Start with how your customer finds you. If the job is urgent and nobody needs to see it before they buy (a burst pipe at midnight, a furnace dead in January), put your money on Google, because that person is typing it into a search bar right now. If the job has to be seen before anyone wants it, like a deck, a new roof, a paint job or a ceramic coating, start on Facebook and Instagram, which fits more service businesses than you'd expect and costs less to get going.
Which service businesses should start on Google ads?
The ones whose customer has a problem right now and is already searching for someone to fix it. Think emergency plumbing, a furnace that quit overnight, a roof leaking in a storm, water damage, lockouts and collision repair. Nobody needs a nice video before they call a plumber at 11pm with water on the kitchen floor. They call whoever looks legit first. Google puts you in front of that search the minute it happens, and you pay when someone clicks, so the money goes to people who want the job done today. The other half of running Google is blocking searches that will never pay you, like "plumber jobs near me" or "how to fix a leaking pipe myself," because those clicks cost the same as a customer's. Accounts that skip this step pay for job seekers and do-it-yourselfers for months before anyone opens the search terms report.
Which service businesses should start on Facebook and Instagram ads?
Any business where the customer has to see the result before they want it. Decks and interlock, landscaping, painting, kitchens and bathrooms, roof replacements, detailing and paint protection film, med spa treatments. Nobody types "I'd like a new backyard" into Google on a Tuesday night, but plenty of people will stop scrolling for a before-and-after of a yard that looks like theirs. Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, shows your ad to people in your area before they've started looking, and it decides who sees the ad mostly from the ad itself. The photo or video picks your audience. A shot of a roof with "call us" on it gets scrolled past, while people stop for an owner on camera walking through a finished job with footage of the crew doing it. Ads also wear out after a few weeks in a small local audience, so new ones have to keep going in, which I cover in why your ads stopped working.
Is Google or Facebook cheaper for a small service business?
Facebook and Instagram cost less to start on, because Google clicks cost a lot more in most trades. A cheap lead only stays cheap if it turns into a job, though. Meta reaches people earlier in the decision, so fewer of its leads book, while Google leads cost more and book more often. Say a Meta lead costs $40 and one in 15 books, which works out to $600 per booked job, and a $120 Google lead that books one in four comes to $480. Those are round numbers to show the math. Yours will differ. Compare what one booked job costs you on each platform, which I walk through in what a booked job costs you. Meta leads also need faster follow-up and more of it, since a lot of people fill out the form half curious, so a slow callback costs you more there than on Google (more on that in speed to lead).
How much do I need to spend on Google ads versus Facebook ads?
On Meta, about $35 a day, roughly $1,050 a month, is where an account starts learning, and on Google it's about $100 a day, roughly $3,000 a month. Those are my own floors. Google costs more to get going because each click costs more, so it takes about three times the money for the account to learn the same amount. Google's help page for Target CPA bidding recommends judging performance over the last 30 days with at least 30 conversions in that window, and LocaliQ's 2025 home services benchmarks put the average roofing search lead at $228 (US data). A roofer spending $40 a day on Google gets about five leads a month at that price. For Google search I want the daily budget to be about what one lead costs in your trade. Below that, you're buying a guess. It's also why I start Meta clients at $50 a day or more, and Google clients closer to $100. The longer version is in how much a small service business should spend on ads.
What if my business does both urgent and planned jobs?
Split it by the job you want more of. Roofing is the clearest example. A roofer gets leak and storm calls, which people search for, and full replacements, which people plan for months and want to see before they sign. HVAC has the same split between a no-heat call in January and a new system install in spring. Planned, big-ticket jobs are where strong video on Meta can win, even in a trade everyone calls a Google business, because the homeowner gets to see and hear the owner before calling anyone for a quote. Video does little for the emergency half, since those customers search the moment something breaks and call whoever shows up. So I'd put the urgent calls on Google, the planned work on Meta, and fund first whichever one your margin comes from. The roofer page goes through how that plays out for a roofing company, repairs and replacements both.
Should I run Google and Facebook ads at the same time?
Yes, once the first platform is fully funded and you know what a booked job costs you on it. Before that, splitting a small budget starves both accounts, and a month later you have two platforms that never got enough leads to learn from and both look like they don't work. Fund one properly, give it a few months of numbers, then add the second. For most trades I wouldn't run both until total ad spend is around $200 a day or more, depending on what a job is worth to you. Past that, they help each other. Someone sees your deck on Instagram in May, thinks about it for a few weeks, then searches your company name or "deck builder near me" in June, and your Google ad is there when they do. That's why I usually end up running both, one after the other.
What about Google's pay-per-lead ads for urgent trades?
They're the exception to putting a small budget on Meta, if your trade qualifies. Google Local Services Ads are the box at the very top of the search results, and you pay per lead (a call or a message) instead of per click, so there's no learning period to fund. That makes them usable on a budget too small for regular Google search ads. In Canada, Google's list of eligible trades is short and mostly urgent: plumbers, electricians, HVAC, roofers, locksmiths, water damage, pest control and a handful of others. Painters, landscapers and renovators aren't on it. Where you rank in that box leans on your Google reviews and on whether you answer the phone live, so an owner with four reviews who lets calls ring out won't get much from them.
Starting ads with me
When I take on a client, the first call covers what a job is worth to you, which jobs you want more of, and how much you can put into ads each month. Those answers pick the platform. If the budget sits under the floors above, I'll say so on that call, and I won't start an account below them. If you're ready to put money behind ads and want one person running them, book a call.
