Solved: Google Ads in Vienna (The Real Reason)

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your Google Ads strategy for Vienna. It’s a common question, people often think a specific city has some magic formula that needs unlocking. Tbh, while there are local elements to consider, the reason most ad campaigns fail in Vienna, or London, or anywhere else, isn't because of some secret "local nuance". It’s usually because the fundamental strategy is broken from the start.

Most advertisers focus on the wrong things – the platform, the bids, the city – when they should be obsessed with their customer's state of mind. The good news is that once you get this right, everything else becomes a lot clearer and more effective. I'll walk you through how I'd approach this, moving away from generic local tactics and towards a strategy that actually drives results.

Let's start with the biggest myth. Your problem isn't "running ads in Vienna". Your problem is getting the attention of a specific person in Vienna who has a specific problem that you can solve. The city is just the container. The real work is in understanding the person.

Forget the typical customer profile for a moment. "35-55 year old homeowners in the 19th district" is almost useless information. It tells you nothing about their motivations and leads to generic ads that get ignored. You need to stop thinking about demographics and start thinking about nightmares.

What is the urgent, expensive, career-threatening, or peace-of-mind-shattering problem your ideal customer is facing right at the moment they go to Google?

-> Is it a B2B client whose Head of Sales is panicking because their lead pipeline has dried up? That’s a nightmare.
-> Is it a homeowner who has just discovered a leak in their ceiling and can hear the drip, drip, drip that signals a very expensive repair bill? That’s a nightmare.
-> Is it a new mum trying to find reliable childcare so she can go back to work without constantly worrying? That’s a nightmare.

Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn’t a person; it’s a problem state. Once you define this with absolute clarity, you have the blueprint for your entire strategy. The language, the ad copy, the offer – it all flows from this single point of understanding. Someone in Vienna with a burst pipe has the exact same urgent need as someone in Manchester. The language they search in is the only real difference, not their core motivation. Your job is to become an expert in their panic, not an expert on the Viennese tram system.

Before you spend another euro, take a step back and write down, in detail, the specific 'nightmare' your business solves. Who is having it? What does it feel like for them? What are the consequences if they don't solve it? This isn't a pointless marketing exercise; it's the most important work you can do. If you don't do this crucial work first, you risk wasting your ad budget.

Once you understand the customer's nightmare, you can find them on Google Search. But even here, most people get it wrong. They bid on broad, informational keywords, hoping to catch anyone with a passing interest. This is a surefire way to burn through your budget with very little to show for it.

You need to target keywords that signal commercial intent. You want the person who isn't just researching their problem, but is actively looking to pay someone to solve it now. This is how you pre-qualify your audience before they even click on your ad.

Let’s imagine you're an emergency electrician in Vienna. Here’s how this thinking changes your keyword strategy:

See the difference? The keywords on the left are for people doing research. The keywords on the right are for people with their wallets out, ready to hire someone. Targeting the latter means every click you pay for has a much higher chance of becoming a lead.

You also need to be ruthless with your match types and negative keywords. Start with Phrase Match and Exact Match for your core commercial intent keywords. This gives you control and prevents Google from showing your ads for irrelevant searches. Then, build an extensive list of negative keywords. For our electrician, this would include words like "ausbildung" (training), "job", "gehalt" (salary), "gratis" (free), "anleitung" (guide). You're actively telling Google who not to show your ads to, which is just as important as telling it who to target.

This isn't a "Vienna strategy". This is a "not wasting money" strategy. It works everywhere.

Now that you're getting the right people to see your ads, the ad itself needs to do some heavy lifting. Most ads are boring, generic, and completely forgettable. They list features, not benefits. "Licensed Electrician. 24/7 Service. Vienna. Call Now." It’s fine, but it doesn't connect with the customer's 'nightmare'.

You need to use a copywriting framework that speaks directly to their problem. I often use Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS). It’s simple and incredibly effective.

1. Problem: State the nightmare they are experiencing in their own words.
2. Agitate: Poke the bruise. Remind them of the frustration, cost, or worry the problem is causing.
3. Solve: Present your service as the quick, easy, and obvious solution.

Let's write an ad for our Viennese electrician using this framework:

Let's break that down (using an English translation):

-> Headline 1 (Problem): Power cut in your flat? (Stromausfall in Ihrer Wohnung?)
-> Headline 2 (Solve): Electrician on-site in 30 mins. (Elektriker in 30 Min vor Ort)
-> Description (Agitate & Solve): Sudden power outage? Worried about the fridge and expensive damage? (Agitate). We are your reliable emergency service in Vienna. Fixed-price guarantee. Call now! (Solve).

This ad doesn't just say "we're electricians". It enters the conversation already happening in the customer's head. It shows empathy for their situation and immediately offers a fast, reliable solution with a clear benefit (fixed-price guarantee) that reduces their fear of being ripped off. This kind of ad will outperform a generic one every single time.

Okay, this is where most small businesses get tripped up. They obsess over metrics like Click-Through Rate (CTR) or Cost Per Click (CPC). Tbh, these are mostly vanity metrics. A low CPC is useless if none of the clicks turn into customers. The only metrics that truly matter are those that connect to your bank account: Cost Per Lead (CPL) and, ultimately, your Return On Ad Spend (ROAS).

To understand what you can afford to pay for a lead, you need to have a rough idea of your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). The question isn't "How low can my CPL go?" but "How high a CPL can I afford to acquire a great customer?"

Here’s a simplified way to think about it:

LTV = (Average Revenue Per Customer * Profit Margin) / Churn Rate

Let's imagine you run a B2C service, like a home cleaning company, and a typical customer signs up for a weekly clean.

-> Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): €200 per month
-> Gross Margin %: 60% (after paying for cleaners and supplies)
-> Monthly Churn Rate: 10% (you lose 1 in 10 customers each month)

The calculation would be:

LTV = (€200 * 0.60) / 0.10
LTV = €120 / 0.10 = €1,200

This means, on average, each new customer is worth €1,200 in profit to your business over their lifetime. A healthy ratio for LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is 3:1. This means you can afford to spend up to €400 (€1,200 / 3) to acquire one new customer and still run a very profitable business. If you know that you convert 1 in 5 qualified leads into a paying customer, you can afford to pay up to €80 per lead (€400 / 5).

Suddenly, that €30 or €40 CPL from Google Ads doesn't look so expensive, does it? It looks like a bargain. This is the maths that unlocks intelligent scaling. From our experience, these numbers are realistic. For example, I remember a campaign we ran for a home cleaning company that achieved a cost of around £5 (€6) per lead. For a more competitive niche like HVAC services, we are currently seeing costs of around $60 (€55) per lead. Your costs in Vienna will fall somewhere in a similar range, depending on competition.

Stop worrying about the cost of a click. Start understanding the value of a customer. It changes everything.

This might be the most important point of all. You can have the best targeting and the best ad copy in the world, but if you send that perfect, high-intent traffic to a landing page with a weak offer, you will fail. The campaign's failure point is almost always the offer.

For B2B, the classic broken offer is the "Request a Demo" button. It’s arrogant. It asks your prospect to commit their valuable time to be sold to. It's high friction and low value. For a local service business, the equivalent is a generic "Contact Us" page with a blank form. It’s uninspired and does nothing to build trust or reduce risk for the potential customer.

Your offer’s only job is to provide a moment of undeniable value that makes the next step a no-brainer. You must solve a small, real problem for free (or at a low cost) to earn the right to solve the whole thing.

What could this look like for a service business in Vienna?

-> For an Architect: A free "15-Minute Zoning & Feasibility Check" for their property address.
-> For a Financial Advisor: A free "Retirement Readiness Scorecard" based on a few simple questions.
-> For a Landscaper: An instant online quote for lawn mowing based on the size of their garden.
-> For an IT Consultant: A free, automated "5-Point Cybersecurity Health Check" for their business website.

These offers provide instant value and position you as an expert, not just a vendor. They lower the barrier to entry and start a conversation. Your landing page should be built entirely around delivering this high-value offer. It needs persuasive copy (using the PAS framework again), clear trust signals (customer reviews, photos of your team, local accreditations), and absolutely no distractions. The only goal of the page is to get them to take you up on your brilliant offer.

A poor offer on a poor landing page is like pouring water into a leaky bucket. Fix the bucket before you pay to fill it.

To bring it all together, the path to making Google Ads work in Vienna isn't about finding a local "hack". It's about implementing a robust, customer-centric strategy. Here’s a summary of the strategic shifts I've outlined.

Implementing all of this takes time and effort. It's not about just setting up an ad and hoping for the best. It's a process of deep thinking, systematic testing, and constant optimisation. You need to understand your audience, craft compelling messages, build high-converting pages, and track the right numbers. It's a full-time job.

That's where professional help can make a huge difference. An expert can implement this entire process for you far more quickly and effectively, helping you avoid common pitfalls and months of wasted ad spend. For instance, I recall helping a client reduce their cost per lead by over 80%, and another where we took their cost per acquisition from £100 down to just £7. The right strategy doesn't just save money; it generates it.

If you'd like to get a second pair of eyes on your specific situation and see how these principles could be applied directly to your business in Vienna, we're happy to offer a complimentary 20-minute strategy session. We can audit your current approach and give you some actionable advice to get you on the right track.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh