Paid Search for Painters & Decorators
Two campaigns, alternating, with tight cost control.
Modest job values mean discipline matters
A single room is £410. A kitchen refresh, £915. Exterior painting, £2,380. A full interior, £3,260.
That range matters. At £3,260 there’s plenty of room for a paid click. At £410 there is very little, and the difference between a profitable campaign and a pointless one is mostly about which jobs you’re advertising for.
So the first rule for a decorator is: don’t advertise for single rooms. Let those come from your profile, reviews and word of mouth. Put paid budget behind full interiors, exteriors and kitchen spraying, where the values justify it.
The second thing that shapes your advertising is the season flip. Exterior work runs roughly May to September, interior October to March. Running one campaign year-round means half your spend is aimed at work nobody’s looking for. Two campaigns, alternating, is the whole tactic.
And unlike most trades, you have a third competitor: someone’s mate with a roller. Your ad copy has to do a job most trades’ doesn’t — signalling that this is a professional job rather than a favour.
What actually works
Separate interior and exterior campaigns, scheduled to the season rather than running together.
Advertise the bigger jobs. Full house interiors, exteriors, kitchen cupboard spraying. Not single rooms.
Spraying deserves its own campaign if you do it. Higher value, growing demand, far fewer advertisers.
Price ranges in the copy. It filters out people expecting a bargain, which at modest job values you can’t afford to pay for.
Prep and quality in the ad copy, because that’s what separates you from the cheap alternative before they even click.
Negatives for DIY, paint, materials, jobs and courses. Decorating attracts a lot of people buying a tin of emulsion.
What we’d actually do
Build two campaigns and schedule them — exterior live from March, interior from September, with a few weeks of overlap at each changeover.
Weight the budget towards full interiors, exteriors and spraying, and exclude the small single-room work.
Landing pages by job type with price ranges and prep-focused copy, because that’s what wins against the cheap quote.
Then watch cost per booked job carefully. At your values the margin for error is smaller than most trades, so we’d rather run a modest budget efficiently than a big one loosely.
Then use the quiet weeks of each season to build the organic side, so paid becomes a top-up rather than the main channel.
The first 90 days
Weeks one to two. Both campaigns built — interior and exterior — with landing pages by job type carrying price ranges and prep-focused copy. Only one goes live, depending on the season you’re in.
Week two onwards. The in-season campaign runs at a deliberately modest budget, weighted towards full interiors, exteriors and spraying. Single rooms excluded from the start, because the maths doesn’t support paying for a £410 job.
Weeks three to five. First pruning pass. Decorating searches attract a lot of people buying paint, looking for jobs, or planning to do it themselves, and the initial negative list never catches them all.
Month two. Cost per booked job should be settling. We’d expect it comfortably under £60 — and if the ads are producing mostly small single-room work, that’s a targeting problem we’d fix rather than a reason to spend more.
Month three. Spraying campaign added if you offer it, since it’s the best-value paid opportunity in your trade and hardly anyone is competing for it. Plus preparation for the seasonal switchover, which is scheduled rather than manual.
The discipline to hold onto is job size. Your campaign is working if it’s bringing full houses and spraying work, not if it’s bringing volume. At your job values volume without value just burns budget faster.
What good looks like
Cost per booked job under £60. At £915 average that’s comfortable; on a £3,260 full interior it’s excellent.
Full-house and spraying jobs as the majority of what the ads produce. If it’s bringing single rooms, the targeting needs tightening.
Campaign switching on schedule. If exterior ads are running in December, something’s been forgotten.
Steady rather than spiky. Your demand doesn’t surge, so neither should your spend.
The mistakes we see most
One campaign all year. Half your spend aimed at the wrong season.
Advertising single rooms. The values don’t support paid acquisition.
No price ranges. You’ll pay for conversations that end at the number.
Ignoring spraying. Real demand, few advertisers, better values.
No mention of prep in the copy. It’s your entire differentiator and it’s usually absent.
Weak negatives. Paint and DIY searches will drain a small budget fast.
What’s it worth?
Average job £915 · cost per booked job £47
Every £47 returns £915 — provided you’re advertising the right jobs.
Every enquiry lands in Gaffer
Enquiries arrive tagged by campaign, so you can see whether interior or exterior is carrying the year. Every job records rooms and date, so the same customer is a reminder in four years. Follow-ups run automatically through the fortnight people take to decide.
Questions decorators ask
Can I advertise single rooms at all?
You can, but the maths is poor. Let those arrive through your profile instead.
Is spraying really worth a campaign?
It’s the best paid opportunity in your trade — higher value and hardly anyone competing.
Do I need to switch campaigns myself?
No, they’re scheduled. It happens whether you remember or not, which is the point — the switchover falls in your busiest weeks.
What about commercial and letting agent work?
Worth a separate campaign if you want more of it. The language is completely different — schedules, insurance, out-of-hours access — and it’s far less price-sensitive than domestic.
Is there much competition on decorating ads?
Less than you’d think on the bigger jobs. Most of the bidding is on generic terms, which is exactly where we wouldn’t put your money.
Ad spend separate?
Always, in your own account.
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