Promoting your business in Romania: where to start and what's worth the money.
A short guide for small businesses in Romania that sell products or services: what to start with, what it costs, which channel is worth it and what doesn't work. If you'd rather not do it yourself, we can do it for you.
Promoting a business, in short.
Promoting a business starts with things that cost little: a complete Google profile, a phone that someone answers, and a page that says what you sell, from what price and how the customer reaches you. Paid ads come after, and only once you can count the calls and requests that come from them.
In marketing for a small business, order matters more than channel: a wrong budget shows from the first month. The best ad, in an account that doesn't measure orders, is still money spent without finding out what worked. Six steps, cheapest first.
Say in one sentence what you sell and to whom
If you can't, the ad won't be able to either. "We fit gas boilers in houses in Ilfov county" is something people search for on Google. "Complete solutions for our customers" is not.
Fill in your company's Google profile
It's free. Address, opening hours, phone, services, real photos and a reply to every review. For a business with local customers, it is often the first place anyone sees you. We work on your map position through local SEO.
Build a page that takes the request
One page for each thing you sell: what the customer gets, from what price, the phone number in plain sight and a short form. Someone who searches for "drain unblocking" should land on the page for exactly that service, not on your home page, and shouldn't have to open another one to call you.
Measure before you spend
Save every call, WhatsApp message and form together with its source, not just the forms: at many service businesses part of the requests come by phone. If the numbers in your account don't match your sales, start with a tracking audit.
Start one paid channel
If people are already searching for what you sell, Google Ads. If they aren't yet, Meta. A small budget split across five channels learns nothing from any of them.
Keep what brings orders, stop the rest
After a few weeks you can see which campaign brought real requests. Move the money there. SEO and your Google profile work in the background and show in months, not days.
Three things not to do
A verdict after three days
Ads need a few weeks to learn, SEO needs months. Stop a campaign when the numbers say so, not out of impatience.
Promises of position 1 or of orders
Nobody can guarantee a Google position or a number of orders. An offer that does is telling you what you want to hear.
A phone nobody answers
The missed 11:00 call is a customer the ad brought and you lost. Before you run ads, decide who answers and until what time.
What promoting a business costs.
Promoting a business has no single price, because it depends on what a customer is worth to you. Our recommendation: at least €1,000 a month in ads and around 50 conversions a month, so Google and Meta have something to learn from. Below that threshold we tell you up front and look for another route: the Google profile, a better page, calls to past customers.
fixed price
Other things we do
The amounts come from our price list, without VAT. They aren't market averages: other providers charge other sums.
What you can afford to pay for a request
A customer leaves you €400 profit. You sign one in 5 requests, so a request is worth €80.
If a request costs you €50 in ads, the ad is worth it. If it costs €120, it isn't, however good the charts look.
We chose the figures as a worked example. Redo it with yours.
Which channel is worth it, and when.
Marketing for entrepreneurs, without the jargon: choose the channel by how your customer buys, not by what's fashionable.
Google Ads
Worth it when people already search for what you sell: plumber, repairs, transport, accounting.
Not worth it when the product is new and nobody knows to search for it.
Google profile and Maps
Worth it when your customers are local and search "near me". It costs nothing but time.
Doesn't help if you sell across the country and don't receive customers at an address.
Facebook and Instagram
Worth it when you want to create demand: a visual product, a new offer, an event.
Not worth it for catching someone who wants the offer today. People there aren't searching, they're scrolling.
SEO
Worth it when you sell the same things year after year and can wait months.
Not worth it if you need orders this month.
Email and phone to past customers
Worth it almost always: it costs least, and the customer already knows you.
Not worth it without a clean list and without the customers' consent to be contacted.
Worth it when you sell B2B and can name the job title of the person who decides.
Not worth it for consumer customers.
What we've done for others.
Screenshots from client accounts, with the source. We keep names confidential where clients asked us to.
The ad groups of a Bucharest plumber, sorted by cost. The sewer unblocking ad got more than one click for every four impressions.
Plumber, Bucharest · Google Ads
6,545 → 0 site errors
A flooring retailer had a site full of technical errors. In ten days we fixed all of them. Site health went from 68% to 99%.
Flooring retailer (confidential) · Semrush Site Audit
68 → 638 sites linking
A legal software platform had 68 sites linking to it in January. In September, 638. It is a working indicator of authority, not a customer count.
Legal software platform (confidential) · Ahrefs
43 → 5 on Google Maps
A Bucharest beauty salon moved from position 43 to 5 for "salon de înfrumusețare" (beauty salon) and from 42 to 9 for "coafor bucuresti" (hairdresser Bucharest), in three months.
Beauty salon, Bucharest · local SEOThe same approach, industry by industry: real estate marketing, medical marketing.
We don't publish audited case studies. We show the screenshots as they are.
At the start, the phone was all the marketing.
You started in a garage, at home or from a van. You sold because you answered the phone and delivered when you said you would. The film below follows a company with a warehouse. Every business has the same question: where will next month's orders come from?
The story, in 25 seconds.
Film with subtitles and optional sound.
What founders ask us.
Can I promote my business for free?
Partly. A Google profile, reviews, a phone that gets answered and messages to past customers cost only time. They bring customers from your area, but they don't replace ads if you need orders fast.
Ads or SEO?
Ads bring the first requests in a few weeks, SEO in months. If you need orders this month, start with ads. If you sell the same things year after year, add SEO alongside.
How do I know whether the promotion is working?
Count orders, not clicks. For every ad you need to know how many calls, messages and requests it brought and what each one cost. If the numbers in your account don't match your own sales, start with a tracking audit.
We already have an agency. What would you do for us?
We can be a second opinion. With Fix My Tracking we check whether the sales in your ad accounts match the real ones. Ad blockers, Safari and cookie banners lose part of the data, and we show you how much. It takes 7 days and costs €1,500, fixed price.
How long until we see something?
Ads show first signals in a few weeks. SEO and AI visibility take months of work. That is why most of our contracts are annual.
Who is Raw Ideas?
A marketing team in Otopeni, next to Bucharest, working since 2015 with ads, websites, tracking and video. Our motto is "Outsmart, Don't Outspend": first we look at where the money is lost, and only then do we ask for budget.