Should a Katy business use paid search or paid social?
Intent decides it. Nobody scrolls a feed while water is coming through the ceiling — they search. A Katy service business with a limited budget should put it into paid search on high-intent terms, and use social for remarketing, for visual trades, and for services nobody thinks to search for until prompted.
Intent is the difference
Paid search. Someone typed a problem. Your advert appears as an answer. High intent, high cost per click, high conversion rate.
Paid social. Someone is scrolling. You interrupt with something they were not seeking. Low intent, low cost per click, low conversion rate.
Cheap clicks that do not convert cost more than dear clicks that do. Cost per click is the wrong comparison; cost per booked job is the right one.
Where paid search clearly wins
- Urgent work. Nobody scrolls a feed while water is coming through the ceiling. They search.
- Established need. Repairs, replacements, professional services — the customer already knows what they want.
- Specific jobs. "Slab leak repair" is a search, not a browse.
- Small budgets. Limited money in front of people already looking is the efficient use of it.
For most Katy trades this is the answer, and the budget should go here before anywhere else.
Where paid social genuinely earns its place
Services nobody searches for. Gutter guards, lawn programmes, pest prevention — demand has to be created before it can be captured.
Visual trades. Landscaping, remodelling, pools, interiors. Finished-work photography performs in a feed in a way it never does in a text advert.
Remarketing. Reaching people who already visited your site is the strongest use of social for a service business, and it is cheap relative to search.
Recruitment. Hiring crew frequently works better on social than anywhere else, and it is badly under-used.
Getting the targeting right locally
Both platforms will happily spend your budget across the whole metro. Set the radius to where you genuinely travel, and check what the platform actually did — default settings often include people merely interested in a location rather than in it.
That single setting wastes more local budget than any other.
Allocation for a limited budget
- Paid search on high-intent terms, tightly targeted
- Remarketing on social to people who visited and did not enquire
- Everything else only once those two are working and measured
Social prospecting to cold audiences is the last thing to add, not the first.
Measuring both the same way
Call tracking, a source field on the form, and a source column in the job record. Then compare cost per booked job. Without that, the comparison is opinion — and it settles differently for different trades, which is why your own numbers matter more than the general rule.
What it costs
Paid management sits inside Growth Engine — $5,500 setup, $1,500 a month and above, covering the account alongside the landing pages and tracking. Ad spend goes to the platform from your own account.
The honest read
If you can only measure one thing, measure which channel produced booked jobs. Everything else in this comparison is a prediction; that is a fact.
Frequently asked questions
Which should a Katy business use?
Paid search, for most trades. Someone typed a problem and your advert answers it — high intent and high conversion. Paid social interrupts people who were not looking, at low intent and low conversion.
When does paid social earn its place?
For services nobody searches for until prompted, for visual trades where finished-work photography performs, for remarketing to previous site visitors, and for recruitment — which is badly under-used.
What wastes the most local budget?
Targeting settings that include people merely interested in a location rather than in it. Both platforms will spend across the whole metro by default, so set the radius to where you genuinely travel and check what the platform did.
How should a small budget be allocated?
Paid search on high-intent terms first, remarketing on social to people who visited and did not enquire second, and everything else only once those two are working and measured.
How do I compare the two?
Cost per booked job, using call tracking, a source field on the form and a source column in the job record. Without that the comparison is opinion, and it settles differently for different trades.