Google Ads or Facebook ads for a trades business?

The one distinction that decides it

Google catches demand that already exists. Somebody has a problem, they type it, and they choose from whoever appears. You are not persuading anyone of anything — you are competing to be the one they ring.

Meta creates demand that was not there this morning. Nobody wakes up intending to get their driveway done. They see a finished job in an estate that looks like theirs, and eight weeks later they are getting quotes. That is a completely different job and it takes longer to pay back.

Start with Google if your work is urgent

Emergency plumbing, drainage, locksmiths, roof leaks, electrical faults. Nobody scrolls Instagram deciding what to do about a burst pipe. They search, they ring the first two numbers, and it is over in fifteen minutes.

For these trades search is not merely better, it is close to the only thing that works — and the whole competitive question is whether you appear at that moment and whether somebody answers the phone.

Start with Meta if your work is visual and discretionary

Driveways, landscaping, garden rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, attic conversions. The customer has been half-thinking about it for a year and a photograph is what moves them.

These trades usually get a considerably better cost per enquiry on Meta than on Google, because the search volume for 'garden room' is small compared to the number of people who would want one if they saw a good one. The trade-off is that the enquiries are colder and take longer to close.

How to tell you have picked wrong

Two signals, and both take about a month to show:

• —Your Google campaign produces clicks and no calls. Usually means the landing page is wrong or you are bidding on terms with no commercial intent — course searches, job searches, DIY searches.
• —Your Meta campaign produces plenty of leads who do not answer. Usually means the form asks nothing, so people are filling it in idly. Adding two qualifying questions typically fixes it.
• —Either campaign produces enquiries you cannot serve — wrong county, wrong job size. That is a targeting problem, not a channel problem, and it is quick to fix.

Why most trades end up running both

Once one channel is working, the second usually makes the first cheaper. People who saw you on Facebook search your name on Google. People who clicked your ad and left can be reached again on Meta for a fraction of the original cost.

But start with one. A small budget split across two channels frequently produces two campaigns that never gather enough data to learn, and the most common reason trades conclude that advertising does not work for them.