Google Ads for kitchen remodelers: budgets, the campaigns that book consultations, the ones that burn money
What a kitchen remodeling consultation costs on Google search, the keyword structure that works for a design-build firm, the negatives you need, and what to expect in month one.
Google Ads is where a kitchen remodeler either builds a predictable consultation calendar or loses $4,000 a month learning that "kitchen ideas" is not a buyer. The gap between those two outcomes is structure, not budget. Here is the structure, with the numbers.
What a consultation costs
In most US metros a click on "kitchen remodeling contractor" runs $8 to $35. Coastal metros and wealthy suburbs sit at the top of that range. A tracked consultation request, meaning a form fill or a call over 90 seconds, lands between $120 and $400. If your designer closes one in four consultations, a signed contract costs $500 to $1,600 in ad spend. On a $45,000 average project that is 1 to 4 percent, which is cheaper than Houzz Pro in most markets and far cheaper than a referral fee.
The accounts that lose money are not paying more per click. They are paying for the wrong clicks and sending them to the wrong page.
The campaigns that work
Campaign 1: Contractor and company terms. Phrase and exact match on the searches a homeowner types when they have decided to hire someone.
- kitchen remodeling contractor [city]
- kitchen renovation company near me
- kitchen remodel companies [suburb]
- design build kitchen [city]
- custom kitchen remodeler
Campaign 2: Service-specific terms with a lower ticket, if you offer them. Cabinet refacing, countertop replacement, cabinet painting. These clicks cost less ($5 to $18), convert faster, and bring in clients who return for the full remodel in two years.
Campaign 3: Brand. Your own firm name, pennies per click. Houzz and lead platforms bid on your name; this stops them from sitting above you.
Each campaign gets its own landing page with the price range stated in the first screen, three project photos, two or three reviews quoted, a short form (name, phone, email, rough budget, timeline) and a tap-to-call number. Not the home page. The website guide covers the page.
The campaigns that burn money
Broad match on "kitchen remodel". It matches "kitchen remodel cost", "kitchen remodel ideas", "small kitchen remodel before and after" and "kitchen remodel show". All research, all DIY, all $15 to $25 a click.
Performance Max with no feed and no audience signals, run from day one. It spends on display inventory and YouTube before you have conversion data to steer it. Run search for 60 days first, then test Performance Max with your converting form fills as the signal.
Any campaign with no call tracking and no form tracking. If the only metric is clicks, you will optimize for clicks and get cheaper, worse ones.
The negative keyword list
Add these on day one at the account level and prune the search terms report twice a week for the first month:
- Research: ideas, pictures, photos, images, design ideas, trends, 2026, inspiration, Pinterest, before and after, layout, colors
- DIY and products: DIY, how to, IKEA, Home Depot, Lowes, Wayfair, cabinets for sale, countertops for sale, kit, paint, stencil
- Cost research: cost calculator, average cost, cost per square foot, cheap, cheapest, budget, free
- Jobs: jobs, hiring, salary, career, apprentice, training, course, school, license
- Other: software, app, TV show, magazine, mobile home, RV, apartment, rental
Expect 100 to 200 negatives inside the first month. That list is the account's real asset.
Budget, schedule and location
For a single-showroom firm, $2,000 to $4,000 a month across the three campaigns is a real test. Under $1,200 you will not have enough consultation requests in 30 days to judge anything. Put 70 percent into campaign 1.
Schedule: run all day, but bid up 20 percent from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. when someone can answer the phone. Kitchen searches peak on weekday evenings and Saturday mornings. Do not pause weekends; set up missed-call text-back instead, as described in the follow-up guide.
Location: target the suburbs and zip codes where your past clients live, not a 40-mile radius. Exclude anywhere you would not drive for a consultation. Set the location option to "presence" so you do not pay for people in another state searching your city.
Ad copy that qualifies
The ad is the first filter. Put the price range in it. "Kitchen remodels from $45,000. Free in-home design consultation. 60+ five-star reviews." That line costs you the clicks you did not want and keeps the ones you did. Use the review extension (it needs a live Google Business Profile with reviews), sitelinks to your gallery, process and pricing pages, and a call extension on your tracked number.
Only 4.5% of kitchen remodelers have 100 or more reviews, so a review count in the ad is a real differentiator. If you are under 20, fix that first; see the reviews guide.
What month one looks like
Week 1: campaigns live, 150 negatives in, tracking confirmed by a test call and a test form. Week 2: first 4 to 10 consultation requests, search terms pruned twice, bids adjusted by zip. Weeks 3 and 4: 10 to 20 requests total, cost per request known, first consultations held. No signed contracts yet in most firms; the cycle is 30 to 90 days from consultation.
Judge month one on cost per qualified consultation request. Judge month three on signed contracts. An account killed at week three because nothing signed never had a chance.
Frequently asked
Should we run Local Services Ads too? If Google offers the Kitchen remodeler category in your area, yes. Pay-per-lead, above search, ranked partly on reviews. Leads cost $40 to $150 and are hit-or-miss on budget, so answer fast and qualify on the first call.
What about Houzz versus Google Ads? Run both for 90 days with tracking and compare cost per signed contract, not cost per lead. Houzz leads are earlier in the process and need longer follow-up; Google leads are closer to hiring.
Can we do this ourselves? Yes, if someone will log in twice a week for the first two months to prune search terms and check tracking. The accounts that fail are the ones set up once and left.
If you want it built and run for two weeks before deciding, Google Ads is one of the services in the free 14-day trial.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, kitchen remodeling companies among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor