Google Ads Wollongong
Targeted Google Ads campaigns that put your business in front of ready-to-buy customers searching in Wollongong right now.
Get free quote
What Google Ads actually does for a Wollongong business
Google Ads — still called AdWords by plenty of business owners — puts your business at the top of the search results for terms you choose, and charges you when someone clicks. That’s the whole mechanism.
What makes it useful is when it reaches people. Somebody searching "emergency electrician Wollongong" at 7pm isn’t browsing. They’ve got a problem, they want it solved tonight, and they’re going to call one of the first businesses they see. Ads let you be there for that search tomorrow, rather than in the six-to-twelve months it takes to earn the position organically.
What makes it expensive is that Google will happily take your money regardless of whether the campaign is set up sensibly. There’s no error message for wasting your budget. A poorly built campaign and a well-built one look identical from the outside — the difference only shows up in what you spent and what you got back.
The three things that decide whether Google Ads works
Campaign structure and search intent
Not every search is worth the same to you, and the biggest single waste in most accounts is paying the same for both kinds.
- Separating high-intent searches ("emergency plumber Wollongong") from research searches ("how much does a plumber cost") — both have value, neither should be bid on the same way
- Negative keywords, aggressively maintained. Without them you pay for "plumbing courses," "plumbing supplies," and "plumber jobs"
- Tight ad groups, so the ad someone sees matches the exact thing they typed
- Location targeting set to people in your service area, not people showing interest in it — this default alone quietly burns a meaningful share of a lot of local budgets
- Ad scheduling that matches when you can actually answer the phone
Wollongong insight: Illawarra service businesses often set their radius to Wollongong and stop there, missing Shellharbour, Dapto, Kiama and the northern suburbs where a large share of the searching happens. Others go the opposite way and target all of NSW, competing against Sydney budgets for clicks they’d never service.
Where the click lands
This is where most local campaigns fall over, and it usually isn’t the campaign’s fault.
- Someone searching for a specific service should land on a page about that service, not your homepage
- The phone number needs to be tappable and visible without scrolling
- The page has to load fast on mobile data, not just on office wi-fi
- The next step has to be obvious in about three seconds
- What the ad promised has to be the first thing on the page
Wollongong insight: We see this constantly — a campaign that looks broken is actually fine, and the landing page is throwing away every click it delivers. It’s also the cheapest thing on this page to fix.
Tracking what actually happened
Without this you’re guessing. With it, you can cut the keywords that don’t convert and put the money into the ones that do.
- Conversion tracking on form submissions and phone calls, including calls from the ad itself
- Knowing which keywords produce enquiries, not just clicks
- Enough call volume attributed properly that you can tell a real lead from a wrong number
- Reporting on cost per enquiry, which is the number that matters, rather than impressions and click-through rate, which are the numbers agencies like to show you
Wollongong insight: This is where most of the improvement in a mature account comes from — not a bigger budget, but cutting what doesn’t work and backing what does.
Common Google Ads mistakes we see (and fix)
Broad match with no negative keywords
The fastest way to spend a month’s budget on searches that were never going to become customers. Google’s defaults are designed to maximise clicks, and clicks are what Google sells.
Every ad pointing at the homepage
Worth repeating because it’s the most common and most expensive mistake in local accounts.
No conversion tracking at all
Roughly half the accounts we’re handed can’t tell which keywords produced enquiries. Everything after that is guesswork with a monthly invoice attached.
Bidding on your own business name unnecessarily
Sometimes worth it defensively if competitors are bidding on it. Often it’s just paying for clicks you’d have received for free.
Set and forget
Search terms shift, competitors change bids, seasons move. An account left alone for six months isn’t running — it’s leaking.
We build the landing page too. That’s not a small thing.
Most Google Ads agencies don’t touch your website. They’ll tell you the landing page is hurting performance, send through recommendations, and then wait — while your budget keeps spending against a page nobody’s fixing.
You’re then in the worst position in digital marketing: paying an ads agency monthly and a web developer hourly, with each able to point at the other when results are flat, and a queue between them that turns a two-hour fix into a three-week one. Meanwhile the campaign spends every day.
We build websites. That’s the main thing we do. So when the campaign data says the service page isn’t converting, the fix happens that week, by the same team, with no scoping call and no separate invoice.
It also means the campaign gets built with the landing pages in mind from the start rather than retrofitted onto whatever exists — which is a materially different starting point, and usually shows up in cost per enquiry within the first month.
Real Illawarra marketing results
Not anonymised examples — real clients, with real names, including the Google Ads results for Around the Clock Dog Care and Google Ads for Concrete Works Sydney.
Around the Clock Dog Care
How local SEO and Google Ads work together for a dog daycare and boarding business, and what we focused on getting right.
Central East Mechanical
Local SEO and Google Ads for a Dapto mechanic, targeting high-intent repair and servicing searches across the Illawarra.
Concrete Works Sydney
Local SEO and Google Ads for a Sydney concreting contractor, targeting commercial and residential concrete searches.
Why a Wollongong-based team over a Sydney agency?
| Sydney / national agencies | Madweb — Wollongong |
|---|---|
| ✕Same campaign template across every client | ✓Built around your actual market and competitors |
| ✕Landing page problems handed back to you as recommendations | ✓We build the page and fix it ourselves |
| ✕Minimum spends that price out smaller local businesses | ✓Sized to what your market actually needs |
| ✕Percentage-of-spend fees that reward spending more | ✓Flat monthly fee — no incentive to inflate your budget |
| ✕Account managers relaying questions to a team you never meet | ✓You talk to whoever’s in the account |
| ✕Six to twelve month lock-in | ✓Month to month, no lock-in |
What you get
- A campaign built around search intent, not a keyword list pulled from a tool
- Landing pages built or fixed by us, included in the work
- Negative keyword lists maintained continuously, not set once
- Conversion tracking for forms and calls, configured properly
- Ad copy written and tested, not left on Google’s automated suggestions
- Location and schedule targeting matched to where and when you actually trade
- Monthly reporting on cost per enquiry, in plain English
- A flat management fee that doesn’t rise when your ad spend does
How it works
Account and market review
What you’ve spent, what it produced, what your competitors are bidding on, and what a click realistically costs in your industry. If you’ve never run ads, we start from the search data instead.
Campaign build
Structure, keywords, negatives, ad copy, targeting, and the tracking setup that makes the rest measurable.
Landing pages
Built or fixed before spend starts. Sending traffic to a page that doesn’t convert is the most expensive way to learn what’s wrong with it.
Manage and report
Search term review, bid adjustments, ad testing, and a monthly report on what each dollar produced.
Google Ads or SEO?
Ads work immediately and stop the day you stop paying. SEO takes months and keeps working after the invoice.
The practical answer for most businesses is both, in sequence: ads to generate enquiries now, SEO building underneath so that in twelve months you’re not dependent on the ad spend. As organic rankings improve, ad budget can often come down, or move to the terms that are hardest to rank for.
If you’re choosing one to start with, it usually comes down to urgency. Need work in the next month — ads. Building something over the next year — SEO.
What it costs
From $500/monthThat’s our fee, flat, regardless of what you spend with Google. We don’t charge a percentage of ad spend, because that arrangement pays us more for recommending you spend more, and that’s a bad incentive to have sitting in the middle of the relationship.
Your ad spend is separate and goes directly to Google. Most businesses need somewhere around $1,000 a month in spend for the data to be meaningful and the results to be worth the management fee — but that varies a lot. In an industry where a click costs $3, that budget goes a long way. Where clicks run $25, it doesn’t. We’ll tell you what clicks cost in your market before you commit, and if the numbers don’t work we’ll say so.
What our clients say
Real reviews from real Wollongong and Illawarra clients.
I couldn’t be happier with my new website! The whole process was seamless from start to finish. Michael was prompt, incredibly easy to deal with, and created exactly what I had envisioned. His communication and professionalism made everything so simple. Would highly recommend MadWeb to anyone looking for a stress-free website design experience!
Extremely happy with the website Michael and his team built. Michael was extremely easy to communicate with, definitely went the extra mile on our website when he did not have to, and came up with a great product at a reasonably price. I am small business owner myself, and I would strongly endorse MadWeb to anyone.
Working with Michael from MadWeb was an absolute pleasure. From start to finish, the whole process was smooth, professional, and stress-free. He was responsive, knowledgeable, and always happy to help, delivering exactly what was promised. The quality of his work exceeded my expectations, and I couldn’t be happier with the end result.
I had a great experience with Michael and his team at Madweb. I couldn’t be happier with the service they provided or the quality of their work. They were professional, responsive, and delivered excellent results. I highly recommend Madweb to anyone looking for reliable, high quality website services.
Frequently asked questions
What Wollongong businesses ask us most before starting a Google Ads campaign.
Enough that the campaign has data to optimise against. As a rough benchmark, around $1,000 a month in ad spend — but it depends heavily on cost per click in your industry, and we’ll give you a realistic figure for your market before you start.
Below roughly $500 a month in spend, most local campaigns generate too little data to optimise and too few enquiries to justify a management fee. If that’s your budget, you’re usually better off putting it into your website and Google Business Profile first, and we’ll tell you that rather than take the work.
Ad spend goes to Google and buys the clicks. The management fee is what you pay us to build, run and improve the campaign. They’re separate, and you see both.
Ads generate traffic immediately. Meaningful optimisation takes four to six weeks, because that’s how long it takes to accumulate enough search term data to know what to cut and what to back.
You need a landing page. A homepage has to serve everyone, so it converts nobody in particular. We build them as part of the work.
Yes. Month to month, no lock-in.
No. Flat fee.
You do. If you leave, it goes with you, with the campaign history intact. Agencies that build campaigns in their own accounts are holding your data hostage, and it’s more common than it should be.
Yes, and it’s usually where the quickest gains are — most accounts we inherit have obvious waste in the search terms report that can be cut in the first week.
Ready to get in front of ready-to-buy customers?
Tell us your budget and goals, and we'll show you what a realistic Google Ads campaign looks like for your business — no pressure, no obligation.