“How much should I spend on Google Ads?” is one of the first questions we get from every electrician we talk to, and the honest answer is that it depends heavily on your area, your competition, and how tightly your campaign is built. This breaks down what UK electricians typically pay, where the cost actually goes, and what pushes it up or down. If you want the wider picture first, our electrician marketing guide covers where PPC fits against your other channels, and our PPC service page covers how we run campaigns for clients.
What Does a Click Actually Cost?
Cost per click varies significantly depending on how urgent and specific the search term is. Emergency terms cost more because the buyer intent is high and every electrician bidding wants that click immediately.
| Search Term Type | Typical Cost Per Click | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Emergency / urgent | £8 to £12 | “emergency electrician [town]” |
| Local service, high intent | £5 to £9 | “electrician near me” |
| Specific job type | £3 to £7 | “consumer unit upgrade cost” |
| Commercial / broader | £4 to £8 | “commercial electrician [town]” |
| Brand or informational | £1 to £3 | Searches including your business name |
These ranges shift by region. Campaigns targeting London and the South East tend to sit at the higher end due to competition, while smaller towns with fewer electricians bidding can see meaningfully lower costs per click for the same search terms.
Typical Monthly Budgets
Cost per click only tells you part of the story. What actually matters is cost per lead and cost per booked job, which depends on how well your landing page converts once someone clicks.
| Business Stage | Ad Spend | Typical Leads per Month |
|---|---|---|
| Testing the channel | £500 to £800 | 15 to 30 |
| Established, steady growth | £1,000 to £2,000 | 35 to 70 |
| Scaling across multiple areas | £2,000 to £4,000+ | 70 to 150+ |
Lead volume ranges here assume a reasonably well-built campaign with a dedicated landing page rather than a homepage. A poorly targeted campaign can spend the same budget and produce a fraction of the leads, which is the most common reason electricians write PPC off as “too expensive” when the real issue is campaign structure.
Where the Money Actually Goes
Your total monthly PPC cost usually splits into two parts: the ad spend itself, which goes to Google, and a management fee if you use an agency, which pays for campaign building, ongoing optimisation, and reporting.
- Ad spend: paid directly to Google per click, scales with your budget and competition
- Management fee: typically a flat monthly fee or a percentage of ad spend, covering keyword research, negative keyword management, and bid adjustments
- Landing page and tracking setup: often a one-off cost, though this pays for itself quickly through a better conversion rate
Google’s own Google Ads Help documentation explains how the auction and Quality Score system works, which directly affects what you pay per click for the same position.
What Pushes Your Cost Per Lead Up or Down
Two electricians spending the same monthly budget can end up with very different results. The main variables are:
- Geographic targeting: bidding across an entire county wastes spend on clicks outside your realistic service area. Tight radius targeting around your actual coverage keeps cost per lead down.
- Negative keywords: without these, your ads show for searches like “electrician course” or “electrician jobs”, which cost you clicks that were never going to become customers.
- Landing page match: sending emergency call-out traffic to a general homepage instead of a page built specifically for that search noticeably reduces conversion rate.
- Call tracking: without it, you cannot see which keywords actually produce phone calls, which makes it impossible to cut the ones that do not.
If you are still deciding whether PPC or organic search is the better starting point for your budget, our SEO vs PPC comparison covers that trade-off in more depth. Google Local Services Ads are also worth comparing directly, since they charge per lead rather than per click. See our guide to Local Services Ads for how the two compare on cost.
How to Reduce Your Cost Per Lead
- Start with a tight geographic radius and expand only once you know your close rate
- Build a dedicated landing page for your highest-value service rather than linking ads to your homepage
- Review search term reports weekly in the first month to catch irrelevant clicks early
- Add call tracking from day one so you know which keywords produce real bookings, not just clicks
- Pause underperforming keywords rather than letting a campaign run untouched for months
Our website checklist is also worth running through before launching a campaign, since a slow or unclear landing page will quietly inflate your cost per lead regardless of how well the ads themselves are built.
FAQs
What is a realistic minimum budget for Google Ads as an electrician?
Most electricians need at least £500 to £800 a month to gather enough data to properly test and optimise a campaign. Anything lower rarely generates enough clicks to draw reliable conclusions.
Why is cost per click so high for electrician searches?
Emergency and local service searches carry high buyer intent, and multiple electricians are usually bidding on the same limited pool of searches in any given area, which pushes the auction price up.
Is Google Ads cheaper than Local Services Ads?
It depends on your conversion rate. Google Ads charges per click regardless of whether that click converts, while Local Services Ads charges per lead. A well-optimised Google Ads campaign can be cheaper per lead, but a poorly built one usually is not.
How quickly will I see results from Google Ads?
Leads can start arriving within days of launch, though the first few weeks are usually spent gathering data and refining targeting before cost per lead settles into a stable range.
Does a higher budget always mean more leads?
Not necessarily. Beyond a certain point, a poorly targeted campaign just spends faster without producing more bookings. Campaign structure and landing page quality matter more than budget size alone.
