Ads on Google and Meta, run by people who watch them weekly.

Two kinds of ads, two different jobs

Google ads put your shop in front of people already searching: plumber near me, brake repair, emergency locksmith. They are looking, so the ad has to be clear and the phone has to be answered.

Meta ads run on Facebook and Instagram. People are not searching; they are scrolling. These ads work best for offers, seasonal reminders and showing the work.

What you can do alone

If you want to try ads yourself, start small and slow.

1. Pick one service and one area. A sprinkler repair in three zip codes, not everything everywhere.
2. Send people to a page that books, not to your home page.
3. Use a daily limit you can afford to lose, and check the dashboard every day for the first week.
4. Add negative keywords on Google so you stop paying for jobs you do not do, like free, DIY or jobs.
5. Set up call and form tracking so you know which ad produced the booking.
6. Pause anything that spends without a lead after a fair test.

What Centera sets up

On the bigger plans, our team runs your Google and Meta ads. We build the accounts, write the ads, set the targeting and tune them every week, using a monthly ad budget on your own card. The ad spend goes straight from you to the platform and never through us.

We set up call tracking and booking tracking so the leads land on customer cards. On smaller plans we connect the accounts so leads and tracking are in place, but we do not manage the campaigns.

How it works day to day

You approve the offer and the budget once. Each week we check which ads are bringing calls and bookings, pause the weak ones and adjust the rest. Every lead pings your phone like any other, so Nora and the booking page work with the ads, not separately.

Your Monday email shows what the ads cost and what came from them. We write a short plan and a short result. We cannot promise results, because results depend on your market, your season and how fast calls get answered. Ads that are not working get paused, not pushed harder.

What good ad setup looks like and when ads are not the answer

A decent local ad account is plain. A handful of tightly written Google ads aimed at the searches that lead to bookings. A Meta offer with a real photo and a clear button. Negative keywords added from the first week. Conversion tracking on the call button and the booking form.

If a shop cannot say what a booked job is worth, ads are guesswork. We ask that early.

If your listing is incomplete, your reviews are thin or your calls go unanswered, ads will send people into a leaky bucket. Fix the basics first. For some shops, the better use of the first month is reviews and a booking page, with ads added after. We will say so plainly when we think that is the case.

Where to start

Before ads, check that a call to your shop is answered and a booking page works. Ads multiply whatever is there. See phone answering, then your free report.

Questions owners ask