Google Ads for architects and interior designers: local Search campaigns, Performance Max, budgets, tracking

A homeowner who types "residential architect near me" or "interior designer Scottsdale" into Google is about as close to hiring as a stranger gets, and Google Ads lets you appear above the map and the organic results for that search the same day. It also lets a small firm spend a month's budget on students searching "architect salary." This guide covers which campaign types suit a design practice, a Search campaign with local intent, the negative keywords that protect a small budget, Google's budget rules, tracking leads through to signed projects, and when Performance Max and a project video are worth adding.

Key takeaways

• Start with a Search campaign: keywords that combine a service and a place, shown only to people in your service area, sending clicks to a matching page on your site.
• Add negative keywords before launch; Google says they don't match close variants or synonyms, so add singular and plural forms yourself.
• Google can spend up to twice your average daily budget on a single day, but no more than 30.4 times it in a month, for most campaigns.
• Track form submissions and calls from the start, and import signed projects from your CRM so the campaign learns which clicks became fees.
• Performance Max runs across Search, YouTube, Maps and more from one campaign; give it your own videos, or Google may create them automatically from your images.

How Google Ads works for architects and interior designers

For most architecture and interior design firms, Google Ads works best as a Search campaign: text ads shown to people in your service area who search for a service and a place, such as "home addition architect Austin" or "kitchen designer near me," with every click going to a page about that service. Set a daily budget you can sustain for three months, add negative keywords for jobs, schools and software, and track form submissions and calls before you spend anything. Add Performance Max, with your own project video, only once Search is producing leads.

The reason is intent. Someone searching a service and a place is already looking for a firm; someone scrolling YouTube is not. A small firm's budget goes furthest where intent is highest.

Which campaign type to use

Google's campaign-type help page lists six options, as of October 2026: Performance Max ("Access all channels from a single campaign with Google AI optimization"), Search ("Text ads on search results"), Display ("Image ads on websites"), Video ("Video ads on YouTube"), App and Shopping (Google Ads Help). Two of them don't apply to a design practice.

Google catches people who are already searching; Instagram ads for architecture firms covers reaching people who aren't yet.

Setting up a Search campaign with local intent

Location: who sees the ad

Google offers two location options. "Presence or interest" reaches people "who not only exist in your targeted locations, but have shown an interest in your targeted locations," and Google calls it the recommended default; "Presence" targets only people physically in the area (Google Ads Help, as of October 2026). You can also target a radius around your office, with a minimum of 1 km.

For a firm that serves one metro area, Presence is often the safer start: it keeps out someone in another state reading about your city. Presence or interest makes sense if you design vacation homes or work with people relocating, who search from elsewhere. Whichever you choose, check the locations report after two weeks and exclude places that send clicks but never leads.

Keywords: one ad group per service

Group keywords by the service someone needs, not by your firm's structure:

• Custom homes: "custom home architect," "residential architect [city]"
• Additions and remodels: "home addition architect," "architect for remodel"
• ADUs, where they're common: "ADU architect [city]"
• Interior design: "interior designer [city]," "kitchen design services"

Each ad group should send clicks to a page about that service, with projects of that type and a contact form. A visitor who searched "home addition architect" and lands on your homepage has to hunt; a visitor who lands on a page of three additions doesn't. The case study page template covers how to structure those project pages.

Ad copy: specific and accurate

Name the service, the area and something concrete: years practicing, the types of projects, whether you handle permits. Only use "architect" in an ad if the firm has a licensed architect in that state; US states regulate the title, and who can call themselves an architect in US marketing explains how. Interior designers should check their state's rules on "interior designer" too.

Negative keywords that protect a small budget

Negative keywords "let you exclude search terms from your campaigns" (Google Ads Help, as of October 2026). The detail that matters: unlike regular keywords, negative keywords don't automatically match close variants or synonyms. Google's own example is that excluding "flowers" blocks "red flowers" but not "red flower," so you have to add singular, plural and synonym forms yourself.

Negative keywords use three match types. Broad, the default, blocks a search that contains all the negative terms in any order; phrase blocks the terms in that order with words around them; exact blocks only that precise search. Add these lists before launch, then read the search terms report every week for the first month and add whatever slipped through.

A realistic budget for a small firm

Google Ads works on an average daily budget. Google's help page says that on any particular day it may spend up to "two times your average daily budget for most campaigns," but in any month no more than "30.4 times your average daily budget" (Google Ads Help, as of October 2026). A $30 average daily budget can therefore spend up to $60 on a busy day and at most $912 in a month.

To decide what budget makes sense, use your own numbers rather than an industry average:

1. Find the cost per click. In Google's Keyword Planner, look up your main keywords for your city and note the range for top-of-page bids. Prices vary widely by market.
2. Work out clicks per month. Monthly budget divided by cost per click. Hypothetically, $900 at $9 a click is about 100 clicks.
3. Estimate inquiries. Multiply clicks by your landing page's conversion rate. If you don't know it, run the campaign for a month and measure.
4. Compare with the value of a project. One signed residential project usually carries a fee far larger than a month's ad spend, so the question is whether the campaign produces a qualified inquiry often enough, not whether each click is cheap.

Commit to about three months at a steady budget: Google's bidding needs conversion data to learn, and a firm's sales cycle is longer than a few weeks. How much an architecture firm should spend on marketing puts ad spend in the context of the whole budget.

Conversion tracking: forms, calls and signed projects

Without tracking, Google optimizes for clicks, and clicks are cheap from people who will never hire you. Google says you "add a Google tag, or code snippet, to your website," then define the actions that matter (Google Ads Help, as of October 2026). For a design firm, track three things:

• Contact form submissions: the thank-you page after your inquiry form, or the form-submit event.
• Phone calls: Google supports calls directly from ads, calls to a number on your website, and clicks on a phone number on a mobile site.
• Signed projects: offline conversions imported from your CRM or a spreadsheet, using the Google Click ID saved with each inquiry. Google says processing takes 24 to 48 hours and that click IDs "must be within 90 days."

The third is what separates useful campaigns from busy ones. A residential client may inquire in March and sign in May; importing that signature, even by hand, tells Google which searches lead to fees. If your sales cycle runs past 90 days, import the step you reach sooner, such as a paid feasibility study or a signed proposal.

Pair ads with the free local listing: a complete Google Business Profile shows in the map results next to your ads and often answers the "who is this firm" question before anyone clicks.

Performance Max and video assets

Performance Max is "a goal-based campaign type that allows you to access all Google Ads inventory" from one campaign, serving on "YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, and Maps" (Google Ads Help, as of October 2026). It doesn't take over your Search campaign: Google says Search campaigns with an exact-match keyword "are prioritized to serve over Performance Max when a query hits an exact match keyword."

The video requirement is the part design firms should plan for. Performance Max accepts video in horizontal 16:9, square 1:1 and vertical 9:16, each "10 seconds or more," and if you don't provide videos, Google may create them automatically from your other assets (Google Ads Help, as of October 2026). An auto-assembled slideshow of your images is rarely how you want a project presented. Text assets follow tight limits: headlines of up to 30 characters, long headlines and descriptions of up to 90.

A 30-second project film covers the vertical slot well. Arch2Video turns six images from one project into a 1080 × 1920 MP4 with an original soundtrack, at USD 15 per video, and a film with your studio logo also comes in a no-logo version for ads that already carry your name. The AI motion is an interpretation, and every film includes a small cast of fictional people, so review it before it runs and present unbuilt work as concept work. Upload a horizontal version too, so Google isn't filling the 16:9 slot itself.

Start Performance Max only when conversion tracking has a few weeks of real leads behind it; the campaign optimizes toward whatever you count as a conversion.

Frequently asked questions

Is Google Ads worth it for a small architecture firm?

It can be, if you run a Search campaign limited to your service area, send each click to a page about the specific service, block job and student searches with negative keywords, and track inquiries from day one. It's rarely worth it as a broad awareness campaign on a small budget. Judge it after about three months by qualified inquiries and signed projects, not by clicks.

How much should an architect spend on Google Ads per month?

There's no reliable industry figure, so work it out from your market: check top-of-page bid ranges for your keywords in Keyword Planner, divide your intended monthly budget by the cost per click to see how many clicks it buys, and decide whether that many visits could plausibly produce a project. Remember that Google may spend up to twice your daily budget on a single day but caps the month at 30.4 times the daily figure, as of October 2026.

Should I use Performance Max or Search for my design firm?

Search first. It shows your ads only when someone searches for the service, and exact-match Search keywords take priority over Performance Max for the same query. Add Performance Max once conversion tracking is recording real leads and you have good images, headlines and your own videos in horizontal, square or vertical formats, since without a video Google may generate one from your images.

What negative keywords should an interior designer add?

Start with job and education terms (jobs, salary, internship, school, degree, course), do-it-yourself terms (ideas, pictures, diy, free) and software names. Add both singular and plural forms, because Google says negative keywords don't match close variants. If you don't offer e-design or furniture sales, exclude those too, then check the search terms report weekly for the first month.