Small Business Digital
The Google Ads Mistake Most Small Businesses Make
1 April 2025
Google Ads is the channel where small businesses most reliably waste money. Not because the platform does not work: it works very well for local trades and service businesses when it is set up correctly. Because it works against you by default if you do not know what the default settings actually do.
Most small business owners who have tried Google Ads and found it did not work were not running bad ads. They were running ads with settings that spent their budget on the wrong people, in the wrong places, for the wrong searches.
The broad match problem
When you create a Google Ads campaign and type in your keywords, the default match type is broad match. Broad match tells Google to show your ad to anyone searching for anything it considers related to your keyword.
If you are a roofer in Dundalk and you add the keyword “roofer” on broad match, Google will show your ad to people searching for roofing tiles, DIY roof repair videos, roofing jobs in Sydney, and a dozen other queries that have nothing to do with hiring a roofer in Dundalk. You pay for each click, whether or not the person who clicked was ever going to call you.
The fix is to use phrase match or exact match keywords, which restrict when your ad appears to searches that contain your specific phrase or match your exact keyword. A keyword like “roofer Dundalk” in exact match will only show your ad to people searching for those specific words. The volume of clicks is lower. The proportion of those clicks that are relevant is dramatically higher.
The location targeting problem
Google Ads allows you to target ads to specific locations. By default, it shows your ads to people in your target location and people who have shown interest in your target location. That second category includes people in Dublin who have searched for Dundalk once, people who read an article about Dundalk, and people who have family there.
For a local trades business, you want your ads shown to people who are actually in your service area, not people who have expressed any connection to it. Change the location setting from the default to “People in or regularly in your targeted locations.” This filters out the people who are not actually in your area and saves budget for the people who might actually call you.
The search term report reveals what you are actually paying for
The most important report in Google Ads for a small business is the search term report. It shows the actual queries that triggered your ads and resulted in clicks.
Look at this report weekly when you first launch a campaign. You will almost certainly find searches that have nothing to do with your business. Add them as negative keywords, which tell Google not to show your ad for those queries. This is an ongoing process of refinement, not a one-time task.
Most small business owners running Google Ads have never looked at the search term report. They are paying for clicks from searches they would never have approved if they had seen them.
The landing page problem
Google Ads charges you per click. The click takes someone to a page on your website. If that page does not quickly and clearly answer the question the person was asking, they leave. You have paid for a click that generated nothing. This is the problem of converting the traffic you pay for.
For most trades businesses, the page the ad should send people to is not the homepage. It should be a page that specifically addresses the service they searched for, in the area they are in, with a clear phone number at the top and a simple way to make an enquiry. A page that matches the ad they clicked is significantly more likely to convert than a generic homepage.
Start small, measure everything
Assessing your readiness for Google Ads is essential before spending. The right budget to start a Google Ads campaign for a local trades business is not determined by what others spend. It is determined by your customer lifetime value and your tolerance for testing.
Understanding what to spend is important. Start with a budget that covers thirty to fifty clicks per month. That is enough data to see whether the campaign is generating enquiries without significant risk. Track every enquiry back to the campaign. If you get enquiries, increase the budget. If you do not, review the setup before increasing spend.
Maebh Collins works with small and micro businesses in Ireland on digital presence, local SEO, and business process automation.
Maebh Collins is a Chartered Accountant (FCA, ICAEW), Big 4 trained, with twenty years of experience building and running international businesses. She specialises in finance transformation, ecommerce operations, and digital strategy.