You cannot outbid an online retailer on the word that gets 60,500 searches. You can own the one that needs a person.
What your clicks actually cost, which searches are wasting money, and what your cost per booked consultation looks like. Fifteen minutes, and you keep it either way.
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Dearer per click, a fraction of the volume, and the only search on the chart an online store cannot answer.
Engagement rings gets 60,500 searches a month at $2.21 a click and diamond rings another 18,100 at $1.22. Those are product searches, and you are bidding against national retailers with better margins and free returns. Custom engagement rings gets 1,900 at $3.77, and that person has decided they want something made rather than bought. That is a different business and it is the one a local jeweller can win.
Average cost per click across Australia, from Google Keyword Planner. What your account pays will differ with location, competition and quality score. The gap between these rows is the argument, not the exact figures.
Almost everything on this chart is a product search under two dollars, which is exactly what a market dominated by online retail looks like. Cheap clicks, enormous volume, and a shopfront competing against warehouses.
The two ends of this chart are the only rows a local jeweller has a structural advantage in. Custom work at the top, because it needs a conversation. Repairs at the bottom, because somebody has to physically hand you the piece.
Three numbers, and only the last one decides anything. It is the same chain our Brisbane digital marketing agency works through in every industry, only the dollar figures change.
We work it right to left. What a job is worth sets what a lead can cost, which sets what a click is worth bidding.
Cost per click is the easiest number to improve and the least useful one. Bid on cheaper searches and it drops immediately, whether or not those searches ever turn into work. That is why we will sometimes tell you to pay more per click rather than less.
Google Ads is the fastest of the three and the only one you pay for by the click. Here is what the other two do, and where the expensive clicks eventually stop.
THE SLOW ASSET
A real page per service instead of a Collections menu, a portfolio of pieces you have actually made, a Google Business Profile built properly, and a review process after every commission. Slow to arrive, and the only sustainable answer to competing with national retailers on product terms.
THE FAST LEVER
Campaigns split by intent so custom work never competes with product browsing for the same budget. Negative keywords so you stop paying for cheap rings, replica jewellery, cubic zirconia, jewellery courses and the very large number of people valuing something they already own. Call and booking tracking, because custom work starts with an appointment.
THE ONE MOST JEWELLERS SKIP
The obvious channel for this industry, and the one where custom work sells itself. A piece you made, photographed properly, does more for a custom enquiry than any search ad, because the whole decision is visual and emotional.
We start from what a sale is worth and what margin sits in it, not what a click costs. A jeweller selling stock and one making bespoke pieces cannot afford the same cost per click. Google Ads does the fast work, SEO eventually takes the paid clicks off your bill, and Meta Ads is where finished pieces do the selling. We will tell you if one is not worth running.
Not a strategy document. These are the three campaigns we would build first for a Brisbane jeweller, and what each one is actually for.
Built around “custom engagement rings”
1,900 searches a month at $3.77 a click, the dearest row on the chart and the only one that requires a person. Somebody typing this wants to sit down, look at stones and have something made. The page needs pieces you have made, a price range, and how long a commission takes.
Built around “jewellery repairs”
$1.98 a click on 1,900 searches, plus watch repairs at $1.02 on 6,600. Repairs cannot be done online, they carry good margin for the bench time, and they bring somebody physically into your shop holding something they care about. That is the cheapest introduction available to a jeweller.
Built around the searches we exclude
Cheap rings, replica and costume jewellery, cubic zirconia, jewellery making courses, valuations for insurance on pieces bought elsewhere, and the very large number of people browsing product images with no intention of buying anything. On broad match you buy all of it.
Send us access to your Google Ads account and we will come back with what it is wasting, which searches are costing you the most for the least, and what we would change first. Fifteen minutes, no obligation, and you keep it either way.
Two clicks can cost the same and be worth completely different amounts. That gap, not the click price, is what decides whether an account works.
Under four dollars for the click and a customer who has already decided they do not want something off a shelf. Custom work carries the best margin in the shop, it cannot be fulfilled from a warehouse, and it produces the photographs that sell the next three commissions.
Your Google Business Profile, suburb pages, and local listings optimised so customers in your area find you first.
Technical fixes and service-focused SEO that make your site easy for Google to understand and trust.
Build your reputation through reviews, with monthly reports tracking rankings and leads from organic search.
Two dollars and change for the click and the largest search in the market. Engagement rings is a product search, and the results are full of national retailers with better margins, larger catalogues and free returns. You can compete there. You will not win there on budget.
Site speed, crawlability, schema markup, and Core Web Vitals sorted so Google can index and trust your site.
Service pages and suburb landing pages written to rank and convert, not just fill space.
Backlink building and on-page optimisation that compounds month over month.
Three things come up in nearly every Google Ads account we audit for a jeweller.
Engagement rings, wedding rings and diamond rings take the whole budget because they have the volume and the clicks look cheap. Those results are dominated by national retailers, and a single shopfront bidding into them is buying browsing traffic at scale.
Custom work at $3.77 and repairs at $1.98 and $1.02. Neither can be fulfilled online, both need somebody local, and both carry margin that a stocked product does not. Smaller searches, and yours to win.
If you do sell stock online and you are only running text ads, you are fighting the product searches with one hand. Shopping campaigns are how retail competes on those terms, and plenty of jewellers have never set one up.
Shopping for the product searches if you sell online, text ads for custom and repairs, and separate budgets so one never eats the other. They are different customers at different stages and they should not be competing internally.
A sales figure treats a resized ring and a bespoke commission as the same event. They are worth very different amounts and take very different bench time, and averaging them hides which campaigns are actually funding the workshop.
Cost per click, then cost per enquiry, then margin by campaign. In an industry where a stocked ring and a made piece have completely different margins, revenue is the number most likely to mislead you.
We start with what a sale is worth after the stone and the bench time, and work backwards to what a click can cost.
A stocked ring and a bespoke commission cannot carry the same cost per click, because the margin between them is not close. We work out margin by category first, which usually shows that the searches with the least volume are the ones worth bidding hardest on.
Custom, repairs, product and local each get their own campaign, budget and landing page, so the enormous cheap browsing traffic never absorbs the budget meant for commissions.
Search terms reviewed weekly and negatives added, because jewellery attracts an enormous volume of image browsing, replica and course searches. Then monthly reporting on margin by campaign rather than revenue.
Worth saying before you enquire, because it saves everyone three months.
If you only sell stocked product and you have no online store, this is a hard market and we will say so. You would be buying browsing traffic against national retailers with structural advantages. Custom work and repairs change that calculation completely, which is why the whole page is built on them.
Fast answers, clear decisions.
Spend, leads and trends at a glance.
Your data, your accounts.
Budget goes to what converts.
4+ years average client retention.
Specialists across each platform.
Bid on it if you sell online, and use shopping rather than text ads. As a single shopfront bidding text ads into those results, you are competing with national retailers on catalogue, margin and returns policy. It is not that the search is bad, it is that the advantage is not yours.
Because it is the only search on the chart an online retailer cannot answer. Somebody typing custom engagement rings has already decided they do not want something off a shelf. It costs $3.77 against $2.21 for the product search, it carries the best margin in the shop, and it produces photographs that sell the next commission.
Agency fees usually work one of three ways: a percentage of ad spend, a flat monthly retainer, or a base fee plus a percentage above a threshold. Percentage models get expensive as you scale and quietly reward the agency for spending more of your money. Ask which model an agency uses and why before you ask for a number.
They are the cheapest introduction available to you. Jewellery repairs is $1.98 and watch repairs $1.02, neither can be done online, and both bring somebody into your shop holding something they care about. A fair share of custom commissions start as a repair conversation.
If you sell stock online, yes, and plenty of jewellers are not. Text ads are the wrong tool for a product search. Shopping is how retail competes there, and it should have a separate budget from your custom and repair campaigns so the two never compete internally.
Enough to hold a consistent position on the custom and repair searches, which are small enough to have a natural ceiling. Beyond that you are into the product terms, and that is a budget question about whether you can compete with national retailers rather than a bidding question.
Meaningless as a single number in this industry, because a resize and a bespoke commission are not comparable. We report margin by campaign rather than revenue, since revenue is the figure most likely to make the wrong campaign look successful.
Three places, in this order. Text ads against product searches dominated by national retail. Image browsing, replica and costume jewellery traffic. And jewellery making courses, which this industry attracts a surprising amount of.
Pull budget off the product terms and put it on custom and repairs, then set up shopping properly if you sell online. In most jeweller accounts we audit, the entire spend is on searches where a single shop has no structural advantage at all.
We look at what it is wasting, how much sits on product terms you cannot win, whether custom and repairs are advertised at all, whether shopping is set up if it should be, and what your margin looks like by campaign. You get it in writing and you keep it whether or not you hire us.
