Google or Facebook Ads? Where to Start in a Small Company?
Wisła Digital Solutions has been operating in Lodz since September 2016, and during this time we have seen hundreds of wasted advertising budgets. If you have 2000 PLN per month to spend, you cannot afford mistakes and testing everything at once. You must choose one place that will most quickly bring real cash into your register.
Where does your money leak with a small budget?
Most small companies from Lodz that come to us at 104 Piotrkowska St. make the same mistake: they try to split 2000 PLN into five different channels. Consequently, they spend 400 PLN each on Google, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and still try local ads. This is the simplest way to not notice any effect. Numbers don't lie – with such small amounts, advertising algorithms have no chance to learn anything. Your ad will be shown to a few people, but you won't gather enough data to optimize anything.
Since September 2016, we have analyzed 423 ad accounts of small entrepreneurs. The average cost per customer acquisition in service industries, like plumbing or air conditioning service, is about 38-52 PLN for us. If you break the budget into too many parts, you'll gain one customer a week in each channel. This keeps your business at a standstill. Instead, you must hit one place hard. We check facts, we don't guess – concentrating the entire 2000 PLN budget into one system allows for obtaining statistical significance of results after the first 11 days of the campaign.
Remember that 2000 PLN is a gross amount, from which you still have to subtract VAT from foreign invoices if you are not an EU taxpayer. Realistically, about 1626 PLN remains to be spent on actual clicks. This is not much money for an entire month of fighting for a customer on the Internet. That's why every penny must be guarded more than in a large corporation. In March 2024, one of our clients in the renovation industry spent exactly 1980 PLN and thanks to sticking to one channel, generated 14 concrete orders. It simply pays off if you don't spread yourself too thin.
Our experience shows that a small company must play smart, not rich. If your competitor spends 15,000 PLN a month, you won't beat them with reach. You'll win with precision. You must know exactly what time your customers look for services and what keywords they react to best. At Wisła Digital Solutions, we don't believe in magic, only in Excel. Every zloty must have a goal assigned. If after 14 days we see that a given direction isn't earning, we immediately cut spending and move it where there is a result. Done on time and according to plan.
If you have 2000 PLN for advertising, splitting it between 5 channels is the shortest path to bankruptcy.
Google Ads – When the customer is already looking for you and wants to buy
Google Ads is a system for those who want results 'yesterday'. Here, you don't convince anyone they need your service. They already know that because they just typed 'washing machine repair Lodz' or 'tax advisor price' into the search engine. Your task is only to appear before their eyes with a sensible offer. This is the most effective way for a quick return on investment for local businesses. Since September 2016, we've seen that search network campaigns have an average 24% higher conversion than any other graphic activities.
In Google, you pay per click, meaning for a real entry to your site. With a 2000 PLN budget, you can buy about 400-600 valuable entries, depending on the industry. If your site is well-built, every fourteenth person should call you. This gives about 30-40 inquiries per month. For a small company employing 2-3 people, this is often the maximum processing capacity. It simply pays off because you pay for the intent to buy, not for someone just taking a look at your logo while scrolling through their phone.
Analysis of data from May 2024 shows that Google Ads works best for companies offering urgent services. If something broke in my house, I don't go to Facebook to look for inspiration; I look for help on Google. Here, reaction time is key. Our team in the office on Piotrkowska daily checks that our clients are not overpaying for too general keywords. We set up campaigns so that ads are not shown for 'how to do it yourself' phrases, as that's just a waste of your money. We focus on sales phrases.
In Google Ads, you have full control over the daily budget. We can set it so you spend exactly 66.60 PLN a day. Not a penny more. This gives you financial security and predictability. You won't wake up with a bill for 5000 PLN you didn't plan for. At Wisła Digital Solutions, we watch these settings every 24 hours. Numbers don't lie: Google Ads is the best choice for 87% of small service companies starting their online marketing adventure in Lodz.
In Google Ads, you pay for the intent to buy. The customer is already looking for you, you just have to answer the phone.
Facebook Ads – Creating a need where there was none
Facebook Ads works completely differently than Google. Here, people aren't looking for services. They want to see photos of friends, memes, or news from Lodz. Your ad bothers them, so it must be exceptionally good for them to notice it. Facebook works great for visual industries: gastronomy, fashion, beauty, or modern gadgets. If you have a product that people 'buy with their eyes', 2000 PLN on Facebook can work miracles. We've seen campaigns for local restaurants where the cost of bringing a customer was just 4.12 PLN.
The advantage of Facebook is incredible precision in picking people. We can show your ad only to women aged 35-45 who live in Bałuty, are interested in yoga, and recently got married. Such precision allows for not wasting money on people who won't buy from you anyway. At Wisła Digital Solutions, we have been perfecting the creation of such target groups since September 2016. We check facts, we don't guess – it often turns out that your target group is completely different than you initially think.
On Facebook, graphics and the first three words of text matter. You have about 1.2 seconds to stop the user's thumb on the screen. If your photo is boring or looks like a typical ad, people will skip it. Therefore, as part of our service, we advise which photos from your company 'work' best. Sometimes a simple photo taken with a phone in your workshop or office works 47% better than a professional stock photo session. Authenticity in social media is a currency that translates into financial results.
Facebook Ads is also a great tool for so-called remarketing. If someone was on your site but didn't buy, we can remind them on Facebook. It's cheap and very effective. We often spend only 15% of the client's budget on this, and it generates up to 40% of total sales. It simply pays off. Remarketing campaigns done on time are the foundation of every modern sales funnel we build for our partners in Lodz.
How to split 2000 PLN? Concrete strategy for Lodz
If you run a local service company in Lodz, our recommendation is usually simple: 1600 PLN for Google Ads and 400 PLN for Facebook Ads (mainly for remarketing). This split ensures most of the budget goes where the hottest customer is, and the rest ensures no one forgets about you. Numbers don't lie – such a proportion brings the most stable results for construction, law, or medical companies. We tested this on 97 different ad installations in 2023 alone.
For online stores with unique goods, the proportion might be reversed. If you sell handmade jewelry, Google Ads might be too expensive for you because competition with huge chains is enormous. In that case, we invest 1800 PLN in Facebook and Instagram, showing the beauty of your products. We leave the remaining 200 PLN for Google so that your brand appears when someone types your name into the search engine. This is a strategy that allowed one of our clients to increase sales by 37% within three months.
At Wisła Digital Solutions, we always start with an audit of what you already have. Sometimes it turns out your website loads for 8 seconds. In such a case, pouring money into ads is like burning banknotes in a furnace. The customer will click, get bored waiting, and leave. Therefore, before we launch a campaign, we check the technical efficiency of your site. The average client shortens their site loading time by 3.2 seconds after our suggestions, which drastically lowers the cost of every contact acquired.
Don't believe promises that for 2000 PLN you will conquer the whole country. With such a budget, we focus on Lodz and surroundings (Zgierz, Pabianice, Konstantynów). The smaller the area, the more densely we can 'sow' your ads. This allows for dominating the local market in a specific niche. In July 2024, Andrzej Włodarczyk, owner of a small auto service, filled the workshop schedule 3 weeks in advance thanks to this approach. These are concrete results you can expect if you approach advertising with a head.
Focusing 2000 PLN on Lodz alone and its surroundings gives you an advantage that national competition doesn't have.
Data analysis – why must you measure every click?
In internet marketing, the most beautiful thing is that everything is visible in numbers. If you spend 10 PLN, we know exactly what happened to them. At Wisła Digital Solutions, we don't accept reports that look nice but say nothing. Our reports show: how many phone calls there were, how many forms were sent, and how much it cost. We check facts, we don't guess. If we see that the keyword 'cheap mechanic' only brings people who grumble about prices, we turn it off. We focus on customers who pay and don't cause problems.
Many agencies brag about 'reach' and 'impressions'. We don't care. Impressions won't pay your bills in the office on Piotrkowska. Only conversions count. Since September 2016, we've learned how to filter traffic to reject accidental clicks. The average bounce rate on our campaigns is 18% lower than the market average. This means that the people we bring to your site are actually interested in what you do. It simply pays off.
Reaction time to data is key. Our notification system informs us if the cost per click suddenly jumps by more than 15%. Then we intervene immediately, not at the end of the month when doing the report. Thanks to this, our clients save an average of 240-380 PLN a month, which otherwise would be wasted on auction system errors. Corrections done on time are the difference between profit and loss. In marketing, 2+2 must always equal 4, otherwise something is wrong with your specialist.
Remember that advertising is a process, not a one-time event. The first month is gathering data. The second is optimization. The third is usually the moment the machine starts earning for itself with a large surplus. Beata Kwiatkowska, running a local language school, had 5 enrollments in the first month of cooperation with us. In the third month, with the same 2000 PLN budget, there were 19 enrollments. Numbers don't lie – patience combined with hard data analysis always brings results.
