I love helping clients set up local service ad accounts. It only takes a few minutes to set up and optimize, and once everything is done you get qualified leads for only around $25-35 (in most markets) for calls, and half that price for the message (form submission) leads.
Unlike other pay-per-lead services these leads are exclusive to you, and you can dispute any lead that isn’t qualified and be fully refunded.
Some of our clients are receiving 100-150 leads per month per location where they are running the ads. The cost is half of what we would spend if we were getting the leads from Pay Per Click Advertising in those same markets, and the lead quality is much higher compared to Facebook Advertising.
What they Look Like:
Local Service ads are the new Number 1 Result in Google, above other Google ads and Google Maps Listings.
Current Category List:
Google is continually adding new categories to its platform. These are the current categories available in the United States, Canada only has 15 categories available currently, and other countries have even fewer.
- Acupuncturist
- Animal Rescue
- Appliance repair services
- Bankruptcy lawyer services
- Beauty school
- Business lawyer services
- Carpet cleaning services
- Carpenters
- Child care
- Contract lawyer services
- Criminal lawyer services
- Dance instructor
- Countertop services
- Disability lawyer services
- Driving instructor
- DUI lawyer services
- Electricians
- Estate lawyer services
- Family lawyer services
- Fencing services
- Financial planning services
- First aid training
- Flooring services
- Foundations services
- Funeral home
- Garage door services
- General contractor
- Handyman
- Home inspector
- Home security
- Home theater
- House cleaning services
- HVAC (heating or air conditioning)
- Immigration lawyer services
- IP lawyer services
- Junk removal services
- Labor lawyer services
- Landscaping services
- Language instructor
- Lawn care services
- Lawyers
- Litigation lawyer services
- Locksmiths
- Malpractice lawyer services
- Massage School
- Moving services
- Personal injury lawyer services
- Personal trainer
- Pest control services
- Pet Adoption
- Pet Boarding
- Pet grooming
- Pet training
- Plumbers
- Pool cleaner
- Pool contractor
- Preschool
- Real estate lawyer
- Real estate services
- Roofers
- Sewage system
- Siding services
- Snow removal
- Tax services
- Traffic lawyer services
- Tree services
- Tutor
- Veterinarian
- Water damage services
- Weight loss service
- Window cleaning services
- Window repair services
- Yoga Studio
Google Guaranteed VS Google Screened:
Google screened is a new program similar to Google Guaranteed, but focused on professionals such as Real Estate Agents, Lawyers, Financial Planners, and Mortgage Brokers.
Differences from Google Guaranteed:
The cost per lead is higher with Google Screened compared to Google Guaranteed.
There is no “Guarantee” as Google is not offering any money back for bad experiences.
Google Screened shows a profile picture of the professional who is advertising.
Setting up your account:
Verification Requirements:
- 3 Star rating or higher on GBP
- Insurance (If your industry requires insurance)
- Licensing (If your industry requires licensing)
- Background Check (Technically all customer-facing employees, but only really need the owner to do it)
The full verification process takes around 2 weeks (that’s the processing time for the background check). If you have the insurance and Licensing documents available the whole setup process will take around 20-30 minutes.
Link to set up an account:
https://ads.google.com/local-services-ads/
Phone Number for Background Checks: (In case there is issues)
877-832-5298
Local Service Ad Support Number:
833-272-1444
When to call Local Service Ad Support?
- When setting up your account, you’ll need to call them to make the ad go live, and sometimes to connect your GMB reviews to your Local Service Ad Account.
- If you want to change your phone number on the listing.
- If you have any other issues with the verification process or with the ads.
Ranking your Ads:
- Response Time-
- Any missed calls, or unanswered messages will absolutely tank your rankings! ****This is by far the most important part of ranking your Ads! Get a dedicated office personnel to answer the calls, AND set up call forwarding so if they don’t answer after 2 rings it goes to someone else.
- Budget-
- I recommend setting the budget at least $1000 per week, and setting the bidding strategy to “Maximize Leads.”
- Reviews-
- Especially those requested via the Local Service Ad Platform
- High-Quality Photos-
- Help increase conversion rate to get more calls.
- Expand Service Area-
- Especially at the beginning when you haven’t had any calls to show a positive response time, try and expand your service area as large as you possibly can to get in more calls from the less competitive areas.
- Expand Job Types-
- Ex: If you’re a roofer, add the “Siding” Category to get some less competitive Siding jobs to help built ranking momentum.
- Fill out the account completely-
- The “Business Bio” is the only place you can personalize your ad aside from photos. Make full use of showing off your certifications and things that make your company different.
- Keeping the Local Service Ad CRM Updated
- Make sure to utilize the CRM, don’t leave all the leads in “New” or Active” make sure to update the CRM on a regular basis.
- Expand your hours running the ad-
- If your competitors are only running their ads until 5 pm, you can get more of a chance to get leads by keeping the ads running later.
- Get started before everyone else!
- Over time Google Guaranteed continues to gain more popularity. I have accounts ranking and bringing in calls in super competitive markets that now have tons of other businesses. If we tried to start a new account now in those areas, it would be much harder to rank.
***Bonus Tip:
How To Use The Local Service Ad CRM:
New Leads:
This Category Should ALWAYS be at 0 at the end of the day each day. If you have any leads in the “New” Column, it means that Google thinks you haven’t responded to the lead yet. This category is where the missed call notifications, new messages, and any other lead that hasn’t been responded to go.
Active Leads:
This is all the leads that you haven’t set an appointment with yet, but have already responded to. You and your team should be actively following up with these leads.
Booked:
These are any leads that you have set an appointment with. (This doesn’t need to be an appointment to do the work for them, it could just be an inspection or to give them a quote).
Completed: These are leads that you have done the work for.
Archive: Any lead that you don’t plan on working on. Old leads that you didn’t close, or leads that went with another company.
