A first campaign on a small budget succeeds by being narrow. One service, one geography, a handful of keywords, one landing page. The instinct to cover everything is the single most reliable way to spend R6,000 and learn nothing.

Before you open the account

Three things must be true or the campaign cannot work.

A landing page for the specific service. Not the homepage. Someone searching "geyser repair Pretoria" should land on a geyser repair page, and this one decision often doubles conversion rate.

Conversion tracking. Without it you are buying clicks blind. You need form submissions and clicks on your phone and WhatsApp links recorded as conversions before day one, not after month three.

A budget you can sustain for 90 days. R5,000 a month for three months beats R15,000 for one, because the account needs time to accumulate data.

Step 1: pick one service

The one with the best margin and the clearest search demand. A plumber runs geyser replacement, not "plumbing". A law firm runs one practice area. Narrow now, expand once something works.

Step 2: build a small keyword list

Ten to twenty keywords, all about that service. Use phrase match ("geyser repair pretoria") and exact match ([geyser repair pretoria]). Leave broad match alone until you have money to spend on exploration.

Include the location in the keyword where people search that way, and use Google's Keyword Planner to check that the terms have volume before committing.

Step 3: add negative keywords on day one

This is where small budgets are saved. Start with: free, DIY, jobs, vacancies, salary, course, training, how to, second hand, used, wholesale.

Then check the search terms report weekly and add whatever nonsense appears. On a small budget, ten wasted clicks is a real cost.

Step 4: set targeting properly

Radius or suburb targeting around where you actually serve, not the whole country. Set location options to "presence" so you reach people in the area rather than people merely interested in it, which is a default that quietly wastes budget.

Set the language to English, and start on Search only. Turn off the Display Network in campaign settings, because it is on by default and will consume your budget on placements that do not convert.

Step 5: write ads that match the search

Put the keyword in the headline, because relevance drives Quality Score and Quality Score drives what you pay per click. State the location. Give one concrete reason to choose you, such as same-day callout or a 12-month guarantee. Make the action explicit: call now, get a quote.

Write three or four ads per group and let Google rotate them. Add call and location extensions, which cost nothing and take up more of the results page.

Step 6: bidding

Start on Maximise Clicks with a cost-per-click cap, which keeps a small budget from being spent on a handful of expensive clicks. Once the account has recorded roughly 30 conversions, switch to Maximise Conversions. Smart bidding before that has nothing to learn from.

Step 7: the first month

Week one: change nothing. Check the search terms report and add negatives. That is all.

Week two: add negatives again. Pause any keyword with 50-plus clicks and no conversion.

Weeks three and four: shift budget towards the keywords producing enquiries and start testing a new ad headline.

The commonest beginner error is changing bids daily. Every change resets the learning, and an account that is constantly adjusted never settles.

What it should cost

	Typical South African range
Media spend to start	R5,000 to R8,000/mo
Cost per click, local services	R8 to R35
Cost per click, legal and finance	R40 to R150
Landing page conversion rate	2% to 6%
Realistic cost per lead	R150 to R900
Management if outsourced	From R6,000/mo

All figures exclude VAT. Advertising spend is billed separately by the platform and is never marked up by Juicy Designs.

Five mistakes to skip

Sending clicks to the homepage. Starting with Performance Max, which hides where the money goes. Leaving the Display Network on. Broad match on a small budget. And judging results after one week, before the account has enough data to judge.

Juicy Designs manages Google Ads from R6,000 per month, month-to-month. Related: setting a budget, negative keywords and what Google Ads costs in South Africa.

Frequently asked questions

What is the minimum budget for a first Google Ads campaign?

About R5,000 to R8,000 a month in media spend for a South African service business. Below roughly R150 a day the campaign gathers data too slowly to learn from, and you spend months guessing instead of optimising.

Which campaign type should a beginner start with?

A standard Search campaign with manual keyword control. Performance Max hides where the money goes, which is exactly what a first campaign needs to see. Start on Search, learn what converts, then consider anything else.

How many keywords should I start with?

Ten to twenty, all closely related to one service, using phrase and exact match. Broad match on a small budget spends most of it on searches that were never going to buy.

How long before I know if it works?

Two to four weeks for direction and about 90 days for confident decisions. Resist changing bids or copy in the first fortnight, because the account needs data before any change can be judged.

What is the most common first-campaign mistake?

Sending clicks to the homepage. A visitor searching for one specific service should land on the page about that service, and doing this alone often doubles conversion rate.