A realistic guide to starting budgets, cost-per-lead benchmarks by industry, and when to scale.
The most common question we hear is: "How much do I need to spend to make Google Ads work?" The honest answer: enough to gather meaningful data — usually ₹15,000–₹30,000/month for local service businesses in metro India.
At ₹5,000/month you might get 200 clicks — spread across 50 keywords. That's 4 clicks per keyword, nowhere near enough for Google's algorithm to learn who converts. Budgets fail not because ads don't work, but because they're too small to produce signal.
Give any campaign 90 days before judging it. The first 2–4 weeks are learning: we're finding negative keywords, killing bad placements and testing ad copy. By day 60–90 the cost-per-lead typically drops 30–50% from where it started.
Scale when you're hitting your target cost-per-lead and you can handle more business. Double the budget, keep the structure, and watch conversion volume climb. Scaling too early just buys expensive data.
Agencies like ours charge a separate management fee, custom-quoted based on your scope. That fee covers keyword research, campaign builds, negative keyword management, call tracking, landing pages and weekly optimization — the work that makes your ad spend efficient.