Google Ads for a small business: prices and how not to burn your budget

Advertising on Google sounds simple: someone types “plumber Giżycko”, sees your business at the top and calls. In practice, many small businesses spend their first few thousand zlotys, get a few unwanted calls and conclude that “Google Ads doesn’t work”. Most often the problem is in the settings, not in the tool itself.

In this guide I explain what you pay for, what the cost of a single contact depends on and how to work out a sensible starting budget. I will also show you the three mistakes that eat the most money, and a simple checklist for judging whether the ad pays off.

What you really pay for in Google Ads

In search ads you pay for a click on the ad, not for it being shown. Click prices are set by an auction: the bid, the quality of the ad and how well it matches what a person is looking for decide the position and the price. The better the ad and the page answer the query, the cheaper you can win the same position.

The difference between two numbers is important:

• cost per click is what Google charges for each visit to your site,
• cost per contact is what you spend on average for one phone call or one submitted form.

The second number matters more to you. You can pay little per click and still have expensive contacts if the page doesn’t convince. You can also pay more per click and still have cheap contacts, because the page works well.

Remember also that you pay the ad budget to Google separately. My campaign management is a different item: Google Ads management starts at PLN 990 net one-time, and then from PLN 790 net per month or 15% of the ad budget.

What the cost per contact depends on

In simple terms, the cost per contact is the cost per click divided by the share of clicks that end in a contact. So two things affect it: how much you pay for a visit and how many people call or write after the visit.

The cost per click is affected by:

• competition in your area and industry, because more firms in the auction push bids up,
• how well the ad matches the keyword, that is, whether the ad says exactly what the customer is looking for,
• the quality of the landing page, which Google also rates,
• campaign settings, such as the area, the hours and the bidding method.

The share of contacts is affected by:

• whether the phone number is visible right away, without searching,
• whether the page has the service, the region and a price or at least a range,
• whether the page loads quickly on a phone,
• whether the form is short.

An example from my projects: in the EZ Projekty campaign, between August and September 2026 the cost per contact fell from PLN 748 to PLN 143, and the number of calls from the ad rose from 2 to 7. The budget was one third lower at the same time (from PLN 1,497 to PLN 1,000). This came from fixes to the offer pages and a change in the bidding method in the campaign. It is one company and one month, so don’t treat it as a promise, but as a demonstration of how much depends on the page and the settings.

What starting budget makes sense

There is no single amount for everyone. Instead of guessing, work it out backwards, starting from how much you can pay for a customer.

An example calculation (hypothetical numbers)

Suppose you earn PLN 1,500 on a single job (after costs). From experience you know that every fourth contact ends in a job. Then a single contact is worth PLN 375 on average (PLN 1,500 divided by 4). If you pay less than PLN 375 per contact, the ad makes money. For safety you can set a much lower target, for example PLN 150, to leave a margin for worse months.

Next you work out the budget:

A practical example: in the Kobinstal campaign (building inspections, Gdynia) the daily budget is PLN 30, that is about PLN 900 a month. In September 2026 the cost per contact there was PLN 47 against a target of PLN 80, and there were 18 contacts. This shows well that a small budget can be enough if the service is narrow and the page and tracking work. It doesn’t mean it will be the same in your industry.

Rules that help at the start:

• start with one service and one area, instead of advertising everything at once,
• give the campaign a few weeks and don’t judge it after three days,
• don’t change everything every day, because you won’t learn what worked,
• set a monthly upper limit that you don’t exceed without reviewing the results.

Mistake 1: wrong keywords

The biggest burn starts with keywords that attract people who don’t fit your offer. If you install doors, you don’t want to pay for clicks from someone searching for “room door template to download” or “door installation job”.

What to do:

1. Choose keywords with buying intent: the service plus the city, for example “door installation Giżycko”.
2. Use more exact keyword matching where possible, so the ad doesn’t show for loosely related queries.
3. Every week, review the search terms report: you will see what people actually typed before they clicked.
4. Add negative keywords: “job”, “free”, “template”, “how to do it yourself” and everything you don’t sell.
5. Check the location setting. An ad for a local service shouldn’t show across the whole country.

This is the cheapest fix in the whole campaign, because it doesn’t require changing the page, only attention once a week. While you’re at it, it is worth seeing who else shows up in your area. The free competitor audit in Google Maps will help with that.

Mistake 2: no tracking of phone calls

In local services most customers call. If the campaign measures only visits to the site, you see the costs but not the results. Then you don’t know whether PLN 1,000 brought five calls or none, and Google’s algorithm has nothing to learn from.

What you should measure, or more precisely, what should be set up as a conversion:

• a click on the phone number on the page on a phone,
• a submitted form,
• optionally, calls directly from the ad.

That gives you the first number: how many contacts the ad brought. A click on a number is not the same as a conversation, though, because someone may not get through or may hang up right away. If you want to know which campaign and keyword the customer is calling from, call tracking will be useful. I described it in the guide on measuring phone calls from Google Ads.

Everything else starts with measuring, because without it you cannot honestly assess a campaign. I set up conversions, GA4 and Tag Manager in the Analytics and tags service, and as part of running campaigns I make sure that the numbers in the report match reality.

Mistake 3: a weak landing page

An ad ends at the click, and the page earns the money. If someone arrives from the ad “door installation Giżycko” on a general home page where neither a price nor a phone number is visible, they will leave. That visit cost you money, and you get nothing from it.

A landing page for an ad should have:

• a title matching the ad: the same service and the same region,
• a phone number visible at the very top, ideally with a “call” button on a phone,
• a price or a range, because it is the customer’s most common question,
• a few photos of completed work and short reviews,
• a short form, ideally just phone and name,
• fast loading on a phone.

That is why in the EZ Projekty campaign I made separate offer pages: the service and region in the heading, prices and phone number visible right away. One page for one campaign is usually a landing page. If you don’t know the state of your site, start with the free tool Check your website: in about 30 seconds it will show what slows the site down and what is worth fixing first.

How to check whether the ad pays off

Once a month, answer five questions:

1. How much did I spend on ads? (the budget without my fee)
2. How many contacts did that bring? (calls and forms)
3. What was the cost of one contact? (the spend divided by the contacts)
4. How many of those contacts ended in a job? (you have to check this yourself, in notes or in a system)
5. How much did I earn on those jobs? (profit, not revenue)

If the earnings are higher than the spend together with the management fee, the ad pays off. If not, look for the cause step by step: keywords, tracking, page. Don’t increase the budget until you know which of these elements is failing.

It is also worth keeping your Google Business Profile in order, because customers from Maps often find you without an ad. Advertising and local SEO don’t exclude each other; they complement each other.

Summary

Google Ads works for a small business when you know the cost you can pay per contact, you measure calls and forms, and you send people to a page matched to the ad. Wrong keywords, no conversions and a weak page are the three places where the most money leaks.

If you want to start a campaign or fix one that doesn’t bring calls, write to me. I will set up and run Google Ads with tracking of calls and forms. I reply within 24 hours, and the quote and the first conversation are free.