Most marketing advice starts with awareness: get your name in front of people, build familiarity, and wait for them to need you. For a local business with a limited budget, that is the slow way around. The person who needs a plumber, a roofer, an exterminator or a dentist this week is already on Google, typing what they need, and somebody's ad is going to be the first thing they see.
The tracking from Chapter 1 now shows Google which ad clicks became phone calls, forms and booked work. This chapter decides where the first dollars go. The short answer is the bottom of the funnel: the searches from people ready to hire. The longer answer is why that order holds for nearly every local business, what the stages above it look like, and which Google channel belongs at each one.
The numbers below are mostly US monthly searches from Google's Keyword Planner, with a few from our example market, St. Louis, labeled as such. Your market's numbers will differ. The order is the same.
Most Marketing Starts With Strangers. Local Search Starts With People Already Reaching for the Phone.
We begin where intent is strongest, let those searches produce the first real calls and bookings for Google to study, and only later reach back toward people still reading up on their problem. It can feel backward. For local businesses it also happens to be where the volume is.
Line up a research search and a hiring search for the same need, one pair for each kind of local business in this guide:
- Emergency service: "water heater leaking", about 14,800 US searches a month, against "plumber near me", about 823,000.
- Planned project: "roof replacement cost", about 18,100, against "roofing companies near me", about 165,000.
- Recurring service: "ants in kitchen", about 1,900, against "pest control near me", about 165,000.
- Storefront and appointment: "toothache", about 49,500, against "dentist near me", about 1,830,000.
In every case the ready-to-hire search is many times larger. In every pair we checked, far more people searched for help nearby than about the problem itself. A software company can need months of awareness before a buyer is ready; a local business can buy the moment of need directly.
Five Stages Separate "Ants in the Kitchen" From "Pest Control Near Me." Each Stage Needs a Different Ad.
The funnel still matters, because it explains why one ad can't do every job. We use five stages, each with its own marketing goal:
- Unaware: the problem exists but the customer hasn't noticed it. The water heater is twelve years old and working fine. The goal is awareness, and search ads can't reach someone who isn't searching.
- Problem aware: they've noticed something. "Water heater leaking." "Ants in kitchen." The goal is interest: show that you understand the problem.
- Solution aware: they know what kind of fix they need. "Roof replacement cost." "How much is pest control." The goal is to influence the decision.
- Service aware: they're choosing who does it. "Roofer near me." "Exterminator near me." The goal is to be the obvious choice.
- Most aware: they're ready to call. "Emergency plumber near me." "Pest control near me." The goal is to make calling you the easiest thing on the page.
The last two stages are where a local account starts. The ads there don't need to teach anything. They need to say you do the job, you're nearby, and here's how to reach you right now. Ads higher up the funnel do a different job, explaining a problem or comparing options, and they belong in campaigns that come later, once the bottom is covered.
Ready-to-Hire Clicks Cost the Most. Those Are the Clicks That Book Jobs.
Ready-to-hire searches are also the expensive ones. Keyword Planner shows a range of past top-of-page bids for each search, and the high end of that range jumps as the search gets closer to hiring:
- Pest control: "ants in kitchen" tops out around $2.15. "Pest control near me" tops out around $51.41.
- Roofing: "how long does a roof last" tops out around $9.18. "Roofing companies near me" tops out around $85.11.
- Dentistry: "toothache" tops out around $7.00. "Dentist near me" tops out around $22.92.
- Plumbing: "water heater leaking" tops out around $55.57. "Emergency plumber near me" tops out around $105.22.
Those ranges come from what other advertisers have paid, and they pay more for the bottom of the funnel because it books jobs. That is exactly why a new account should buy those clicks first. A cheap research click rarely turns into a call this week, so it teaches Google very little. A ready-to-hire click either produces a call or it doesn't, and either way the account learns fast. Whether that higher price is worth paying depends on the job behind the click, and Chapter 3 does that math.
Search and Maps Catch the Customer Who Needs You Today. YouTube Reaches the One Who Doesn't Need You Yet.
Every part of Google's ad system has a stage where it earns its keep, and the funnel sets the order we switch them on:
- Search, with your Business Profile linked: the bottom. People typing what they need, plus your location showing on Maps. This is month one.
- Local Services Ads: also the bottom, where Google offers them for your category. They come in only as a side experiment after Search has proven it books work; the Local Services Ads chapter later in this guide explains why they never lead.
- Performance Max: spans the funnel and needs real conversion data to aim. It usually comes around months six or seven, and the real gate is steady volume, about 30 quality conversions a month. Bigger accounts get there sooner.
- Demand Gen, YouTube and Display: the top and middle, reaching people before they search. These wait until Search is paying for itself and the account shows about 30 quality conversions a month.
- AI Max: comes last, after everything above is working, because it widens matching the way broad match does.
The order isn't about which channel is best. It's about which channel can learn from what you already have. Search can start on day one with nothing but good keywords. Performance Max, Demand Gen and AI Max need a history of real calls and bookings to aim at, and Chapter 1's tracking is what builds that history.
"Dentist Near Me" Gets 1.8 Million Searches a Month. A Dentist's First Ad Dollar Belongs on That Search.
The bottom of the funnel looks different for each kind of local business, and the first campaign should be built around how your customers word it.
Emergency trades see urgency in the search itself. "Emergency plumber near me" gets about 135,000 US searches a month, and those searchers want someone today. Planned projects see the trade plus a place or a job: "roofing companies near me," "roof replacement." Recurring services see the service: "pest control near me," "exterminator near me." Shops and appointment businesses see the place: "dentist near me," "auto repair near me."
The same pattern holds inside a single market. In our example market, St. Louis, "dentist near me" gets about 14,800 searches a month and "plumber near me" about 9,900, while "water heater leaking" gets about 110 and "ants in kitchen" about 30. A business in a smaller town will see smaller numbers on both sides, but the gap between the research search and the ready-to-hire search is what to look for when you pull your own.
Seasons shift the bottom too. In the Keyword Planner data from our research, "furnace repair" swings about sevenfold across the year in the US, while "dentist near me" barely moves. A heating company's ready-to-hire searches pile into winter; a dentist's arrive at a steady pace. That changes how the budget is spread across the year, not where it goes first.
Two guides in this series go deeper on the bottom of the funnel for one trade each: how plumbing customers search when something breaks and how dental patients move from a toothache to a booked visit.
Google's Setup Guides Point New Advertisers Toward Wide Campaigns. Local Budgets Belong on Ready-to-Hire Searches.
Google's getting-started guidance for new users leads with Performance Max, a campaign that runs across Search, Maps, YouTube, Gmail and Display at once. Google also still offers Smart campaigns, its simplified campaign type, which run only in Smart mode.
Both start wide, which is the opposite of where a local budget earns the most. Google's own comparison of Smart campaigns with regular Search campaigns lists what you give up: Smart campaigns choose keywords from themes instead of letting you pick them, manage bidding for you, give simplified reporting instead of search term detail, and allow one landing page per campaign. An account can switch from Smart mode to Expert mode, where regular Search campaigns live.
We don't run Smart campaigns for local businesses, and we don't launch Performance Max on a new account. A new account starts with exact-match Search on the searches that book jobs, set up the way the next chapters describe.
A National Brand Can Afford YouTube on Day One. A Local Budget Earns More on Searches Like "Plumber Near Me."
Starting at the top of the funnel works when the budget is big enough to wait. A national brand can run video for months and measure the lift. A local business usually needs the ads to pay for themselves while they run.
So the rule is simple. Cover the bottom first: the ready-to-hire searches for the services you actually want to sell, in the area you actually serve. Once those are covered and the account has steady conversion data, move up one stage at a time. If the budget can't cover the bottom yet, don't spread it thinner across the top. Narrow the services or the area until it can.
Next: Average Cost per Lead Means Nothing Until You Know the Job.
Ready-to-hire clicks cost more, and the next chapter shows why that is usually worth it. Chapter 3 follows the chain from a click's price to a lead, a booked job and what that customer is worth over time.
Every chapter is on the guide's home page. If you'd rather have someone run it, our Google Ads management starts every local account at the bottom of the funnel, with tracking in place before the first click.
