Running online ads can boost your company’s revenue, customer base, and brand recognition. To accomplish this, you’ll want to consider your company’s overall strategy and focus on what matters most to you. Each plumbing company is different so your particular specialty (residential, commercial, or otherwise) will determine the best path for your campaigns. By the end of this blog post, you should have a good idea of how to get started. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but if you follow these basic steps you should be well on your way to a successful campaign for your plumbing business.
Build Your Ad Groups
Your first step should be to focus on finding out what customers are searching for when they’re seeking out your services. Once you’ve made that determination, you can begin to organize your account. Google and Bing both offer you the opportunity to organize your ads into ad groups, then organize those ad groups into campaigns. A typical residential-focused plumbing campaign might look like this:
- Campaign: Residential Plumbing – Installation
- Ad Group 1: Kitchen Faucets
- Ad Group 2: Disposals
- Ad Group 3: Showers
- Ad Group 4: Toilets
Under each of those ad groups, you’ll create lists of keywords, ads, and links to the landing pages on your site that address those specific services. Driving customers to exactly what they’re looking for will give them confidence that you can address their needs.
Schedule Your Ads
Ad scheduling is often overlooked when creating advertising campaigns, but timing is an important factor for plumbing customers. Someone looking for your services after midnight probably shouldn’t see the same ad they’d see in the middle of the day. Both ads should emphasize your service, speed, integrity, and affordability, but the late night ad might also include an indication that you offer 24 hour emergency services.
In the example above, you’d need to separate your after-hours ad groups into their own campaign, then schedule each campaign appropriately.
Target Your Audience
Another important thing to remember is proper geographical targeting. Most plumbers only serve a limited area, so you’ll want to make sure your ads only show up for customers in those areas. Luckily, this can be achieved by setting up geographical targeting for each of your campaigns. Whether you serve a city, county, zip code, metro, or even a particular radius, you should be able to find a targeting solution to fit your needs.
Try Call Only Campaigns
If you’ve invested in a web site, it’s only natural to want to show it off. Unfortunately, not every customer necessarily wants to see your site. This is particularly true for mobile users, who might be in the middle of a plumbing emergency and are just looking for your phone number. In addition to using phone extensions for your ads, you might want to consider a call only campaign for users on smartphones. These campaigns will allow users to bypass your web site entirely and get you on the phone immediately.
