Google Ads for electricians is a Search campaign that buys the searches of people who need an electrician now ("emergency electrician", "electrician near me") or for a job they are planning ("EICR", "EV charger installation"), with your phone number inside the ad. In the UK a click on "emergency electrician" costs $11.44 on average and one on "electrician near me" $6.72, while "EICR" costs $5.98 (DataForSEO, Google Ads United Kingdom, 10 November 2026).
We also measured the Italian market on the same day, and found something most firms would not expect: across 12 Italian results pages for electrician searches there was one single ad. It belonged to a lead platform, ProntoPro, at the bottom of the page.
Electrical firms that try Google Ads on their own usually get three things wrong:
- they buy "electrician" on broad match, and pay for people looking for a course, a job or an electrician's salary;
- they still build call-only ads, which can no longer be created since February 2026 and stop serving in February 2027;
- they don't measure phone calls, so Google's automated bidding learns from the wrong clicks.
Is the third mistake really that expensive?
We saw it on an installer. Valore Solare fits solar panels in Italy: when we took over the account, the conversions column was counting 15,267 technical site events against 5,467 clicks, and in October 2025 every real enquiry cost €212. After rebuilding tracking and splitting the campaigns, the average fell to €70.78 across 1,506 enquiries.
The rules that apply to any small firm are in Google Ads for small business. Here you'll find:
- who buys the ads when someone searches for an electrician;
- what a click costs on the searches that matter;
- the searches to exclude before you spend a penny;
- how to split emergencies from planned work, and how to track calls;
- what budget you need to start, with the maths.
Let's get into it.
Who buys the ads when someone searches for an electrician (1 ad on 12 Italian pages)
Almost nobody, at least in Italy. On 10 November 2026 we pulled 12 mobile results pages from Google Italy with DataForSEO: "elettricista" with five cities (Milan, Rome, Turin, Naples, Bologna), "electrician near me", three emergency searches and three planned-work searches (rewiring, certification, wallbox).
What we found:
- 1 ad on 12 pages, from ProntoPro, at the bottom of the Naples page;
- no Local Services Ads on any page;
- an AI Overview on 11 pages out of 12;
- a local pack with 4 listings on 9 pages out of 12;
- directories and platforms in the top 10 on 9 pages out of 12: Pagine Gialle on 7, Edilnet on 5, ProntoPro on 4.
So Google Ads is pointless if no electrician uses it?
The opposite. In an empty auction the first firm to bid can sit above the map and above the directories.
Two details change how you buy. On "electrician + city" searches, job sites (Indeed, Jooble, Randstad) appeared in 4 cities out of 5: part of the demand is people looking for work. And on emergency searches the top results were networks of "24-hour" sites with pages for dozens of cities, not local firms. The UK picture is busier, but the same two traps apply.
What a click costs an electrician (from $3.54 to $11.44 in the UK)
It depends on how urgent the problem is. On the UK searches we measured, the emergency click costs nearly twice the near-me click; in Italy the gap was up to eight times.
| Search | Market | Searches per month | Average CPC | What to do with it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| electrician near me | UK | 74,000 | $6.72 | Buy, with radius targeting |
| eicr | UK | 22,200 | $5.98 | Planned-work campaign |
| ev charger installation | UK | 18,100 | $6.50 | Planned-work campaign, own landing page |
| emergency electrician | UK | 4,400 | $11.44 | Emergency campaign, only when you answer |
| electrician london | UK | 2,900 | $4.87 | Buy in the area you cover |
| electrician manchester | UK | 1,900 | $3.54 | Buy in the area you cover |
| rewire cost | UK | 390 | $5.45 | Planned-work campaign, with a form |
| elettricista milano | Italy | 14,800 | $10.85 | Buy in the area you cover |
| pronto intervento elettricista (emergency) | Italy | 4,400 | $15.44 | Emergency campaign |
| installazione wallbox | Italy | 1,000 | $1.94 | Planned-work campaign |
Why does a London click cost less than a Milan one?
Because the CPC is an average over 12 months of auctions, and demand and competition differ city by city. Even in Milan, monthly searches swung from 6,600 in September 2026 to 22,200 in October 2025.
The practical rule is one: never put emergencies and planned work in the same campaign. With one budget, the expensive emergency click eats everything and the EICR ad never shows.
The searches to exclude before you spend a penny (over 7,700 a month in Italy)
Negative keywords are the searches your ad must not show for. In Italy the minimum list for an electrician covers over 7,700 searches a month (DataForSEO, 10 November 2026): "corso elettricista" (course) alone is 4,400, followed by job, salary, wiring diagram and DIY searches. The UK equivalents are obvious: course, training, apprenticeship, jobs, salary, DIY.
What if I only use phrase match?
It helps, but it isn't enough. Google's guide to keyword match types says broad match is assigned to all keywords by default: a campaign built in a hurry ends up with "electrician" on broad without anyone noticing.
And there's a detail many miss. Google's page on negative keywords says close variants of a negative don't match: excluding "course" doesn't exclude "courses". You need both.
Is your campaign paying for course seekers?
In Italy, searches for an electrician course outnumber "emergency electrician" searches. With "electrician" on broad match, part of your budget goes to students and job hunters. Let's check your search terms, negatives and ad schedule together.
Book a strategy callHow to set up the campaigns: emergencies and planned work (two campaigns, two budgets)
An electrician has two different customers on Google: the one with no power wants a voice on the phone now, the one who needs an EICR compares two or three quotes over a week.
Emergency campaign: the phone, only when someone answers
- Call assets on responsive search ads. Call-only ads are on their way out: according to Google Ads, new ones can't be created since February 2026 and existing ones stop serving in February 2027.
- Ad schedule set to the hours your firm actually answers. The default is "all day" (about ad scheduling): if nobody picks up at night, switch the campaign off at night.
- "Presence" targeting, not "Presence or interest", which is the default and also shows your ad to people elsewhere who have only shown interest in your area (advanced location options).
- No "24/7" unless it's true. Google's misrepresentation policy doesn't allow ads that mislead by omitting relevant information, and someone who calls at 2am and gets voicemail won't call back.
Planned-work campaign: one page per job, with a form
EICR, rewiring, EV chargers: each with its own ad group and landing page. Here trust is what sells. In Italy the law (DM 37/2008) reserves electrical installation to qualified firms and requires a declaration of conformity at the end of the job; putting that in a headline tells the customer they're not talking to a handyman. Of the Italian electricians' websites we analysed, only 3 home pages out of 20 mentioned the qualification.
What about Performance Max?
Not to start with. With few conversions a month, automated campaigns don't have enough data. It's the trap we found at Valore Solare: about €2,000 a month spread over several campaigns, none with enough enquiries for automated bidding to work, and a cost per enquiry swinging between €82 and €212.
Do Local Services Ads work for electricians? (on paper, yes)
Yes, on paper. Google's Local Services Ads guide for Italy lists electricians among the categories, the UK is among the countries where the product runs, and you pay per lead, not per click. The same page sends you to an eligibility check by area.
On our 12 Italian pages not a single one appeared. For UK electricians LSA is a real option to test, but it doesn't replace a Search campaign you control: keyword choice, ad copy, schedule and landing pages stay with you only on Search.
How to track calls (without data, Google optimises noise)
An electrician gets most customers by phone, so the conversion to measure is the call, not the site visit. Three settings:
- Call reporting with Google forwarding numbers (about call reporting): you see who called from the ad, when and for how long.
- A call conversion with a minimum duration you choose (phone call conversion tracking): a 10-second wrong number shouldn't count as a customer.
- Import the jobs you win, so Google learns from accepted quotes, not just phone calls.
Then link your Google Business Profile to the account to show your area and reviews in ads. At Valore Solare, tracking was the first job, before budget or ads.
What budget you need to start (the maths on measured CPCs)
Budget comes from CPC and from how many clicks it takes to get a call. The LocaliQ 2025 benchmarks, based on 3,211 US home services campaigns, give electricians a median conversion rate of 9.08% and a cost per lead of $93.69. That's US data: use it as an order of magnitude only.
With roughly one lead every 10-11 clicks:
- planned work (EICR at $5.98): a lead costs about $60-65, and £15 a day buys three clicks or so;
- emergencies ("emergency electrician" at $11.44): a lead costs about $120, so the campaign needs a budget that matches the job value.
So emergencies don't pay?
They pay if the average job covers them and someone answers. Otherwise start with planned work, measure for six to eight weeks, and only then open the emergency campaign during covered hours. For comparison, local Google Ads campaigns brought Contesini, an Italian energy advice firm, 299 enquiries at €7.20 each: where the auction is quiet, cost per lead drops a lot.
The full bill, management fee included, is in Google Ads cost; the comparison with other channels is in lead generation for electricians.
Google Ads and AI answers: who ChatGPT names when you look for an electrician
Ads don't buy citations in AI answers. On the 5 Italian city searches we pulled, Google's AI Overview named or cited a platform on all 5: ProntoPro on 4, Instapro on 2, Pagine Gialle on 3. Individual firms showed up only when their site had the city in its name.
Asked the same question as this article, ChatGPT cited only Google Ads help pages and gave an "indicative" CPC of €1-4, with no source: on emergency searches the measured data says $10-15.
To appear in those answers, Google says no special optimisation is needed: the page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet (AI features and your website). What counts is a well-kept profile, reviews and pages per job and per area: the work covered in SEO for tradespeople and local AI visibility. Google Ads brings today's calls; organic visibility decides who gets named tomorrow.
Google Ads for electricians: FAQs
No. Google's local services policy adds verification or bans for locksmiths, garage door and plumbing businesses in certain countries, and electricians are not on that list. Google can still ask any account to complete advertiser verification with business documents.
It depends on the search: on 10 November 2026 DataForSEO gave a UK average CPC of $11.44 for "emergency electrician", $6.72 for "electrician near me", $5.98 for "EICR" and $3.54 for "electrician manchester".
No. Google Ads stopped the creation of new call-only ads in February 2026 and existing ones stop serving in February 2027. Use responsive search ads with call assets instead, scheduled for the hours when someone answers.
It depends: Google lists electricians among the eligible categories, but availability has to be checked area by area with the eligibility tool. On the 12 Italian results pages we pulled on 10 November 2026, none appeared.
It depends on what you buy: on planned work such as EICRs, with CPCs around $6, a small daily budget can bring first leads in one town; on emergencies, with CPCs above $11, the same budget buys only a few clicks a day. Start with planned work and track calls for six to eight weeks.
Google Ads for electricians, in short (and the test to run tomorrow)
One ad on 12 Italian pages: some auctions are almost empty.
Emergency clicks cost up to $11.44 in the UK, planned work around $6.
Negatives first: course and job searches are not customers.
Call assets, not call-only ads.
Track the calls, or Google learns from the wrong clicks.
The test to run tomorrow: search "electrician" plus your town on your phone at 10pm. If there's no ad at the top and the map shows a competitor who doesn't answer, that space is cheaper today than it will be once someone else notices it.
If you want campaigns set up with the right tracking from day one, that's what we do in our Google Ads service. For builders, see Google Ads for builders.
