Let us preface this by saying that Google Ads is not necessarily for everyone and every business.
When deployed incorrectly or in the wrong circumstance, Google Ads can be ineffective, a time suck and downright waste of your marketing budget.
It’s fairly easy for inexperienced Google Ads users to blow through their ad spend with not much to show for it. Google would love nothing more than to have you to spend more money on their platform. It’s ultimately in their best interest to encourage you to keep bumping your budget – regardless of the impact to your bottom line.
Even if Google wasn’t encouraging you to spend more marketing budget, there are still a lot of ways you can waste your ad spend: conversion/lead tracking not configured properly, poor keyword research and management, irrelevant ad copy, not utilizing targeting (audiences, demos, scheduling), not utilizing extensions, incorrect bid strategies – the list goes on.
Even if you happen to be a seasoned Google Ads expert and nail all these settings, there are still certain circumstances where you may want to avoid this platform. These include: CPC is too high and cost prohibitive, your service location is flooded with Google Ads competitors, your business/industry is a poor fit for Google’s campaign types etc.
All that said (we didn’t want to scare you off!), Google Ads tends to work particularly well for Home Services focused businesses. This is especially true when you have experts managing your campaigns for you.
Below are the top 5 reasons why you should use Google Ads for your Home Services business:
- Your Customers Are Finding You On Google
Let me hit you with some stats:
- As of May 2022, Google accounted for 91.84% of the search engine market share in Canada. If you are searching online for a service, it’s almost always on Google.
- 97% of people looking for a new local service based business searched online.
- 46% of Google Searches are seeking a local service or product and most of these will call or contact within 24 hours of their search.
I could rattle off these stats all day long, but the moral of the story should be pretty clear; if you want to reach home services clients where they’re searching for your business, Google is a great solution.
- Services Based Businesses Are Perfect For Google Ads
At the start of this article I highlighted a few of the potential pitfalls of Google Ads. For certain businesses and in certain circumstances Google Ads might not be the right fit. However, for Home Services businesses, such as plumbers, landscapers, painters, roofers, contractors, electricians etc. Google Ads works very well.
This is because Home Services businesses tend to address more immediate customer needs, they tend to offer more essential services and the marketing funnel tends to be more transactional in nature.
For this reason the Google Search Engine is a highly effective advertising channel.
If your plumbing is broken, water heater needs replacement, circuit breaker is busted, roof is flooding and septic needs digging up you aren’t likely to spend weeks or months vetting and interviewing dozens of home services companies to whittle down your list. You’re going to immediately ask your friends who they can recommend or, more likely, make a quick Google search for “24/7 plumber” or “electrician near me” and get sorted!
Even if you’re planning to purchase a higher end or more expensive home service, such as the installation of a new retaining wall, EV charger or even a full kitchen renovation, you’re still likely to kick-off this process starting with Google.
A final (and amazing) benefit to Google Ads is that they catapult you to the top of the search engine. This is a major advantage over organic search. You pay for that #1 spot for the exact search keyword you want to rank for. And being in that top spot pays!
- Google Ads Works Great For Local Targeting
Google Ads are particularly useful for local market targeting.
If you service a well defined geographic region (a specific city, suburb or municipality) you can add another layer of precision to your advertising and save that precious marketing budget.
With Google Ads, not only are you able to hone in on your desired target city (for example, Vancouver or Toronto). You can further target specific service areas that may be more efficient for your business/vehicle logistics (for example, Richmond or Markham) and even as granular as postal code areas that may be ideal for your desired audiences (exp. post code regions that contain the largest % of upscale detached homes for services such as landscape design or Tesla EV installs).
Finally, you have a nice little ancillary benefit of being able to use the Google Ads geo data to help inform other aspects of your business. Which areas convert to leads and business more readily and why? Should you build a dedicated landing page focused on these specific high converting areas? Are there specific services you offer that resonate and convert better in different regions?
- Google Ads Is Flexible
We love the flexibility Google Ads offers our Home Services clients.
More than likely, there are services you offer that have huge variance in seasonal demand (exp. Snow Plowing). There are also likely certain seasons/months/weeks where you may be unpredictably busy or quiet.
With Google Ads you have the ability to quickly adapt to these changing business needs by adjusting spends, pivoting focus to different services, changing location targets, switching up ad scheduling and more much more.
You can even adapt to external factors, such as your competitor’s behavior, by “buying” clicks cheaper when competition is lower.
- Outperform & Outrank Your Competitors
Last but not least, we really like Google Ads as a differentiator for Home Services businesses that have multiple competitors, offering a very similar service in the same service area.
Google Ads can be a fantastic supplement to help you gain market share when your competitors are either not using Google Ads at all or underperforming/inexperienced on this platform.
We’ve found that most Home Services companies that approach us have either not tried Google Ads or have been running them inefficiently. This offers a great opportunity to get ahead of your competition and own your local market!
More Resources!
- For more info on how we help home services businesses grow their revenues with Google Ads check out our Google Ads page here.
- We also offer a complete marketing solution for home services companies that can be found on our sister website, homeservicesmarketing.ca
- Ready to dip your toes in the water with Google Ads? We can offer a free consult to see if it’s right for you.
