Google Ads Perth

How much should a Perth business spend on Google Ads?

Work backwards from your cost per click and how many leads you need. Many Perth trades and local services start with $1,000–$3,000 a month in ad spend, while legal, finance and medical often need more because clicks can cost $30 or higher. Management fees are separate from that spend.

A simple way to set a starting budget:

1. Find your likely cost per click. Google Keyword Planner shows top-of-page bid ranges for your keywords in Perth.
2. Estimate your conversion rate. For a service page with a phone number and short form, 5–10% is a reasonable planning range.
3. Decide how many leads you need. Divide by your conversion rate to get clicks, then multiply by cost per click.

Then sense-check it against job value. If an average job is worth $400 and a lead costs $150, you need to close more than one in three enquiries just to break even on ads. A roofing or solar job worth $8,000 can carry a far higher cost per lead.

Perth has its own quirks. Searches drop on long weekends and school holidays, demand for air-con and pool services spikes over summer, and FIFO workers often search outside normal hours. Your budget and ad schedule should follow those patterns rather than running flat all year.

Is $20 a day enough for Google Ads?

$20 a day is enough to test one service in one area, but it’s tight. It works out to about $608 a month, which at a $4–$15 cost per click buys roughly 40–150 clicks. At a 5–10% conversion rate, that’s somewhere between 2 and 15 leads a month.

The table below is illustrative maths, not a result or promise. Your actual cost per click and conversion rate depend on your industry, suburb, ads and landing page.

Daily budget	Approx. monthly spend	Clicks at $4 CPC	Clicks at $15 CPC	Leads at 5–10% conversion
$20	~$608	~152	~40	~2–15
$50	~$1,520	~380	~101	~5–38
$100	~$3,040	~760	~203	~10–76

Monthly spend uses Google’s 30.4-day average month. Google can spend up to twice your daily budget on busy days but won’t exceed 30.4 times it over a month.

So when does $20 a day make sense? When you’re in a lower-cost niche, target a handful of exact-intent keywords, limit ads to the suburbs you service, and run only during business hours. Spread $20 across all of Perth and a dozen services, and you’ll get a trickle of clicks too thin to learn from.

Do you add GST to Google Ads spend in Australia?

Yes. For Australian accounts, Google charges 10% GST on top of your ad spend, so a $1,000 month will be billed at $1,100. You don’t add GST inside your campaign settings. Your budget is set ex-GST and the tax appears on Google’s invoice.

If your business has an ABN and is registered for GST, you can usually claim the GST on Google Ads as an input tax credit on your BAS. Make sure your account’s billing details include your ABN so the invoices work as tax invoices. Every business’s situation is different, so check the specifics with your accountant.

How is Google Ads management priced?

Most Perth agencies charge either a flat monthly fee or a percentage of ad spend, usually with your spend paid directly to Google. We charge a flat $500–$1,500 a month depending on account size, because a percentage fee rewards spending more rather than spending well.

Pricing model	How it works	Watch out for
Flat monthly fee	Fixed fee regardless of spend	Check what’s included: tracking, landing pages, reporting
Percentage of spend	Often 10–20% of monthly ad spend	The agency earns more when you spend more
Setup fee plus monthly	One-off build fee, then ongoing management	Make sure you own the account after setup

Whatever model you choose, insist on two things. You should own the Google Ads account, and you should be able to see every search term, cost and conversion inside it. Be wary of 6- or 12-month lock-in contracts. We work month-to-month.

Why do Google Ads campaigns waste money?

Most wasted Google Ads spend in Perth comes from four fixable problems: broad match keywords, no negative keywords, missing conversion tracking, and sending every click to the homepage. Together they can mean a large share of budget goes to searches and visitors that were never going to become customers.

• Broad match keywords. “Plumber” on broad match can show your ad for “plumber salary WA” or “plumbing apprenticeship”. Phrase and exact match keep you closer to buyers.
• No negative keywords. Without blocking terms like “jobs”, “free”, “DIY” or suburbs you don’t service, you pay for clicks that never convert.
• No conversion tracking. If Google can’t see which clicks become calls and forms, its automated bidding optimises for clicks instead of leads.
• Homepage landing pages. Someone searching “hot water system replacement Mandurah” wants a page about exactly that, with a clear phone number. A generic homepage loses them.

Our free Google Ads account review checks all four and shows you the actual search terms you’ve paid for. Many owners have never seen that report.

Google Ads or SEO: which should you do first?

Start with Google Ads if you need enquiries in the next few weeks, and SEO if you can wait 3–6 months for lower long-term cost per lead. Ads stop the day you stop paying. SEO keeps producing leads, but takes time to build.

Situation	Better first step
New business, need calls now	Google Ads
Established site, tight budget	SEO, starting with local SEO
High job value, competitive market	Both, with Ads data guiding SEO targets
Seasonal demand (air-con, pools)	Ads in season, SEO year-round

Running both lets you use Ads data to see which keywords actually convert, then point your SEO at those searches. For the organic side, see our SEO agency and SEO for tradies pages.

Already running ads? Request a free Google Ads account review using the form above, or get a free SEO audit if you’d rather start with organic.