If your PPC campaign looks like it's draining money, it's time for some optimization. Discover how you can make your ads more effective.
Many plumbing and HVAC companies have spent a considerable amount of money on Google ads without getting a good return on investment.
People try the ad services, find that they don't quite work out for their companies, and eventually feel like they’re just burning cash. And this is something that happens all too often.
However, your experience with pay-per-click ads doesn't have to look that way.
In fact, pay-per-click can be a great tool within your overall internet marketing strategy. But it can't be your only tool – you’re going to combine it with your website, SEO, retargeting, and pay-per-lead services.
That is the mistake that a lot of home service business owners make.
Pay-per-click is particularly effective in getting your business in front of a new audience. But because there's a trade-off in that you’ll be paying for every click on your ad, it's crucial to make the most out of your ads.
In other words, you'll have to maximize your PPC lead flow to really make it worth your while. And this article will show you the four best tips for doing just that.
The Four Tips
Tip #1. Know Which KPIs Are the Most Important
If you want to know whether your PPC ads are performing well, you'll need to start tracking what's converting and what isn't. This is where your key performance indicators (KPIs) come into play.
The most important metrics you should track include:
- How much you’re spending
- Your average cost per click
- The average cost per lead
For plumbing companies, a good range for cost per lead would be between $35 and $55. HVAC businesses should aim for the $55-80 range, while an electrical company should go for $15 to $30.
With that said, you should optimize the keywords, areas, text ads, or quality to get into the range that best fits your business.
However, there's one final metric that's crucial among all others – your return on investment.
You'll need to track how much money you can get in terms of gross revenue for every dollar spent on ads.
Once you know these four KPIs, you'll have a good grip on how well your PPC ads are performing.
Tip #2. Break Ads into Smaller Ad Groups
Simply putting up your pay-per-click ads won't be enough to get you the desired results. You'll still have to set up a structure to make your campaign as efficient as it can be, which means you need to break your ads into smaller groups.
Grouping your ads depends on your keyword sets, but you'll also want to separate ad groups with specific text and through your landing page.
Now, how exactly does ad grouping work?
The first group will tie in with your brand campaign. That's the group for those looking for your company name.
Ideally, when people search online, you'll come up in maps, organic results, and probably with other listings. However, you should always bid on the full name of your company to maximize your chances of appearing at the top of search results.
For example, if your plumbing company is Bill's Plumbing but you're only bidding on "plumbing," you can expect even broad matches to show up above you.
On the other hand, bidding on the keyword "Bill's Plumbing" will allow you to be on top whenever people are looking for you specifically. Also, these keywords will have the lowest cost per click of all keywords that interest you.
The other group is your general campaign, which should be based on general keywords related to your company. For the best results, you can break your general campaign into smaller groups covering each of your services.
And when you set up your campaigns for each service you provide, don’t forget to have separate sets of keywords, text ads, and landing pages for each campaign.
Tip #3. Be Wary of Competitor Campaigns
Bidding on your competitor's names is a common tactic and there's nothing in Google's terms that would prevent you from doing that. If your competitors aren't bidding on their company name, you can use it to show up above them in search results.
However, the issue is that using competitor campaigns will likely mean having lower quality scores and average conversion rates. There's a simple reason for that, too.
It's because people are looking for a different company, which makes this strategy very risky. After all, when people call in for another company, chances are they'll hang up when they realize they’re not reaching who they have in mind.
The only way to make this strategy work is to train your team for those calls specifically. They must be ready to flip the script from, Oh, you're calling for So-and-so?, to, We do the same thing and we provide the same service.
If your team isn't ready for that, you'll lose a lot of clicks, calls, and traction.
Tip #4. Understand the Different Keyword Types (And What They Mean For Your Campaign)
There are four main types of keywords:
- broad match
- modified broad match
- phrase match
- exact match
When you're running an ad campaign, understanding these types will show you how to handle them. The critical factor in balancing your keywords will be your negative campaign. These are keywords that you don't want to be included in relevant search results.
Poor understanding of keyword types will cause people to see many irrelevant results when searching for your keywords. That's a sure way to waste money.
Make Your Pay-Per-Click Ads Work for You
Optimizing your PPC ad campaign requires your full attention. Once you start viewing pay-per-click ads as a part of your overall strategy, you'll be able to utilize them much more effectively.
However, getting the best results won't be an easy task.
If you’d like to discuss how you can generate better results online, let’s schedule a time to chat. You can pick a time that works for you now by going to https://go.plumberseo.net/schedule.
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