The short answer
Google Ads captures demand that already exists. Facebook Ads creates demand that does not. For emergency trades the answer is almost always Google. For planned, considered purchases, Facebook can work better and cost less.
The distinction that decides it
Nearly every confused advertising decision in the trades comes from missing one difference.
On Google, someone types what they want. They have a problem, they are looking for a solution, and your advertisement appears at the moment of intent. You are competing for demand that already exists.
On Facebook and Instagram, nobody is looking for you. They are looking at photographs of people they know. Your advertisement interrupts that. You are creating demand that did not exist a moment ago.
Where Google clearly wins
Emergency and urgent-need trades. A homeowner with a garage door that will not open, a furnace that has stopped, or water where water should not be, does exactly one thing: they search.
This shows plainly in the cost data. Across the south metro we measured cost per click reaching over eighty dollars in garage door repair, over seventy in plumbing, and well above fifty in HVAC and electrical work.
Those numbers are not a warning. They are the market's assessment of what an urgent lead is worth, arrived at by competitors who have run the maths. High cost per click in an emergency category is a signal that the category converts.
| Category | Peak measured cost per click | Platform fit |
|---|---|---|
| Pest control | Over $100 | Google, strongly |
| Garage door repair | Over $84 | Google, strongly |
| HVAC | Over $79 | Google, strongly |
| Plumbing | Over $73 | Google, strongly |
| Electrical | Over $58 | Google, strongly |
| Restaurants | Around $1 | Neither, use organic and profile |
| Salons | Under $1 | Neither, use organic and reviews |
Where Facebook actually wins
Considered, visual, non-urgent purchases. Nobody wakes up searching for a new deck. But a well-photographed deck appearing in a feed, in a recognisable neighbourhood, can start a conversation that ends in a project six months later.
- Remodeling and renovation, where the outcome is visual and the decision is slow
- Landscaping design and hardscaping, for the same reasons
- Holiday lighting, which people rarely search for but frequently want once reminded
- Seasonal contracts sold ahead of the season, such as snow, where searching has not started yet
- Retargeting people who visited your site and did not convert, which is genuinely cheap and effective
Facebook also has a real cost advantage. Clicks generally cost a fraction of Google's in these categories. The trade-off is that the click is worth much less, because the person was not looking for you.
What the budget questions really mean
Two questions come up constantly in the fan-out data for this topic: whether ten dollars a day is enough for Facebook, and whether twenty a day is enough for Google. Both deserve an honest answer.
Ten dollars a day on Facebook
It is enough to learn something, in a tightly targeted local area, with one clear offer and good creative. It is not enough to test several audiences against several creatives at once. Spread that thin, it produces noise rather than data.
Twenty dollars a day on Google in an expensive trade
At an eighty dollar cost per click, twenty dollars a day buys roughly one click every four days. That is not a campaign, it is a rounding error, and it will never accumulate enough data to optimize.
The honest conclusion is that in expensive emergency categories, Google Ads has a minimum viable budget, and it is higher than most small contractors expect. Below it, the money is better spent on organic visibility and intake, which is why we generally recommend fixing those first.
Before you spend on either
There is a failure mode that makes both platforms look ineffective when the problem is elsewhere.
If your intake process loses calls, paid advertising converts your money into missed opportunities at a faster rate. At eighty dollars a click, a call that reaches voicemail is a genuinely expensive event, and no amount of campaign optimization fixes it.
- Answer the phone, or have something that does. See lead recovery.
- Make sure the landing page matches the advertisement exactly.
- Track calls, not just clicks, or you cannot tell which half worked.
- Fix the Google Business Profile first, because it is free and often outperforms paid placement.
On that last point, our SERP research found that local service searches overwhelmingly return a map pack. If your profile is weak, you are paying for clicks in a results page where the free listing above you is doing better work. See AI Overviews and local search.
Questions people ask about this
01Do Google Ads work better than Facebook Ads for contractors?+
For urgent and emergency work, yes, clearly, because customers actively search at the moment of need. For visual, considered projects like remodeling and landscaping design, Facebook often performs better and costs less per click.
02Is ten dollars a day enough for Facebook Ads?+
It is enough to learn something with a tight local audience, one offer, and good creative. It is not enough to test multiple audiences and creatives simultaneously, which is how most small budgets get wasted.
03Is twenty dollars a day enough for Google Ads?+
Not in expensive trades. At eighty dollars per click that buys about one click every four days, which never accumulates enough data to optimize. Expensive emergency categories have a minimum viable budget that is higher than most contractors expect.
04Why is cost per click so high for garage doors and plumbing?+
Because the leads convert and the jobs are valuable, and competitors have bid accordingly. In our south metro measurements garage door repair exceeded eighty dollars per click and plumbing exceeded seventy. High cost per click reflects proven commercial value rather than a warning.
05Should I run ads before fixing my website?+
Generally no. Paid traffic arriving at a page that does not match the advertisement, or a business that cannot answer the phone, wastes money faster than organic traffic does. Fix intake and the landing experience first.