In this article
Every TV mounting and handyman owner in Australia asks me the same question in the first five minutes of a call: should I be on Facebook ads or Google ads? It is the right question, and most answers online are written by agencies who sell one of the two. So here is the Facebook ads vs Google ads for handyman businesses question answered from the account we actually run: a Perth TV mounting and picture hanging business that went from 9 leads a month to 135 on Meta in five months.
I will be straight about what we know and what we do not. We ran Meta (Facebook and Instagram) for this business, not Google Ads, so every number below is a Meta number. What I can give you is why Meta worked for this kind of job, where Google search is the better first dollar, and how to decide for your own business.
The Meta side, in four numbers
One Perth TV mounting and picture hanging business, April to August 2026. All figures in AUD, from the Meta Ads report.
Quick answers
Are Facebook ads or Google ads better for a handyman business?
It depends on how people buy your service. Google search catches people already looking for a handyman today. Facebook and Instagram ads create demand for jobs people put off, like mounting the TV or hanging the frames. For a Perth TV mounting and picture hanging business, Meta took leads from 9 to 135 a month.
How much does a TV mounting lead cost on Facebook ads in Australia?
In our Perth account the whole-account cost per lead fell from $119.63 AUD in the first month to between $29.57 and $46.18 a month after that. The best single campaign reached $25.14 per lead in July 2026.
Should a small handyman business run both Facebook and Google ads?
Start with one and do it properly. Pick the platform that matches how your customers buy, fix tracking, and give it a few months. Add the second platform once the first is profitable and you know your real cost per job.
Two different kinds of customer
The biggest mistake I see is treating Facebook ads vs Google ads as a question about which platform is "better". They are not competing for the same person. They reach two different moments.
Google search is for the person who already decided. Their tap is dripping, the door will not close, the new TV is in the box and the move-in date is Saturday. They type "TV wall mounting Perth" and call one of the first few businesses they see. You are paying to be on that list at the exact moment of need.
Facebook and Instagram are for the person who has not decided yet. The TV has been sitting on a cabinet with cables hanging down for two years. The frames from the last move are still leaning against the wall. They are not searching for anything. Then a before-and-after of a clean, cable-free wall appears in their feed, in their suburb, and the job they kept putting off suddenly feels easy.
TV mounting, picture hanging, mirrors, shelves and gallery walls sit mostly in that second group. They are "someday" jobs. That is a big reason Meta worked so well for this installer.
When Facebook ads win for a handyman business
From running this account, these are the conditions where I would put the first dollar into Meta:
- The result is visual. A mounted TV with hidden cables or a level gallery wall sells itself in one photo. In June, the before-and-after ad set in this account ran at about $29.50 per lead, while an ad built around a photo of the installer ran at $37.28. People buy the finished wall, not the tradie.
- The job is a "someday" job. If customers do not wake up needing you, you have to put the idea in front of them. Search cannot do that, because nobody is searching yet.
- You can split by service. We ran TV mounting, picture hanging and an all-services campaign separately, each with its own budget. That showed which job was profitable and let us move money there.
- You have lots of happy customers. Meta's lookalike audiences get better as you feed them real leads. We built ours from people who had actually asked for a quote, not from page likes.
- You want volume in one city. Meta lets you show the same strong creative to a lot of homeowners in your area for a modest daily budget. This account reached 888k impressions over five months.
When Google search ads make more sense
I am not anti-Google. There are businesses where I would tell you to start there:
- Urgent repairs. Burst pipes, broken locks, a fence blown over in a storm. Nobody scrolls Instagram waiting for that ad. They search and they call.
- Specific, high-ticket jobs people research. If customers type the exact job name into Google and compare three quotes, being in that search matters more than being in their feed.
- Your service does not photograph well. If the finished job looks like nothing (a fixed hinge, a sealed gap), Meta creative has less to work with.
- You have no reviews or photos yet. Meta leans hard on visual proof. A brand new business with nothing to show often does better catching search intent first, while it builds a portfolio.
Whatever you choose, keep your Google Business Profile complete and keep collecting reviews. That costs nothing and it shows up for local searches either way. When a Facebook lead checks you out before calling, your reviews are one of the first things they look at.
How we set up Meta for the Perth installer
The order that worked
The same five steps we would use for any handyman or installer starting on Meta.
The first month was mostly setup. Leads went from 9 to 71 in month two, then 64, 109 and 135. Cost per lead did not fall in a straight line: it went up in June and rose slightly in August as we pushed more volume. That is normal when you scale. What matters is that lead volume kept climbing while cost per lead stayed in a range the business could afford.
| Month (2026) | Leads | Cost per lead (whole account, AUD) |
|---|---|---|
| April | 9 | $119.63 |
| May | 71 | $40.54 |
| June | 64 | $46.18 |
| July | 109 | $29.57 |
| August | 135 | $32.17 |
The full breakdown of every change is in our post on Meta ads for TV mounting businesses, and the creative and photography are in the Perth installer case study.
Facebook ads vs Google ads for handyman businesses: how to decide
Ask yourself three questions:
- Do customers search for me in a panic, or do they put the job off? Panic means Google first. Putting it off means Meta first.
- Does the finished job look good in a photo? If yes, Meta has something to sell with. If no, lean towards search.
- Can I track a real quote request today? If not, fix that before spending a dollar on either platform. Without tracking, both Google and Meta optimise for cheap clicks instead of customers.
Most TV mounting, picture hanging and installation businesses will answer "put it off", "yes" and "not yet". That points to Meta, with tracking fixed first.
What to take away
- Facebook ads vs Google ads is not a winner-takes-all choice. They reach different moments in the buying process.
- Visual, "someday" jobs suit Meta. TV mounting and picture hanging are the textbook case.
- Urgent, invisible jobs suit Google search. Nobody waits for an ad when water is on the floor.
- Tracking comes before either. Our Perth account's first month was fixing that, and everything after depended on it.
- Judge it over months. The jump from 9 to 135 leads took five months, not five days.
If you want to check your current Meta setup yourself, our free 12-point Meta Ads Checklist takes two minutes. You can also see how we run campaigns across other industries on our Meta ads service page.
You own your ad account and pay Meta directly, we bill monthly in AUD, and there is no lock-in. If you run a TV mounting, handyman or installation business in Australia and want a second opinion on where your next dollar should go, send me your website and I will tell you which platform I would start with and why.
Run an installation business in Australia?
See the full numbers and how we work with installers, or email us your website for a free 2-minute video on what we would fix first.
Founder of Digital Lineup, a content production and digital marketing agency in Multan, Pakistan. Four years of brand films, Meta ads, identities and social media for brands in Pakistan and Australia.
