Google Ads for cleaners, built around repeat bookings
Google Ads for cleaners works because the searches are frequent and local. The trap is that cleaning has more price shoppers than almost any service, so an account that isn't filtered pays for a lot of people who were only ever going to pick the cheapest quote.
100 calls a month, or you don't pay us that month.
If our call tracking records fewer than 100 calls from your Google Ads in a calendar month, we waive our management fee for that month. It applies while the campaign runs at the ad spend we agree on together. Ad spend goes to Google for clicks already delivered, so that part isn't refunded. Full terms.
Three very different customers.
A bond clean, a fortnightly house clean and an office contract are three businesses that happen to share a word. They need separate campaigns, separate ads and usually separate landing pages.
- End of lease and bond cleaning: urgent, date-driven, high intent, very price sensitive.
- Regular house cleaning: lower urgency, but each customer is worth a year of bookings.
- Commercial and office cleaning: fewer searches, bigger contracts, longer decisions.
The waste that's specific to cleaning.
- People looking for cleaning jobs, which is a huge share of cleaning searches.
- Product searches: cleaning supplies, chemicals, how to clean an oven yourself.
- Carpet, window and pressure cleaning searches when you don't offer them.
- Marketplace brand searches where the person wants the app, not you.
A starting list we'd add on day one.
- jobs, hiring, vacancies, part time, cash in hand, salary
- products, supplies, chemicals, spray, vinegar, diy, how to
- course, certificate, training, franchise
- free, volunteer
Booked cleans, not quote requests.
Cleaning lives on online bookings and quote forms as much as phone calls. We track all three, then look at which campaign produced customers who booked again. A regular client found through ads is worth far more than a one-off bond clean, so the budget leans that way once the numbers show it.
Split by the type of clean.
- Bond and end of lease. Its own campaign with its own budget, because the urgency and pricing are different from everything else. Ads mention the bond-back focus if you offer a re-clean.
- Regular house cleaning. Weekly and fortnightly. Lower urgency, but each customer can be worth a year of bookings, so it can justify a higher cost per lead.
- Deep and one-off cleans. Spring cleans, move-ins, after-party. Sits between the two.
- Commercial and office. Only if you want contracts. Different searches, different landing page, and the enquiry form asks for site size and frequency.
- Your business name. A small brand campaign so the marketplaces don't sit above you.
A tight area your team can actually reach.
Travel time eats a cleaning business's margin faster than almost anything. Set the ads to the suburbs your team can reach between jobs, not the whole city. If one area keeps booking regular cleans, give it more budget. If another only ever brings one-off bond cleans at the far edge of your range, pull it back.
What a good cleaning ad says.
- Headline: Bond Cleaning, [Area] · Description: Checklist-based end of lease clean. Free re-clean if your agent asks for one.
- Headline: Fortnightly House Cleaning · Description: Same cleaner each visit, police-checked, insured. Book online in two minutes.
- Headline: Office Cleaning, After Hours · Description: Contract cleaning for offices and clinics. Site walkthrough and quote this week.
What the page needs to turn a click into a booking.
- Clear prices or price ranges where you can give them. Cleaning customers leave pages that make them ask.
- What's included in each clean, as a checklist.
- Police checks, insurance and whether it's the same cleaner each time. These are the questions people worry about.
- Online booking or a quote form short enough to finish on a phone.
- Reviews that mention the type of clean, especially bond cleans that got the bond back.
What you get told each month.
Bookings by clean type, cost per booking, and how many new customers became regulars. That last number decides where the budget goes. A campaign that brings in fewer bookings but more regular customers is usually the one to grow.
The cleaning searches we'd start with.
Phrase and exact match to start, so you only pay for searches that mean what you think they mean. Broad match comes later, if at all, once the negative list has had a month of real search terms fed into it.
| Search | Match | Why it's in |
|---|---|---|
| bond cleaning [area] | Phrase | Urgent, date-driven, ready to book |
| end of lease cleaning [area] | Phrase | Same customer, different words |
| fortnightly cleaner [area] | Phrase | The search behind regular customers |
| house cleaning service [area] | Phrase | Broad intent, filtered by the negatives |
| office cleaning [area] | Phrase | Only if you want commercial contracts |
| deep clean house [area] | Phrase | One-off jobs that often turn regular |
| move in cleaning | Exact | Smaller volume, high intent |
Mistakes we find in cleaning accounts.
- No job-seeker negatives. Cleaning gets a big share of searches from people looking for cleaning work, and an unfiltered account pays for them.
- Bond and regular cleans in one campaign. Bond cleans win on urgency, so they swallow the budget that should be building regular customers.
- Covering the whole city. Bookings at the far edge of the area cost more in travel than they make.
- No online booking or price guide. Cleaning customers want to know roughly what it costs. Pages that make them ask lose them to the ones that don't.
- Never checking which bookings became regulars. Without that number, the account optimises for one-off cleans by default.
Straight answers.
Are Google Ads worth it for a cleaning business?
They can be, mainly for bond cleans and regular house cleaning in a tight area. They're not worth it if the account pays for job seekers and DIY searches, which take a big share of cleaning clicks.
Should I advertise bond cleaning and regular cleaning together?
No. They're different customers with different urgency and prices. Separate campaigns let you put more budget behind the one that makes you money.
What's the most common mistake in cleaners' Google Ads?
Not excluding job searches. Cleaning gets a lot of searches from people wanting cleaning work, and an unfiltered account pays for every one.
Can a small cleaning business compete with the big booking apps on Google?
On their brand names, no. On specific cleans in specific suburbs, yes, because a lot of people would rather book a local business with real reviews than an app.
Should cleaners show prices in their Google Ads?
If your prices are competitive, putting a starting price in the ad filters out the people who'd never pay it and saves you their clicks.
How quickly do cleaning ads start working?
Bond cleaning enquiries usually start within days because the searches are urgent. Regular cleaning takes longer to judge because the value shows up over months.
Should cleaners advertise on weekends?
If bookings can be taken on weekends, yes. A lot of people search for a cleaner when they're home and looking at the mess, which is often a Saturday.
Do cleaning ads need a landing page per service?
Yes, at least one for bond cleans and one for regular cleaning. The two customers want different information and different prices.
Google Ads for other trades
Want more bookings that stick?
Tell me which cleans you want more of and where, and I'll give you a straight answer on whether ads will pay.