Increase Traffic to Your Plumbing Website and Gain New Clients Looking for Your Services Online.
Plumbing contractors are after one thing, a consistent stream of qualified leads. There are multiple ways to drive leads for plumbers but one outshines them all, that is Google Ads.
Homeowners normally take plumbing seriously unless there’s an issue. Thus, it can be difficult to get new leads if you are advertising a plumbing company. But that doesn’t imply that you have to relax and wait for prospects to call your business.
To set your company for success, you must do quality plumbing marketing. This step-by-step guide on Google Ads for plumbers will help your business attain greater success and growth online. Without further ado, let us dive in.
What are Plumbing Google Ads?
Google Ads, previously known as Google AdWords is a Pay-Per-Click advertising platform where you pay Google to have your Ads displayed on the search engine results. Specifically, for plumbing companies, a Google advertisement promotes plumbing services within a particular service area.
There are lots of advantages that your plumbing business can obtain from using Google Ads. Ultimately, it is an effective way to promote your plumbing business so you can reach your target market and drive leads to your site. This post will discuss how to launch a successful Google Ads for plumbers campaign.
What is the Difference Between SEO and Google Ads?
Plumbing SEO and Google Ads can complement one another, but it is crucial to note that there is a difference between the two. Using SEO assists make your website more appealing to clients and create engaging content that addresses your specific client’s specific pain points. Thus, plumbing SEO involves everything in your website from ensuring a user-friendly design to optimizing website layout and all written content and videos. SEO ensures that your plumbing website ranks higher in the organic search results.
On the flip side, Google Ads helps your business targets specific keyword phrases that your prospects use when searching on Google and then craft an ad to promote your plumbing website. It is an efficient and fast way to reach your target market. Here is an example of a Google ad when a prospect searches for a ‘plumbing company’ on Google.
How Does the Plumbing Google Ads Process Work?
Let us discuss how the Google Ads auction process for plumbers works. There is a lot of misunderstood and incorrect information out there, and a lot of plumbers think that Google AdWords auctioning process solely depends mainly on the cost per click.
They wrongly think that if they just bid a bit higher, my ad will appear on the coveted #1 spot and then will obtain more leads and clicks.
But since Google wants to show more relevant results to its users, thus they cannot allow the highest bidder to get the top position. That’s why they use the “quality score” to determine which ads will show up higher in the search results.
Google gets more money if plumbers get clicks, and to be more effective, they need only to show the most relevant ads to their users.
Quality Score
What is a plumbing Google ad quality score, and why should plumbers care about it? Quality score is typically Google’s rating of the relevance and quality of your PPC ads and keywords. Google uses it to calculate the cost per click (CPC) and multiply it by the maximum bid to determine the rank of your ad in the auction process. That said, your quality score is based on various factors including:
- Relevance of your ad copy
- Relevance of every keyword to the ad group it is in
- Ad historical performance
- Your ad’s Click-through rate
Why Are Google Ads for Plumbers Important?
As we have already discussed, most people have to claw and scratch to get to the coveted first position on Google. The top organic search results obtain all the clicks, and so, the highest likelihood to convert clients. So this presents a lot of crucial benefits to plumbing contractors including:
Precise Ad Targeting
Compared to other conventional ways of advertising, Google Ads for plumbers is better targeted as you only display your ad only when prospects are actively searching for your plumbing services. This cuts down on unnecessary advertising spending and increases the chance of people contacting you.
With Google AdWords, you can ensure that the ads you pay for reach prospects who are likely to want/ need your services as a plumber. You can target prospects by age, geographic location, particular keywords and even ensure that your ads appear at a specific time of day.
Immediate Exposure
When you are initially starting out, your business will require immediate exposure you can obtain. Plumbing SEO could take months or years to generate desired results, but with Google Ads, you can instantly reach the coveted spot on the first page of Google and get noticed by prospects in your local market.
People can see your Google Ads multiple times and never click them (implying that you don’t have to pay a dime), yet your plumbing business is now top of their mind the next time they are ready to schedule a service appointment.
Cost-Effective
Google Ads for plumbers operates on a pay-per-click model, and this implies that you only have to pay Google when a prospect clicks on the ad-not every time your ad shows up.
Data Mining and Marketing Insights
When you utilize Google Ads, you can visualize statistics of how your ads are performing. This can offer you important invaluable market insight like who is clicking on your Google ads and taking action.
Besides the real-time campaign performance and analytics, we obtain a treasure trove of user data. We utilize it in various ways to further grow your client base.
Creating Google Ads for Plumbers: 10 Secrets to Getting More Qualified Plumbing Leads Online
1. Creating a Google AdWords Account
Setting up plumbing Google Ads is easy and simple. We will utilize a fictitious plumbing business as a major example for this post. Click on “Start Now” on the left side of the main page. You will also be requested to sign in with your business Gmail account.
Google will ask you what your main advertising goal is, and you can click on any of the three options offered. For instance, I select “get more plumbing website sign-ups or sales.”
The Google Ads setup process is fairly simple, and the prompts will direct you through the whole process. You have to sign up here to get your first plumbing ad campaign started.
2. Focus more on Emergency Plumbing Keywords
The initial step to success on Google Ads is to understand where your ideal clients come from. Then you have to target the prospect with your keywords and ads. Let’s figure about an average homeowner. It’s 1:15 AM on a very cold night, and they realize that one of their basement has flooded and their pipes have burst. They turn to Google-what do they do now? Emergency plumbing help! They don’t have enough time to submit a lead form on your plumbing website and wait for two days to get a response back, they want a plumber who can assist them right now!
If you want to zero in on this client, include the keywords “emergency plumbing”, “plumbing after hours”, “emergency plumber near me” and so on to an ad group in your AdWords campaign. In addition, emphasize that you provide 24/7 service in your emergency plumbing ads so that they will hire you for emergency situations. Once they notice the services you offer, they will instantly click on your ad and become qualified leads. Homeowners prefer emergency plumbing services rather than generic plumbing contractors.
3. Use Call Only Ads
Call-only ads are plumbing ads that can only be utilized to make a call. They offer an excellent way to obtain leads for your plumbing company. The great benefit about these ads is that they are straight to the point and allow your sales representatives to book jobs over the phone. A lot of homeowners want to speak to someone over the phone and let them call instantly from the ad, giving your plumbing company a good opportunity to close on a lead before they call the next plumber.
Since a call ad-only campaign is mobile-friendly, and your headline is your phone number when your ad shows up. This way, you make it simpler for the clients. Generally, in the process of generating leads, they notice your ad, visit your plumbing website and then decide whether to contact your business or not. But with call-only ads, you eliminate one step of the process. Here, they conduct a search for your plumbing company on Google, bump on your ad, call you instantly from the ad, and instantly become a qualified lead.
Homeowners don’t happen to be in the mood to compare different plumbing companies and shop around when they are in an emergency situation.
Call-only ads are ideal for plumbing repairs, as homeowners want to instantly speak to a reputable plumber at the moment so that you can resolve the issue. Thus, they work perfectly with local organic keyword searches as the searcher’s intent is probably urgent and wants to talk with a plumber on the phone rather than spending time researching.
A few plumbing keywords to consider for your call-only ads are:
- Local + Keyword (Local plumbing company)
- Keyword + near me (Plumbing contractor near me)
- City +keyword (Murfreesboro plumbing companies)
- Keyword + city (Plumbing repair Murfreesboro TN)
4. Structure Your Plumbing Ad Campaign for Success
The structure of your plumbing Google Ads will play a huge part in the amount of money you spend per lead. The structure of your ad will impact your quality score, which affects your cost per click, which impacts your cost per lead, and ultimately the cost of acquiring those leads. For plumbing companies, oftentimes there is more than one plumbing service that is provided, so your campaign structure should reflect so. For instance, you might provide the following:
- Drain cleaning
- Toilet repair
- Sewer repair
- Leak repair
- Garbage disposal services
All of the services above should be classified in their ad groups since they will have different ad copies to that plumbing service and be directed to landing pages. After your ad campaign structure looks awesome, now your ad copy should stand out from the clutter.
Your Google Ads account is comprised of Ad groups, keywords, Ads, and Campaigns. There are various parts of your plumbing business and advertising strategy that correlate with every one of these structures. Let us define the following Google Ads terms:
- Campaign: The individual plumbing service units which you build groups of ads for. For instance, you should have distinct campaigns for people looking for “plumbing repair” versus people seeking “plumbing installs”. They are two kinds of plumbing services and thus require different ads.
- Ad group: A group of plumbing ads that concentrate on a particular portion of your target market (also referred to as a client persona). For instance, you may have one ad group for prospects who require “clogged toilet” and a different one for people looking for “Emergency plumbing”.
- Ad: The actual content that conveys what that person is really concerned about (fears, expectations, fears, and pain points)
- Keyword: The specific term that’s typed into a search engine by the prospect searching.
5. Consider Your Ad Copy
In the plumbing industry, you are competing against all the local plumbers running PPC ads, directory sites such as Thumbtack, Home Advisor, and Google Local Service Ads. Plumbing is a very competitive landscape, and your ad copy requires to soar above all that clutter.
Google gives you two descriptions and three headlines for the ad copy, but these may not always show up. Your headline should feature the plumbing keywords you are focusing on, the second heading should be a compelling call to action (schedule a free estimate, call for a free quote). In your description text, you should discuss why your plumbing business is different. For instance: “20+ Years experience”, “fully insured” “Locally owned and operated,” etc.
6. Use Your Negative Keyword List
Negative keywords are search terms that tell Google you don’t prefer ads to appear.
The importance of having a list of negative keywords cannot be overstated. It is crucial to include a negative keyword list at the beginning of your Ad campaign. This should be a continuous process as there will be multiple searches that you cannot plan for.
Considering that plumbing keywords are very competitive in paid search, negative search terms are particularly crucial. Without them, you will end up spending your ad budget on irrelevant traffic, fast. Here are some negative keywords, to begin with, your list will depend on your business, the types of plumbing services you provide, and geography:
- Books
- Careers
- Pictures
- Videos
- DIY
- School
Creating a list of negative keywords and continually checking on your keywords will help minimize your cost per lead and improve the quality of searches your ads appear for.
7. Capture Lost Leads with Plumbing Retargeting
When someone requires a new toilet installed, they will conduct some research, ask for recommendations and shop around for the best price before making a final decision. Often times the potential client is ready to contact your business, they click on your website or ad, but their kids come back from school, life issues get on their way. With display retargeting, you can get that lead back in the sales funnel.
Plumbing retargeting is a cost-effective way to obtain more leads since they are warm, they have already visited your website.
For instance, you can retarget prospects that have made it to your contact page or spent one minute on it but failed to fill out the form. With that audience, you can retarget them (follow them to other websites they visit) with an ad showcasing your $300 off new toilet installation offer.
If your Facebook pixel is properly set up on your plumbing website, you can retarget users that made it on your plumbing website from your Google Ad and capture them in your Facebook newsfeed.
8. Bidding Strategy
Bid strategy is actually telling Google how and if to utilize their algorithms to optimize your keywords for best performance instantly.
Bidding on your plumbing brand keywords is a challenging one to wrap our heads around. If someone is looking for your brand, they want to partner with you, right? Then why should you spend the advertising dollars to get that client?
It would be ideal if every search for your plumbing brand means they are going to become your clients, but this is not often the case. Most plumbers have the industry in their brand’s names.
This implies that when a prospect types in your brand names in Google, it is more common than in other industries that PPC ads will appear as well. This is because they are targeting plumbing keywords. Bidding on your plumbing brand’s keywords will assist you to appear and stay on top of the page where those competing plumbers show up.
The good news is that your brand’s keywords will generally be cost-effective due to ad relevance and quality score. By bidding on your plumbing brand, you will be spending less money on click and stick it to your competitors, catching those low funnel leads.
9. Use all the Ad Extensions
Talking of ad copy, Google has offered plumbers multiple ad extensions that can assist you to take over the search engine results page. This is particularly crucial on mobile devices since they are most likely to see one or two ads before the user has to scroll.
Utilizing ad extensions will improve your Click-Through Rate (CTR), which will result in a high-quality score, thus reducing the cost per click. Google provides lots of site link extensions, but here are the ones plumbing contractors should implement on their Google Ads campaigns instantly:
- Sitelink Extensions: Use sitelink extension by sharing quality links on your plumbing website. This could be utilized to showcase your testimonial page, service page, contact us page, FAQ, blog posts, anything that is crucial for the searcher is great to add.
- Callout Extensions: The callout extension gives you short 25 character descriptions that are included after your descriptions line. These can be utilized to entice the prospect to take the desired action or offer additional details that make your plumbing company stand out. For instance, free estimates, quick installation, Lifetime Guaranteed, amongst others.
- Structured Snippets: Google allows plumbers various headline options to select from when including structured snippets. The best types of headlines for plumbers are highlights, services, types, and types. This could be utilized to showcase the services you provide (toilet repair, drain cleaning, and leaks repair). Types could be used to display the types of toilets you install. Neighborhoods are ideal for a plumbing company that only serves specific cities or towns or if you wish to concentrate on the most profitable ones.
- Call Extension: As stated earlier, the call extension helps someone who comes across your ad instantly call from their mobile devices without visiting your plumbing website. This is important for plumbing companies as you want potential clients to call during office hours.
- Location Extension: When a prospect is searching for a plumbing contractor, typically they aren’t going to come to your doorstep, but the location extension allows searchers to see where your plumbing company is situated and operating hours, and helps your ad to appear on Google maps.
- Price Extension: It is difficult to show prices for jobs because they will typically differ across various houses, but there is a creative way to utilize Google’s price extension for plumbers. This is achieved by using it to showcase free estimates with a price tag of $0.00. The price extension aims not to get prospects to click on it but to occupy more of SERP and prove that you are a no-risk plumbing contractor.
10. Adjust Your Location Bidding
All plumbing companies understand the more profitable zip codes and neighborhoods in their service area. With location bidding, you can adjust your bids higher in those profitable neighborhoods giving your plumbing business a good chance of getting in front of those prospects or clients.
Your cost per lead or click may be higher in those areas, but they are more profitable. Alternatively, you can reduce your bids in less profitable zip codes and neighborhoods, and this will make sure that you are maximizing your advertising budget (dollars).
11. Create a Landing Page That is set to Convert
If your best plumbing ads are directed to your homepage…. stop! A landing page is normally one of the most overlooked aspects of a great Google Ad campaign. You must figure out the keywords the client typed in thus triggering your ad and what their intent was, then offer exactly that on your landing page.
A good landing page should have the following important elements:
- Primary keyword(s) in the headline
- Differentiating features and trust Factors-This could be testimonials, what makes you unique from competitors, star ratings, etc.
- Easy to find contact information
- Obvious and clear steps
- Simple, clean
12. Improve your Local SEO to Market Your Plumbing Services
You should consider your local search engine optimization. It is one of the best ways of obtaining plumbing leads. It helps you establish an online presence and helps to connect with people when they need your plumbing services.
13. Call & Conversions Tracking
Setting up conversions for your Google ad campaigns is as crucial as creating the ads yourself. If you fail to set these ads properly, there is no way to ever realize which plumbing keywords are working and which ones aren’t. It negates the entire purpose of plumbing marketing in the first place.
Here are the three types of conversions our expert setups:
1. Contact Form Submissions: put a conversion code on thank you page after prospects or clients submit.
2. Track calls from your landing page: people click on your ad and then make a call using the phone numbers on the landing page. You can utilize Google’s call tracking numbers or create them on your own.
3. Ad extension calls: These are phone numbers that show up in your ads if prospects call directly instead of clicking on your ad to head over to your landing page.
Common Problems for Plumbers Using Google Ads
A common problem for both commercial and residential plumbers is typically your competitors. Through our experience over the years, we often find that most plumbing contractors are guilty of click fraud. This uncouth behavior is when a plumber intentionally clicks on your Google Ads to increase costs. By increasing your costs, it is likely that you may stop the ads, or your daily advertising budget might have run out. This implies your competitors then take a top spot on Google and obtain the leads that could have been on your business.
Other problems that plumbers face with Google Ads include:
- Sending prospects or clients directly to their homepage
- Writing irrelevant ad copy that can easily be ignored
Frequently Asked Questions on Plumbing Google Ads
How can you write a relevant plumbing ad on Google?
Although there is no textbook approach to crafting Google Ads copy for plumbers, here are some best practices we developed internally that guarantee impressive results:
- Use plumbing keywords strategically. Keyword placement and choice are a bit different with Google Ads than it would be with a web copy or blog post
- Keep your ad copy specific and concise
- Always incorporate a compelling call to action
Is Plumbing Google Ads a waste of marketing dollars?
Yes, Google ads will waste your advertising dollars if you don’t craft and implement them properly. That’s why we highly recommend that you partner with a reputable plumbing Google Ad agency to achieve desired results.
What makes a good Google ad for plumbers?
Your ad copy should be attractive, specific, empowering, and relevant to reach property owners or homeowners effectively. Some of the aspects of a good Google Ad include:
- Highlight what makes you unique
- Includes promotions, exclusives, and prices
- Empower clients to take the desired action
- Include at least one of the keywords
- Match your ad to the landing page
- Appeal to customers who are using mobile devices
Why Partner with Plumber Google Ads Experts at Blackstorm Design + Marketing?
Google Ads offers tremendous benefits to plumbing contractors. They create a funnel for local clients who understand what they require and are ready to schedule service appointments while allowing plumbers to pay for qualified leads instead of the clicks. In combination, these two great qualities make Google ads both laser-focused and cost-effective.
But for most plumbers, Google Ads, like other internet marketing channels, will represent just one crucial aspect of an overall plumbing marketing strategy.
Trying to manage all the elements of plumbing Google Ads campaigns on your own can be daunting.
If you are a plumber or running a plumbing business and do not get the maximum benefits out of Google Ads, then we got you covered. At Blackstorm Design + Marketing, we have been working with home service contractors, including roofers and plumbers throughout the US for many years, leveraging Google Ads to generate inbound calls and service enquires. Our proven Google Ads system for plumbers has delivered lots of plumbing contractors just like you affordable leads.
- We create a winning Google Ads strategy for your plumbing business
- Increase phone enquires and calls
- Full support, setup, and Google Ads optimization
- Scale your plumbing company
- Scalable and proven ad campaign structure to make sure you get low-cost, high-quality leads.
Looking to grow your plumbing company with Google Ads? Schedule a free discovery call to see how Blackstorm Design + Marketing can assist you to drive more qualified leads while improving efficiency across your plumbing business.
