Independent digital studio · since 2016
Google Ads can bring in customers from day one, or burn through your budget with nothing to show for it. The difference isn't how much you spend, but how you spend it. Here's how the cost works, how to calculate the right budget for you and how to tell whether your campaigns are paying off.
MBMarco BagiacchiFounder of Nalu and web developer
Google Ads is Google's advertising platform. It lets you show ads to people searching for certain words on Google, browsing partner sites, watching videos on YouTube and in other places. The most common model, especially for Search campaigns, is cost per click: you pay when someone clicks on your ad, not when they see it.
The price of each click isn't fixed. Every time someone searches, Google runs an auction among the advertisers interested in that keyword. But the highest bidder doesn't simply win: Google also considers the quality and relevance of the ad and of the landing page, and the experience they offer people.
| Factor | Effect |
|---|---|
| Keyword competition | The more advertisers compete, the more a click tends to cost. |
| Ad relevance | An ad that matches the search can get better positions at lower costs. |
| Landing page quality | A useful, fast page improves the overall assessment. |
| Industry | In some industries each customer is worth a lot, and clicks cost more. |
| Location and time of day | Areas and times with more competition have different costs. |
| Device | Performance can vary between smartphones and computers. |
Then there's an often overlooked point: you don't pay the maximum price you're willing to bid, but generally just enough to beat the advertiser below you in the auction, taking quality into account. That means better ads and pages don't just get higher positions, they can also cost less per click.
The result is that the same budget can bring very different results depending on how the campaign is built. That's why, before asking "how much to spend", it's worth asking "how to spend it".
The most common mistake is picking a random figure ("let's try 300 euros a month") and hoping for results. The right way is to start from the goal and work back to the budget you need. A few numbers are enough.
Calculate the average margin a new customer brings you, including repeat purchases over time.
Estimate how many of the inquiries you receive turn into customers: for example, one in four.
If a customer is worth €400 in margin and you close one lead in four, each lead is worth up to €100. You can decide to spend part of that.
Multiply the acceptable cost per lead by the number of leads you want: you get an indicative budget.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Average margin per new customer | 400 € |
| Lead close rate | 25% |
| Value of a lead | 100 € |
| Maximum acceptable cost per lead | 40 € |
| Leads wanted per month | 15 |
| Indicative ad budget | €600 a month |
The numbers are hypothetical and are only there to show the reasoning. Replace them with yours: you'll have a much more solid starting point than a figure chosen on gut feeling. Then the real data from the first few weeks will tell you whether your assumptions were right.
If you don't know what a customer is worth or your lead close rate, start measuring them. They are the two most important numbers for any marketing decision, not just for Google Ads.
Google Ads doesn't impose a meaningful minimum budget: you can start with modest amounts. But a budget that's too low has a practical problem: it doesn't generate enough clicks to show what works.
If each click costs a few euros and the budget allows only a few clicks a day, it will take weeks to collect enough data, and in the meantime the campaign may show only at certain hours or fail to compete on the most useful searches. It's better to focus a modest budget on a few highly targeted keywords, in a specific area, than to spread it over everything.
When it comes to Google Ads costs, you need to separate two items: the ad budget, which goes to Google for the clicks, and the management, meaning the work of the person who sets up, optimizes and measures the campaigns.
| Item | What it includes | From |
|---|---|---|
| Campaign launch | Strategy, account setup, conversion tracking and first campaigns ready to launch. | 450 € |
| Monthly management | Ongoing optimization, testing and reports, with a dedicated contact person. | €300 a month |
| Landing pages | Campaign-specific pages, designed and built by our team. | 500 € |
| Ad budget | Paid directly to Google, decided together with you. | Your choice |
The ad budget is always excluded from management costs and stays under your control: you pay it directly to Google, on your own account. It's a guarantee of transparency: you always know how much goes into advertising and how much into professional work.
The serviceGoogle Ads and Meta Ads: how we manage campaigns↗A campaign isn't something you set up once and leave to run. Management is what turns budget into results, and it happens every week.
Choosing searches with the right intent, excluding those that bring useless clicks.
Organizing campaigns and ad groups so that every search gets the most relevant ad.
Clear copy with a concrete benefit and a call to action, tested in several variants.
Correctly measuring leads, calls and sales, to know what produces results.
Moving budget to what pays off, adjusting bids, excluding unhelpful searches.
Clearly explaining what happened, what was learned and what the next steps are.
A good manager doesn't just "keep the campaigns running": they improve them month after month, lowering the cost per lead and raising the quality of inquiries.
You can have the perfect ad and the right budget, but if the page people land on after clicking doesn't convince them, the money is wasted. The landing page is often the element that makes the biggest difference.
Avoid sending campaign traffic to your homepage. A dedicated page, built for that specific search, almost always converts better and improves Google's quality assessment.
A campaign without conversion tracking is like a store that doesn't count its takings. You can see how many clicks you get, but you don't know which ones bring leads or sales, so you don't know where to invest and where to cut.
| Conversion | How it's measured |
|---|---|
| Form submission | Thank-you page or an event fired on submission. |
| Phone call | Taps on the number from smartphones or calls from the ads. |
| Purchase | Conversion with order value, to calculate the return. |
| Booking or chat inquiry | A dedicated event on completion. |
Tracking has to be set up before campaigns launch, in line with privacy and cookie consent rules. It's one of the first things we do during setup, because every later decision is based on this data.
One of the advantages of Google Ads is speed: ads can start bringing visits a few hours after approval. But "visits" doesn't yet mean "optimized results".
| Period | What happens |
|---|---|
| First few weeks | Data collection: which searches, which ads, which times work. |
| First and second month | Optimization: cut what doesn't pay off and strengthen what works. |
| From the third month | Stabilization: lower cost per lead, more predictable results. |
Judging a campaign after one week is almost always premature. You need time to collect enough data to make informed decisions.
Google Ads offers several types of campaigns. Each plays a different role, and the budget should be split accordingly.
| Type | Where it appears | What it's good for |
|---|---|---|
| Search | Among Google's results, when someone searches. | Reaching people already looking for what you offer. |
| Shopping | Product listings with photo and price in the results. | E-commerce stores that want to showcase their products. |
| Display | Banners on partner sites and apps. | Building awareness and bringing back people who already visited the site. |
| Video | On YouTube and partner sites. | Telling the brand story through video. |
| Performance Max | Across all Google channels, with automated management. | Advertisers with good conversion data. |
For most small and medium-sized businesses, Search is the most effective starting point: it reaches people who are already looking for your service, at the moment they're looking. For e-commerce stores, Shopping campaigns are often essential.
A common question is whether to invest in Google or in Instagram and Facebook. They are complementary channels, with different logic.
| Look | Google Ads | Meta Ads |
|---|---|---|
| Intent | Existing demand: people who are searching | Demand to create: people who aren't searching yet |
| Format | Mainly text, product listings, video | Images and video in feeds and stories |
| Best for | Services people search for, urgent needs, targeted purchases | Visual products, new launches, brands that need awareness |
| Targeting | Keywords, locations, times | Interests, behaviors, lookalike audiences |
If people are actively searching for what you offer, Google is usually the first choice. If your product needs to be discovered and has strong visual impact, Meta can be more effective. Often the combination of the two gives the best results.
Many industries have times of year when searches grow and others when they drop: travel before summer, gifts before the holidays, home services in spring, tax advice near the deadlines. A flat budget all year round risks being too low in the busy months and wasted in the quiet ones.
It pays to plan the budget on a yearly basis, concentrating spend in the periods when people search the most and the likelihood of conversion is highest. Data from previous years' campaigns, and tools like Google Trends, help you spot these moments.
For businesses that work in a specific area, such as professional firms, tradespeople, shops and restaurants, Google Ads offers tools designed to generate calls and visits, not just clicks to the website.
Ads can show a phone number to call with one tap, the address with directions, and opening hours. By linking the account to your Google Business Profile, ads can also appear on the map. In these cases the budget can be smaller, because the target area is limited and the searches are very targeted.
If your goal is phone calls, show the ads with your number only at times when someone can answer. A missed call is wasted budget and a disappointed customer.
Most people who visit a website for the first time don't contact the business right away: they research, compare, put it off. Remarketing lets you show ads to people who have already visited your site, reminding them of your offer while they browse other sites, watch videos or run new searches.
It's one of the tactics with the best cost-to-result ratio, because it targets people who already know your brand. Use it in moderation, capping how often the ads are shown so they don't feel intrusive, and always in line with cookie consent rules.
In recent years Google Ads has introduced more and more automation: bidding strategies that decide on their own how much to bid for each search, ads that automatically combine headlines and descriptions, campaigns like Performance Max that spread the budget across all Google channels.
These tools can work very well, but they need two things: reliable conversion data and careful supervision. Without correct tracking, the algorithm optimizes toward the wrong goals; without human oversight, it can spend on irrelevant searches or low-quality placements.
The campaign manager's role changes, but it doesn't disappear: it shifts from manually adjusting each bid to setting the right goals, data quality, choosing the messages and constantly checking results.
A campaign's success isn't measured in clicks or impressions, but in business results. Here are the indicators to watch.
| Indicator | What it measures |
|---|---|
| Cost per conversion | How much you spend on average to get a lead or a sale. |
| Conversion rate | The percentage of clicks that become leads or sales. |
| Return on ad spend | For e-commerce stores: how much revenue you make for every euro invested. |
| Lead quality | How many leads actually become customers. |
| Impression share | How often you appear compared with how often you could. |
The decisive comparison is between the cost of acquiring a customer and that customer's value. If the second exceeds the first by an adequate margin, the campaign is a profitable investment and it makes sense to increase the budget.
Google Ads and SEO aren't alternatives: they reinforce each other. Campaigns bring results right away and reveal which searches produce customers; SEO uses this information to build stable organic visibility that, over time, reduces your dependence on ads.
A balanced strategy often starts with a larger share of the budget on campaigns, to get immediate results, and gradually shifts spend toward content and SEO as organic visibility grows.
Read alsoHow much does SEO cost: prices, timelines and what it includes↗Google Ads is an extraordinary tool when used with method: it puts you in front of people at the exact moment they're looking for what you offer. With clear goals, a good landing page and reliable data, every euro you invest becomes a measurable decision.
The questions we're asked most often on this topic. If yours isn't here, write to us.
It depends on your goal, your industry and what a customer is worth. The right way is to start from the acceptable cost per lead and the number of leads you want, and calculate the budget from there.
There's no fixed price: the cost per click depends on competition, industry, and the quality of the ad and landing page. It varies a lot from one search to another.
With us, setup starts at €450 and monthly management at €300 a month, plus a dedicated landing page from €500 if needed (excl. VAT). The ad budget is excluded and you pay it directly to Google.
Visits arrive right away, but it takes a few weeks to collect data and optimize. Results generally become more stable and efficient from the second or third month.
Yes, especially if they focus on a few targeted searches, in a specific area, with an effective landing page and correct tracking.
No. You pay the ad budget directly to Google, on your own account. We only charge for setting up and managing the campaigns.
They complement each other: Google Ads brings immediate results, SEO builds lasting visibility. A balanced strategy uses both.
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