Google Ads for Plumbers: How To Setup An Effective Campaign

Now you can setup a Google Ads campaign for plumbers to drive leads for your business. So, whether you are looking to get 15, 30 or 100 leads per month, this is all possible through setting up a targeted campaign in your account

There are many intermediary sites like Checkatrade and Trustatrader which serve a good purpose, but are limited in the potential for your business. Also there are many competitors there which can mean lower paid jobs. Instead, with your own website, you have the full attention of your visitors and can earn better rates.

Getting started is easy and it starts with setting up a new account if you don’t currently have one. Visit ads.google.com to create your account and then follow the guidelines below to setup your first campaign.

 

Campaign objective

As a plumber, the most important objective you can set for your campaign is ‘Leads’. This objective helps you set the right campaign features and also determines the campaign type that you should create.

The Leads objective helps to encourage people who are looking for a plumber to take action from the ad or the website. So, they can call directly from your ad through the phone number you add in call extensions or from a call-only ad.

People can also visit your website and contact you through an enquiry form or call you from the website too.

 

Campaign type

A Google Ads campaign for plumbers that’s focused on maximising Leads should use the Search campaign type. There are other campaign types like Display but these don’t achieve the high number of conversions that a Search campaign does.

With a Search campaign, you target people that are actively searching for a plumber or emergency service on Google or one of its Search partner websites. This means that your visitors are highly qualified and are looking for a service and not just doing random searching.

You can set your ads to appear on Google only. However, it’s a good idea to target the Search partners too. Google provides one collective report for these and does not break out the performance for each individually, however, the conversion rates on these can be high too and it is worth testing the Search partner network.

 

Budgets

The budget you set determines how many leads you will get from your ads. A Google Ads campaign for plumbers should have a sufficient budget to target the right people and drive significant amounts of traffic.

If the budget is too low, then you could miss out on some of the best search queries, when people are more likely to convert.

Most advertisers start with a small budget like $500 or £300 per month and then increase it as performance improves. This helps you to work on your campaign and then assess what returns you’re likely to get with a larger budget.

The keyword research phase will also help you to decide on what budget to set, as you see the search volumes for each of your keywords.

 

Bidding

In the Search campaign, you can either use an automated bid strategy or a manual bidding. An automated bid strategy like Maximise Clicks is the best to start with because it sets the bids automatically and tries to get as many clicks as possible for your budget.

Later, when you have much more data and understand how your campaign is doing you can can switch to another automated bid strategy. For example, you could try Maximise Conversions with a target cost per acquisition to control how much you pay for each conversion.

Or you could switch to the Manual CPC bid strategy to have more control over your bids manually and set them yourself.

 

Keywords

Keyword research is important when setting up a Google Ads campaign for plumbers, because it helps to target the right searches. You can of course use dynamic search ads which don’t use keywords but target searches automatically, but this gives you less control over the searches you get.

Instead, you can use the Keyword Planner tool in your account to conduct some thorough keyword research.

And any relevant keywords you find you can add in the ad groups you create in your Search campaign. Use only phrase and exact match keywords at the beginning and later you can add broad match to increase click volume and conversions from searches that you are not reaching with your other match types.

This is an example of a keyword in phrase and exact match formats and you can do the same for all the keywords that you find:

“Local emergency plumber” – phrase match keyword
[local emergency plumber] – Exact match keyword

And make sure to add some negative keywords to block any searches that are not relevant for you.

 

Text ads

You should mention key benefits like your response times. It’s standard to offer a 30 minute response time and many competitors will be mentioning that too, so you should include it if you do offer it and other differentiated benefits too.

Include all associations and registrations in the ads, like if you are gas safe registered, to give people peace of mind and so they can click through to your website and make contact.

Also, include a good call to action in every ad. If you want people to call you, make it clear in the ad, but don’t add your phone number in the ad, because it will get disapproved. Instead, add it in the call extensions and people will be able to call you directly from the ad.

And it’s a good idea to include some call-only ads in your campaign, or setup a call only campaign if you just want calls from your ads. Just be aware that this may reduce the number of enquiries you get, although it could improve your cost per acquisition. It’s worth testing to see how it works for your business.

 

Ad schedule

Some people will be looking for an emergency plumber for a gas leak, water leak, burst pipe, clogged drain and more. So, your ads should be online when you are available to work and your ad schedule settings should be updated accordingly

If you offer a 24 hour emergency call out service, then run your ads 24/7 to target your audiences.

 

Where your ads appear

A Google Ads campaign for plumbers is an effective way to drive high quality leads for your business. Your ads will appear on the Google search engine and will reach people that are actively looking for a plumber in your targeted locations.

Your ads will also appear on Search partner websites that are part of the Google Search network, if you opt into that option

Where your ads appear on the search results page is important too. Being in the top three for most of your keywords will help you achieve a good amount of traffic and leads for your business.

 

Case Study

Am2pm Plumbers is a 24 hour emergency plumber based in London with over 20 years’ experience in the industry. However, they had a very low online presence and this was neglected for many years, while new entrants were gaining ground on them. So they needed help from a Google Ads Expert to launch some PPC campaigns for them. I recommended Google Search Ads and we created and launched a campaign that was well targeted and was only paying £1.39 per click, in a very competitive market. Read the full case study.

 

Get in Touch

Are you a plumber looking to get leads and enquiries from a Google Ads campaign. Use the form below to contact me about my Google Ads services.