Search and marketing
Google Ads that reach people nearby while they search for what you do
When someone in the towns you serve searches Google for the work you do, your ad can show at the top of the results with a button to call you. You pay only when someone clicks, and calls and form requests from the ads are counted, so you can see which ads bring in customers and what each call or request costs.
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Waiting for a storm alertTurned on by the storm alertPaused after the all-clear
No new leads yet
Concept · sample data
- You pay for
- Clicks, not views
- We count
- Calls and form requests
- Ad account
- In your name
- Based in
- Cedar Grove, NJ
Who it fits
Businesses Google Ads suit best
Google Ads suit a business when people already search for what it sells, and when one job is worth well more than the clicks it takes to win it. A homeowner typing “emergency roof repair” or a family searching “wheelchair transportation near me” wants help soon, and the ad answers that search.
They are a poor fit when nobody searches for the service yet, or when calls already go unanswered. For the first, Facebook and Instagram ads put an offer in front of people before they look. For the second, the phones come first.
Contractors and home services
Roofers, remodelers, plumbers, cleaners and flooring installers. Ads are split by service and town, so someone searching for gutter work lands on the gutter page, not the roof replacement page. See how the pieces fit for contractors.
Medical transportation
Searches for wheelchair van rides, stretcher transport and rides to dialysis or appointments. Ads can be limited to the counties you cover and the hours dispatch is staffed, and they open a ride request page instead of the homepage. More on medical transportation.
Restaurants
We keep restaurant ads to searches where one order is worth more: catering, party trays, events or a new location. Everyday searches are better served by your Google Maps listing and local SEO. More on restaurants.
Setup
How a campaign is set up
Counting goes in before the first ad runs. Without it, the account can only report clicks, and a click is not a customer.
- 01
Count calls and forms first
Before any money is spent, we make sure calls from the ads, taps on your phone number and form requests are recorded. The details are in How it's built further down this page.
- 02
One group of ads per service and town
Roof repair, roof replacement and gutter work each get their own ads and keywords, shown only where you work. Google can show ads in chosen towns, ZIP codes or a radius around your shop and leave out areas you do not want.
- 03
Searches you want, and words you do not
Keywords tell Google which searches should show your ad. Negative keywords tell it which to skip, such as “jobs”, “free”, “DIY” or a service you do not offer, so the budget goes to people looking to hire.
- 04
Ad text that matches the search
Each ad names the service and the area, says what sets you apart, and carries a call button. Google's misrepresentation policy rejects misleading ads, and so do we: no license, rating or warranty goes in an ad unless you can show it to us.
- 05
A page written for the offer
Clicks go to a page about the exact job in the ad, with your towns, a phone number at the top and one short form, never just the homepage. We build it inside your current site or as a page that matches your website design.
- 06
Budget and hours
Google charges for each click, which is why search ads are also called pay-per-click (PPC). You set a daily budget, and an ad schedule keeps ads to the hours someone can answer. A click that turns into an unanswered call at 9 p.m. costs as much as one you pick up.
Monthly report
What you see each month
Each month you get a short report in plain words, built from the ad account and the tracking. It answers three questions: which searches showed your ad, how many of those people called or sent a form, and what each of those leads cost.
The report also lists what we changed and why: searches we blocked, ads we rewrote, towns or hours we cut back, and money moved toward the services that bring calls. If something did not work, the report says so.
The searches come from Google's search terms report, which lists the words people typed before your ad showed. It shows how customers describe your service, which is useful well beyond the ads.
Timing
Ads that follow the season and the weather
Contractors get busy in waves. Gutter cleaning searches pick up in the fall, leak repair after heavy rain and air conditioning repair with the first hot week. Seasonal services get campaigns that run in their season and pause outside it, and budget moves between services as demand shifts.
Storms are harder to plan around, because the work arrives within hours. Part of the office software we built for a home-exterior contractor watches National Weather Service warnings and storm damage reports for the company's service territory, and plans area by area when roof repair ads should run and when they should stop once the weather clears.
It also reads storm reports to tell a tree on a house from a tree across a road, so a longer ad push is planned only after storms that damaged homes.
The weather alerts are built, and the rules were checked against years of past storm warnings. The step that switches live ads on and off is built but not launched. It runs in a preview mode that records what it would change without touching the live campaigns, and its safety rules would pause the ads if the system can't be reached and stop any campaign that spends a set amount without bringing a lead.
Ads and SEO
Google Ads for now, SEO for the long run
Ads and local SEO work on different parts of the same search results page, and each covers a gap in the other.
| Google Ads | SEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Where you show up | Google AdsThe sponsored spots above and below the regular results | SEOGoogle Maps and the regular results |
| What you pay for | Google AdsEach click, billed by Google | SEOThe work on your profile, pages and listings |
| How fast it starts | Google AdsOnce the ads pass review, which Google says usually takes a business day | SEOAs Google rechecks and ranks your pages, on its own schedule |
| When you stop paying | Google AdsThe ads stop the same day | SEOThe pages and profile stay up and can still bring visits |
| Who picks the searches | Google AdsYou do, along with the towns, hours and budget | SEOGoogle decides what to show and in what order |
| Best for | Google AdsFilling the schedule now, new services, seasonal and storm work | SEOThe searches customers make every week, year after year |
Run together, the ads show which searches turn into calls, which tells us which SEO pages to write first. As those pages start showing up on their own, ad money can move to searches the pages don't reach yet.
Under the hood
How it's built
The tracking behind the monthly report, with each term explained once. This is the part to show whoever looks after your website.
GA4, short for Google Analytics 4, is Google's free tool for counting visits and what people do on a site. We set it to record each form sent, each tap on your phone number and each finished booking, and mark the ones that matter as key events, which is Google's name for actions that count for the business.
Those key events are brought into Google Ads as conversions, so the ad account knows which clicks turned into leads. That matters twice: the report can show cost per lead, and Google's automatic bidding can aim for calls and forms instead of cheap clicks.
Calls need their own setup. Calls placed straight from the ad are counted through a Google forwarding number, with a minimum call length so a wrong number doesn't count as a lead. For people who click through and then call from your site, Google can show a forwarding number to ad visitors only, or a call tracking service such as CallRail can do the same job.
Each form request from an ad is saved with its click ID, a code Google adds to the link when someone clicks an ad, so a lead can be traced back to the ad behind it. Enhanced conversions send Google a scrambled (hashed) copy of the email or phone number from the form, which helps it match more leads to the ads that brought them.
Landing pages are built to load fast on a phone. Landing page experience is one of the three parts of Quality Score, Google's grade for how well an ad, its keyword and its page fit a search, and page quality also feeds the Ad Rank that sets where an ad shows. We load Google's tracking code after the page appears, so measuring visitors doesn't slow down what they see first.
Try it
Try the storm-ready Google ads
Send a storm warning over a sample service area and watch roof repair ads switch on there, then pause at all clear.
Questions
Questions about Google Ads
How much should we spend on Google Ads?
There is no single right number. It depends on what clicks cost for your services and towns, how many jobs you can take on and what a job is worth to you. We look up Google's own cost estimates in Keyword Planner and propose a test budget you can afford while the account learns. After the test, the tracked calls and forms decide whether to raise it, hold it or cut it. On a busy day Google can spend up to twice the daily budget, but the monthly charge stays within the limit that budget sets.
We already run Google Ads. Can you take over the account?
Yes, and nothing has to move. You add us as a user from the account's access settings, so the account, its history and the billing stay yours. We first check that calls and forms are counted correctly, then read the search terms report for money spent on searches that were never going to hire you. That is where we look first for savings.
Who owns the ad account, and who pays Google?
You do. The account is set up in your business name with your card on file, so Google bills you directly for the clicks. Our management fee is separate and itemized in the proposal. If you stop working with us, you remove our access and keep everything else.
Will our ad always be at the top of Google?
No one can promise that. Google holds an auction for every search and places ads by Ad Rank, which weighs your bid, the quality of the ad and its page, and the other ads competing. Ads also stop for the day once the budget is spent. The report shows how often your ads appeared and which ones brought leads.
What are Local Services Ads, and do we need them?
They are a separate Google product for trades such as plumbers, electricians and HVAC companies. Local Services Ads charge for each lead instead of each click. Google checks the business before they run, starting with a license or business registration, and the checks vary by trade. If your trade qualifies, we set up the profile, take you through the checks and track those leads next to the search ads.
What happens if the ads are not bringing calls?
The report says so, and we change the searches, the ad text, the towns or the page before spending more. If a service still doesn't bring leads at a cost that works for you, we recommend pausing it instead of raising the budget.
Next step
See what a first Google Ads campaign would look like
Send the jobs you want more of, the towns you cover and any ad account you already have. We reply with the searches we would target, the tracking we would set up first and a test budget based on Google's own estimates.