To advertise on Google, you open a Google Ads account, choose a campaign type (Search, for most service businesses), pick the searches you want to show up for, set a daily budget and pay only when someone clicks. The setup takes an afternoon. Making it profitable takes tracking, tight keywords and a page that turns clicks into calls. This guide walks through every step, with real cost-per-click data for South African searches.
We run Google Ads for businesses in the US, the UK and South Africa. The steps below are the same ones we follow when we set up a new account or rebuild one that is wasting money.
Before you start: work out what a lead is worth
Google Ads is an auction. Before you bid on anything, know the most you can pay for a new enquiry and still make money. You need three numbers:
- Average job value. What does a typical customer spend with you?
- Profit on that job. How much of it do you keep?
- Close rate. Out of 10 enquiries, how many become paying customers?
Say an average job is R6,000, you keep R2,400 of it, and you win 3 out of 10 enquiries. Each enquiry is then worth about R720 in profit. Pay less than that per lead and Google Ads pays for itself. That one number guides every choice below, from keywords to budget.
What it costs to advertise on Google in South Africa
There is no minimum spend. You set a daily budget and pay per click. What a click costs depends on how many businesses bid on the same search. These are average cost-per-click estimates for common South African searches, from SE Ranking’s South African keyword data (October 2026), converted at about R17 to the US dollar:
| Search | Monthly searches in SA | Average cost per click |
|---|---|---|
| plumber | 14,800 | about R18 |
| electrician | 8,100 | about R24 |
| accountant | 6,600 | about R28 |
| electrician near me | 5,400 | about R20 |
| pest control | 5,400 | about R16 |
| moving company | 3,200 | about R28 |
| garage door repairs | 590 | about R31 |
| roof repairs | 320 | about R26 |
| seo company cape town | 320 | about R51 |
| solar installers cape town | 170 | about R18 |
Two things stand out. Most local service clicks in South Africa cost between R10 and R50, far less than the same searches usually cost in the US or UK. And the cheapest click is not always the best value. “Garage door repairs” costs more per click than “garage doors”, but the person searching it has a broken door and wants someone today.
We work with many of these trades. See how we run search for roofing companies, garage door companies and solar installers.
A simple budget formula
Monthly ad budget = leads you want × cost per click ÷ conversion rate
Say you are a plumber who wants 20 enquiries a month, clicks cost around R20, and 1 in 10 visitors calls or fills in your form. That is 200 clicks at R20, or about R4,000 a month in ad spend. If your page only converts 1 in 20 visitors, the same 20 leads cost R8,000. That is why the landing page matters as much as the ads.
How to advertise on Google, step by step
1. Set up your Google Business Profile first
Your free Business Profile puts you on Google Maps and in the local results next to the ads. It also lets you show your address and reviews in your ads. If you have not done it yet, follow our guide on how to put your business on Google before you spend anything.
2. Create a Google Ads account in Expert Mode
Go to ads.google.com and sign in with the Google account you use for your business. Google will steer you towards a guided Smart campaign. Look for the option to switch to Expert Mode, or to create a campaign without guidance. Smart campaigns hide the search terms you pay for and limit your control, which is where most first budgets leak.
Set your billing country to South Africa and your currency to rand. You cannot change the currency later.
3. Choose the right campaign type
- Search: text ads on Google search results. Start here if people search for what you sell. This suits almost every service business.
- Performance Max: one campaign across Search, Maps, YouTube, Gmail and Display, run mostly by Google’s automation. Useful once you have conversion data. Without guardrails it often spends on searches for your own business name, which you would have won for free.
- Shopping: product listings with images and prices, for online stores with a product feed in Google Merchant Center.
- Display and YouTube: better for awareness and retargeting than for first leads.
4. Pick keywords that show buying intent
Choose the searches someone with a problem and a budget would type: “emergency plumber durbanville”, “roof repairs cape town”, “garage door repairs near me”. Skip research searches like “how do geysers work” for now.
- Use phrase match and exact match at the start, so you control which searches trigger your ads.
- Group keywords by service. Geyser replacement in one ad group, blocked drains in another. Each group gets its own ads and its own page.
- Add negative keywords from day one: jobs, salary, course, free, DIY, second hand, and any service you do not offer.
5. Target only the areas you serve
Set your location to the suburbs, cities or radius you actually serve. Then open the location options and choose Presence: people in or regularly in your targeted locations. The default setting also shows ads to people who are only interested in your area, which is how a Cape Town plumber ends up paying for clicks from Johannesburg.
6. Write ads that match the search
Google uses responsive search ads: you write up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions, and Google tests the combinations. Put the service and area in your headlines (“Roof Repairs in Cape Town”), give a reason to choose you (same-day call-outs, fixed quotes, a workmanship guarantee), and add assets: call, location, sitelinks and structured snippets. Ads with assets take up more space and usually get more clicks.
7. Send each click to a page built for that search
Sending every click to your homepage is the most common way to waste a budget. Someone who searched “geyser replacement” should land on a page about geyser replacement, with:
- The service and area in the main heading
- A tap-to-call number and a WhatsApp button near the top
- Proof: reviews, photos of real jobs, years in business
- A short form: name, number, suburb, what you need
- Fast loading on mobile data, because most local searches in South Africa happen on a phone
Our guide to landing page SEO covers how to build pages that work for both ads and organic search.
8. Set up conversion tracking before you launch
If Google does not know which clicks became enquiries, it cannot optimise, and neither can you. Track:
- Form submissions
- Calls from your ads and from your website
- WhatsApp button clicks
Do not count page views as conversions. It makes every campaign look like it works.
9. Choose a budget and a bid strategy
Start with Maximise Clicks with a maximum cost-per-click limit, or with manual bidding, so a new account cannot overspend on expensive clicks. Once a campaign records roughly 30 conversions in a month, switch to Maximise Conversions or a target cost per acquisition, so Google’s bidding can use that data.
10. Manage it every week for the first 90 days
Every week, open the Search terms report. It shows the actual searches you paid for. Add anything irrelevant as a negative keyword, pause keywords that spend without converting, and move budget to the ad groups that bring enquiries. In our experience, most accounts improve inside the first 60 days of this routine.
Five places Google Ads budgets leak
When we audit an account, we usually find money leaking in the same five places:
- Broad match keywords with no negatives. The fix: a search term audit and negative keyword lists.
- One ad group for every product. The fix: ad groups split by intent.
- Landing pages that ignore the search. The fix: ads and pages matched to each search.
- Conversion tracking counting page views. The fix: tracking real enquiries, with enhanced conversions and offline imports.
- Performance Max spending on brand searches. The fix: brand exclusions and guardrails.
Fixing these is often enough to cut cost per lead sharply. After one rebuild, an e-commerce brand got an 84% lower cost per acquisition on the same budget. A B2B software company went from one lead to 61 leads at $14 each in three months.
Can you advertise on Google for free?
Not with Google Ads. Every ad click is paid. What you can get for free is a Google Business Profile, which shows your business on Google Maps and in local results, and organic rankings through SEO. Many businesses run both: ads for leads this week, and SEO for leads that keep coming without a cost per click. Our SEO services page explains how the two work together.
Should you run Google Ads yourself or use an agency?
Run it yourself if your budget is small, you can spare a few hours a week, and you are willing to learn the search terms report. Use an agency when your spend is large enough that a 20% improvement pays for the fee, or when you have tried it yourself and the leads are not coming. If you are comparing options, read how to choose a paid search agency first.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to advertise on Google in South Africa?
You set your own budget and pay per click. Clicks for local service searches in South Africa usually cost between R10 and R50. Most small service businesses need R3,000 to R10,000 a month in ad spend to get enough clicks to learn what works.
How long does it take for Google Ads to work?
Ads can show within a day of approval. Getting to a steady, profitable cost per lead usually takes 4 to 12 weeks of testing keywords, ads and pages.
Do I need a website to advertise on Google?
Most campaign types need a page to send people to. A focused landing page for each main service works far better than your homepage.
What is the difference between Google Ads and SEO?
Google Ads buys a place at the top of the results for as long as you keep paying. SEO earns a place in the organic results that keeps working without a cost per click, but it takes months to build.
Want Google Ads that pay for themselves?
We set up and run Google Ads management for businesses that want enquiries, not clicks, with weekly updates and a monthly report. See how our PPC agency works, how we build lead generation around search, or book a discovery call.