How much should a Shrewsbury business spend on Google Ads?

“How much should I spend on Google Ads?” It’s the first question every business owner asks, and the honest answer isn’t what most agencies will tell you. Some agencies want you to spend as much as possible because their fee is a percentage of your ad spend. The more you spend, the more they earn, regardless of whether those extra pounds actually generate results. Others give vague answers to avoid committing to anything specific, hiding behind jargon so they never have to be held accountable.

We’re going to give you real numbers, based on what we see working for local businesses in Shrewsbury and across Shropshire. No fluff, no sales pitch, just the honest answer so you can make an informed decision about whether Google Ads is the right investment for your business.

The honest answer: it depends (but here are real numbers)

It depends on your industry, your area, and your goals. That’s the truth. But “it depends” isn’t helpful on its own, so here are some real ranges based on what we manage for businesses across Shropshire every day.

Most local businesses in Shrewsbury spend between £500 and £2,000 per month on Google Ads. That’s ad spend alone, it doesn’t include management fees. At the lower end (£500/month), you’ll get a steady trickle of leads. It’s enough to test whether Ads work for your business and to start gathering data on which keywords and audiences convert. At the higher end (£1,500-2,000), you’re generating consistent, reliable lead flow, the kind that lets you plan your week around incoming enquiries rather than chasing work.

Below £300/month, you’re unlikely to get enough data for Google to optimise your campaigns effectively. The algorithm needs clicks to learn what works, and at £10 a day you simply won’t generate enough of them. It sounds counterintuitive, but it’s genuinely better to spend nothing than to spend too little. A tiny budget just burns money slowly without ever reaching the threshold where results become meaningful.

What determines your Google Ads budget

Three main factors determine how much you’ll need to spend to get results. Understanding these will help you set a budget that’s realistic for your specific situation rather than picking a number out of thin air.

• Industry competition. Some industries pay more per click than others, it’s simply supply and demand. Legal services in Shrewsbury can run £10-15 per click. Plumbing might be £3-8. Restaurants £1-3. Higher cost-per-click (CPC) means you need a bigger budget to generate the same number of leads. There’s no way around this, it’s set by the market, not by your agency. You can research costs for your industry using the Google Keyword Planner, which shows estimated CPCs for any keyword.
• Geographic targeting. Targeting just Shrewsbury town costs less than targeting all of Shropshire, which costs less again than targeting the entire West Midlands. A tighter geographic area means fewer competitors bidding on the same terms and lower costs per click. We always recommend starting tight and expanding once you have data.
• Your goals. Want 5 leads a month or 50? Your budget scales directly with your ambition. We always recommend starting conservative, proving the return, and then scaling based on actual results rather than projections. It’s far easier to increase a budget that’s working than to recover confidence after overspending on a campaign that wasn’t set up properly.

Realistic budgets by industry

Here’s what we typically recommend for businesses in Shrewsbury and Shropshire, broken down by sector. These aren’t theoretical numbers, they’re based on campaigns we manage and the results we see month to month.

Trades (plumbers, electricians, builders)

Typical CPC: £3-8
Recommended starting budget: £500-1,000/month

Trades businesses tend to do well with Google Ads because the searches are high intent. When someone types “emergency plumber Shrewsbury” or “electrician near me,” they need the service now. They’re not browsing or comparing for weeks, they want to make a call and get the problem sorted. That urgency translates into strong conversion rates. Competition in Shropshire is moderate, which keeps costs manageable. At £500/month, a plumber can realistically expect 15-25 enquiries. At £1,000, that number doubles if the campaign is managed well.

Professional services (accountants, solicitors, financial advisers)

Typical CPC: £5-15
Recommended starting budget: £800-1,500/month

Professional services face higher CPCs because the competition is fiercer and the lifetime value of a client is significant. But that’s exactly why the maths still works. One new accountancy client might be worth £2,000-5,000 per year in recurring fees. One new legal case could be worth £5,000 or more. Even at £50-80 per lead, landing just two or three new clients a month delivers a return that dwarfs the ad spend. The key is patience, professional services often have longer decision cycles, so you need to track leads through to conversion, not just count clicks.

Hospitality (restaurants, B&Bs, wedding venues)

Typical CPC: £1-4
Recommended starting budget: £400-800/month

Hospitality benefits from lower CPCs, making Google Ads accessible even on tighter budgets. The challenge is that margins are often thinner, so you need to be more precise with targeting. Seasonal variation matters enormously, increase your budget during peak booking seasons and wedding fairs, then reduce during quieter months. A B&B in Shrewsbury might spend £600/month during spring and summer, dropping to £200 in January. Wedding venues should ramp up spend during engagement season (December through February) when couples are actively searching.

What return can you actually expect?

Forget clicks. Forget impressions. The only metric that matters is cost per lead, what are you actually paying for each phone call, form submission, or email enquiry?

A typical well-managed local campaign converts at 5-15% from click to lead. So at £5 per click and a 10% conversion rate, each lead costs you £50. The question then becomes simple: is a lead worth £50 to your business?

For a plumber charging £200 for a standard job, a £50 lead that converts into a paying customer gives you a 4x return. For a solicitor landing a £5,000 case from a £50 lead, that’s a 100x return. Even if only one in three leads becomes a paying customer, the maths is overwhelmingly positive.

The key metric is return on ad spend (ROAS). We track this for every client and report on it monthly. If you can’t see your cost per lead clearly in your reporting, you can’t know whether your budget is working, and that’s a problem. If your current agency isn’t showing you this number, ask them why. If you’re managing ads yourself, make sure conversion tracking is set up correctly before you spend another pound.

The mistake most businesses make with their budget

The biggest mistake is spending too little. We see this constantly. A business owner wants to “test” Google Ads, so they set a budget of £100/month. That’s £3.33 per day. At £5 per click, that buys you less than one click per day. Some days, you’ll get nothing at all.

Google needs data to optimise. It needs to learn which keywords convert, which times of day work best, which locations and devices perform, and which ad copy resonates. Without enough clicks flowing through the system, the algorithm can’t learn, and your campaign stays stuck in what we call the “not enough data” zone. You spend money, see little return, and conclude that Google Ads don’t work, when the reality is you never gave them a fair chance.

The second mistake is not tracking conversions. Without conversion tracking, you’re spending money and hoping for the best. You might be getting leads and not know it, or you might be getting zero leads and not know that either. You need to know which clicks turn into calls, form submissions, and enquiries. This isn’t optional, it’s the foundation of every successful campaign. See our guide to the biggest Google Ads mistakes local businesses make for more on this.

How to know if your budget is working

There are four key metrics you should be tracking every month. If you’re not seeing these numbers in your reporting, you’re flying blind.

• Cost per lead: What are you paying for each enquiry? This is the single most important number. Everything else is context.
• Conversion rate: What percentage of clicks become leads? A healthy local campaign converts at 5-15%. Below 5% and something needs fixing, usually the landing page.
• Return on ad spend: How much revenue are you generating per £1 spent? A 3x ROAS means every £1 in ad spend generates £3 in revenue. That’s a healthy baseline for most local businesses.
• Quality Score: Are your ads and landing pages relevant to what people are searching for? Higher Quality Scores mean lower costs per click, which means your budget goes further.

The rule is straightforward: if your cost per lead is below the value of that customer to your business, your budget is working. If it’s above, something needs optimising, the keywords, the ad copy, or the landing page. Don’t just throw more money at a campaign that isn’t converting. Fix the fundamentals first.

We provide monthly reports showing all of these metrics in plain English, no jargon, no vanity metrics, just the numbers that tell you whether your investment is paying off.

When to increase (or pause) your spend

Increase your budget when:

• Your cost per lead is consistently below your target and you’re converting leads into paying customers
• You have the capacity to take on more work, there’s no point generating leads you can’t service
• Seasonal demand is rising and you want to capture more of the market during your busiest period

Pause or reduce your budget when:

• You’re at full capacity and can’t take on new customers without sacrificing quality
• Your cost per lead has risen above the point of profitability and optimisation isn’t bringing it back down
• You need to fix your landing page or conversion tracking first, spending money on a broken funnel is wasteful

The critical point: never increase your budget to compensate for poor performance. If your campaign isn’t generating leads at £500/month, spending £1,000 won’t fix the underlying problem, it will just double the waste. Fix the campaign first, prove the return at the current level, and then scale with confidence. Not sure whether Google Ads or SEO is the right investment for your business? Read our comparison to help you decide.

What to do next

If you’re considering Google Ads for your Shrewsbury business, the best starting point is a free audit. We’ll look at your specific market, research the keywords your customers are actually searching for, estimate realistic CPCs for your industry, and tell you exactly what budget makes sense for your goals.

No commitment, no sales pressure, just honest numbers you can use to make a decision. If Google Ads isn’t the right fit for your business, we’ll tell you that too. We’d rather turn away a project than take money for something that won’t deliver results.

Get in touch for a free audit, or learn more about how our Google Ads management service works.

“The right Google Ads budget isn’t the biggest one, it’s the one that generates a positive return on every pound you spend.”