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Ad budget and planning tools

Most ad accounts are set up backwards: a budget picked from what feels affordable, campaigns built to fit it, and the value of a customer worked out last, if ever. These tools run in the order that holds up once money is spent.

Each one asks only for numbers you know about your own business. None of them needs an ad account, and nothing you enter is sent anywhere.

Use them in this order

  1. Step 1

    Lead value calculator

    Start with what a lead is worth. The share of leads that qualify, the share that become paid jobs and your average job give the most you can pay for a lead before the ads lose money.

  2. Step 2

    Break-even ROAS calculator

    If you sell orders rather than jobs, find the return on ad spend that covers product, shipping and fees and still keeps the profit you want on each order. Any target below it loses money however good it looks.

  3. Step 3

    Google Ads budget calculator

    Then set the monthly budget for what you sell and where you sell it, and see the point where more spend buys clicks that cost more than they return.

  4. Step 4

    Google Ads campaign planner

    With a budget in hand, choose the campaign types that fit the business and how to divide the money between them, with the settings and prerequisites each one needs before launch.

  5. Step 5

    ROI calculator

    Once results come in, check the return on everything the ads cost, not only the media spend, or solve for the return a target needs.

Before you rely on the numbers

ROAS and ROI answer different questions

Return on ad spend divides revenue by ad spend and ignores every other cost. Return on investment subtracts the costs you enter. A 4x ROAS on a product with a thin margin can still lose money, which is why the break-even figure comes before any target.

A conversion is not a customer

Ad platforms count form fills and calls. Spam, wrong numbers and people shopping on price are in that count. Value leads from the share that turn into paid work, or the budget will be set against a number that is too high.

The first month is not the answer

New campaigns spend part of their budget learning who converts. Judge cost per lead on several weeks of data and enough conversions to mean something, not on the first few days.

Keep reading

How-to, 30 minutes

Give your lead conversions a real value in Google Ads

Give each lead conversion a real value: your average sale times the share of leads that become customers. In Google Ads, open Goals, Conversions, Summary, click the action, then Edit settings and Value. Then change the amount your call tracker sends, which can default to 1. Changes apply only to new conversions.

How-to, 1 hour to set up, then a few minutes per upload

Send qualified leads and closed sales back to Google Ads

Create Qualified lead and Converted lead actions in Google Ads, keep each lead's click ID and email, and upload each stage once with its real value and the lead's ID as order ID. Wait for the final amount: a resend of the same conversion is dropped, and an upload without a click ID may never be correctable.

How-to, 20 minutes, then 1 to 2 weeks to settle

Set a target cost per lead (target CPA) in Google Ads

Set a target CPA from your real cost per lead: the campaign's spend divided by the leads in your own records. First make sure its Conversions column counts each lead once. Then open the campaign's settings, change its bid strategy to Target CPA, enter the amount and save.

How-to, 15 minutes

See which conversion actions your Google Ads bidding is chasing

Open Goals, Conversions, Summary and note which goals are account-default and which actions in them are Primary. Then read each campaign's Conversion goals setting. A campaign that bids for conversions chases the primary actions in its goals, plus every action in a custom goal. The rest is mostly for observation.

Question

Why does Google Ads show more conversions than I actually got?

Because Google Ads counts what your conversion actions track, not the leads you got. The usual causes are one lead tracked by two actions, lead actions set to count every conversion instead of one, and phone number taps or page views counted as conversions. Find the action behind the extra count, then fix it under Goals, Conversions.

Question

How much should a local business spend on Google Ads?

A local business should set its Google Ads budget from its own numbers. What you will pay to win a job times your close rate is the most a lead can cost. If click prices put a lead under that, leads wanted times cost per lead is the budget. Under 30 leads a month, bid for clicks on one service.

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