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Google Ads for pest control businesses offer a wide variety of benefits, ranging from increasing conversions to expanding online presence.
Additionally, Google Ads for pest control businesses also provide:
Despite the higher upfront costs, Google Ads typically generate faster results since these ads target leads actively seeking a solution to a problem you solve.
Plus, you don’t have to be an expert to get started. Use this article to discover everything you need to know to begin creating effective Google Ads for pest control businesses today!
Different from the usual brick-and-mortar storefront clients visit, your pest control business thrives on optimized routes where you visit the clients.
After all, condensed routes allow your business to maximize profits. This is why it’s important to choose specific areas to target.
Though, it’s important to remember that higher population densities render faster results. Which means, you can make ad improvements sooner based on the outcome.
However, keep in mind, areas with higher population density have higher competition and CPC (i.e. cost per click).
In turn, the best choice usually is to select areas with a balanced ratio of high population and low competition.
However, you’ll want to avoid low population densities whenever possible since these ads take longer to see results due to limited insight.
You don’t have to be a marketing expert to begin utilizing Google Ads for pest control businesses. However, it’s still important to have a basic understanding of Google Ads before setting an ad spend budget.
While you can run something like Facebook Ads for as little as $5 a day, you won’t have that same luxury with Google Ads.
Remember, you’re paying to target leads actively seeking solutions to problems your pest control business solves. Which means, Google Ads come at a higher upfront cost.
In turn, you’ll want to find the right harmony between staying with your ad spend budget while also reaching your goal ROI (i.e. return on investment).
Keep in mind, Google Ads CPC widely varies based on things like:
Some field service businesses have been known to spend as much as $40-$90 per click. To give Google Ads for pest control businesses a fair chance, you’ll likely need at least $750-$1,000 per month.
Before adding Google Ads for pest control businesses to your marketing plan, you’ll need to develop a lead follow up process.
By creating this process, you can:
Plus, your follow up process doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be as simple as setting up an automated email campaign that’s triggered when leads fill out an estimate form.
By the way, did you know you can easily create automated email campaigns with custom triggers with Service Autopilot’s automations?
Take a basic overview of Google Ads basics:
Google uses match types to determine where ads appear. These match types are essentially symbols located next to the search terms.
Here’s a rundown of the main match types:
Keyword: +pest control +dallas
Google uses broad match modified to only display ads using “pest control” and “dallas” in the search term.
Which means, ads will only display when one of these keywords (or another closely related one) appears in the search.
Keyword: pest control dallas
Broad match keywords don’t use a symbol. These ads will display when anything related to pest control in Dallas is searched.
Since broad match keywords display ads to everyone searching for anything even slightly related to pest control in Dallas, you can only create four ads.
For this reason, a broad match type isn’t an ideal choice. These ads can easily drift away from the intended message and reduce performance and CTRs (i.e. click through rates).
Keyword: “pest control”
In a phrase match type, ads will display when the phrase is searched in a specific order. However, additional search terms may still appear before/after the set phrase.
While this match type allows slight variations, it’s not as limiting as broad match modified.
Keyword: [pest control in dallas]
Ads display when the exact phrase is searched in an exact match type. Though, Google has made recent concessions to allow for minor deviations.
For instance, ads would still appear when searching for terms like “pest control dallas” or “pest control by dallas.”
Allow your Google Ads for pest control businesses to reach their complete potential by selecting specific, relevant keywords with custom copy to reach target audiences.
Remember, these match types usually render the most ideal results:
Take a look at the list of pest control services your business provides. Then, decide which services you’d like to promote in your Google Ads.
Next, list subcategories for each of those services:
Finally, list the top pest control services your business doesn’t offer. This way, you can better define negative keywords later on in the process so your ads don’t appear in those searches.
Check Google’s keyword auto-suggestions in the dropdown menu for your primary services/keywords.
These alternate keyword suggestions help you determine the most/least effective keywords. Coincidentally, this strategy works well with determining negative keywords too.
Next, use Google Keyword Planner to perform additional research on your selected keywords:
Although, it’s important not to overly focus on keyword volume since your ads are likely more local to a smaller population.
Your main goal in this preliminary research is to find ways to categorize chosen keywords into groups for group ad creation later on in the process.
Always remember, search intent is a crucial factor in ensuring you’re choosing the right keywords to reach the intended audience.
For instance, you wouldn’t want your ads intended for clients to populate for businesses seeking pest control technicians.
These are a few examples of ideal keywords you might choose:
Organizing your account structure allows you to optimize and maximize ad performance.
Take a look at this quick process for account structure organization:
Plus, using the search term in your ads, amplifies the relevance to leads—resulting in increased CTRs (i.e. click through rates) and lowers CPCs (i.e. cost per click).
Even though not every city needs to be divided in this way, you can further granularize Google Ads for pest control businesses by splitting campaigns by location.
Use granularization to build data and determine where conversions originate. In addition, you’ll have the ability to pinpoint large amounts of clicks with low conversions.
Also, it’s important to note that without splitting campaigns by location you can’t separately view these two pieces of data.
Plus, you can further optimize ad spend after a year or two by turning off ads in low performing areas while increasing bids in high performing areas.
On another note, you can split up your ads schedule into smaller increments and days to see what reaps the most optimal results.
Before you can begin taking advantage of Google Ads for pest control businesses, it’s vital to determine whether you’ll direct leads to your website or a landing page.
Here’s the key difference between a landing page and a homepage:
Even though directing campaign traffic to your homepage isn’t the most ideal, it is an option if you don’t have adequate resources to develop a proper landing page for Google Ads.
Although, if you decide to direct campaign traffic to your homepage, ensure your website is:
Alternatively, you can create a hybrid between a landing page and homepage. To do this, create a clickable, minimally distracting, simplified navigation bar.
Additionally, you’ll want to have a clearly visible, clear, and concise CTA (i.e. call to action). For example, a great CTA can be as simple as:
In addition to having professional web design, it’s equally important to have compelling website copy that’s clear, concise, and relevant.
Discovering where the competition is sending their Google Ads campaign traffic can give you an idea of what’s working in the local pest control industry.
That said, due to the expense of Google Ads for pest control businesses, it’s crucial to avoid clicking on the competition’s ads.
After all, you don't want to charge the competition for irrelevant clicks you wouldn’t want to pay for either.
By right-clicking on the ads, you can copy and paste the link address into a new tab so they won’t have to pay for your clicks.
Remember, just like you can blacklist IP addresses in Google Ads campaigns, so can the competition.
Also, remember to check where popular home service websites (e.g. Angi, Thumbtack, Home Advisor, etc.) send their traffic for campaigns.
By merely anticipating your clients’ needs, you can become a skilled copywriter. Just by knowing your target audience, you can write effective ad copy.
Use what you already know about your clients:
Then, look at your average, lukewarm reviews between 2-4 stars. It’s also a food idea to take a sneak peak at the competition’s average reviews.
These lukewarm reviews tend to be less emotional and objective, which provides valuable insights for making business improvements and writing compelling ad copy.
Even though few pest control businesses take advantage of negative keywords, you can maximize ad spend by ensuring you only pay for good clicks.
Much like we briefly discussed earlier, you’ll use negative keywords to prevent ads from populating when certain keywords are used.
For instance, you wouldn’t want ads populating for competing pest control businesses searching for technicians.
Plus, negative keywords are essential when you have a limited Google Ads spend budget. To further stretch ad spend, consider adding the competition to your negative keywords list too.
Even though targeting the competition in your ads can prove lucrative, it’s a gamble as to whether or not it’ll work. In other words, it’s not worth the gamble if your budget is limited.
By changing one variable between ads, you can perform split tests to see which variables provide the most favorable results.
For example, you could create two identical ads but use different headlines as your one different variable. As a result, you’d discover which headline was more impactful.
Although, it’s important to remember you can ONLY change one variable when performing a split test. This way, you can accurately deduce which variable caused each outcome.
To get the best bids in Google Ads, you’ll want to use multiple formats. In turn, you can get higher ad placement and save money on CPC.
Plus, multiple ad formats make your ad placement larger, resulting in increased CTRs. Take a look at a few basic ad formats you can try:
Anything that’s measured needs to be managed. Furthermore, you can’t measure ad performance without first setting up conversion tracking.
Without conversion tracking, you won’t know ad performance—resulting in blind ad creation.
Take a look at the top elements you should be tracking:
Also, remember to use a software to record and track incoming calls funneling in from Google Ads. In turn, you can use these recordings to weigh lead quality and improve sales strategies.
In addition, you can use the best pest control software to save lead information for future marketing purposes. Simply tag the leads with “Google AdWords” and conduct a monthly export to calculate ROI.
By the way, did you know you can do all of this (AND MORE) using Service Autopilot?
Instant invoicing
Better scheduling
Manage your clients and employees all in one system
While Google Ads for pest control businesses have the possibility to generate rapid results, it typically takes several months to gather enough data to significantly optimize ads.
Since you’re likely releasing ads on a more local level, the population is smaller and limited with minimal data for an adequate analysis.
Even though it might take as little as 3 months to gather enough data, it usually takes 6 months for field service businesses on a local level.
Use this data to pinpoint key insights, such as:
Keep in mind, the longer an ad runs, the more data you’ll gather to optimize it.
When you know how to take advantage of Google Ads for pest control businesses, your business has the potential to become the local leading authority in the industry.
Use this complete guide to Google Ads for pest control businesses to:
At last, you can use these simple strategies to get ahead of the competition and begin leveraging Google Ads for pest control businesses now!
Related: 5 Steps to Writing Best-Selling Pest Control Ads
Originally published March 30, 2023 5:18 PM
Tags: Featured Post, Marketing
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