What Pay-per-Click (PPC) marketing advice would you offer cleaning businesses? We received thoughtful feedback from owners, marketers, and PPC experts.
David Mulqueen, Senior Marketing Manager, Odd Dog Media
GET SPECIFIC! One of the areas that I have witnessed with my customer, Ladonna’s Cleaning Service, is becoming very specific about the services we offer.
For instance, they’re general cleaning services. However, they have discovered that focusing on specific services such as “Construction Cleaning” or “Move Out Cleaning” generates better quality and relevant leads than something like “House Cleaning Services.”
These areas are seasonal for us and are particularly hard to hit during summer. We have not only seen an improvement in leads’ quality, but we’ve also witnessed a decrease in CPC (cost per click) and CPA (cost per acquisition).
David Mulqueen is the Senior Marketing Manager of Odd Dog Media. He manages a range of PPC campaigns for clients. He is a data geek and enjoys providing complete information about campaigns to clients to achieve real-time, tangible outcomes.
David Pagotto, Founder of SIXGUN
Five significant errors that we see cleaning firms frequently making when they run the use of PPC campaigns:
- The location targeting could be more effective.
- Utilizing broad-match keywords (instead of using broad match-modified keywords phrases (or exact match words)
- They need to structure their campaigns and Ad Groups adequately.
- Not activating extensions for ad ads (such as the business extensions in your local area or the extension of a phone number)
- And not composing convincing copy for the ads themselves.
In the end, cleaning businesses need to step back and become familiar with the basic principles of PPC and Google Ads to get the most effective ROI.
David Pagotto is the founder and director at SIXGUN SIXGUN, an agency specializing in digital marketing in Melbourne, Australia. I’ve worked for many cleaning companies throughout my career in the field of digital.
Sean Parry, Founder of Neat Services
At Neat Services, we clean the homes of hundreds each week. PPC is one of the primary drivers of our business’s growth.
My main job at Neat is overseeing our online marketing, which includes PPC as a significant component. We spend thousands of dollars each month on PPC while having the entire PPC administration being done internally. There are three main areas to be focused on:
Focus on Search Terms
The Search Terms report is our first stop for every week’s Google Ads review. The set of keywords people enter into Google brings up your ad, leading to users clicking.
Particularly when you’re starting the new campaign, it’s pretty likely the “quality” of the search report for a term will vary drastically. It is essential to determine the phrases or words that don’t pertain to your business and then, ideally, achieve a level where, at minimum, 90% of keywords you’re looking for are ones you’d like to appear in your advertisements.
In this case, for instance, you’re a cleaning service for homes (but do not offer Carpet cleaning), and you observe users clicking on your ads, but they’ve used the phrase “carpet cleaning,” then you must add the word “carpet” to your negative keywords list. A more precise report on search terms will result in a better conversion rate and increased profit from your PPC campaign; therefore, you have to review it often.
Keep Things Simple
When using Google Ads, there’s a vast array of variables that you can test. It is possible to send ads to people from different areas, whether female or male, in different demographics, and even people with varying interests. The possibilities are truly endless. In this regard, it’s easy for your Google Ads account to get out of hand and become too complex, with many ads, campaigns, and keywords.
The 80/20 rule should be in the forefront of your mind. If you find that 80 percent of your traffic comes from 20 percent of your keywords, concentrate on the keywords. Pay attention to the remaining 80% of your keywords; however, your primary effort should focus on the areas likely to make the most difference.
It’s much easier to achieve when running an efficient campaign with a manageable amount of keywords and ad groups.
Constantly Be Testing Ad Copy
After an ongoing campaign for a couple of months and a top-quality Search Terms report, the second major thing to concentrate on is the ad copy.
It is recommended to have at minimum two ads with the same keyword so that you can evaluate their effectiveness. Choose the one that is most effective every month. Then, you can replace the ad that isn’t performing with a fresh ad (with a different title and words).
You need to have one advertisement running to be able to improve continuously. If you test one against the other, the effectiveness of your advertising campaign will keep improving with time. This is a further reason why you should create a straightforward campaign structure.
Sean Parry is the Founder of Neat Services Neat Services, a home cleaning service based in London, UK.
Stacy Caprio, Founder of Growth Marketing
One suggestion for cleaning firms to increase the ROI on their advertising investment is to ensure all ads are targeted locally to the regions they provide services to. If they’re targeting areas outside their service area, they are throwing money down the drain (no joke intended).
Another way to increase the localization of advertisements on Facebook is by targeting those who have already liked your Page on Facebook. When people see your advertisement, they’ll also notice that their acquaintance or friend is already a fan of your cleaning company’s Page. They will likely contact you and attempt to arrange a time slot when someone they trust and know already charges your company.
Stacy Caprio is the Founder of Growth Marketing. “What can I do for amusement? Increase my 1,000,000+ pageviews per month portfolio of websites run, read, and play with my dogs.”