Home services are frequently sought after online, making them both highly demanded and supplied, leading to an increase in CPC numbers. While PPC ads are still an effective tool for generating leads in the home services sector, the environment has become more costly and complicated. Whether you work for an agency that focuses on home services or manage marketing internally, finding cost-effective strategies is essential.
This guide examines the most effective PPC ad strategies designed for home services, ensuring you get the most out of your budget and thrive in this competitive market. From campaign setup to targeting and optimization, you’ll discover strategies that cater to both short and long sales cycles, aiding you in generating quality leads and boosting conversions.
Campaign Strategy
The campaign strategy should be aligned with the length of the sales cycle. For home services, there are two types:
- Short sales cycles with immediate needs, such as plumbing repairs.
- Long sales cycles, like remodeling services.
For Short Sales Cycles
Typically, services with short sales cycles rely solely on search campaigns. For instance, someone looking for “plumber near me” or “emergency AC repair service” needs immediate assistance. Search campaigns are most suitable for these urgent needs, as they account for the majority of the budget in this domain because people look for specific services right when they need them on search engines.
For Long Sales Cycles
Services like remodeling or pool building have longer sales cycles, allowing for diverse campaign types to target different funnel stages. These services don’t usually require immediate action, as people often search for long-term providers. Display campaigns can be used to target various audiences, such as in-market, affinity, demographic, custom, and remarketing audiences.
For instance, a display campaign could target certain in-market or affinity categories, or even custom audiences who have visited specific websites or searched for particular services. Video campaigns offer similar targeting options and can be optimized for views or conversions. Google Ads provides a basic video maker, or you may hire creators to suit various budgets. Performance Max and Demand Gen campaigns are broader in scope but offer limited data and control. It’s advisable to experiment with one or two campaigns across the sales funnel if budget permits, especially for long, high-cost sales cycles.
Bid Strategy
When working with smaller budgets or new ad accounts without conversion history, manual CPC bidding might be preferred initially. This method permits gradual adjustments to bids as conversion data accumulates, after which automated bidding becomes effective.
For Short Sales Cycles
Bidding strategies should focus on maximizing conversions, with goals set for actions such as phone calls and form submissions. By setting a minimum call length as a conversion indicator, businesses can ensure quality by filtering out irrelevant interactions. Integrating CRM systems with Google Analytics allows for a secondary quality control layer, tracking leads that convert into actual appointments.
For Long Sales Cycles
Similar tactics apply, but additional campaigns can focus on micro-conversions. With potential customers in the research phase, micro-conversions like signing up for a newsletter or viewing specific content can provide interim successes. Portfolio bidding strategies, balancing target CPA and max CPC, help manage costs in competitive markets. Maintaining realistic targets, particularly for high-value keywords, is crucial.
Keywords Strategy
For short sales cycles, targeting symptom searches or highly specific searches can be effective. Symptom searches may lead to mixed-quality leads but offer lower CPCs, potentially reducing CPA. Grouping keywords by theme into separate ad groups can enhance targeting and conversion rates, lowering costs. Competitor keyword bidding is an experimental option, with close monitoring required to assess viability.
For long sales cycles, search remains critical. Direct searches target the bottom of the funnel, while top-of-funnel searches might be included if budgets allow. Ad and landing page relevance to the funnel stage is important, offering appropriate calls to action or content based on the customer’s position in the purchase journey.
Ads Strategy
For short sales cycles, emphasizing urgency and unique selling points, such as being highly rated or offering discounts, can help differentiate from competitors. Utilizing ad extensions can occupy more page space and provide users with multiple contact methods.
For long sales cycles, ad messages should match the customer’s stage in the buying process, from inspiration in initial searches to compelling actions as decision-making gets closer. Testing different ad formats and landing pages can help refine lead generation effectiveness.
Other Options for Home Service Leads and Phone Calls
Additional ad formats like Google’s LSAs or Microsoft’s PSAs are primarily automated, offering limited optimization features. These can be beneficial to test as a supplemental lead generation strategy, especially for smaller businesses.
In conclusion, by strategically implementing PPC ad campaigns and employing tactics suited to specific sales cycles, home services can effectively generate high-quality leads and optimize costs.
