Google Ads For Business Owners

How much to spend on Google Ads? Having managed many Google ads accounts since I started offering this service in 2008, I have learned a lot from in excess of £10 million invested into Google by myself and my clients (from a quick tot up inside my Google Ads management account).

A lot of it seems obvious to me now, but that is because I spend all day, every day, working inside Google Ads.

I thought you might find some of my observations helpful in forming or improving (or starting) your Google Ads strategy.

I am going to use an average cost per click of £5 for each of the examples, to make the maths easier but also because it is a pretty universal average figure for the majority of legal services.

1.Up To £500 Google Ads Spend Per Month

With a £5 average cost per click, we are looking at around 100 clicks per month.

Whilst this may sound like a lot, it wouldn’t be enough to form a solid polling opinion (1000 is the number that YouGov favours apparently, which is significant when it comes to my findings too – see below), and generally for the same reasons it isn’t enough to make the needle move when it comes to using Google Ads.

At this level of spend, you can expect to see variable results, or none at all.

Often, when business owners tell me Google Ads doesn’t work for their business, this is one of the two major reasons it doesn’t work:

they are simply not generating enough clicks to prove whether it does or does not work.

In case you were wondering, the other major reason it doesn’t work is because their website is not set up to convert the visitors into enquiries.

Not by a long way.

About 50% of the time when someone asks me to run a Google Ads campaign for them, I refuse.

You might be surprised to hear that from someone who makes a live selling Google Ads management services, but it is the right thing to do as I want long term, successful, hugely profitable clients.

If I start a Google Ads campaign sending traffic to a terrible website that simply will never turn a visitor into a new client, it is a waste of time for me and a waste of money for my prospective client.

The website needs to be set up correctly first, which is precisely why I set up a 6 week intensive training to get a website ‘conversion fit’.

If you are spending money on Google Ads and not seeing the results you would like, or have good Organic traffic (over 3,000 visits a month) but not getting dozens of enquiries for your services every month, you should invest in that training as it will pay you back many times over:>>  

Therefore, if you are running Google Ads and only spending up to £500 a month with Google, your results will be one of two things:

• inconsistent or
• non existent

2. £1,000 Per Month Google Ads Spend

At this level, at my average cost per click of £5 you should be receiving 200 clicks.

Now, assuming these are good quality clicks (you are not allowing Google to use AI to encourage you to use broad match

keywords, their conversion bidding etc, all of which are designed to make Google more money but not you), then you should be getting more consistent results.

However, whilst some months will be very profitable, other months will at best break even or not even that.

3. £1,500 Per Month Google Ads Spend

This is what I call my ‘minimum viable product’.

At 300 clicks per month, I expect pretty consistent results, save for any month with Easter, Christmas, or the word August in it.

These months are always outliers, but in a bad way.

I recommend each person gets to 300 clicks a month as quickly as possible, as it makes so much more predictable, which in turn makes it more fun.

4. £3,000 Per Month Google Ads Spend

600 clicks per month.

Double my recommended minimum.

More chance of wonderful consistency.

5. £10,000 Per Month Google Ads Spend

2,000 clicks per month.

At this level and beyond, consistency is golden.

I have had clients keep 15 to 20 staff busy at these levels of spend, and with pretty much nothing else bringing the work in.

Questions?

If you have any questions on my thoughts here, please reply and I will be glad to answer them personally.

Prefer to reserve a Google Ads Optimisation Call with me where I review your campaign with you instead (no cost or obligation)?

Click here to do so:>>

If there is no suitable time, if you email hello@nickjervis.com with some suggested dates and times Christelle will find a time to suit you.

Alterntively, download my guide below if you want more helpful business growth advice.

Should you allow Google Ads Auto Recommendations Or Not? DEFINITELY NOT as I will explain while I show you How To Turn Off Auto Applied Recommendations In Google Ads!

I recently had to spend an hour undoing the changes made by a Google Rep AND Google Ads Auto Applied Recommendations.

One of my Google Ads coaching clients inside my More Clients Academy mistakenly accepted a call from a Google Rep (despit knowing he shouldn’t speak with them for the reasons I will share).

They told him that they wanted to help.

They adjusted some settings and turned on Google recommendations, so that Google could basically do whatever it wanted to his campaign without him having a say in the matter.

What happened?

In the 14 days BEFORE Google made the changes, the average cost per click was £2.39.

In the 14 days AFTER Google made the changes, the average cost per click was £3.17.

Perhaps more importantly, the spend went from a controlled and effective (meaning the telephone rang) £93 in the 14 day period before Google broke everything, to £422 in the 14 days after the Google changes with no enquiries after they broke everything.

What The Video To See How To Turn Off Auto Applied Recommendations In Google Ads

Now you know why you should turn auto recommendations off, here is how you do it:

I am not a fan of ‘get rich quick’ schemes or ‘success hacks’, as each imply that you can achieve amazing results with very little skill or application.

If you have been in busy for any length of time, you know that good results do take time.

I always like reading The Sunday Times “How I Made It” interview which explains how a business owner become an overnight success (which when you dig a little deeper you find took 15 years).

However, whilst I do not believe in overnight success, I do know that sometimes you can definitely put your effort in certain places which will generate a much bigger return on your investment of your time than others will.

When I take over a Google Ads campaign from a solicitor or their previous provider, they always expect me to dive straight into the Google Ads Campaign manager. The funny thing is this; that is the second place that I go. I know that I can achieve better results for them (a bigger return on their investment in my services) by going elsewhere.

The first place that I go is to the pages that they are sending their paid for visitors to; their ‘landing pages’ as they are called in the trade.

If I am taking over the campaign from another ‘paid search agency’ I am often staggered that the landing pages that the Google Ads visitors are sent to are so bad. They miss vital marketing elements which will make a huge impact on their performance.

These marketing elements matter A LOT, so I spend some time putting them in place and, usually without exception, my new clients telephone rings a lot more and they instantly have a spike of client enquiries.

The good news is that this ‘spike’ continues from that day forwards as the website page changes are there for good.

The even better news is that these changes also lead to an increase in the enquiries from people finding the website organically too – a double bubble spike and instant ‘get rich, overnight success’ story.

The only trouble with that overnight success story is that I have been running Google Ads campaigns since 2004 – ooh would you look at that – that is me becoming a 15 year overnight success story right there, just like the business owner featured in The Sunday Times.  Maybe I will be in there next week….

If you are currently running Google Ads, click the button below to download my Google Ads Whitepaper now and let me show you how to generate more clients and how to schedule a Google Ads Optimisation Review Call with me if you would like to:

Google Ads Whitepaper – Generate More Clients With Your Google Ads Spend. Click Here Now:>>