Google Ads for builders in the UK

Can Google Ads bring a building firm extension, loft conversion and renovation work, not just small repairs? Yes, if the campaign is built around planned, high-value jobs: buying intent keywords, a landing page for each service, proper call and form tracking, and judging it on cost per booked job rather than cost per click. Unavoidable Marketing is a Leeds-based agency that runs Google Ads, search and Performance Max, for UK builders, and founder Andrew Heppinstall is on every strategy call.

Book a free 30-minute strategy call

Last updated: 18 October 2026

Why builders need a different Google Ads set-up

Most Google Ads advice for trades is written for emergencies. A burst pipe gets a call within a minute of the search. Building work does not happen like that. Someone thinking about a single-storey rear extension may search for months: costs, ideas, planning rules, then builders. They get drawings done, ask the neighbours, then ring a few firms for a quote.

That changes almost everything about how the account should run:

• The click that turns into a job may happen weeks after the first visit, so tracking has to follow the enquiry through to a booked survey and a signed quote.
• One won extension can be worth more than a year of small jobs, so a higher cost per enquiry is fine if the enquiries are the right size.
• The landing page has to carry the trust a homeowner needs before handing over a large sum: real projects, photos, process, and who turns up on site.
• Budgets need to follow the building calendar, not sit flat all year.

Keyword intent: extension builders near me versus DIY

The biggest waste we see in builders’ accounts is paying for people who were never going to hire a builder. “How to build an extension”, “extension ideas”, “loft conversion DIY” and “how much does an extension cost” all get searched a lot, and broad match will happily spend your budget on them.

Split the keywords by how close the searcher is to hiring:

The negative keyword list every builder should start with

Before a single pound is spent, block the searches that drain building accounts. A starting list for a typical extension and renovation firm:

• DIY, how to, yourself, tutorial, YouTube, ideas, Pinterest
• Jobs, vacancies, apprenticeship, salary, labourer, CSCS
• Merchants, supplies, materials, blocks, timber, skip hire
• Free, cheap, grants (unless you work on grant-funded schemes)
• Services you do not take on, such as patios or small repairs
• Towns outside the area you will travel to for a long job

Then check the search terms report weekly at first. Building searches are messy and new waste turns up constantly.

A landing page for each service, not the home page

A homeowner who searched for a loft conversion wants to see loft conversions, in houses like theirs, done by you, not your home page.

Each main service gets its own page: extensions, loft conversions, full renovations, garage conversions, and whatever else you want more of. Every page should have:

• Photos of finished jobs of that type, ideally before and after, with the town named
• A plain description of how the job runs: survey, drawings, planning or building regs, build, sign-off
• Trust signals you actually hold, such as FMB or TrustMark membership, insurance and guarantees
• Reviews that name the project, not just “great job”
• One clear next step: book a site visit, by phone or a short form

Search or Performance Max for building work

For most builders, search campaigns should do the heavy lifting. You choose the keywords, you see what people typed, and you control which page they land on. That matters when the difference between a small repair enquiry and a full renovation is one word in the search.

Performance Max can help once tracking is solid and there is enough enquiry data for Google to learn from. It mixes search, YouTube, Display, Maps and Gmail, which suits a visual trade. The risk is that it finds cheap enquiries rather than good ones. We only add it when the account can tell Google which enquiries became real jobs, and we keep brand and core service searches in normal search campaigns.

Call and form tracking that follows the job

A builder does not get paid for clicks. You get paid for signed jobs. So the account has to measure every phone call from the ads and the website, every quote form and every email, and then which of those became a site visit and a signed job.

We set up call tracking and form tracking, and agree a simple way to mark enquiries as booked, whether that is a spreadsheet or a weekly call. That lets us report cost per booked job and, over time, feed real outcomes back into Google so it bids for more of the enquiries that turn into work.

Budget by season

Building enquiries follow a pattern. January brings people planning summer extensions. Spring is busy with quotes. By late summer many firms are booked into the following year, and paying for enquiries you cannot take is money wasted. We plan budgets around your diary: push when you have gaps, ease off when the order book is full.

Pairing Google Ads with Local Services Ads

Google Local Services Ads put a Google Verified badge at the top of the results and charge per lead rather than per click. They are good for straightforward searches like “builders near me”. Standard Google Ads gives you control over specific services, landing pages and keywords like “loft conversion company”. Running both, with the budget set by what each one delivers in booked jobs, covers more of the page. If you do run Local Services Ads, keep job types and areas tight, because Google no longer lets you dispute bad leads by hand.

How we do it

We have worked with trades since 2012, across 390+ projects, and 92% of our clients come back.