There are five types of PPC advertising for small businesses worth knowing: search ads, social ads, display ads, affiliate marketing and local service ads. For a business that wants calls from people nearby, two of them do most of the work. Search ads come first, and Google’s local service ads come a close second where they’re offered.
The other three have a place, but a smaller one. This article explains what each type does, what a click costs on average, and how to choose without buying all five.
What PPC actually means
PPC stands for pay-per-click. You pay when someone clicks your ad, not for the space it sits in. It’s a way of buying visits while the slower work of earning them through search visibility goes on.
So what does a click cost? WordStream’s Google Ads Benchmarks 2025 looked at US search campaigns that ran from April 2024 through March 2025, and it puts the average cost per click at $5.26 and the average cost per lead at $70.11. Those averages are medians, and costs run higher in home improvement and legal services.
Treat them as a reference point, not a quote. Your costs depend on your trade, your town and who else wants the same searches. Paying only for clicks also doesn’t mean paying only for customers. If the wrong people click, you still pay. Our PPC advertising guide covers budgets and tracking once you’ve picked a type.
The five types, and who each one suits
The real choice is which customer you want to reach, and at what moment. A homeowner with a gutter hanging off the house searches today and calls within the hour. A homeowner dreaming about a new deck scrolls past ads for months. Same trade, different moment, different ad. A search ad suits the first. A reminder over time suits the second.
Type 1: Search ads
Google’s guide to choosing a campaign type describes search campaigns as “text ads on search results.” Your ad appears when someone types a phrase you picked, like “fence repair Richboro” or “physical therapy near me.” They have a need right now, which is why search is where we’d start for most local businesses.
The skill is in what you leave out. If you install new fences but most of your clicks come from people wanting a single loose board fixed, the ad is working technically and failing commercially. Excluding those searches matters as much as choosing the right ones.
Type 2: Social media ads
On Facebook and Instagram, nobody asked for you. Your ad lands in the feed of people picked by location, age and interest, while they’re looking at something else. So you need to know exactly who your customer is before you choose an audience.
Social suits work people plan and enjoy looking at: a patio, a new smile, a gym membership. It suits emergencies badly, because a burst pipe doesn’t wait for the right post to scroll by. Photos and short videos of your own work usually do more here than clever copy.
Type 3: Display ads
Google calls these image ads on websites. They’re the banners beside articles and inside apps. People rarely click one with the plan to hire someone that day, so on their own they’re an expensive way to make the phone ring.
Their best use is a reminder. Someone looked at your septic inspection page last week and left without calling. Showing that person your name again, with a small slice of the budget, is reasonable. We’d treat display as support for search, not a replacement.
Type 4: Affiliate marketing
A partner promotes your product on their own site and earns a commission on each sale that comes through their link. You pay for the sale, not the click. Strictly speaking it isn’t pay-per-click, but it comes up in the same conversations.
It’s the one we’d leave off most local lists. It suits online stores. If you clean gutters in Montgomery County, there’s rarely an online sale for a link to track, and a referral arrangement with a neighboring trade does the same job with less machinery.
Type 5: Local service ads
Google’s version is Local Services Ads, and they work differently from the rest. According to Google’s help page, the ads are “shown prominently in Google Search results,” and you “only pay when a customer gets in touch from your ad.” You pay per lead, such as a call or a message, not per click.
Google screens the businesses that take part, and its Google Verified badge tells people a business passed that screening. Expect paperwork before the ads run. They aren’t offered for every trade or area, so check whether yours is included. For a contractor, they’re often worth running next to search ads.
Match the ad to where the click lands
Being visible everywhere isn’t the aim. Being visible to the right person at the right moment is, and it depends on answers only you have. Decide which service you want more of, whether people search for it when they need it or have to be shown it, and whether you can take the work if the ads bring it.
Where the click goes matters just as much. Picture someone clicking an ad for a bathroom renovation consult and landing on a page about roofing, additions and general repairs. Most people leave. A page that matches the ad is half the job, and our landing page tips show what to put on it.
What ads can’t do
Ads put you in front of the right people. They don’t answer the phone, and they stop when the budget stops. Someone has to pick up at lunchtime, and a form needs a quick reply.
Ads can bring inquiries sooner than search visibility once the campaign and page are ready. No one can promise a number of leads by a date, and the benchmark figures are averages across thousands of campaigns. Yours may land above or below them.
We’d need your side too. Tell us which calls were good, which were for work you don’t do, and which became customers. That feedback is how anyone steers a campaign.
Pick one type and write down what you want
This week, take twenty minutes and write down the one job you’d like more of and the words a customer would type to find it. Search the phrase yourself and see who’s already paying to answer it. That tells you whether search or local service ads are your first move.
Our Google Ads management is scoped as its own service, and the ad spend is separate. Tell us what you want more of, what you’ve tried and what happened. We’ll look at what’s in place and say what we’d do and why. Your first consultation is free.