Locals Ads Guide

If your Google Ads are chewing through budget and giving you nothing but random clicks, Daniel Dimsey’s approach is the reset button. The issue usually is not that Google Ads do not work. It is that the campaign was built the wrong way from day one. Daniel Dimsey’s method is built for home service businesses that want real leads, real quotes, and real jobs instead of gambling money on broad targeting and bad setup.

This strategy is built around one simple idea: show up when high-intent local customers are actively searching for your service, and stop paying for everyone else.

Why most home service Google Ads campaigns fail

The same problems show up again and again in local service accounts:

• Targeting the wrong keywords
• Paying for clicks that never turn into quotes or estimates
• Using the wrong bidding strategy too early
• Targeting areas too loosely
• Letting Google “help” too much

Daniel Dimsey’s core point is blunt but accurate: most campaigns are not losing because of the platform. They are losing because the setup is sloppy.

If you run a window cleaning business, pressure washing business, pest control company, gutter cleaning service, domestic cleaning service, rubbish removal business, or anything similar, the fundamentals are the same.

Start with keyword research before building the campaign

Before creating anything, go into Google Ads and use Keyword Planner.

The goal here is not to find every possible keyword. The goal is to find the ones that signal buying intent.

How to research the right keywords

1. Open Tools
2. Go to Planning
3. Select Keyword Planner
4. Click Discover new keywords
5. Type the phrase a real customer would use, such as window cleaning near me
6. Set the location to your city or the closest relevant city
7. Get results and sort by average monthly searches

This gives you two things:

• The keywords people are actually searching
• The estimated top-of-page bid range your competitors are paying

Focus on high-intent keywords only

Daniel Dimsey recommends pulling keywords that clearly show someone wants to hire a service, not just browse.

Examples of high-intent keywords include:

• window cleaning near me
• window cleaners in my area
• local window cleaners
• residential window cleaning company

The same logic applies to other trades. Swap in your service and stick to terms that suggest the person wants the job done now.

What to avoid

Daniel Dimsey is especially strong on avoiding broad, vague, or low-quality intent terms.

• Avoid broad keywords like “window cleaning” on their own
• Avoid price-hunter keywords such as anything with “prices” if those searches usually attract difficult, low-value clients

His reasoning is practical. Some searches are too broad to trust, and some attract people who care only about price and become a headache from the start.

Split residential and commercial campaigns

One of the smarter structural decisions Daniel Dimsey recommends is separating your campaigns by service type.

• One campaign for residential
• One campaign for commercial

That keeps your keywords cleaner, your ad copy more relevant, and your data easier to act on later.

Use keyword planner to estimate your max CPC

Once you have your keyword list, look at the Top of page bid high range in Keyword Planner.

This gives you a rough idea of what advertisers are paying for top visibility on those searches.

For example, if a keyword shows a high range of $4 to $12 per click, that means top advertisers are likely paying somewhere in that zone when someone clicks.

Daniel Dimsey uses this information to set an initial maximum cost per click. If most relevant keywords sit around $8 to $12, he might cap CPC at around $10.

That number becomes important later when setting budget and bidding.

Build the campaign the right way from the start

Campaign objective

Create a new campaign and choose Leads as the objective.

The ideal outcome is a form submission or a call that turns into a quote or estimate.

Campaign type

Select Search.

For the conversion path, Daniel Dimsey recommends using website visits, not Google’s lead form option and not a phone-call-only campaign.

His take is clear:

• Google lead forms are poor quality
• Phone-call campaign types often get little to no meaningful traffic
• Website visits give you more control and better lead flow

Name the campaign properly

Keep the campaign name simple and descriptive, such as:

• Residential Window Cleaning
• Commercial Pressure Washing

That makes account management much easier once you scale.

The first costly mistake: choosing the wrong bidding strategy

This is one of Daniel Dimsey’s biggest warnings.

If your account has no conversion data, do not start with a conversion-focused bidding strategy.

Why? Because Google has nothing useful to optimise around yet.

Instead, start with:

• Clicks as the bidding strategy
• A manually considered maximum CPC cap based on Keyword Planner data

The logic is simple. First, gather data. Then, once you know what your conversions cost, move to a conversion-based strategy with a target CPA.

Starting on conversions with no data often means pouring money into an algorithm that is guessing.

Set the max CPC

Use your average top-of-page high range as the reference point.

If your key terms suggest a likely range around $10, use that as your initial maximum CPC cap. The aim is to stay competitive without letting costs run wild.

Turn off the junk traffic sources

When configuring the campaign, Daniel Dimsey recommends turning off:

• Google Search Partners
• Display Network

For local home service lead generation, this keeps the traffic tighter and more relevant. You want people actively searching, not random placements that dilute spend.

Target locations with precision, not laziness

This is where Daniel Dimsey gets particularly opinionated, and for good reason.

Do not just drop one huge radius pin over your area and call it done.

Instead:

1. Go to Locations
2. Choose Enter another location
3. Open Advanced search
4. Select and include the individual towns, suburbs, or service areas you actually cover

Yes, it is more work. But it gives you something that broad radius targeting does not:

control.

Why individual locations matter

When you target areas one by one, you can later apply bid adjustments based on performance.

That means:

• Increase bids in suburbs that bring profitable jobs
• Reduce bids in suburbs that produce poor leads or weak demand

If one area is full of ideal customers and another area is full of tyre-kickers, your campaign should not treat them the same.

This is one of the clearest examples in Daniel Dimsey’s system of doing the extra work upfront so the campaign gets more profitable over time.

The second costly mistake: wrong location setting

This one quietly burns a lot of budget.

Inside location options, do not leave your campaign on:

• Presence or interest

If you do, your ads can be shown to people outside your service area who are merely interested in it.

For a local service business, that is a terrible trade.

Use:

• Presence: People in or regularly in your included locations

That keeps your spend focused on people who actually live in or are regularly in the places you serve.

Use audience segments for observation only

Daniel Dimsey also recommends adding audience segments, but not for direct targeting.

The better use is Observation.

That lets you collect data on which audience types perform better, without restricting who can see your ads.

For example, a home service business might want to observe categories related to:

• Home and garden
• Home improvement
• Other household-related interests

Later, once enough data builds up, you can increase or decrease bids depending on which audience segments convert best.

The same principle applies here as it does with suburb targeting: observe first, optimise later.

Ad schedule is optional, but useful

If you only want leads during specific hours, set your ad schedule accordingly.

For example, if you only answer the phone Monday to Friday during business hours, you can limit ads to those times.

This part is flexible. The key is to match your ad delivery to your capacity to respond.

Skip Google’s keyword and asset generation

When Google offers to generate keywords and assets for you, Daniel Dimsey’s recommendation is simple: skip it.

Use the keyword list you researched yourself.

That keeps quality high and stops Google from expanding into irrelevant territory too early.

Use exact match keywords, not broad match

Once you reach the keyword section, paste in your selected terms and convert them to exact match.

Exact match uses square brackets, like this:

[window cleaning near me]

Why exact match is the best starting point

• Exact match keeps targeting tight and relevant
• Phrase match expands to additional related queries
• Broad match can pull in a lot of irrelevant traffic

Daniel Dimsey’s stance is that broad match is usually too messy for a new local campaign. Exact match gives you control and protects your budget while you gather clean search term data.

Build ads that actually get clicked

Once the keyword targeting is sorted, the next job is building an ad that gets attention and makes people act.

Add a call asset

Start by adding your phone number as a call asset.

This lets someone tap to call directly from the ad, especially on mobile. For home service businesses, that is a strong option because many people just want to speak to someone and get a quote quickly.

Write better headlines

According to Daniel Dimsey, the headlines do most of the heavy lifting.

They are the first thing people notice, and they determine whether anyone bothers reading the rest.

So remove Google’s weak default suggestions and replace them with clear, punchy headlines that match what the searcher wants.

The “ultimate headline” trick: keyword insertion

This is one of the strongest tips in the whole setup.

Use keyword insertion in the first headline and pin it into position one.

What this does is insert the user’s searched keyword directly into your ad headline when possible.

That means if someone searches:

• window cleaning services near me
• window cleaners in my area
• cleaning windows near me

Your ad can mirror that language in the headline itself.

That creates an enormous boost in relevance. And in Google Ads, relevance usually means a stronger click-through rate.

In plain English: if someone searches for exactly what you offer and your ad reflects that exact intent, you are in a much better position to win the click.

Use the rest of the headlines to sell trust and action

After the inserted keyword headline, the remaining headline slots should reinforce the reasons to choose you.

Good themes include:

• Same day service
• Reliable response
• Local business
• Special offer
• Instant quotes

The point is to show that you are real, responsive, and worth contacting right now.

Write descriptions that explain the offer and reduce doubt

Your ad descriptions should do three things:

1. Explain what is included
2. Show proof or trust
3. Tell people what to do next

Daniel Dimsey’s example for window cleaning includes the service details, social proof, and a clear call to action.

That formula works because it answers the natural questions in the prospect’s head:

• What do I get?
• Can I trust you?
• How do I book?

Add images, logo, and business name

If image assets are available in your account, use them.

Daniel Dimsey prefers photos of the actual worker or team because they build trust faster than generic branding. A real face beats a faceless business most of the time.

Also add:

• Your business name
• Your logo

These additions make the ad look more established and credible.

Use sitelinks to make the ad bigger and more clickable

Sitelinks are one of the easiest ways to improve ad real estate and give people more reasons to click.

Daniel Dimsey recommends adding sitelinks that act like mini calls to action, each pointing to a different page on your site.

Examples include:

• Book Now linking to a booking page
• $50 Off linking to a discount page
• View Pricing linking to a pricing page
• See Our Reviews linking to a reviews page

Each sitelink should have:

• A unique destination URL
• A useful label
• A short description where possible

The purpose is simple: make the ad as clickable as possible from multiple angles.

Add callouts, but skip most other assets

Callouts are the short snippets that appear with your ad and make it look larger and more informative.

Useful examples include:

• Get Instant Quotes
• Highly Recommended
• Residential & Commercial
• Spotless Windows

These do not replace your core message, but they help reinforce benefits and make the ad more prominent.

As for other extra assets, Daniel Dimsey’s advice is to keep it lean. He is not a fan of Google lead forms, and he does not recommend cluttering the ad with unnecessary extras.

How to set your daily budget

Daniel Dimsey uses a straightforward budgeting rule:

Maximum CPC × 10 clicks = daily budget

So if your maximum CPC is $10, your daily budget would be:

$100 per day

The reason is practical. If $10 is the most you expect to pay for a click, a $100 daily budget should allow for at least 10 clicks.

And if your website converts in the 20% to 30% range, that can produce roughly:

• 2 to 3 quotes per day at the high end of your click costs

In reality, not every click will come in at your maximum CPC. Some may land lower in the range, which can push click volume higher.

One more important note on conversion tracking

Although the campaign setup can be built first, conversion tracking still matters. Form submissions, page views, and phone call leads should be tracked properly so the account can learn from real outcomes.

The sequence Daniel Dimsey recommends is:

1. Build the campaign correctly
2. Let Google review it
3. Set up conversion tracking while that review is happening

That way the campaign can launch with the right structure and start collecting useful data as soon as possible.

The Daniel Dimsey philosophy for profitable local campaigns

What makes the Daniel Dimsey approach effective is not some magic hack. It is disciplined setup.

The whole framework is built around:

• High-intent local keywords
• Exact match control
• Clicks-based bidding first
• Precise location targeting
• Observation-based optimisation
• Ads written to get action, not just impressions

That combination gives a home service business a far better shot at turning ad spend into booked work.

Final checklist to copy Daniel Dimsey’s setup

• Research keywords in Keyword Planner before building anything
• Choose high-intent local service terms only
• Separate residential and commercial campaigns
• Use the top-of-page high range to estimate max CPC
• Create a Search campaign for Leads
• Use website visits, not Google lead forms
• Start with Clicks bidding, not conversions
• Turn off Search Partners and Display
• Target individual suburbs or service areas manually
• Set location option to Presence, not Presence or interest
• Add audience segments in Observation mode only
• Use exact match keywords
• Add a call asset
• Use keyword insertion in headline one
• Write descriptions with service details, proof, and CTA
• Add images, logo, sitelinks, and callouts
• Set daily budget at roughly 10 times max CPC

If your campaigns have felt random, Daniel Dimsey’s system gives you a much cleaner way to run them. It is built for local service businesses, it prioritises control, and it avoids the two traps that cost beginners the most money: wrong bidding strategy and wrong location settings.

Done properly, Google Ads can become one of the best lead sources in a home service business. But only if the campaign is built to attract buyers, not just traffic.