Google Ads for Dog Trainer: How To Setup An Effective Campaign

Google Ads is an effective channel for you as a dog trainer. As people search for a dog trainer in the locations that are relevant for your business, you can target them with well written ads that highlight important aspects of your business.

There are important steps to follow as you setup your campaign. These will ensure that you target the right people in the best locations for your business, and that you can see which parts of your campaign are working and which are not.

So, I’ve highlighted below some key factors to consider as you setup a campaign for your dog training business.

 

Campaign objective

First you start with the objective of your campaign. What is the main thing you want people to do when they search on Google and see your ad? As a dog trainer, that’s more likely to get a call or people to fill out a form on your website.

Choosing an objective as above means the system will tailor the features, controls and campaign types to help you achieve your goals. And this makes your advertising more effective as people click through to your website or call your business.

 

Campaign type

Next, you’ll choose the campaign type that relates to your objective and goals. For dog trainers this is almost always a Search campaign, to target people who are searching for a dog trainer on Google and its partner websites.

This will then tailor the features to help you to setup an effective Search campaign. Later, you can consider other campaign types like Display if you want to run some Remarketing ads or a Performance Max campaign to target your audiences across all of Google’s network platforms.

 

Budget

One of the advantages that dog trainers have over other industries is that they can usually start with a low budget. So, this can be as low as £300 or $500 per month, and that will usually be sufficient to get a decent volume of traffic and test the ads and keywords while getting some quality leads.

And as performance improves you can add to your budget to increase clicks and also conversions.

 

Bidding

There are automated and manual bidding strategies in Google Ads. These are the two types of bidding strategies that are available for your Search campaigns. With automated bidding, your bids are set automatically at auction time when your ads are eligible to appear. And with manual bidding you’ll set your bids manually for your keywords.

When you’re setting up a new campaign, an automated bid strategy like Maximise Clicks is usually best. That’s because it’s not easy to know what budget to set at the beginning , so the system looks at the context and bids more effectively.

 

Keywords

Choosing the right keywords in Google Ads for a dog trainer is important. This affects the actual searches that you get and determines how successful your advertising will be. So, it’s important to start with keyword research to find these keywords and the Keyword Planner tool will help you with this.

Also, choose your match types carefully, especially when you are starting a new campaign. Match types control the search queries that you get. And there are four match types at the moment: broad, phrase, exact and negative match.

My advice would be to start with phrase and broad match keywords. This will control the searches you get and then later you can add broad match keywords. This is an example of a keyword in phrase and exact match formats:

“local dog trainer” – phrase match
[local dog trainer] – exact match

Also, add negative keywords. Negative match blocks any searches that are not relevant. For example, you may want to block a word like ‘career’ if it will trigger searches like ‘dog trainer career’, which will not be relevant to you.

 

Text Ads

Write compelling text ads to promote your dog training business effectively in Google Ads. With each headline you have 30 character spaces to highlight your key features and benefits and the descriptions give you 90 character spaces each and that also helps you to promote your services effectively.

And try to use all the 15 headlines and four description lines that are available to you.

 

Ad schedule

When to run your ads is an important factor to consider too. The Ad schedule feature allows you to narrow it down to the days and hours that are relevant for your business, for example Monday to Friday between 6am to 6pm. And you can change it to any times that are relevant for you.

However, when you’re just starting with a new campaign, it’s usually best to run your ads on all days and hours. This will help you to see the best times and then you can customise it accordingly.

 

Where your ads appear

 

With a Search campaign using responsive search ads and keywords to target people looking for dog training services, the ads will appear on the Google search engine and its partner sites if you’ve opted into them.

Avoid using the Display network because that’s a very different network and you won’t be targeting people that are searching for your services.

 

Get in Touch

Are you a dog trainer and in need of help setting up a Google Ads campaign. I’m a Google Ads consultant and PPC freelancer with over 13 years experience setting up and managing effective campaigns. Contact me below to discuss your requirements.