Most small businesses I deal with want to know how much it will cost to advertise on Google Ads. It kind of makes sense. If they cannot afford it, then the conversation just ends right there, or does it?

I ask, can you afford to miss the opportunities that Google Ads can bring you? I ask, how much can you afford to bring some of those opportunities to your business? How much would you pay to get the email or phone number of someone who shows interest in your product or service? How many of those leads can you afford?

That being said, here are some good reasons not to advertise on Google Ads.

Don’t advertise on Google Ads if your business cannot afford to test ads

A test is an advertising campaign made to test the search market and get performance information about keywords, demographics, audiences.

A simple test should get about 100 to 200 clicks. Depending on the industry, each click can cost a few cents to hundreds of dollars. A test can cost you a few hundred dollars to a few thousand.

Advertising tests usually convert poorly because they usually tell you what does not work when you do not know for sure what works.

Don’t advertise on Google Ads if you cannot afford the type of lead you can convert

In the lead generation industry, it’s common to label leads by how likely they will convert. A common labeling scheme is categorizing a lead as Cold, Warm, Hot.

Let’s say you are a personal injury lawyer. You may be willing to pay say $10 for cold leads. Then aim to get 100 cold leads. You will need $1000 at least.

Cold leads not good enough? Say you are willing to pay $400 for hot leads. Want 10 of those? Then your need at least $4000 assuming you have defined well what a hot lead is and where to find it.

You should not advertise if you have unreasonable expectations, like wanting to pay $10 per hot lead. Are your competitors paying that much?

Not advertising at all may be hindering your business in the long term

I find advertising is good to test the market and get information fast even if you have a product or service that sells well without advertising.

Advertising gives you a starting benchmark to work with. Say it costs you $100 to acquire an email, or 10 cents to get someone to buy your product or $2.39 to get a subscriber. Then you can compare that to other marketing efforts.

Say you grow your Instagram account for free, and you are getting 10 subscribers to your blog each month from Instagram. Then you can look at your advertising campaign and figure out what it would cost you to get that same number of subscribers through advertising.

But I get it. Small business owners wear many hats, other parts of the business take the attention from thinking strategically, and therefore business owners end up making rash decisions when it comes to advertising not realizing they are shooting themselves in the foot by letting their competitors take opportunities from them.

I also understand there are many parasitic advertising companies out there offering to advertise for very little while never generating significant results. Then small business owners start to think that advertising does not work, or that it’s not worth it.

So saying “NO” to advertising is a good strategy to protect your business from failing in the short-term.

But here are the long-term symptoms of missing business opportunities: A stagnant business. Having to do everything yourself. Burning out.

So stop for a moment. Take some time to think strategically about your business. Set some goals and see if advertising can help you achieve those goals.