Advertising

Some businesses need ads. Plenty don’t. Before we talk about a budget, it helps to know there are two very different kinds of ad, because they do different jobs. The difference is who’s looking at them.

Active audience ads, like the ones you see at the top of Google when you do a search, show up when someone is already looking.

They typed in what you do, in the place you do it, and your ad is one of the answers. A Google Search ad works this way.

Someone with a leaking water heater searching “plumber near me” is ready to call, and that’s why this is where we start for most local businesses.

Passive audience ads show up while someone is scrolling on social media.

They weren’t looking for you, so the ad has to stop the scroll.

That can be a great fit for an inn, a restaurant, an event, or a shop with something worth showing off. It’s a weak fit for a business that mostly hears from people when they have a problem right now. It’s a tool with a place, not a tool for every business or every product.

Social media management is its own service. If we are already looking after your posts on Facebook and Instagram, we generally roll the ads on those platforms into that work. You still pay the ad budget to Meta, or to whichever platform we are using, but you don’t pay a second management fee on top of the social retainer for those ads.

Get in touch and we’ll tell you which type of ad suits your business. We’ll also tell you if neither does. Send us an email at [email protected] or call (252) 349-3280 and we’ll be in touch by the next business day.

For most local businesses, a good place to begin is $300 to $500 a month, paid directly to Google. That money doesn’t come to us. It’s your ad budget.

What comes to us is smaller than most people expect, and it gets smaller once the account settles:

• Setting up your first Search campaign starts at $500. That covers setting up the Google Ads account, the campaign, the keywords, the ad copy, and conversion tracking, so we can tell whether an ad led to a call or a form and not just a click. Your ad budget is separate.
• A second campaign starts at $150. A second service or a second town doesn’t cost what starting from scratch does.
• The first month or two need a closer eye, because that’s when the wasted searches show up. Figure on about $250 a month for monitoring for that stretch.
• Once things settle, keeping an eye on it runs about $150 to $200 a month. We look at the searches, pause what’s wasting money, and tell you what we see in plain English.

All in, the first two months usually come to about $1,000 to us, plus whatever you’ve chosen to spend with Google. After that, our part drops. That’s on purpose. A settled account doesn’t need the attention a new one does.

A budget of $300 to $500 is enough for us to keep your account from wasting money. It isn’t enough to promise a full calendar. At that size there isn’t enough data to learn something new every week, and we’d rather tell you now than have you find out in month three.

Before you spend on ads, make sure your free Google listing is in good shape. Our guide to getting your Google Business Profile right walks you through it. Just starting out? Our Starter Site includes basic search setup, and we’re glad to talk about ads once you’re ready.

A business spending around $2,000 a month with Google, in more than one market, is a different job. There’s enough search volume to really refine, and the management fee is different. We price that when we see the account, and we don’t quote it to a business that’s starting with a $300-a-month ad budget.

If your customers make up their minds while they’re scrolling, a Meta campaign can sit beside Search or stand on its own. Photos and a clear offer matter more there than keywords do. We won’t recommend it just to add a line to the invoice. If we think it fits, we’ll tell you what the setup would involve and what a reasonable test budget looks like before you spend anything.

Where it plays. Google Ads isn’t only search. The same account can run short video ads on YouTube, and those ads can be set to play on TV screens: smart TVs, streaming sticks, and game consoles, whatever brand of set is in the living room. YouTube is now among the most-watched things on television, so a video ad there reaches people where they actually sit down in the evening.

Who sees it. Like a Search campaign, a video campaign can be limited to the ZIP codes, or the distance around you, that you really serve. You aren’t paying to reach people three counties away.

What it takes to try. Google sets no minimum spend, so a modest budget can run a fair test before anyone commits to more. Because we already manage Google Ads for our clients, a video campaign can sit in the same account, and in the same monthly note, as your Search ads.

The ad itself. This is the harder part. A 15- or 30-second spot has to make sense from across the room, with the sound low and the name easy to read. We write and produce these with our multimedia partner studio.

Bigger streaming campaigns. Other streaming services, such as Hulu and Peacock, also sell ads to local advertisers. If your plans reach that far, we’ll look at what’s available in your area and tell you what we’d expect before you commit to a budget.

Ads work better with something worth looking at. Beyond YouTube, we can make video for a Meta campaign, and we can shoot photography for your ads, too. If you run a business or a nonprofit and aren’t sure whether you need either one, ask us. Sometimes a few good photos do more than a video would, and we’ll say so.

We won’t turn on a campaign and disappear. We won’t hand you a spreadsheet of impressions and call it a report. Every month you’ll get a short, plain note: what happened, what we changed, and what we’re watching.

Tell us what you sell, where you sell it, and what a new customer is worth, and we’ll tell you whether ads belong in the picture at all.

Send us an email at [email protected] or call (252) 349-3280 and we’ll be in touch by the next business day.