Cost per booked job is what you spend on Google Ads divided by the number of paid jobs those ads actually put in your diary. It is the one Google Ads number a UK trade business should run the account on, because clicks and leads do not pay the bills, booked work does. If your cost per booked job sits comfortably below the profit you make on an average job, the ads are working and you can spend more. If it does not, no amount of cheap clicks will save the account.
Impressions, click-through rate and cost per click are useful to whoever manages the account, but none of them tells you whether the ads made you money. Here is how to work out cost per booked job, set your own target and track it properly.
Why is cost per lead not enough?
Cost per lead is a step in the right direction, but it treats every enquiry as equal. In real life they are not. A lead can be a tyre-kicker ringing round for the cheapest price, a job outside your area, a spam form or a customer who wants the work done in six months’ time. Two campaigns can both deliver leads at £40 each, while one turns a third of them into jobs and the other barely books any.
Google also optimises for whatever you tell it counts as a success. If that is “someone filled in a form”, it will happily find you more form-fillers, whether or not they ever book.
How do you calculate cost per booked job?
The sum itself is simple:
Cost per booked job = total Google Ads spend ÷ number of jobs booked from Google Ads
Use the same period for both numbers, ideally a full calendar month, and only count jobs you can trace back to the ads. Here is a worked example. The figures are made up for illustration, they are not a benchmark:
| Step | Example figure |
|---|---|
| Google Ads spend for the month | £900 |
| Leads from the ads (calls and forms) | 30 |
| Cost per lead | £30 |
| Leads that became booked, paid jobs | 9 |
| Cost per booked job | £100 |
On cost per lead alone, £30 might look expensive or cheap depending on who you ask. At £100 per booked job, the only question that matters is whether a typical job earns you well over £100 in profit.
What is a good cost per booked job for a trade?
There is no single right figure, because a boiler installation and a blocked drain are very different jobs. The number that matters is your own ceiling, which you can work out in two minutes:
- Take your average job value for the type of work the ads are selling.
- Work out your gross profit on that job after materials, labour and any subcontractors.
- Decide how much of that profit you are willing to spend to win the job. That is your maximum cost per booked job.
For example, if a new boiler earns you £1,000 in gross profit, paying £150 to book one is an easy decision. If a small repair earns you £80, a £100 cost per booked job means you are paying to work. Repeat customers and referrals are worth more than the first invoice, so the ceiling can be higher for work that brings them.
Our own client work shows why this matters. When we took over the Google Ads account for Mr Reactive, a Leeds boiler installer, the first month brought in over £22,000 in revenue from £1,200 of ad spend, and the account has produced £10,000 or more a month since. High-value jobs can support a much higher cost per booked job than most trades expect, as long as the ads are aimed at the right searches.
How do you track booked jobs from Google Ads?
This is where most trade accounts fall down. Google can see the click and, with the right setup, the call or form. It cannot see what happened next unless you tell it. There are three layers to get right.
1. Track every call and form
Most trade enquiries come in by phone, so call tracking is not optional. Google Ads can count calls straight from your ads and calls to a Google forwarding number shown on your website (where Google offers forwarding numbers), with a minimum call length you choose, so a two-second wrong number does not count. The options are set out in Google’s help page About phone call conversion tracking. Forms should only count once the thank-you page loads, not when someone clicks the button.
2. Record where each job came from
Note a source against every enquiry, in a job management system, a CRM or a simple spreadsheet. Asking “how did you find us?” helps, but customers often say “Google” when they mean your Google Business Profile, so tracked numbers and form data beat memory.
3. Send booked jobs back to Google
The biggest step up is telling Google which leads turned into paid work. Google’s offline conversion imports let you match a sale that happened over the phone or on site back to the ad click that started it. Once Google knows which searches produce booked jobs, its bidding can aim for more of them. Even without this, a monthly count of booked jobs against spend gives you the headline number.
How can you lower your cost per booked job?
Once you are measuring it, the levers are practical:
- Cut wasted searches. Review the search terms report and add negative keywords for jobs you do not do, DIY searches, trade training and job-seekers.
- Tighten your area. Advertise where you can realistically get to and where the jobs pay. Out-of-area leads cost the same as good ones.
- Answer the phone and quote quickly. A missed call from a paid click is money gone, and many jobs go to whoever gets back to the customer first.
- Send people to a page that matches the search. Someone searching for a boiler replacement should land on a boiler page with prices, reviews and a clear way to book, not your homepage.
If you are still deciding on budget, our guide to how much a UK tradesperson should spend on Google Ads per month works backwards from your revenue target, and the UK trade marketing cost calculator lets you test the numbers for your own business. For the wider picture, see our complete guide to Google Ads for UK trades.
Frequently asked questions
Is cost per booked job the same as cost per acquisition?
Not quite. In Google Ads, cost per acquisition (CPA) is cost per whatever you have set as a conversion, which is usually a call or form. Cost per booked job only counts enquiries that became paid work, so it is almost always higher than the CPA Google shows you, and far more honest.
How long before cost per booked job is reliable?
Give it at least a full month of data, and longer for high-value jobs where only a handful book each month. A single big job or a quiet week can swing the figure a lot, so judge the trend over several months rather than one.
Want to know your real cost per booked job?
We help UK trades and local service businesses set up Google Ads that are measured on booked jobs, not clicks. If you want a second pair of eyes on your account, or help setting up call and job tracking properly, get in touch with Unavoidable Marketing for a free 30-minute strategy call.
About the author: Andrew Heppinstall is the founder of Unavoidable Marketing, a Leeds agency that helps UK trades and local service businesses win work through Google Local Services Ads, SEO and paid search. His article “What makes Google ads effective?” appeared on the Business Matters page of PHAM News in September 2026.