What advertising works for tradies?

Where can a tradie spend an ad budget?

Six options, and they do different jobs. Google Ads capture people already searching. Meta ads create demand among people who weren't. Lead platforms sell enquiries by the credit. Vehicle wraps buy local recognition. Word of mouth is free and finite. The sixth, Google's pay-per-lead ads, isn't offered in Australia.

The Google Ads click range spans the 2 published Australian cost guides we reviewed in July 2026. Platform and wrap figures come from named published pricing. Full source list at the end of this page.

When are Google Ads the right call?

When people already search for the job you want more of. Around 22,200 Australians search "plumber near me" every month (Semrush estimate, July 2026). Google Ads put you at the top of those results the day the campaign starts, and you pay per click: in the trades, roughly $2 to $35 each.

That's the strength and the price in one. You're bidding on someone at the exact moment they need the work, and so is every other business in your area, which is why the urgent jobs cost the most per click.

• It starts and stops on a switch. Enquiries while the budget's on, silence the day it's off.
• You pay for the click whether or not they call. The page they land on decides which one it is.
• Emergency terms cost more. The dearer of the two guides we reviewed in July 2026 puts electrician clicks at $10 to $20, rising to $15 to $35 for emergency searches.

The setup, budgets and month-by-month reality are in Google Ads for tradies. If you're weighing paid clicks against ranking without them, read SEO vs Google Ads.

Do Facebook and Instagram ads work?

Yes, with the right offer. Facebook and Instagram ads reach people who weren't searching, which suits plannable jobs and clear offers rather than emergencies. Our sharpest client result runs on this channel, and the numbers are below. The trade-off: you create the demand yourself, so the offer does the heavy lifting.

Nobody's searching on Facebook. You set a daily budget, the ad shows your offer to locals scrolling their feed, and the ones who bite leave their details, which land straight in your phone.

The honest catch: these leads didn't wake up wanting the job, your ad talked them into it. They cool off fast, so follow-up speed matters more here than on any other channel.

$14.16 a lead Mr Loo's Meta ads drove $120k of extra work in three months: 303 leads at $14.16 each from $4,291 in ad spend, landing on a website rebuilt to convert. Read the case study

Are hipages and the lead platforms worth it?

They can be, early on. hipages, Airtasker and Oneflare sell speed: you can be quoting within days, with nothing to build first. The costs are real though. hipages plans run $139 to $649 a month plus GST on a credit system, and each lead can be shared with up to three tradies.

hipages' own FY25 results put the average Australian member at $2,381 a year (ASX release, August 2025). Membership starts on a six-month introductory term that auto-renews for twelve, and reviewers land at 3.7 out of 5 across 9,371 ratings on ProductReview.com.au (July 2026): homeowners praising the speed, tradies arguing about lead quality.

Both sides are right. Real work does come through, and you also spend credits on leads that go quiet or price-shop. The fair way to hold it: a platform is renting a lead flow. Useful as a bridge, expensive as a foundation, and your profile and reviews stay on the platform if you leave.

The full numbers are in the hipages review, the shared-lead maths in hipages leads vs your own website, and the same treatment in the Airtasker review and Oneflare review.

What about Google Local Services Ads?

They're not available in Australia. Google's own help pages list exactly 11 supported countries, and Australia isn't on the list (retrieved July 2026). There's no Australian trade category and no legitimate way to run one here, whatever a sales call tells you. If that changes, this page will say so.

In the countries that have them, you pay per lead and carry a "Google Guaranteed" badge, which is why they keep coming up in Australian marketing pitches. If Google ever switches them on here, being early would be worth something. Until then, treat any "Local Services Ads Australia" offer as a red flag.

Do vehicle wraps and signage pay off?

Often, quietly. A wrapped ute is a one-off cost that advertises on every job, every school run and every parked afternoon, in exactly the suburbs you work. Published Australian pricing runs from about $350 ex GST for a small decal package to $3,400 and up for a full ute wrap.

Cars24 Australia's 2026 wrap guide plus published installer pricing from That's A Wrap Sydney and Smilee Design, retrieved July 2026. Shopfront and site signage is usually priced on application, so it isn't tabled here.

The limits: you can't measure a wrap like a click, and you can't turn it up in a quiet month. What it builds is recognition, so the day someone nearby needs your trade, yours is the name they type into Google. The wrap works exactly as hard as the Google listing and website behind it.

Can word of mouth carry a business?

For a while, yes. Plenty of good tradies run for years on referrals alone, and a referred client arrives half-sold. The cap is real: referrals move at the speed of conversations, so slow months arrive without warning. The fix isn't replacing word of mouth, it's banking it somewhere permanent.

Reviews are the upgrade: word of mouth a stranger can read. Every happy client you steer to your Google listing keeps selling you long after the job, and a website ranked for your services and suburbs does the same for people nobody referred.

~10 new clients a month Quick Mick's, a Blue Mountains plumber, banked the word of mouth: page one of Google for the searches that matter, around 10 new clients a month, no ongoing ad spend. Read the case study

What should you run first?

Match the channel to the calendar. A new business with quiet weeks needs speed, and that's what lead platforms and Google Ads sell. An established business with patchy months needs a base that compounds. A booked-out business needs margin and better jobs. Three starting points:

Where does KINGTRADIE sit?

Plainly, so you can weigh the rest of this page properly: we build and run the channels you own, which means custom websites for Australian trade businesses, local SEO, Google Ads and Meta ads. That is the row in the table above marked "what we sell", and we gave it the same catch as everything else, because it has one.

We don't sell wraps, we don't run a lead platform, and we don't do social media management. When one of those is the right call for you, we'll say so. A guide that quietly steers every answer back to the thing the author sells is not a guide. It's a brochure.

• You own the site, the domain and everything on it
• No lock-in contracts
• Every build and campaign is quoted fixed after a strategy call