Goal: jobs inside a radius
Google Ads for local services across Greater Manchester
The right boroughs, the right hours, the call counted
A local services campaign is built for one thing: a call from someone inside the area you drive to, at a time you can answer, for a job you do. For a plumber, electrician, locksmith, roofer, cleaner, gardener or removals firm working across Salford, Trafford, Stockport, Bolton or any of the ten boroughs, that means the location set to presence rather than interest, the area drawn by borough and postcode district rather than a circle around the Town Hall, the towns you do not serve excluded by name, call-only ads in the hours you pick up, and a report that shows jobs per borough. The management fee starts at £249 a month, and one trade per area on the monthly plans.
The map, as a table
Ten boroughs, and how a trade usually covers them
Greater Manchester is ten boroughs and dozens of postcode districts, and almost no trade serves all of it. The table is how the area is drawn in the account: by the places you go, with the rest excluded by name.
| Borough | Postcode districts, mainly | How a trade there tends to cover it |
|---|---|---|
| Manchester | M1 to M4, M8, M9, M11 to M23, M40, M90 | Split north and south; a Didsbury trade rarely wants Harpurhey, and the city centre is its own market |
| Salford | M5 to M7, M27, M28, M30, M38, M44, M50 | Often paired with north Manchester and Trafford; the Quays and Eccles are the busy ends |
| Trafford | M17, M31 to M33, M41, WA14, WA15, part of M16 | Sale, Stretford, Urmston, Altrincham; a natural pairing with south Manchester |
| Stockport | SK1 to SK8 | Big, spread out, and its own market; pairs with Tameside and south Manchester |
| Tameside | M34, M43, OL5 to OL7, SK14 to SK16 | Ashton, Hyde, Denton, Stalybridge; often served from Stockport or Oldham |
| Oldham | OL1 to OL4, OL8, OL9, M35 | Pairs with Rochdale and north Manchester; the hills change the drive times |
| Rochdale | OL10 to OL12, OL15, OL16, M24 | Heywood and Middleton lean towards Bury; Littleborough looks to Rochdale |
| Bury | BL0, BL8, BL9, M25, M26, M45 | Prestwich, Whitefield and Radcliffe are north Manchester in practice |
| Bolton | BL1 to BL7 | Its own market with Horwich, Westhoughton and Farnworth; pairs with Bury or Wigan |
| Wigan | WN1 to WN8, M29, M46 | Furthest west, its own market, and the one most Manchester trades should exclude |
Postcode districts overlap borough boundaries in places; the account uses both, and the areas page has the drive times from our desk to each borough.
Emergency or planned
Two campaigns, because the caller is in a different state of mind
An emergency search (“emergency plumber Salford”, “locksmith near me now”, “boiler not working Stockport”) is made on a phone, at any hour, by someone who will ring the first credible number. It gets a call-only ad, a schedule that matches whoever is on call, bids raised in the evening and at weekends when rivals switch off, and no landing page to read.
A planned search (“boiler service Bolton”, “rewire cost”, “fitted wardrobes Altrincham”) is made at a desk or on a sofa, often twice before a decision. It gets a Search ad with a call asset, a page that names the areas and shows the work, a form for those who prefer it, and a schedule that matches when the office quotes. The two are never in the same campaign, because the bids, the copy and the hours are different.
Local Services Ads beside Search
Pay per lead above the results, pay per click below them
For most Greater Manchester trades Google now shows Local Services Ads above the ordinary results: a photo, a rating, a Google Guaranteed badge, and a charge per lead rather than per click. Getting on them needs a background check, insurance documents and reviews, and the leads are disputed one by one when they are wrong.
We set them up alongside the Search campaign, not instead of it, because they reach different searches and cost differently. The report keeps them on separate lines with a cost per lead for each, and the budget follows whichever produced the jobs that month.
The place-name list
What the negative list looks like for a trade in one borough
The commonest leak in a Greater Manchester trade account is a search for a town you do not serve, matched as a close variant and paid for. The list below is the shape of the fix, for a plumber working Stockport and south Manchester.
Shared negative list: places, phrase match (illustrative)
wigan, bolton, bury, rochdale, oldham, salford, eccles, swinton, prestwich, whitefield, warrington, macclesfield, glossop, huddersfield, liverpool, leeds, sheffield, preston, blackburn
Shared negative list: not a job, phrase match (illustrative)
course, courses, apprenticeship, jobs, vacancies, salary, training, diy, how to, youtube, manual, parts, wholesale, free, cheap
The second list is what the free negative keyword generator produces for a trade; the first is written from the boroughs you tell us you do not go to. Both grow every week from the search terms.
Keep reading
Next door to this page
Ads for phone calls
The call campaign in detail: assets, call-only, the sixty-second rule.
Greater Manchester areas
The ten boroughs, Altrincham, and honest drive times from Wrexham.
Pricing
Most one-van trades sit in the Starter band.
Get a quote
Say your trade and your boroughs; the reply says whether they are free.
Questions about ads for local services
How do you set the area for a trade that covers several boroughs?
From where you actually go, not from a circle on the map. A plumber in Stockport who works Stockport, Tameside and south Manchester gets those areas targeted by borough and postcode district, presence not interest, with the boroughs outside on the negative list by name. The report shows which borough each call came from so the map can be tightened or widened with evidence.
What is the difference between presence and interest?
Presence shows the ad to people who are in the area. Interest also shows it to people anywhere who searched for the area, which for 'plumber Manchester' includes someone in Spain looking for their mum's plumber. Google's default is both. We set presence only, and it is one of the first things the free check looks for.
Are Local Services Ads better than Google Ads for a trade?
Different, and usually both. Local Services Ads sit above the results with a Google Guaranteed badge, charge per lead rather than per click, and need a background check and insurance documents. Search ads sit below them, charge per click and give you control of the copy and the area. For most Greater Manchester trades we run both and the report keeps them apart.
Do you count a call as a job?
We count calls over sixty seconds as leads and ask you each month how many became jobs and what they were worth. The report's worth line comes from you; the cost per lead comes from the account. Both are on the same page so the decision to spend more or less is made on the job, not the click.
Can the ads run only when I can take a job?
Yes. The schedule follows when the phone is answered and the van is free. An emergency trade runs call-only ads through the night with the bids raised when competitors switch off; a planned trade runs in the hours the office quotes. A missed call is a paid click wasted, so the schedule is honest about capacity.
What does it cost for a tradesperson?
The management fee is set by spend, not by trade: £249 a month up to £1,000 of ad spend, £399 up to £3,000, £599 up to £8,000, excluding VAT. Most one-van businesses in Greater Manchester sit in the first band. What a lead costs depends on the trade's CPC, which for emergency work in the city is among the dearest, and the report shows it after the first month.
Will you bid on searches for towns I do not serve?
No, and we exclude them by name. A Bolton electrician's negative list carries Stockport, Tameside, Oldham, Rochdale and the rest, at phrase match, so that a search for 'electrician Stockport' cannot spend a penny of the budget even if Google decides it is a close variant.
Do you take only one trade per area?
On the monthly plans, yes: one plumber in Stockport, one electrician in Bolton. Two clients bidding on the same emergency searches in the same borough with the same person setting both bids would be bidding against each other, and we will not do it. The reply to your quote says whether your trade and area are free.
Do I need a website, or can the ads go to my Google Business Profile?
You need a page, even a single one, because a call-only ad can carry the campaign but a Search ad needs somewhere to land, and Google reads the page for Quality Score. If you have no site we build a one-page landing page as part of the setup, with the number at the top and the areas you cover listed by name.
Say what the ads are for. The fee and the first three changes come back in writing.
Calls, sales, bookings or leads, roughly what you spend, and the part of Greater Manchester you sell to. Daniel Stoychev reads it himself and answers within one working day with the tier, the fee and what he would change first. Already spending? The free check reads your account in 72 hours.