5 Reasons Your Sunroom Business Should Be Doing Google Ads
If you’re reading this article, I’m going to go on the assumption that you are involved in the sunroom industry (why else would you be reading about PPC and sunrooms??) and that you’re an owner, partner, or perhaps a marketer for one.
Less easy to predict is whether your business currently runs Google Ads. Maybe it has in the past with limited success, or perhaps is considering doing so now, yet you’re still unsure if it’s right for you. Maybe you don’t even have a website, or have one that is old and outdated. No matter which bucket you fall into, we’re going to cover it all within this article. So, let’s get right into this.
What is Google Ads Exactly?
You can skip this section if you already understand how this all works from a technical perspective.
Imagine you’re driving down a highway having a conversation with another person in the car, and you’re both talking about looking into getting a sunroom or patio enclosure built onto your home. As that conversation is happening in real time, you suddenly pass a giant billboard for a local sunroom company in your home area offering their services, and most importantly, a no-obligation quote on a project. How is that for great timing?
That in a nutshell is how Google Ads works. By running a Google Ads campaign, you’re telling Google what keywords or phrases that you want your ad to show up for (ex: “sunroom companies near me”), what geography you want the searcher to be located in (namely the areas you service and travel to), and your ad then shows up to be clicked, sending the user to your webpage.
So that is a really basic example, but it truly is exactly how Google Ads works. When people are actively searching for a local service or a product online, relevant, targeted, and dedicated ads will appear which directly align to that particular search in real time. And it’s not magic – frankly it’s the most effective form of paid advertising on planet earth. And truthfully, who is searching for local sunroom companies online for fun? Absolutely no one. They’re doing so because they need you, and if you aren’t an option for them in that moment, another sunroom company is going to get that lead, and ultimately that piece of business.
So with that being said, here are the five main reasons why you should be considering Google Ads to generate sunroom leads from prospects searching online.
User Intent That Converts
There’s a reason why when you search for a local dentist that you don’t see ads for plumbers. This is because no plumber who is utilizing Google Ads is going to bid on keywords that target people who are searching for dentists!
And as illustrated previously, Google Ads is completely intent driven, meaning your ads (if managed properly) only show up when someone is searching for exactly what you offer. Think about how cool (and effective) that truly is. You choose what searches matter to you, say “sunroom companies near me” or “4 season sunroom builder”, and your ad is pushed directly to that searcher.
You don’t get that type of intent with newspaper or local magazine ads, where someone would need a sunroom quote in that moment AND would need to see your print ad at the same time. Otherwise it all goes to waste. You don’t get that level of intent with mailers for the same reason. And try not to think about all of that wasted postage. You don’t get intent like that in a phone book listing, billboard, radio or tv ad, bus stop ad, or even a banner ad on a random website. Nope, none of those options come remotely close to the power of Google Ads – and many of those other options are not cheap either.
Google Ads is the only advertising medium where your ad appears instantly when a specific search occurs that you decide to show up for.
Everything is Tracked, So You Know Whether it Works or Doesn’t Work
Think about every form of advertising you’ve ever tried, and then tell me what the ROI is, down to the penny, on each. I bet you have a hard time truly answering that question. The reason for this is not because someone isn’t doing their job properly, but because prospects who reach you come from all different types of channels and attributing them to a single source gets muddy.
Sure, if you have dedicated phone numbers for each advertising channel, that would help. If you try and hammer down each and every lead as to “how did you hear about us?”, you may have some success, but even that’s not overly accurate if the lead doesn’t completely remember. Furthermore, you need to decide which ad channels are working so that you can invest more in them, and invest less or discontinue the ones that aren’t. Whether you’re responsible for thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars of ad spend, these decision become critical.
Herein lies the beauty of Google Ads – there is absolutely zero guessing. You will know your spend, how many leads you’ve received, where and when they occur, who they were, precise cost per lead (CPL), and what your overall ROI calculates to. The tracking capabilities of Google Ads are easily activated and implemented. Stop guessing.
Monitor Your Competitors in Real Time
Google Ads let’s you view anyone else who is running ads against yours, allowing you to see exactly who you’re competing with and how they’re performing. That’s right – it’s all there, and it costs you nothing. This is important for a few critical reasons.
First, you should know who you’re up against, whether it’s a local business or a national company with deep pockets.
Second, Google will show you how often any competitor ranks above or below your ad, and what percentage of all of the auctions they participate in. This arms you with the tools to adjust your strategy going forward to maximize your ads visibility to get it seen by the most searchers.
Finally, once you know all of the companies who you’re competing with, you can study their ads, their offers, and their landing pages to gain a complete picture of where you need to potentially adjust any facet of your efforts.
Insane Reach
Google has a market share of approximately 90% and earned about 160 billion dollars in 2019, with the bulk of that total revenue coming from Google Ads. That is a testament to just how powerful and important this service is to businesses worldwide. And it’s still growing year over year for a reason – because it works!
Because of the sheer number of consumers that utilize Google as their primary search provider, it’s not surprising that its reach is unparalleled. You’ll never have to wonder whether you’re ads are getting in front of enough searchers.
Precise Targeting
Of all the reasons that a business should use Google Ads to generate leads online, the level of targeting it offers should be at the very top of the list. This topic could really be its own article (working on that!) and without covering every available tactic, here are a few of the most powerful targeting options you have at your disposal.
• Geographic – You can target your ads to only show to people searching in specific states, counties, cities, and even zip codes. It actually gets that granular. And even better, if there are areas that you don’t wan’t your ads to appear in, you can omit them quickly and easily.
• Days of the Week/Hours – You can run your Adwords campaigns any time you want. You can choose the day/s and hours, and have them run on very specific schedules. If you only want to run then when people are in the office to answer live incoming calls, no problem. Aren’t open on the weekends, shut them down until Monday.
• Demographics – It’s no surprise to any of us anymore that Google knows too much about us. In many instances they know your gender, age, search history, parental status, and even in some cases, your household income range. While that may be scary on a personal level, it’s amazing on an advertising level. You can choose to target (or exclude) any combinations of these identifiers to tailor to your desired client. For sunrooms, we like to target the middle-aged, more financially established range of prospects who are looking to expand their homes and have the bankroll to understand what these types of projects costs.
Now for the bonus to these targeting options…
You can adjust your bids up or down to enhance or suppress the things that work and those that do not.
Yes this is huge.
As an example, if you want to target a more affluent zip code range, county, or city with larger homes and residents with higher than average income levels, you can tell Google that you’ll pay a little extra to have your ads show higher on the page. It’s such a powerful option that needs to be utilized and most importantly, tracked.
Interested in talking to us about how we can build and manage your Google Ads campaign for sunrooms and/or enclosures?
Head on over to our contact page and fill out a quick form. At the very least let’s have a conversation, whether we ultimately work together or not.