Google Ads
Google Ads gives small businesses a faster route to the top of the search results, but getting the click is only the first part of the job. This guide to Google Ads walks through what those clicks cost, which campaigns make sense, and how much you may need to spend before the numbers tell you anything useful. You will also learn when Google Ads makes financial sense, what to expect, and how paid search can support your SEO strategy.
- By Mike Purvis Co-founder of NH Strategic Marketing
- November 22, 2020
- August 25, 2026
Are Google Ads Worth It for Small Businesses?
Yes, Google Ads can be worth it for small businesses when customers already search for what they sell, the business can handle more work, and the profit from a new customer comfortably exceeds the cost of acquiring one. It works particularly well for local services, professional services, e-commerce, and other businesses where one sale can be worth hundreds or thousands of dollars.
Google Ads is most likely to be worth the investment when:
- Your target customers use Google to find services like yours.
- Your average sale and profit margin can support paid acquisition.
- You have a clear offer and a relevant landing page.
- Calls, forms, bookings, and purchases are tracked accurately.
- Someone can respond to new inquiries quickly.
- You can run the campaign for 60 to 90 days before making a final judgment.
Do Google Ads Work For Small Businesses?
It can seem overwhelming for a small business to earn a spot on the all-important first page of Google search results the organic way. Getting your business onto the front page of Google creates a steady flow of quality web traffic that helps potential customers discover you.
Reaching that point means navigating a not-clear-at-all path through a constantly changing, top-secret algorithm. And even if you knew exactly what to do, you would still need to take the steps to get there.
There is a faster pathway, though. Faster in a sense, and it does call for an investment (money). So, do Google Ads work for small businesses? Is Google Ads worth it? Well, it depends. Here is my take.
Google Ads allows small businesses to target their audience, optimize campaigns in real-time, and scale efforts as they see success. My team and I have been placing Google Ads for small business accounts since 2012, across 36+ states and industries as different as paving, dentistry, water treatment, roofing, and more. The pattern we noticed is that paid search rewards owners who know their numbers and treat the account like a machine that needs a weekly look, and it frustrates small business owners who set it up once and walk away.
The Old-Fashioned Route To Getting To The Top Of Google
First, it’s important that we further look at the old fashioned way of getting your business’ name out there: organically. Organic traffic is also known as SEO, or Search Engine Optimization.
The main positive feature of this method is that it’s trusted by users. One of the reasons why just 2.5% of clicks are on links in the 10th spot and later is because users trust Google to present them with the most useful options at or near the top. If you can get yourself as high up on the page as possible, that’s great. However, getting into that rarefied air is a challenge. It doesn’t help that Google is constantly changing the rules of the game either.
You will need to either be especially studious of SEO or outsource that type of work to someone who is, and even that might not be enough. Plus, it’ll take, in most cases, a considerable amount of time (6 months to a year plus just to start ranking for keywords you want to show up for).
Also, even if you get that coveted top spot, which results in 28.5% of the click-throughs, you will still be sitting below organizations that paid their way above you through Google Ads. Not to mention, depending on what kind of business you are in the change of beating out very established national website may be near impossible.
How To Guarantee Yourself A Premier Place On The Front Page of Google?
Do you know how, at some otherwise free concerts, the organizers will sell access to spaces next to the stage while allowing 99% of the concertgoers free access to everywhere else? That front row access is a great place to be.
That’s how Google Ads for small business works with keyword searches. It offers a way for businesses and others to not only purchase access to the event, i.e., a concert or search engine results listings, but also to sit right in front of the stage and ahead of everyone else, in the case of some results listings, billions of those behind them.
As is so often the case in business, the question is if the sacrifice is worth the reward. That comes down to arithmetic, and we get to the arithmetic below.
When To Use Google Ads For Small Businesses
Those looking for an answer to the question, “Is Google Ads worth it?” or, using the platform name before 2018, “Is Google AdWords worth it?” should also know under what circumstances Google Ads for small businesses are used as they aren’t utilized for all Google searches.
They’re only used when a keyword search is deemed to have “commercial intent” as opposed to what’s viewed as a simple search for information. As a result, “Is Google Ads worth it?” may not even apply to your situation if your most relevant keywords are not deemed to have “commercial intent.” There won’t be any ad space to purchase.
If there is no “commercial intent” in your case, that can be good news, as that likely means that your business is unique or nearly unique and might fit a virtual nook in a way that meets a not-yet-met need.
Conversely, if there is “commercial interest,” that means that the Google users who typed in that keyword are likely looking to purchase what you’re offering now or in the near future.
Some Factors To Determine If a Google Ads Campaign Is Right For Your Small Business
Google Ads are great to “cut the line” and get your business showing at the top of the search engine listings. It isn’t necessarily a fit for all businesses however. Here are some of the key criteria we look at to determine if it is a good advertising tool for your business.
Are You Looking To Grow Your Business?
One of the key factors to take into account when deciding if Google Ads is a good fit for your business is the question of “Am I looking to grow my business?” If you are maxed out in your business or can’t handle any new customers then launching a Google Ads lead generation campaign may not be the best option to lead with.
Provided you are looking to grow your business, can handle more business, then Google Ads is a phenomenal tool to help small businesses grow.
Does The Math Make Sense?
A big determining factor of whether Google Ads is a good fit for your business is a simple question of math. Does the math make sense for your business? Google Ads for some businesses just doesn’t make sense.
For others, it makes perfect sense. A big factor is in determining if it is a fit for your business is how expensive your products and services are.
For example, if you are a restaurant owner and your margins are razor thin, then Google Ads likely wouldn’t be a great option for your business.
On the other hand, if you are a landscaper, a paving company, a lawyer, water treatment company, etc and you sell products or services that are expensive then this strong evidence that running a targeted Google Ads campaign would work for your business.
For businesses that sell expensive products or services if you can acquire customers at a reasonable cost per lead and the customers are worth enough to you the math typically makes sense.
Are Your Competitors Running Google Ads?
One quick way to determine if Google Ads might be a good idea for your business is to open up a Google browser and type in some keywords that your prospective customers might type in to look for a business like yours. As an example, if you are a landscaper, someone might type in:
- “Landscaper near me”
- “paver patio installer”
- “retaining wall contractor”
- “outdoor kitchen contractor”
Now if you type in some of those keywords and you see competitors running Google Ads (look for the ad at the top of the page) then there is a strong chance it might be a good idea.
Especially if that competitor has been running Ads for many months or years. Most smart business owners wouldn’t be running Google ads for that long a period of time if it wasn’t profitable for them.
My team and I have special tools where we can “spy on your competitors” for clues as to how much they are spending and what strategies they are using. We break down the approach in how to ethically spy on your competitors.
What Is Your Customer Lifetime Value?
Picking up on the Math of Google Ads, another contributing factor to consider is the lifetime value of a customer for your business.
As an example, we run ads for many E-commerce or Software as a Service (SAAS) businesses that can acquire a customer from Google Ads. The real business goal of an effective paid ads campaign is to acquire a customer.
For well-run businesses that know their customer lifetime value, it can make complete sense to break even or even lose a little money on that front end sale as long as they know the average customer lifetime value makes acquiring those customers worth it.
For instance, if it costs $40 in Google Ads to acquire a customer but a business knows the recurring component or backend sales equal hundreds of dollars over the course of a year, it can make perfect sense to invest in Google Ads.
Google Ads For E-Commerce Business
As mentioned above, we run very effective Google Advertising campaigns for many e-commerce businesses. People can’t buy from your eCommerce store if they don’t know that you exist.
Text ads, Shopping ads, and remarketing ads together make a strong combination for putting your brand on the first page and drawing new customers to your store. If remarketing is new to you, our article on how retargeting works covers the mechanics in plain language.
Running Effective Google Ads For Your Small Business: Bidding And Paying
If you’ve decided that you would like to dip your toes into Google Ads or even dive right into the deep end, you’ll be taking part in an automated bidding process that is auction-like in its style. You would then pay per click.
This will usually cost you around $1 to $12, generally towards the lower end but sometimes reaching as high as $50. I want to stress that that’s the cost per click.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll receive a lead or a conversion. The quality of what you show them after they arrive on your landing page will influence those decisions.
As a result of those reasonably high costs, you do have the potential to spend quite a lot of money in a short period of time, so it’s important to be careful and analytical before deciding if this is the right step for you and, if it is, just how much of your marketing budget you want to devote to it. You’re also going to want to ensure that you understand the specifics of how Google will deploy your Google Ads budget.
What Google Ads For Small Business Costs
Those ranges come from our own accounts. Here is what the wider data says, which is useful for setting expectations before your first dollar goes out the door. The honest answer about what Google Ads for small business costs starts with your industry, because auction prices swing widely from one category to the next.
Average cost per click, all industries.
Average search ad click-through rate.
Average conversion rate.
Average cost per lead.
2026 search advertising benchmarks by industry (US)
| Industry | Avg. cost per click | Avg. conversion rate | Avg. cost per lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attorneys & Legal Services | $9.87 | 5.55% | $131.63 |
| Home & Home Improvement | $8.33 | 8.05% | $90.92 |
| Dentists & Dental Services | $8.00 | 10.67% | $72.97 |
| Personal Services | $7.17 | 12.34% | $54.60 |
| Health & Fitness | $6.17 | 6.94% | $67.36 |
| Business Services | $5.87 | 4.85% | $93.69 |
| Physicians & Surgeons | $4.76 | 12.43% | $40.04 |
| Automotive Repair & Service | $4.35 | 15.51% | $29.96 |
| Real Estate | $3.22 | 3.70% | $102.51 |
| Restaurants & Food | $2.05 | 8.05% | $30.57 |
| All industries | $5.42 | 8.18% | $66.69 |
Two things stand out in that table. High cost per click and high profit go together. A law firm paying close to ten dollars a click still comes out ahead when a single case is worth thousands.
And a high conversion rate does more for your economics than a cheap click, which is why automotive repair produces $30 leads at a higher cost per click than real estate producing $100 leads.
The famous 8-to-1 figure
You will see “businesses make $8 for $1 spent” on Google Ads quoted all over the internet. That number comes from Google’s Economic Impact methodology, and it blends the value of paid ads with organic search, averaged across advertisers of all sizes. Treat it as a directional signal rather than a forecast for your account. Your own margins and close rate decide the outcome.
How Much To Budget Before Your First Campaign Goes Live
How much should you put behind this before you know if it works? There are two questions you should answer.
- What can you afford to pay for a lead?
- How many clicks do you need before the data means anything?
Work Out Your Allowable Cost Per Lead
We recommend that you start from your own economics instead of relying on the published average.
Allowable cost per lead = gross profit per new customer × lead-to-customer close rate × the share of profit you will reinvest in marketing
Say you run a paving company. The average job brings $6,000 with a 40% gross margin, so $2,400 in gross profit.
You close 25% of the leads that come in, which puts $600 of gross profit behind an average lead. Reinvest 20% of that in advertising and your allowable cost per lead is $120. Compare that with the $90.92 average for home improvement in the table above and the picture becomes clear quickly.
Then Fund Enough Clicks To Learn Something
A workable starting budget for Google Ads for small business lands between $1,000 and $2,500 per month in most local markets, which is roughly $33 to $83 per day.
At a $6 average click, that buys between 5 and 14 clicks a day. Smart bidding needs somewhere near 15 to 30 conversions before it has enough signal to make good decisions, so budgeting for that volume is what turns a test into an answer.A workable starting budget for Google Ads for small business lands between $1,000 and $2,500 per month in most local markets, which is roughly $33 to $83 per day.
Small budgets can work in low-competition niches and tight service radii. Below about $600 a month in a category with $8 clicks, the sample size gets thin enough that you may pause a keyword too early or judge an ad before it had a fair run.
Our article on how much a small business should spend on marketing puts the ad budget in the context of your whole marketing plan.
Picking A Campaign Type That Suits Your Google Ads Budget
Google offers several campaign types, and the choice shapes how far a modest budget travels. Search is where the vast majority of our small business clients begin, because you keep control of the keywords, the copy, and the destination.
Campaign types compared for a small advertising budget
| Campaign type | Best suited to | Control you keep | Our view for smaller budgets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search | Local services, lead generation, any budget size. | High | Start here. |
| Local Services Ads | Home services, legal, medical. | Medium, pay per lead | Worth running alongside Search if you qualify. |
| Shopping | E-commerce and retail with a product feed. | Medium | Core channel for product sales. |
| Performance Max | E-commerce and larger budgets. | Low | Add once you clear 30 conversions a month. |
| Demand Gen | Visual discovery on YouTube and Discover. | Medium | A second-phase channel. |
| Display Ads | Brand awareness and remarketing. | Medium | Best kept for remarketing to past visitors. |
Performance Max deserves a word of its own. Google’s automation gets stronger the more conversion data you feed it, so a campaign type designed to spread spend across Search, YouTube, Video ads, Display, Discover, and Gmail tends to serve larger accounts better. Search first, conversion data second, then broader automation once the signal is there.
Campaign types compared for a small advertising budget
Local Services Ads sit above the standard text ads and charge per lead rather than per click. Qualifying businesses pass a background and license check and receive the Google Guaranteed badge, which gives a homeowner a reason to pick you over the listing below.
Home services, legal practices, and medical offices are the categories where we see this pay off most, and it stacks nicely with a Search campaign covering the keywords Local Services Ads do not reach. If you run a trade business, our piece on getting new paving leads with online ads shows the combination in action.
Google Ad Strategies To Use
When you consider which keywords to pay for ad space on, the first thing that you want to take into account is how common they are. For example, “baseball tickets” would likely entail you paying a significant amount per click while a keyword search that’s focused on a local minor league team would result in a lower cost.
It would also lead to a significant percentage of users on that page looking for exactly what you have to sell.
You Could Also Target Your Competitors.
If your baseball team has a rival club in the same metropolitan area, you could pay for keywords related to that other team in an attempt to steal their fans. However, do note that there is some risk here as clickers who want tickets to the other team’s games may immediately leave your web page after arriving and realizing their mistake, leaving you with the cost of paying for that click and nothing else.
Regardless of what type of organization yours is, a geographically based keyword is a great strategy when it applies to your situation, meaning you are not selling to a national or worldwide audience. In fact, this should be viewed as a must for you if you’re solely focused on a local audience. For example, a dentist’s office will not usually look to attract customers from hundreds or thousands of miles away (more like a 10-15 mile radius).
Also Take Note Of Keywords That Do Not Apply To You At All.
Are you running a Paving company that does not offer Line striping? You may want to list “line striping” as a negative keyword so that your ad isn’t triggered for a keyword that contains “line striping company near me.”
You don’t want somebody calling looking for parking lot line striping and not being able to serve them at all. Or maybe you do, e.g., by utilizing an unintentional bait-and-switch selling strategy.
What Time Of Day Is Best For Your Ads To Run?
To get the most out of the money that you’re spending, take into account what time your ads will be visible. Of course, many businesses nowadays sell items on a 24-7 basis.
However, if, for example, you own a service based business like many of our clients, you may want to focus your ads on being visible only during your normal business hours, when your team will be more available to handle those incoming calls.
Do also check what types of results show up with your chosen keywords. If what currently appears on that search-results page are organizations and other types of listings that are not at all similar to yours, consider using different keywords.
How we handle this for clients: For our paid advertising clients, we take care of keyword selection, write the ads, create the landing page, and handle Google Ads management and tracking. You approve the offer and answer the phone.
Increasing Your Real Estate On The Results Page
A great way to increase your clicks is to use sitelink assets. These expand the size of your ad, which is the real estate you have purchased. Several add-ons are available (call assets, sitelink assets, location assets, structured snippets, and more).
The more space your ad takes up, the higher your click-through rate can climb. Google renamed these from “extensions” to “assets” a few years back, so both names still appear in older guides.
For our paid advertising clients, we fill out as many relevant assets as the account supports, since that extra height on the page is free to claim.
Four Important Settings You Should Know When Setting Up A Google Ads Campaign
Before the campaign goes live, four defaults deserve a deliberate look. Google sets them for advertisers with far bigger budgets than a local business carries, and changing them takes ten minutes.
The default option shows your ads to people “in or regularly in” plus people simply interested in your area. Switching to presence-based targeting keeps your spend on people who are physically in your service radius.
New Search campaigns arrive with Search Partners and Display expansion switched on. Turning both off for a lead generation campaign concentrates your budget on Google search results, where the intent lives.
Google can apply its own suggestions to your account automatically, which often means broader keywords or a higher budget. Reviewing those suggestions yourself keeps you in the driver seat.
Phrase and exact match give a young account tighter control over which searches trigger your ad. Broad match becomes a strong option later, once conversion history gives the bidding algorithm something to steer by.
Where Are You Sending Visitors From The Google Ad?
Imagine yourself searching for a stationary bicycle that you can use during the cooler months. You head to Google to see what’s available. You’re intrigued by one of the paid advertisements and click on it. “Running Shoes.” What’s this?
You’re presented with a page showing you dozens of running shoes to purchase. They all look impressive and you may have considered buying a pair had you not just got some new ones a week ago. You quickly scan the page for any mention of a stationary bicycle, don’t find any, and, frustrated, head back to Google.
This is a situation that you want to avoid. Now, that is a more extreme example, but I hope that it got your attention. You want wherever you’re sending the clicker to be a web page that’s very relevant to the keyword that was used in their search. For our paid advertising clients, we fill out as many relevant assets as the account supports, since that extra height on the page is free to claim.
In this example, you would want somebody who clicks on your PPC ad to be sent to a landing page that specializes in stationary bicycles.
For that reason you will want to avoid sending traffic straight to your home page in most cases. Doing that asks visitors to search all over again, figuring out where to go, at the moment they thought their search was finished. That leads to frustration and to people hitting the back button to visit a competitor site.
However, in some situations, using your home page of your small business website as your landing page may make sense. One example could be if all you sell are stationary bicycles.
The Importance of Custom Landing Pages
One strategy that some small businesses use is to create customized landing pages for these ads. These should be optimized to convert. For example, they could include a special deal that’s not otherwise available on your website.
Another benefit of using a landing page is it gives you complete clarity in what you get out of that page for new leads and customers for your business. We use sophisticated call tracking and web form tracking on the pages we build to ensure our client’s can see the leads and customers they are getting out of the campaign.
Better visibility in the successful Google Ads campaign performance allows for better decisions.
Also take into account that having a lot of people pogo-stick, clicking on your link and returning almost immediately to Google’s search results, will also result in Google starting to charge you more per click.
For all of these reasons, make sure that any wrinkles in your landing pages, value propositions and overall messaging have been ironed out prior to spending your money on Google Ads unless you’re intentionally using this service to test things.
That way, you won’t be paying for incoming traffic that doesn’t evolve into sales figures at a high enough percentage, and you won’t be turning prospective customers off, leaving a bad taste in their mouths.
Using PPC To Experiment And Analyze Results
One of the top benefits of PPC advertising that many do not consider is the ability to use it to test ideas. For example, if you have two or more web pages that are related to a keyword and you’re not sure which one would be better to use, initially use them all, and analyze the results.
In particular, check the Quality Scores that Google awards as that will likely be the best indicator that you will have. Also note that the higher your QS is, the less you’ll have to pay and the higher your conversion rate will be.
What is a Quality Score (QS)? As is the norm for all things Google, no one knows what the exact formula is, but the primary factors are the click-through rate, any relevant Google Ads historical data and the relevancy of the keyword, your copy, how many people take action (tracked calls and web leads) and your landing page.
Simply being able to analyze the results of your ads is such a great benefit to have as well. PPC advertising provides numerous ways to measure your return on investment and determine if it makes financial sense to take advantage of this, if the answer to “Does Google Ads work for every small business?” is an affirmative in your case, or to more clearly see what changes you need to make in order to start receiving a positive ROI.
You can also alter the copy of your ads to see what wording achieves the most positive results. In this area, focus on trying out different headlines, as that’s the first thing that viewers will see.
The Metrics That Show You Google Ads Performance
Ask an owner what a campaign produced and the answer should arrive as a count of leads. Conversion tracking is the piece that turns Google Ads for small business from a spending line into a measurable channel, and it belongs in place before the first ad goes live.
Phone calls, form submissions, booked appointments, and purchases all count, and call tracking carries a lot of weight for service businesses where the phone does the closing.
With tracking running, four metrics tell you nearly the whole story.
| Metric | What it answers | A useful reference point |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per lead | What you pay for one inquiry. | $66.69 average across industries, though your allowable figure is the number that counts. |
| Conversion rate | How well the click and the page work together. | 8.18% average on search campaigns. |
| Return on ad spend | Revenue produced per dollar spent. | 3:1 is a common baseline, set yours from your margins. |
| Search impression share | How much of the available demand you capture. | Below 50% suggests room to raise budget or tighten targeting. |
As an owner, you should also build a habit to read the search terms report weekly. It shows the queries people typed before clicking, which is where your next batch of negative keywords comes from and where you find the profitable phrases nobody thought to bid on.
Send us your average job value and close rate. We will tell you what a lead can be worth to you, what clicks cost in your category, and if paid search deserves a place in your plan. Straight answer, no obligation.
Paid Search, SEO And AI Search Visibility
Two channels, two different clocks. Ads deliver traffic within days, and SEO compounds over quarters. Running them together lets the paid data tell you which keywords convert, and those proven keywords become the priorities for your organic work.
We wrote about that combination in our recipe for pairing Google Ads with local SEO, and the same logic guides our SEO and Google Business Profile work.
A growing share of buyers now open ChatGPT, Gemini, or an AI Overview before they open a list of blue links. Those systems assemble answers from sources they trust, which raises the value of clear service pages, consistent business details, and third-party mentions. Our AI search visibility service covers that ground.
Running The Google Ads Account In-House Or With A Partner
When Running Google Ads For Small Business In-House Makes Sense
Managing the account yourself works well when your spend sits under about $1,000 a month, you serve a single local market, and you can give the account an hour a week. That hour goes to the search terms report, a look at cost per lead by keyword, and one copy test. Owners who enjoy the numbers side of the business often do a fine job here.
When A Managed Partner Earns Its Fee
Bringing in help to manage Google Ads tends to pay for itself once spend passes roughly $2,000 a month, your market is competitive, or your hours are worth more elsewhere. The advantage a good partner brings is pattern recognition across dozens of accounts, which shortens the learning curve considerably.
Green flags when you are interviewing: they ask about your margins and close rate before they ask about your budget, they show real campaign data, they give you ownership of the account, and they report on leads and revenue rather than impressions.
You can see the outcomes we have produced in our client case studies, and video production feeds the creative side of YouTube and Demand Gen campaigns when you get there.
So, Do Google Ads For Small Businesses Work?
For the right businesses, ABSOLUTELY. It all depends on your specific circumstances. However, I will say that Google Ads is something that you should consider if your business meets some or all of the criteria above. Do some research specific to your situation, and determine to the best of your knowledge if your ROI is likely to be in the black.
The prospective benefits that are out there are positive enough for you to want to at least do that. Also note that the odds of this being something advantageous for you is more likely if you have quality landing pages and a strong value proposition.
Our team of digital marketing experts are happy to have a conversation with you to run some numbers and determine if it would be a good fit for your business.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Do Google Ads work for small businesses?
Yes, when three conditions hold. 1. People search for what you sell with buying intent. 2. You have capacity for more customers. 3. A customer is worth more than what you pay to win one. Local service businesses with jobs worth several hundred dollars or more tend to see the strongest returns.
Q: How much do Google Ads cost for a small business?
The average US search ad click cost $5.42 in 2026, ranging from $2.05 in restaurants to $9.87 in legal services. Most small businesses invest $1,000 to $2,500 a month in ad spend, which produces enough clicks to gather meaningful data in competitive local markets.
Q: Is $500 a month enough for Google Ads?
It can be, in a low-competition category with a tight service radius and one focused keyword theme. At $500 a month with $8 clicks, you get roughly two clicks a day, so plan on a longer testing window and keep the campaign narrow rather than spreading it thin.
Q: How long does it take for Google Ads to start working?
You start to get clicks within hours of launch. Meaningful data takes two to four weeks, and automated bidding needs roughly 15 to 30 conversions before it performs well. Give a new account 60 to 90 days before judging the overall return.
Q: What is a good conversion rate for Google Ads?
The 2026 average across industries sits at 8.18% for search campaigns. Rates above 10% are strong for service businesses. A rate under 4% usually points to the landing page or the keyword match rather than the ad copy itself.
Q: Should a small business use Search campaigns or Performance Max?
Start with Search. You control the keywords, the copy, and the destination, and your Google Ads spend goes toward people typing a query. Performance Max becomes a sensible addition once your account produces 30 or more conversions a month and the automation has data to learn from.
Q: Are Local Services Ads better than Google Ads for local businesses?
They serve different jobs. Local Services Ads charge per lead and carry the Google Guaranteed badge, which builds trust with homeowners. Search ads reach a wider set of queries. Home service, legal, and medical businesses often run both, with Search covering what Local Services Ads miss.