Can you run Google Ads without a website?

Technically, yes, but only one way. Call ads can run with no page for visitors to land on, although Google still needs a web page that shows your phone number.

Every other campaign type needs a destination URL. The workaround most international guides recommend, Local Services Ads, is not available in Australia yet, so the answer here differs from the one American businesses get.

What Google Ads requires

Search and Performance Max need a final URL

You cannot build a standard Search ad without telling Google where the click goes. Google’s help page on final URLs defines the final URL as “the page on your website that people reach when they click your ad”, and its domain has to match the display URL. Performance Max, Shopping and Display ads all send people to a destination in the same way.

No setting removes this. With nowhere to send traffic, those campaign types are closed to you.

Call ads need a verification URL

Call ads are the one real exception, and they are more restricted than they first appear. They show only on devices that can make calls, and a tap on the ad rings your business rather than opening a page.

Google asks for a verification URL. Google’s call ads help page describes it as “the URL of a webpage that includes your business phone number”, and notes that it is not displayed on your ad. Google’s guide to creating call campaigns adds that the number on that page must match the one in the ad. It exists so Google can confirm the number belongs to you.

The final URL is separate, and Google lists it as optional. Leave it blank and your ad shows a call button with no clickable headline, which is exactly what a business without a website wants.

So the honest position is narrower than “you need no website”. You need a web page, somewhere, that shows your phone number and that Google can check. You simply do not need visitors to arrive on it.

What counts as a verification page

Google is checking that the number is yours, so the page should be public, crawlable and show the number as text rather than inside an image.

A single hosted page works. So can a directory listing you control. Pages hidden behind a login, or social profiles where the number sits in a field Google may not read reliably, are riskier choices. And if you are going to build one page anyway, you are most of the way to a site that would let you run every other campaign type.

Why Local Services Ads are not the answer here

Search this question and you will see Local Services Ads recommended again and again. They are the Google Guaranteed format where Google hosts your profile and you pay per lead rather than per click. No website required.

Local Services Ads are not currently available in Australia. Google’s Local Services getting-started page lists Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Australia is not on that list.

Google is now moving Local Services Ads into Performance Max. Google’s help page on the Local Services Ads transition starts the migration with United States advertisers in 2026 and schedules non-US accounts for 2027, without naming Australia. Until Google confirms availability here, treat any offer to set up Local Services Ads for an Australian business with caution.

What a missing landing page costs you

You pay more for every click

Landing page experience is one of the signals Google uses to decide what your clicks cost, and it feeds straight into your Quality Score. A weak destination, or one that barely relates to the search, raises your price for the same position.

Running without a proper page does more than limit your campaign types. It makes the campaigns you can run more expensive than they need to be, for as long as the gap stays open.

The effect compounds. A weaker destination lowers your click-through rate, a lower click-through rate weakens your quality signals, and weaker quality signals raise your cost again. Two businesses bidding identically can pay very different prices because one of them sends clicks somewhere useful.

You cannot measure anything properly

Without a site you cannot place a conversion tag, which means no form tracking, no purchase tracking and no remarketing audience. Call conversions are all you get.

That matters more than it sounds, because Google’s bidding improves by learning from your conversions. An account feeding it only call data optimises toward calls, including the ones that were never going to buy. Getting measurement right is one of the conditions that decides whether Google Ads works for a business in the first place.

A Google Business Profile or a Facebook page does not fill this gap. You cannot put conversion tracking on either, you do not control the layout, and neither gives you a page matched to each search. They help your local presence, but they are no stand-in for a landing page you own.

The minimum site that makes Google Ads work

You do not need a large website. A service business can run effective Google Ads on a handful of pages, provided each one does its job. Check a small site against this list:

• One page per service you advertise. Each ad group needs a page matching its search. Sending “emergency electrician Brisbane” to a generic home page wastes the click and raises your cost, and it is one of the most common reasons small accounts underperform.
• A home page that makes the offer obvious. Someone arriving cold should know what you do and where you work within a few seconds.
• A contact page with your phone number as text. It doubles as the verification page if you also run call ads.
• Fast loading on a phone. Plenty of local searches happen on mobile data, and a page that takes six seconds to load loses people before your content appears.
• A conversion tag on every form and phone link. Without it, Google’s bidding has nothing to learn from.

The rule is one page per thing you advertise, not one page in total. Run ads for three services and you need three service pages, each answering the search it was built for.

Speed and mobile layout matter more than design polish. That is where the money in a website build should go, and it pays to understand what you are paying for before you choose the cheapest option. For advertising purposes, a fast, focused three-page site will outperform an elaborate twenty-page one.

Should you advertise before the site is ready?

Run call ads in the meantime if your business sells over the phone. Trades, emergency services, towing, locksmiths and mobile mechanics all suit this approach, and a phone call is often worth more than a form fill.

For anything with a considered purchase, a comparison stage or a price the customer wants to see before ringing, wait. You will spend money teaching people your name and lose them at the moment they wanted to look you up.

Do the maths before you decide. At Australian click prices, a modest test budget spent on a campaign with nowhere to land can easily exceed what a small site costs to build. Spending it twice, once badly and once properly, is the expensive path.

If you need visibility while the site is being built, social media fills that gap more cheaply than paid search does. A site built properly will also serve your organic search results for years afterwards, not only your ads.