Google Ads Tips for Moving Companies
Great moving companies understand the importance of a strong marketing program. A great website combined with SEO and online advertising can generate hundreds of leads per month at a positive ROI (Return on Investment). Yet one of the most challenging aspects of moving company marketing can be online advertising using Google Ads.
For every $1 spent on Google Ads, the average business gets $2 in return. And for companies that perform the best, they can generate even better returns. For a moving company this can mean thousands of dollars lost (or gained) depending on how your Ads account is configured.
It takes many things to run a successful Google Ads program. We know this because we work with leading moving companies across the country, and have done so for many years now. Our average moving client generates a 300% ROI, with our best performers getting an incredible 600% return on their ad spent.
It’s a new year. 2019 is here. So, here are some tips for getting your Ads account in shape for your moving company:
Account structure
The top-level of Google Ads is called an account. For the vast majority of moving companies, one single Ads account is enough. So start your 2019 tune up by ensuring that you do not have any old accounts or 3rd party networks out there sending traffic to your moving website.
Campaigns
Once your account is active and setup properly, you will want to consider the campaign structure that will work best. The key is not to think too broad or too specific. Most accounts use campaigns as a way to segment different cities where they want to get moving leads. So, for example, if you serve 10 different cities you might consider having 10 different campaigns.
Ad groups
The next level down from campaigns is ad groups. For a moving company your ad groups will represent the various services that you offer in different cities. If you focus on commercial and residential moves, you could consider having one ad group for commercial moving services and another for residential.
Local targeting
Moving companies are local in nature. A customer will hire a mover to relocate from one state to another or simply across town. That means the cities you target are critical to the success of your local advertising program.
Carefully consider the cities you want to do business in, and the ones you do not. Review your advertising programs over time and do not hesitate to pause or exclude cities that are not performing well. Sometimes, less is more.
Match types
Match types are the type of keyword targeting you wish to use (more on keywords later). You can select varying match types like broad or phrase match based on how many or few people you want your ads to show to. Using incorrect match types is one of the most common mistakes moving companies make. Often times, movers will think Google Ads “are not working” for them but in reality they are using the wrong match types.
Keywords
Keywords are one of the most important types of optimization you will do in Google Ads. You might want customers to search for “moving companies” in a given city, or perhaps you will focus on more granular terms like “residential movers” or even target more high value “commercial moving company” related searches.
No matter what keywords you select, be prepared to test them and find what terms work best for your business. It’s also critical that you monitor the keywords that convert to leads so you can determine the quality of the keywords as well. Some keywords might convert to leads, but if the quality of the lead is poor you might want to exclude that term from the online advertising campaigns you are running.
Ads
Ads are the actual advertising messages that are shown to searches in Google. And while they are fairly easy to setup, that is where most moving companies leave revenue on the table. Ads are nothing something to set and forget. A customer looking to hire a mover might want local companies, or maybe they want companies they have been in business a long time. Either way, you need to be testing Ads regularly just like you test keywords to see which perform best.
Seasonality
Moving companies understand that there are certain times of year that are busier than others. And if you know that is the case now, why not optimize your Google Ads to match seasonality. One easy way to do this is to decrease your budget around major holidays. While you want to keep your advertising budget relatively stable, you should certainly consider the time of the year when you decide on how much to spend.
Day parting
In the same way that seasonality comes into play, day parting is a strategy that involves only showing Google Ads during certain times of the day. Maybe certain days of the week do better than others?
Day parting is great for segmenting your Google Ads. Maybe you want to show more on the week days than you do on the weekends. If you know you get less moving leads after hours, why not set your ads to only run during daylight hours?
Metrics
What matters most to your business? Maybe it’s revenue per move, or phone calls from businesses changing office locations, or perhaps you just want to increase the number of residential leads you get each month. No matter what metrics you want to focus on, you need to make sure you understand those first before ramping up Google Ads.
Conversion tracking
It is important to setup goals in Google Ads whether you are focusing on lead forms or phone calls. No matter how people request a moving quote or fill out an online form, you should have the ability to look back each month and see how many customers requested more information about hiring a moving company.
Bidding strategies
Bidding strategies are a way to automatically increase or decrease the price you are willing to pay for clicks related to moving company searches. Since this is one of the more complex parts of Google Ads, this is recommended only for larger or advanced moving companies. Some of the more common ones, like CPA bidding, can be helpful if you have a target cost per lead you want to aim for. For example, you could set a $100 CPA and Google will attempt to get you the most leads for less than $100.
Testing
Always be testing. If you have been reading up to this point, you might have noticed the word “test” at least a few times. That is because so much of optimizing moving company ads simple comes down to persistence. It’s one of the main reasons why movers end up hiring a professional marketing agency. By hiring someone to help you test ads, keywords, and landing pages, you can increase clicks, leads, and phone calls over time.
No matter what size moving company you have, Google Ads can be a great tool. Just remember it starts with having the right strategy and goals from the start. So, have a plan and stick to it.
Hopefully these tips will help you. What have you found that works well?
