Service
Google Ads in Southampton: three markets where paid clicks pay
Southampton has three search markets that ads serve well: the urgent home searches in a city of a quarter of a million, the cruise-terminal trade on sailing days, and the marine season from spring to autumn. Everywhere else the click is dear and the free traffic is better. We run ads for the searches that end in a phone call, land them on pages built for the click, track every enquiry to its keyword, and turn them down as the profile and the pages take over.
Three markets
Where ads earn their keep in Southampton
All year
Urgent, at home
Emergency plumber, boiler not working, locksmith, blocked drain, emergency dentist, vet open now. Decided in a minute, the map is crowded, and the ad sits above it. Targeted by centre, never by radius.
Sailing days
The terminals
Taxi to the cruise terminal, hotel near Southampton port, cruise parking, breakfast near the docks. Targeted at the terminals and the station on sailing days, landing on a page written for passengers with a phone number and a price.
February to October
The marine season
Outboard service, antifouling, rigging, boat transport, RYA courses. Searched by the make and the water, February to October. Ads in the peaks, off in the winter, landing on a page per make.
Negative keywords
The list every Southampton account starts with
Two universities and a port mean the search-terms report fills with job seekers, students looking for a discount and people in another city. This list goes in on day one and grows every week.
Starter negative list
- jobs
- vacancies
- salary
- apprenticeship
- course
- training
- student discount
- free
- diy
- how to
- what is
- wholesale
- used
- second hand
- gumtree
- marketplace
- cheap
- reviews of
- complaints
- portsmouth
- bournemouth
- isle of wight
Then the trade-specific ones: for a clinic, “NHS” unless you take NHS patients; for a marine firm, “for sale”, “boat jumble”; for a taxi firm, “bus”, “train times”.
How we run it
The rules every Southampton account follows
One campaign per service
Boiler repair and bathroom fitting are different customers with different budgets; they never share an ad group.
A landing page per campaign
Built for the search, phone number and form above the fold, the price logic and the centres on the page.
Centres, not a radius
Shirley, Portswood, Bitterne, Eastleigh and Totton as named places, set to people in or regularly in them. A ten-mile radius from the centre pays for the Solent and half the New Forest.
Tracking to the enquiry
Calls from ads recorded, form sends attributed, so the report shows cost per enquiry, not cost per click.
A weekly search-terms pass
New negatives added, winning searches promoted, the budget moved to what is converting.
A stop rule
If a campaign has not paid for itself by the second month, it stops, and we say so.
Questions Southampton businesses ask us
Is Google Ads worth it in Southampton?
For urgent, high-value searches, yes: emergency plumber, locksmith, boiler repair, emergency dentist, airport and cruise-terminal taxis, boat recovery. Clicks cost more here than in most of Hampshire because the city is large and several firms bid. For browsing searches it burns money, and we say so.
What about the cruise terminals?
The most seasonal search market in the city. Two million passengers a year search for taxis, hotels, parking and food from four terminals on sailing days. Ads targeted at the terminals on the days ships are in, landing on a page written for passengers, pay; a year-round campaign for the same searches does not.
How much should I spend?
Enough for about ten clicks a day for a month so the numbers mean something; for most Southampton trades that is £400 to £800 a month of click spend plus management. We tell you the figure for your searches before you commit, from Google's own estimates.
Do you take a percentage of my spend?
No. Management is a flat fee on the Multi-area tier or quoted separately; click spend is paid to Google directly and never marked up.
Where do the clicks land?
On a page built for that search, not the home page. Someone searching "emergency dentist Southampton" lands on an emergency page with the number and the booking above the fold. Half the accounts we take over send every click to the home page and pay for it.
How do I know it is working?
Every call from an ad and every form send is tracked to the search that caused it. You see cost per enquiry, not clicks, in the monthly report. If it is not paying by the second month, we say so and stop.
Find out what a click in your trade costs in Southampton
Send us your trade and your centre. The audit includes Google's own cost estimates for your searches and whether ads are worth it before the SEO settles.