Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out!
Happy to give you some initial thoughts on how to structure your Google Ads campaigns and write ad copy that actually works for a local business in Swansea. It’s a common problem, people get hung up on finding the perfect “local example” when the real wins come from getting the fundamentals right. The fact you’re asking these questions already puts you ahead of most of your competition.
The truth is, effective local advertising isn't about stuffing "Swansea" into every headline. It's about understanding the specific, urgent problems your customers are facing right now, and then showing up as the obvious solution. It’s less about geography and more about psychology.
TLDR;
- Stop searching for generic "Swansea ad copy examples". The secret isn't the city name, it's nailing the customer's specific, urgent problem in your copy. The location is a targeting layer, not the core message.
- Your keyword strategy is probably too broad. You need to target high-intent, long-tail keywords that signal someone needs help now (e.g., "emergency plumber mumbles" not just "plumber swansea").
- The most common point of failure isn't the ads, it's the website. Your ads can be perfect, but if your landing page is slow, untrustworthy, or has a weak call-to-action, you're just burning cash.
- Structure your campaigns around specific services and customer problems, not just one big "Swansea" campaign. This allows for hyper-relevant ad copy that speaks directly to the searcher's need.
- This letter includes a campaign structure flowchart and an interactive Cost Per Lead (CPL) calculator to help you budget and plan your local campaigns more effectively.
Forget 'Swansea Residents' – Target Their Nightmares Instead
Right, let's get one thing straight. "People in Swansea" is not a target audience. It’s a meaningless demographic. It tells you nothing of value and leads to generic ads that get ignored. You need to stop thinking about who they are and start focusing on the problem state they're in.
Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a specific, urgent, expensive, and often stressful nightmare. That's what gets someone to frantically type a search into Google at 10 PM on a Tuesday.
Think about it:
- For a Plumber: Your ICP isn't "homeowners aged 30-60". It's a parent staring at a spreading water stain on their ceiling, terrified of the damage and cost. Their nightmare is a burst pipe, a blocked drain during a family gathering, or a boiler that's packed in on the coldest day of the year.
- For a Solicitor: Your ICP isn't "small business owners". It's a founder who's just received a threatening letter from a disgruntled ex-employee and fears for the future of their company. Their nightmare is a potential lawsuit, a property dispute, or the complexity of a will after a family loss.
- For a Roofer: It's not "people in detached houses". It's the person who's just found a slate has slipped after a storm and can hear the rain dripping into their attic. Their nightmare is structural damage and the escalating cost of inaction.
Once you've identified that specific nightmare, your entire approach changes. You're no longer just another tradesperson in Swansea; you are the immediate, reliable solution to a very real crisis. All your ad copy, your keywords, and your landing page must be built around solving that nightmare, not just listing your services. Do this work first, or you have no business spending a single pound on ads.
I'd say you need to rethink your keyword strategy entirely...
This brings us to the next biggest money pit for local businesses: keyword targeting. Most people just bid on the broadest, most obvious terms like "electrician swansea" or "accountant swansea". This is a mistake. These keywords are hyper-competitive, expensive, and attract a mix of people with very different levels of intent. Some are just browsing, some are looking for a job, some are competitors. Very few are ready to buy right now.
You need to focus your budget on keywords that signal high commercial intent. These are the searches people make when they have their wallet out (or are in a panic and need immediate help). We're talking about long-tail keywords that are more specific.
Let’s break it down for a fictional Swansea electrician. Most of their competition is probably wasting money on the keywords in the 'Bad' column. The real money is in the 'Good' column.
| Keyword Type | Example Keyword | Searcher's Intent (and Why It Matters) |
|---|---|---|
| Bad (Broad Match) | electrician | This is useless. Google might show your ad to someone in Cardiff searching for an electrician course or a job. You'll burn cash on irrelevant clicks. |
| Okay (Broad Geo) | electrician swansea | Better, but still very competitive. This person could be just shopping around for prices, not in a rush. Your conversion rate will be lower. |
| Good (Service Specific) | ev charger installation cost swansea | Excellent. This person knows exactly what they want. They are comparing prices and looking for a specialist. The intent is high. |
| Excellent (Urgent Need) | emergency 24 hour electrician mumbles | This is a golden keyword. The searcher is in a crisis (the 'nightmare' scenario). They aren't shopping on price; they're shopping for speed and reliability. This is the most profitable type of lead. |
The journey from a vague problem to a high-intent search is what you need to map out. You want to intercept them at the moment of maximum pain and intent, not when they're just vaguely thinking about a problem.
1. The Problem
"Hmm, the lights in the kitchen keep flickering. That's annoying."
2. Information Search
Google: "why are my lights flickering"
3. Local Solution Search
Google: "electrician near me"
4. High-Intent Search
Google: "local electrician for faulty wiring swansea"
A message they can't ignore: It's all about the offer
Once you’ve nailed your keywords, you need ad copy that speaks directly to that searcher's nightmare. This is where most local ad copy falls flat. It’s generic, boring, and focused on the business, not the customer's problem. "Jones & Son's Electrical Services. Established 1985. Call for a Quote." Nobody cares.
You need to use a simple but powerful copywriting framework like Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS).
- Problem: State the nightmare they're experiencing right in the headline.
- Agitate: Briefly touch on the frustration or fear associated with the problem.
- Solve: Present yourself as the quick, easy, reliable solution.
Let's write some actual ad copy for that "emergency 24 hour electrician mumbles" keyword. Instead of generic examples, this is how you should be thinking:
Example Ad for High-Intent Emergency Search
Emergency Electrician in Mumbles | 24/7 Call Out
www.yourwebsite.co.uk/emergency-swansea
Lights out? Fuse box tripped again? Don't risk a fire hazard. Get a certified, local electrician to your door in under an hour. We find the fault and fix it fast. Fully insured for your peace of mind. Call us now for immediate help.
Why this works:
- Headline 1: Directly matches the search query and states the solution.
- Headline 2: Addresses the two main concerns of an emergency search: speed (24/7) and availability (Call Out).
- Description - Problem: "Lights out? Fuse box tripped again?" - It mirrors their exact situation.
- Description - Agitate: "Don't risk a fire hazard." - It introduces a small amount of fear to prompt action.
- Description - Solve: "certified, local", "under an hour", "fix it fast", "Fully insured". Every phrase is designed to build trust and signal reliability.
Notice we didn't mention being "friendly" or "family-run". In a crisis, people don't care about that. They care about competence, speed, and trust. Every single word in your ad needs to earn its place by addressing those core needs.
You'll need a proper campaign structure to stop wasting money
Now, how do you actually put this all together in Google Ads? The biggest mistake I see is lumping everything into one campaign and one ad group. This is lazy and inefficient. It means you're showing the same generic ad to someone searching for an "emergency electrician" and someone searching for "cost to install outdoor lighting". Their needs are completely different, so your ads must be too.
The solution is a tightly-themed campaign structure. You create seperate campaigns for major service categories, and then seperate ad groups within those campaigns for specific sub-services or keyword themes. I know you said you were unsure how to structure your campaigns, so this is probably the most valuable bit of advice I can give you.
This approach, sometimes called Single Keyword Ad Groups (SKAGs) or something similar, allows for a perfect match between the keyword, the ad copy, and the landing page. This skyrockets your Quality Score, which means Google rewards you with lower click costs and better ad positions. It's a bit more work to set up, but it's the difference between a profitable campaign and a failing one.
Keywords:
- "emergency electrician swansea"
- "24 hour electrician near me"
- "power outage swansea"
Ad Headline: Emergency Electrician 24/7
Landing Page: /emergency-service
Keywords:
- "ev charger installation swansea"
- "home car charger cost"
- "o-penz certified installer"
Ad Headline: Expert EV Charger Fitters
Landing Page: /ev-charging
Keywords:
- "fuse box replacement swansea"
- "consumer unit upgrade cost"
- "new fuse board electrician"
Ad Headline: Modern Fuse Box Upgrades
Landing Page: /fuse-box-upgrades
Let's talk numbers: What should a lead in Swansea actually cost?
This is the question everyone asks, and the honest answer is: it depends. The competitiveness of your market, the quality of your ads, and your website's conversion rate all play a huge role. But I can give you some real-world benchmarks from campaigns we've managed for service businesses.
I remember one campaign we ran for an HVAC company in a fairly competitive area, and they were seeing a cost of around $60 per qualified lead. On the other end of the spectrum, a home cleaning company we worked with achieved an incredible £5 per lead. We’ve also run ads for childcare services where the cost per signup was around $10. For a local service in Swansea, I'd expect your Cost Per Lead (CPL) to be somewhere in the £15-£50 range once the campaign is optimised, but it could be higher or lower.
The key thing isn't just the CPL, it's the return on investment. If a £50 lead turns into a £1,500 roofing job, you'd take that all day long. To help you get a feel for the numbers, I've built a simple calculator below. Play around with the sliders to see how small changes in your click-through rate or website conversion rate can drastically affect your cost per lead.
Your 'Contact Us' page is probably killing your conversions
Let's say you do everything right. Your keywords are perfect, your campaign structure is flawless, and your ad copy is brilliant. The user clicks. And they land on a generic, slow-loading website with a basic "Contact Us" form asking for their name, email, phone number, and a message. This is where so many potential leads die.
A standard "Contact Us" page is high friction. It's asking the user to do all the work. For local services, especially for urgent needs, you need to make it incredibly easy for them to get in touch. Your offer, or Call To Action (CTA), needs to be much stronger.
Instead of a boring form, your landing page should be screaming the solution:
- A Prominent Phone Number: For emergency services, this is non-negotiable. It should be at the top of the page, in a large font, and be a "click-to-call" link on mobile.
- A 'Request a Callback' Widget: Many people can't talk right now but want you to call them. A simple form with just a phone number field and a button that says "Call Me Back in 15 Mins" can work wonders.
- An 'Instant Quote' Form: For non-emergency services like EV charger installation, people are often price shopping. An online form that gives them an instant, automated estimate in exchange for their contact details is a powerful lead generation tool.
- Trust Signals: Your landing page must build instant trust. This means including customer reviews (ideally with photos), logos of any qualifications or accreditations (e.g., NICEIC, Gas Safe), and clear photos of you and your team. People want to know who they're letting into their home. A proffesional design and copy here goes a long way.
The job of your landing page is to convert a click into a lead. Every element on that page should be geared towards that single goal. Remove distractions, remove friction, and make it blindingly obvious what the next step is.
I know this is a lot to take in, but getting these core pillars right is the only way to build a sustainable, profitable local advertising campaign. It's a system, and every part needs to work together.
I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:
| Area to Fix | The Common Problem | Recommended Action |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Strategy | Focusing on "Swansea" as the audience, leading to generic messaging. | Identify the specific, urgent 'nightmare scenarios' your customers face. Build your entire strategy around solving these problems. |
| 2. Keywords | Bidding on broad, expensive keywords like "plumber swansea" with low buying intent. | Prioritise long-tail, high-intent keywords that include the service and signal urgency (e.g., "emergency boiler repair gower"). |
| 3. Ad Copy | Writing boring, feature-focused copy that doesn't connect with the searcher's problem. | Use the Problem-Agitate-Solve framework. Your headlines and description must mirror their pain point and present you as the immediate solution. |
| 4. Campaign Structure | Lumping all keywords and services into one ad group, leading to irrelevant ads. | Create tightly-themed campaigns and ad groups for each specific service you offer. This ensures your ad is always hyper-relevant to the search. |
| 5. Landing Page & Offer | Using a generic 'Contact Us' page that creates friction and has a low conversion rate. | Design dedicated landing pages for your ad groups with low-friction CTAs like click-to-call numbers, callback forms, and instant quote tools. Load them with trust signals. |
Running local ads effectively is a specialism. It's easy to burn through a lot of money very quickly by making the common mistakes I've outlined above. While you can definately implement these changes yourself, working with an expert can significantly shorten the learning curve and get you to profitability much faster.
We do this day-in, day-out for service businesses, and we've learned what works and what doesn't through years of testing and millions in ad spend. If you'd like to have a chat about your specific situation, we offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can look at your business and give you a tailored strategy.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh