Ads · 5 min read
How Much Should You Spend on Google Ads in Dubai?
Most Dubai businesses need a minimum of AED 5,000 to 8,000 per month in Google Ads media spend for campaigns to gather enough data to optimise. Below roughly AED 3,000 you are usually buying too few clicks to learn anything, and the account never escapes guesswork.
Management fees on top typically run 15 to 20 percent of spend, or a flat AED 2,500 to 8,000 monthly.
Cost per click varies enormously by sector
In competitive UAE verticals, a single click can cost more than a meal out. Real estate, legal services, insurance, cosmetic medical and B2B software all sit at the expensive end. Trades, hospitality and general retail sit far lower.
This matters more than any other budget factor. If your clicks cost AED 40 and you convert one enquiry in twenty clicks, each enquiry costs AED 800 before management fees. If your service is worth AED 2,000, that works. If it is worth AED 500, it does not, and no amount of optimisation fixes that arithmetic.
How to set a budget that actually works
Work backwards from a customer, not forwards from a number you feel comfortable with.
- What is a customer worth to you over their lifetime?
- What percentage of enquiries do you close?
- Therefore what can you afford to pay per enquiry?
- At your sector's typical cost per click and a realistic 2 to 5 percent conversion rate, what does that imply per click?
If the maths does not work, paid search is not your channel and you should be honest about that before spending three months proving it.
Where budget gets wasted in this market
Broad match with no negatives. The single most expensive mistake. Broad match will happily spend your budget on searches with no commercial relationship to your business.
No conversion tracking. A startling number of UAE accounts optimise towards clicks because conversions were never configured properly. Everything downstream is then guesswork.
Sending traffic to a weak page. Paid traffic magnifies whatever your site already does. If the page converts at one percent, ads make that expensive rather than fixing it.
Ignoring search terms reports. Actual queries drift far from your keywords. Weekly pruning is not optional.
Running ads 24/7 when your team is not. If nobody answers enquiries after 6pm and you have no automation, you are paying for leads that go cold.
Management fee models
Percentage of spend, 15 to 20 percent. Simple, but the incentive is to spend more.
Flat monthly fee. Cleaner alignment. Better for stable budgets.
Performance-based. Attractive in theory, but be careful: it can incentivise chasing cheap conversions rather than valuable ones.
A realistic first three months
Month one: proper tracking, account build, initial data. Expect an inefficient cost per lead while learning.
Month two: prune waste, double down on converting terms. Costs should fall noticeably.
Month three: stable cost per lead, scale what works.
If cost per lead is not improving by month three, something is wrong with the account, the offer or the landing page.
Next step
See our PPC management services or request a free audit of your existing account.