Paid ads

Google Ads vs Facebook ads for South African trades

30 July 2026

Last updated: 29 October 2026

Both channels work. They do different jobs, and confusing the two is an expensive mistake we see South African trades make with an ad budget. This guide covers what each channel is for, what actually moves the cost up or down, and the order we would spend in if it were our money.

What it does not do is quote you a cost per lead. Anyone printing one on a web page is guessing at your trade, your town and the people bidding against you. Your number gets worked out from your own account, not from an article.

What is the real difference?

Google Ads is demand capture. Someone types "burst geyser repair" at nine on a Sunday night because water is running down the wall. Your ad meets a problem that already exists. Intent is high, and the click usually costs more.

Facebook and Instagram ads are demand generation. Few people open Facebook looking for a plumber. Your ad interrupts someone scrolling, plants your name, and sometimes catches a homeowner who has been putting the job off since last winter. Intent is low, and reach is cheaper.

The short version: Google finds people looking for you. Meta finds people scrolling past you. You are not choosing which is better. You are choosing which job needs doing this quarter.

What moves the cost of Google Ads?

Home service clicks are often expensive because the jobs are valuable, and everyone bidding knows it. Five things decide whether your clicks turn into affordable work or an expensive habit.

• What the job is worth. Searches for a full roof replacement usually cost more per click than searches for a gutter clean, because the competition is pricing the job, not the click.
• How many people bid on the same search near you. The same words tend to cost more in a busy Johannesburg suburb than in a small town where you are one of two options.
• How specific the search is. "Emergency geyser replacement" can cost more per click than "geyser prices" and is usually worth the difference, because one is a job and the other is homework.
• The page the click lands on. Same click, two outcomes. A fast page that shows the number, the suburbs you cover and proof you are local is far more likely to turn it into a call. A slow homepage that buries the number under three paragraphs about your founding story rarely turns it into anything. It is one of the biggest levers on your cost per lead, and Google weighs it in the auction too: landing page quality is one of the factors in your Ad Rank.
• Whether you can see what happened next. If you cannot trace a booked job back to the search that caused it, you keep paying for the keywords that waste money.

The upside usually justifies the price. Search leads are exclusive to you, arrive under your own brand, and usually close better than bought leads, because the customer picked you before you ever spoke. This is the channel we build first under Google Ads, and we treat the landing page as part of the campaign, because it is.

What moves the cost of Meta ads?

Meta leads usually come in cheaper than search leads, because you are buying attention rather than intent. That price buys volume, not readiness.

The leads also behave differently. A typical Meta lead filled in a form between two videos, often without leaving the app. Phone within minutes and you will often get a real conversation. Phone the next day and some of them will not remember submitting anything.

What moves the cost here is the offer, the creative and how tightly you draw the area. A vague "get a quote" ad with a stock photo usually costs more per lead than a specific offer with a photo of your own van and your own finished work. Draw the radius wider and the cost per lead usually drops while the quality drops with it.

What Meta does well is fill gaps. When the diary has holes in it, a seasonal offer or a before-winter inspection aimed at homeowners in the suburbs you actually work can often generate appointments at a lower cost per lead than search. Those leads just tend to take more calls to turn into jobs. The exclusivity point from exclusive vs shared leads works in your favour here: every lead your own ads generate belongs to you alone.

Where does your Google Business Profile fit?

Before either paid channel, there is a free one. Your Google Business Profile decides whether you appear in the map results when someone searches your trade and their suburb, and those results normally sit above the organic listings on a phone.

For every option side by side, from your Google Business Profile to directories, see how to advertise your business online in South Africa.

Position in the map results is not bought. It leans on how close you are to the searcher, how well your profile matches what they typed, and your reviews. A complete profile with the right categories, real photos of your own work, the areas you serve and a steady flow of honest reviews can sit above a bigger spender with a profile nobody has touched since it was set up.

One thing to know if you have read American advice on this: Google runs a pay-per-lead product and a verification badge for trades in a short list of countries, and South Africa is not one of them. Anyone offering you that here is selling something they cannot deliver. The same job gets done locally with search ads, a properly maintained profile and reviews, which is part of what SEO covers.

How do the three compare?

Which should you run first?

Budget decides, and the rule is simple: fund one channel properly before you open a second. Split a small budget three ways and it produces three sets of noise and nothing you can read.

This is the order we would run with our own money.

1. Google Business Profile and reviews. Costs nothing but time, and every paid channel below leans on it.
2. Search ads on your highest-value service only. Not your whole service list. One or two campaigns pointed at a page built for that job, tight enough that you can read the search terms and cut the waste.
3. Retargeting on Meta. Only once search is sending real traffic, because it needs someone to retarget. Often the cheapest ads you will run are the ones shown to people who already visited your site.
4. Meta prospecting with a real offer. For the holes in the diary and for seasonal trades, once search and retargeting are paying for themselves.

Only move down the list when the step above it is producing booked jobs, not clicks.

When do Facebook ads beat Google?

Meta wins in specific situations, and it is worth knowing them rather than treating it as a cheap Google.

• Filling a quiet week, because you can create demand instead of waiting for it.
• Visual trades. Before-and-after roofing, painting, paving and landscaping stop thumbs.
• New suburbs and towns where nobody searches your name yet and you need to be known first.
• A seasonal or promotional offer that gives a scrolling homeowner a reason to act now rather than in spring.
• Retargeting the people who visited your site, compared what you charge against two competitors, and then got distracted.

How long before the ads pay for themselves?

Set expectations before you start, because it is easy to switch an account off in the very week it was about to settle.

Search can bring in leads within days, but the first month's cost per lead is rarely your real number. It usually takes weeks of cutting wasted search terms, testing ad copy and tightening the landing page before an account settles into what it actually costs. Judge the channel at three months, on booked jobs and revenue, not on week two's lead count.

Then budget for enough data to judge with. Say your budget buys a handful of leads in a month. Split across two channels, that is a few leads each, and one good week or one bad one swings the whole picture, so it is easy to draw the wrong conclusion either way. Put the same money behind one channel and every lead counts towards one number, which is far easier to read.

What do you need before you spend anything?

Three things. First, tracking from the click through to the booked call, not to the form fill, because form fills are not jobs. Second, a fast page with the phone number visible on a phone screen without scrolling, because it is one of the biggest levers on your cost per lead. Third, reviews, because every channel above leans on them.

And run the long game alongside the paid one. SEO takes months, then can bring in leads you do not pay for click by click, and when it does, paid traffic becomes a choice rather than life support. Whether to start with ads or SEO at all is covered in SEO or Google Ads first? If you would rather buy leads than generate them, start with how much do roofing leads cost. Our own exclusive lead generation is scoped on a call for your trade and area, and the managed lead generation packages are set out on the pricing page.