Industrial Automation Google Ads | Integrators

Source: https://oguzerol.com/en/industrial-automation/

Google Ads

# Industrial Automation Google Ads: Projects, Parts and Brand Searches

[Oğuz Erol](https://oguzerol.com/en/about-me/)  |  12 min read

Google Ads for an industrial automation company is two jobs, not one: **project sales** (factory automation, PLC and SCADA programming, robot cells, line integration) need one campaign, and **product sales** (PLCs, sensors, servos, drives, spare parts) need another. The buyer, the search language, the conversion and the cost you can accept are different for each.

The biggest trap is that information searches in automation are far larger than buyer searches: in the US, “what is plc” averaged 9,900 searches a month, “plc programming services” 170. An automation campaign without a negative list spends its budget on people looking for lecture notes.

## Why do project sales and product sales need separate campaigns?

In a shared campaign I’d expect the budget to drift to the far larger product searches (an inference from the volume gap below, not a measurement).

|  | project sales (integrator) | product sales (distributor/reseller) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| what is sold | Line automation, PLC/SCADA software, robot cells, control panels, retrofits | PLCs, HMIs, sensors, servos, drives, spare parts |
| who searches | Production, maintenance or plant manager; procurement and management decide together | Maintenance technician, buyer, machine builder |
| search language | Application and problem: “robotic welding cell”, “palletizing robot” | Brand + model + price: “siemens plc”, “allen bradley plc”, “plc price” |
| primary conversion | Request for quote or site survey form | Order or price quote form |
| value of one conversion | High and rare; the decision can take months | Low to medium, frequent; the decision takes days |
| landing page | Application page: which line, what capacity, which industry | Product page: stock, price or “request price” button, datasheet |

## What do automation searches look like in the US, UK and Germany?

Project searches are small, product searches large, information searches larger than both. I pulled these from Google Ads Keyword Planner on 14 October 2026 (English-language searches, September 2025 – August 2026 monthly average; Google rounds volumes).

| search | US | UK | Germany (English) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| industrial automation | 9,900 | 590 | 320 |
| automation system integrator | 880 | 90 | 20 |
| robotic welding | 4,400 | 720 | 170 |
| control panel manufacturer | 320 | 320 | 10 |
| plc programming services | 170 | 10 | 10 |
| servo motor | 14,800 | 2,400 | 4,400 |
| what is plc | 9,900 | 2,900 | 210 |
| plc training | 3,600 | 260 | 140 |

Three decisions follow:

1. **Build the project campaign around application names.** Service names like “plc programming services” or “controls integrator” (US 140, UK 10) barely get searched; buyers type the machine (“palletizing robot”). Give each its own application page.
2. **An underspending project campaign may have no budget problem.** If its “search lost impression share (budget)” is near zero, it is limited by search volume, and raising the budget won’t help.
3. **Service and manufacturer searches cost more than the broad “plc programming” search.** The upper end of the US top-of-page bid estimate (the bid Google expects is needed to appear above the results, not the price you pay) was about 6.7 times higher for “plc programming services” than for “plc programming”; in the UK, “control panel manufacturer” was about 6.4 times “plc programming”. (My planner account reports in Turkish lira, so: ratios only.) Set your bid limit from the buyer terms, not the cheap broad term.

## How much will you spend in the first month, and when does an order come?

**Every rate below is an assumption, not real company data.** Search volume is not clicks: clicks = searches × the share of searches your ad shows on × click-through rate. Eight US project searches I measured (automation system integrator, control panel manufacturer, plc programming services, robotic welding cell, palletizing robot, robotic integration, controls integrator, scada integration) total about 3,100 a month; at 50% impression share and 8% click-through rate that’s about 124 clicks (about 248 at full share). The UK total is about 780: about 31 clicks, 62 at full share. So 100 clicks a month is reachable in the US and out of reach in the UK.

**Project campaign:** 100 clicks, 4% fill in the form, so 4 quote requests. I assume ad-sourced requests are colder than the jobs you usually quote (not measured), so assume half become quotes and 15% of quotes become orders: one request has a 0.5 × 0.15 = 7.5% chance of becoming an order, so 4 requests a month average 0.3 orders, about one every three months. That’s an average, not your month: the chance of no order is about 73% in the first month, 39% in three months, 15% in six.

Plug your own cost per click (c) into this table (4 requests and 0.3 expected orders a month; for UK volumes multiply clicks and spend by about 0.3):

| cost per click | first month (100 clicks) | per quote request | per expected won order | six months |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| c | 100c | 25c | 333c | 600c |
| 2c | 200c | 50c | 667c | 1,200c |
| 4c | 400c | 100c | 1,333c | 2,400c |

**Break-even:** if one project’s gross profit exceeds the six-month column, one order in six months pays for the whole test; the real risk is running out of patience or clicks first. Add the site-survey and engineering hours for the 2 quotes a month to the ad cost.

**Product campaign:** a price quote request is the conversion, 3% of clickers ask, gross profit per order is 80 units. At 1 unit a click on broad “servo motor” a request costs about 33 units; if your quote-to-order rate is below 42%, that term loses money. At 0.6 units on a price-qualified term (hypothetical; I didn’t measure an English equivalent), a request costs 20 units and break-even is 25%. Break-even is not profit: at the 25% quote-to-order rate the price-qualified term only breaks even, and the broad term loses money below 42%. If you can’t measure how often a customer reorders each year, put the product campaign second.

## What can you write when someone searches Siemens, Allen-Bradley or Omron?

Google doesn’t restrict trademarks as keywords; a trademark in ad text can be restricted if its owner complains ([Google trademark policy](https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6118), read on 14 October 2026). In the US, “siemens plc” and “allen bradley plc” each averaged 4,400 searches a month, “siemens distributor” 590.

Resellers get an exception if the landing page mainly sells that brand’s products or compatible parts, has a prominent way to buy, shows commercial information such as prices, and the ad and page say you are a reseller. Google’s [misrepresentation policy](https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6020955) separately bans misrepresenting a brand’s endorsement or your own qualifications, so “authorized” without an agreement breaks it.

| in the ad | you have a distribution agreement | you only source and resell |
| --- | --- | --- |
| “Siemens S7-1200 In Stock” | Fine | Fine, if it is in stock and the page shows a price or a way to buy |
| “Authorized Siemens Distributor” | Fine, within the agreement | Don’t |
| “Retrofits with Omron PLCs” (integrator) | — | Possible, if you really do those projects; the trademark owner can still complain |

Bidding on a manufacturer’s name also depends on your trademark law and contract; I’m not a lawyer, so check both. Integrators should put robot brand searches (“abb robot”, “kuka robot”) in a separate, low-bid ad group; I haven’t measured how many of those searchers intend to buy.

## Should the maintenance manager and the buyer see the same ad?

No: the engineer types the application (“robotic welding cell”), the buyer types a part number and “price”. Google doesn’t show job titles, so you separate them by search language.

| ad group | headline examples (max 30 characters) |
| --- | --- |
| Project, technical decision-maker | Robotic Welding Cell Install · Robots Added to Your Line · Siemens and Omron Retrofits · Site Survey, Written Quote |
| Product, buyer | Siemens S7-1200 In Stock · Servo Motor Price Quote · Same-Day Dispatch (only if true) · Business Accounts Welcome |

As of 14 October 2026, headlines are limited to 30 characters and descriptions to 90 ([Google Ads Help](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7684791)).

## Which negative keywords go in on day one?

A [negative keyword](https://oguzerol.com/en/negative-keyword-management/) stops your ad showing on a search you don’t want; in automation the backbone is training, jobs and downloads. US monthly averages: “what is scada” 3,600, “plc programming course” 1,900, “automation engineer jobs” and “automation engineer salary” 1,600 each, “plc jobs” 1,000, “tia portal download” 210.

Match types ([Google Ads Help](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2453972)): no quotes is broad (blocks if all words appear), quotes is phrase (blocks if the words appear in that order), square brackets is exact. Negatives don’t match close variants, so add singular and plural separately. The first block comes from measured searches; the second holds variants and lines added by reasoning:

```
"what is"
training
course
download
jobs
salary
pdf
used

courses
job
"how does"
tutorial
crack
simulator
internship
degree
homework
free
```

If you sell training, drop “training” and “course”. Don’t add “tia portal” alone: an integrator may need the term, and “download” already blocks downloads. “Manual” and “datasheet” searches may come from existing customers; watch them in the search terms report for two weeks before blocking.

## Which campaign type should you start with?

Start with Search; try [Performance Max](https://oguzerol.com/en/what-is-performance-max/) and Demand Gen once measurement works and conversions are regular. Performance Max picks placements and audiences from the conversions you feed it; that a few quote requests a month aren’t enough is my rule, not a Google threshold. For products with a published price and stock, consider Shopping: it uses your Merchant Center product data instead of keywords and shows the price in the ad ([Google Ads Help](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2454022)).

## How do you set up measurement and bidding?

The project campaign’s primary conversion is the quote request. GCLID, the ID Google gives each ad click, goes into a hidden form field and is uploaded as an offline conversion when the request becomes an order ([Google Ads Help](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7012522)). Company name, project type, capacity and target date fields on the form are the simplest way to separate information-gatherers from real requests. I cover long-cycle measurement in depth on the [machine manufacturer page](https://oguzerol.com/en/machine-manufacturer/); two points are specific to automation:

- **If your projects take longer than 90 days, the order can’t be tied to the click.** As of 14 October 2026, the click-through conversion window is at most 90 days and defaults to 30 if you don’t change it ([Google Ads Help](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/3123169)). So also upload an intermediate stage such as “site survey done” or “quote sent” (as a secondary conversion at first), and set the window to 90 days.
- **Keep product and project conversions in separate goals.** Otherwise I’d expect smart bidding to multiply the easy one, the sensor order; that follows from the frequency gap, I haven’t measured it.

If you sell from Turkey: as of 14 October 2026 Turkey is not among the countries where Google offers forwarding numbers ([Google Ads Help](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2454052)), so call duration from ads can’t be measured and phone enquiries only exist in your own records.

Start with Maximize clicks and a maximum CPC bid limit until measurement settles. The limit stops Google bidding above that amount ([Google Ads Help](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6336101)); the actual cost per click is usually lower ([Google Ads Help](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6297)).

Smart bidding strategies such as Maximize conversions and Maximize conversion value set bids from your conversion data ([Google Ads Help](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7065882)); as of 14 October 2026, Google gives no fixed minimum and suggests judging performance over periods with at least 30 conversions. My rule: no smart bidding on a project campaign with a few enquiries a month; a product campaign with daily orders can try it. Mark only quote requests and orders as primary conversions.

The most common mistake I see in Google Ads accounts is putting a conversion that isn’t real, such as a page view, into smart bidding’s target. In automation, the equivalent is making “datasheet download” primary: students download datasheets as well as buyers, I haven’t measured which group dominates, and a download is not a quote request.

Without GCLID, the minimum is a spreadsheet: ask every enquiry “how did you find us” and track requests, quotes and won orders. Ad cost per won order = monthly ad spend ÷ ad-sourced requests that became orders.

## Your first 30 days

| when | what |
| --- | --- |
| Before launch | Decide brand keywords with your contracts, add the hidden GCLID field and screening fields to the quote form, set the conversion window to 90 days |
| Week 1 | Two Search campaigns, negatives, a bid limit |
| Week 2 | Search terms report: new negatives, check robot-brand and datasheet searches |
| Weeks 3–4 | Compare recorded requests with Google Ads conversions. No order yet is expected |

## What I need before setting up the campaign

Tell me your brand agreements, whether you sell projects, products or both, and your typical project size; brand keywords and the budget split follow from that. Reach me from the [contact page](https://oguzerol.com/en/contact/).

## Frequently Asked Questions

### Does LinkedIn advertising replace Google Ads for automation?

No, it does a different job. On Google you appear when someone searches; on LinkedIn you target by job title, job function, seniority, company industry and company size (read on LinkedIn’s [targeting options](https://www.linkedin.com/help/lms/answer/a424655) page on 14 October 2026). The same page says an ad set needs an audience of at least 300 members to run. I suggest Google Search first, LinkedIn second if project volume justifies it.

### We export automation projects from Turkey. Are English ads enough?

The target market’s language decides it; I compared buyer terms, because broad terms like “plc programming” mix in information searches. In Germany, German “Schaltschrankbau” (control panel building) averaged 2,400 searches a month in my 14 October 2026 measurement, English “control panel manufacturer” 10; German “Schweißroboter” (welding robot) 1,000, English “robotic welding” 170. English-only ads in Germany see a fraction of these searches; check the target country’s terms in Keyword Planner and build the landing page in that language.

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