT?
When OpenAI opens advertising to UK local services we will test it the way we test Google Ads: small budget, real call tracking, honest verdict. Until then it is not something we sell. Being named in the free answers, on our AEO page, is the part worth doing now.
Can I see where the money went?
Every month: spend, clicks, calls, forms, and which job type and town each came from. If a campaign did not pay, the report says so and what we changed.
I tried Google Ads once and it wasted money. Why would this be different?
Most builder campaigns we see waste money in the same three ways: broad match on 'builders', which buys clicks from people looking for jobs and for Bob the Builder; no negative keywords, so 'free', 'jobs' and 'course' get through; and a landing page that is the homepage. Search-only, exact and phrase match on one job type, a negative list from day one and a page about that job is the difference, and the first month's report shows the search terms that actually cost money.
Do I pay you a percentage of the spend?
No. The management fee is on the pricing page and does not move with the budget, so there is no reason for us to want you to spend more. The click spend goes to Google on your own card and we never touch it or mark it up.
Is there a minimum budget?
Enough to buy a month of lessons, which for most builders is a few hundred pounds of clicks on one job in one area. Below that the data is too thin to learn from and we would rather you put the money into the profile and the pages first.
Will the ads keep working if I stop?
No. The day the budget stops, the adverts stop, which is the honest difference between ads and the free routes. The profile, the pages and the reviews keep earning after the work is done; the adverts only earn while they run. That is why we put the free engine first and the ads on top of it.
Can I run the adverts only in my own town?
Yes, and you should. The area is drawn tightly around the towns you take jobs in, with the ones you do not want excluded, so a click from forty minutes away is not bought. Ad schedules can also stop the campaign overnight and at weekends if nobody answers the phone then.
Ask whether ads make sense for your firm yet
Tell us your town and the jobs you want. We check the searches and the competition and say whether ads, the pages, or both, and in which order.