What digital marketing means for a small business
Digital marketing is every way a customer can find you online and decide to call. For a small business that comes down to five jobs:
- Be found when people search. Your Google Business Profile, search ads and Local Services Ads, and the organic results (SEO).
- Reach people before they search. Ads on Facebook, Instagram, Nextdoor, TikTok and LinkedIn.
- Be seen on screens. YouTube, online video and streaming TV (also called CTV or OTT).
- Follow up. Display ads and retargeting that remind people who visited your site, plus geofencing around places your customers go.
- Stay in touch. Email to past customers and people who asked for a quote.
You don't need all five on day one. Most small businesses get further by doing one or two well than by doing everything thinly.
Which channels should a small business start with?
Start where the customer already is when they need you.
If people search for what you sell — plumbers, dentists, lawyers, roofers, HVAC — start with search. That means a complete, active Google Business Profile, and then search ads or Local Services Ads targeted to the area you actually serve. Someone typing "water heater repair" into Google is closer to buying than anyone scrolling a social feed.
If people don't search for what you sell — a new restaurant, a boutique, a gym, an event — start with social and video. You have to create the demand before anyone will search for it.
Once one channel is working, add the next one. Retargeting is usually the cheapest second step: it follows up with people who already visited. Streaming TV and online video come after that, to reach households before they need you.
A useful rule: add a channel when the first one is producing results you can measure, not because a competitor seems to be everywhere.
What does digital marketing cost?
Every budget has two parts, and it's worth keeping them apart:
- The media. What you pay Google, Meta, YouTube and the others to show your ads.
- The help. What you pay someone (or spend in your own hours) to plan, build and manage the ads.
Here is what search clicks cost in a few common small-business categories. These figures come from
WordStream's 2026 Google Ads benchmarks, which cover 13,474 US search campaigns from April 2025 to March 2026:
| Industry | Average cost per click | Average cost per lead |
|---|
| All industries | $5.42 | $66.69 |
| Home and home improvement | $8.33 | $90.92 |
| Dentists and dental services | $8.00 | $72.97 |
| Attorneys and legal services | $9.87 | $131.63 |
| Restaurants and food | $2.05 | $30.57 |
Two things those averages hide. Emergency searches ("burst pipe," "no heat") cost far more than routine ones, because the person searching isn't shopping around. And costs rise when your targeting is loose: advertising to a whole metro when your trucks cover twenty miles means paying for clicks you can't serve.
The question to ask of any quote:
how much of this money reaches a customer? The more of your budget that goes to the ads themselves, the more your campaigns have to work with. That share is your
working media ratio, and you can work it out from one invoice.
Who should run it? Four options compared
Every small business ends up in one of four places. None is right for everyone.
| Option | What you pay | What you get | Best for |
|---|
| Do it yourself | Your time, plus the ads | Full control, and a steep learning curve | Owners with time, one channel, a small budget |
| Freelancer | Hourly or flat monthly fee, plus the ads | One skilled person, limited hours and channels | A single channel run well |
| Agency | Retainer and/or a percentage of spend, plus the ads | Strategy, creative and a team | Larger budgets, and owners who want someone else to own the strategy |
| Done-for-you service | One monthly price, at a fraction of an agency's cost | Planning, ads and management across channels | Owners who want it handled without paying for an agency's overhead |
Do it yourself works when you have the time and you're running one channel. The platforms are built to be self-serve. The catch is that the settings that waste money are easy to miss, and campaigns tend to stop getting attention the moment the business gets busy.
A freelancer is a good fit for one channel done well. The limits are hours and range: one person rarely covers search, social, video and reporting all at once.
An agency is the right answer when you want someone else to own the strategy — what you say, to whom, and why — and your budget can carry the fee and still leave enough for the ads. Good agencies earn their fee. Ask how much of your total will reach customers, and who will actually work on your account.
Seven questions before you let anyone touch your ad budget is a checklist for that conversation, and
Who owns your ad accounts? covers what to check before you sign.
A done-for-you service sits between a freelancer and an agency. You set the goal and the budget and approve the plan; the service plans, buys, launches and manages the ads. It suits owners who want the work handled but don't need, or can't afford, a full agency team.
How DeepThought does it
DeepThought is a done-for-you service. Our AI recommends the channels, the budget split and the audiences, and drafts the ad copy, images and video. Our team buys the media, launches the campaigns and manages them, and you get reports in plain English. You approve; we run it.
We run 22 advertising products: Google Search, Microsoft (Bing) Ads, Local Services Ads, Performance Max and Shopping; Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Nextdoor and TikTok; YouTube, streaming TV and online video; programmatic display, native ads, retargeting and geofencing; streaming audio and podcasts; targeted email, email match and postal mail; Yelp; and Amazon ads.
It costs a fraction of a typical agency retainer, month to month with no long-term contract. Because pricing depends on which products you run, your number comes from a short call.
If you would rather have an agency own your strategy, that is a real service and worth paying for. We'd rather tell you that than sell you the wrong thing.
How long before digital marketing works?
It depends on the channel:
- Search ads and Local Services Ads can bring calls within the first few weeks, because they reach people who are already looking.
- Social ads usually need a few weeks of testing to find the audience and message that work.
- SEO takes months. It's worth doing, but it isn't a fix for this quarter.
- Streaming TV and video build awareness. Judge them over months, on whether branded searches and calls rise, not on clicks.
Whoever runs your marketing should tell you up front what "working" will look like, and by when.
How to tell if it's working
Clicks and impressions are easy to report and easy to inflate. Watch the numbers that connect to revenue:
- Cost per lead. What you pay, on average, for each call, form or booking.
- Lead-to-customer rate. How many of those leads become paying jobs.
- Cost per customer. The first two combined. This is the number that decides whether a channel stays.
- Where the leads came from. Call tracking and form tracking should tell you which channel and which campaign produced each one.
If a report can't tell you what you paid for each new customer, ask for one that can.
A simple plan to start this month
1. Fix your Google Business Profile. Correct hours, phone number, service area, photos and categories. It's free and it feeds the map results. 2. Pick one channel based on whether people search for what you sell. 3. Set a budget in two parts, media and help, and aim to keep most of it in the media. 4. Target the area you actually serve, by ZIP code or radius, not the whole metro. 5. Track calls and forms from day one, so you can measure cost per customer. 6. Review after 30 days. Keep what works, cut what doesn't, then add the next channel.
Frequently asked questions
What does digital marketing include for a small business?
Mostly five things: showing up when people search (Google Business Profile, search ads, SEO), reaching people on social platforms, video and streaming TV, display and retargeting, and email. Most small businesses should start with one or two of these, not all five.
How much should a small business spend on digital marketing?
There is no single right number, but budget in two parts: the media (what you pay Google, Meta and others to show your ads) and the help (what you pay someone to run them). Keep as much of the total as you can in the media. A campaign with too little media behind it can't gather enough data to improve.
What is the best digital marketing channel for a small business?
For most local service businesses it is the one closest to the moment of need: a complete Google Business Profile plus search ads or Local Services Ads. Social, streaming TV and display work best once people are already looking for you.
Should a small business hire a digital marketing agency?
Hire an agency when you want someone else to own the strategy and your budget can carry the fee and still leave enough for the ads themselves. If you mainly need the execution done well and consistently, a done-for-you service or a freelancer usually costs less.
How long does digital marketing take to work?
Paid search can produce calls and form fills within the first few weeks. SEO and awareness channels like streaming TV take months to show up in revenue, so judge them on longer windows.