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Paid Search Validation

The 2-Minute Paid Search Validation

See whether paid search is worth it for you.

Two minutes, three quick questions. We set what a click costs in your market against what a client is worth to you, and give you a straight read: strong headroom, tight, or a no. If it wouldn’t pay you, it says so.

Free. Your figures, real market data, instant result.

  • Built on your own figures and real market data.
  • No login, no card. Your result sent straight to your inbox.
  • An honest read, not a sales pitch.

You get one of three reads.

Based on your own figures and what clicks actually cost in your market right now.

  1. Strong headroom

    What a client is worth to you comfortably covers what it costs to win one. The gap is your margin.

  2. Tight

    It can pay, but the margin is thin. How well the campaign is built decides it.

  3. No headroom

    On your current numbers, a client would cost more to win than one is worth today.

What a client is worth to you, against what clicks cost in your market.

Every read on this page comes from two numbers. One you give us. One we pull for you.

  • What a client is worth to you. In profit, across the whole relationship, not just the first job. You tell us what one client brings you in revenue, and a slider sets roughly what share of that is profit.
  • What it costs to buy enough clicks to win one. We pull the current price of a click straight from Google’s advertising data, for the service you name and the areas you serve. Not an industry average. Not a benchmark from an article. Your market, today.
  • We judge it on the worst plausible cost, on purpose. The read is decided on the high end of the click range and a careful view of how many clicks it takes to win a client. We would rather under-call a yes than over-promise one.

And if Google holds back its search data for your service, we tell you that instead of filling the gap with invented numbers.

Start the assessment

Three questions, and you already know the answers.

Nothing to look up, nothing to dig out of your accounts. Here is every question the assessment asks about your business.

  1. 01
    The service you’d want more clients for. Use the words a customer would search.
  2. 02
    Where you serve clients. One town, several, or the whole of the UK.
  3. 03
    What one client brings you in revenue, and roughly what share of that is profit. A slider handles the margin, so it is one figure to type.

Rough figures are fine. Every one of these is a number you already carry in your head.

Questions people ask before they start

Is Google Ads worth it for a small business?

It comes down to two numbers. What one client is worth to you over the whole relationship, and what it costs to win one at what clicks currently sell for in your market. If the first number comfortably covers the second, it can pay. If it doesn’t, it won’t, however well the ads are built. That comparison is what this page runs for you.

What does it cost to use this?

Nothing. No card, no login, no account to create. We ask for your first name and email at the start so we can send you your result. After that it is three quick questions.

How do you know what a click costs in my market?

We pull it live from Google’s own advertising data, for the service you name and the areas you serve. So it is the current price in your market rather than an industry average or a figure from an article. If you want the wider picture on what clicks cost across the UK, we wrote about that here.

What do I need to have ready?

Nothing to look up. Your first name and email, then three things you already carry in your head: your service, where you work, and what one client brings you. Rough numbers are fine.

Why do you ask for my first name and email?

So we can send you your result. It comes with the figures behind your read, what is driving it, and what would move it, so you have the whole thing in writing to come back to, or to put in front of whoever else has a say.

What happens to my details?

We use your name and email to send you your result. Marketing email is a separate tick box you can leave unticked, and it makes no difference to your result. The full detail is in our Privacy Policy.

What if paid search doesn’t pay on my numbers?

You will know before you have spent anything, and the breakdown shows what would change it. The biggest lever is usually what a client is worth to you over time rather than anything in the ad account. Grow that number and a no today can become a yes later. The path from click to client is where most of it is won or lost.

Does this work for any service business?

Any UK service business. Google holds back search data for a few categories, health among them. If yours is one, we say so rather than guess, and a broader name for what you do often has the data.

Your numbers. Your decision.

It is free, it runs on your own figures, and the answer is yours. Whatever it says, you will know where you stand before you spend anything.

Start the assessment