Why You Should Be Leveraging Google Ads For Your Landscaping Business
BY IRA THOMSON – JULY 28, 2022
Let us preface this by saying that Google Ads is not necessarily the best option for every business of every size, but when configured and managed effectively it can be an amazing tool for landscaping companies.
But beware! When deployed incorrectly, Google Ads can be ineffective, a time suck and downright waste of your marketing budget.
It’s fairly easy for inexperienced Google Ads users to blow through their marketing budgets with not much to show for it. Google would love you to spend more money on their platform and it’s ultimately in their best interest to encourage you to keep spending – regardless of the impact to your bottom line.
Even if Google wasn’t encouraging you to spend more marketing budget, there are still a lot of ways you can waste your ad spend: poorly configured lead and conversion tracking, bad or no keyword management, irrelevant ads, incorrect or no market segment targeting (audiences, demos, scheduling), not utilizing extensions correctly, incorrect bid strategies – the list goes on.
In addition to poor management, there are external factors that may negatively impact campaigns: CPC may be too high or cost prohibitive, your service location might be flooded with too many competitors using Google Ads, or you simply aren’t spending at the right level of budget given your growth goals.
All that said (we hope we didn’t scare you off!), Google Ads tend to work particularly well for landscaping businesses. This is especially true when seasoned experts are running your campaigns.
Below are the top 5 reasons why you should use Google Ads for your landscaping business:
1. Your Customers Are Finding You On Google
Google is where you need to be, and the stats certainly confirm this:
- As of May 2022, Google accounted for 91.84% of the search engine market share in Canada. If you are searching online for a landscaping services, it’s very likely on Google.
- 97% of people looking for a new local service based business searched online. So if you are looking to work with a new landscaping company, it’s probably not going to be through a radio Ad or the yellow pages.
- 46% of Google Searches are seeking a local service or product and most of these will call or contact within 24 hours of their search.
The message is clear; If you want to reach new clients where and when they’re searching for your business, Google is a great solution
2. Landscaping Based Businesses Are Perfect For Google Ads
At the start of this article I highlighted a few of the potential pitfalls of Google Ads. For certain businesses and in certain circumstances Google Ads might not be the right fit. However, for Home Services businesses, such as plumbers, landscapers, painters, roofers, contractors, electricians etc. Google Ads works very well.
This is because landscaping businesses tend to address more immediate customer needs or offer essential services. This leads to the top of the “marketing funnel” bring more transactional in nature.
For this reason the Google Search Engine, and it’s accompanying platform Google Ads, is a highly effective advertising channel.
If your lawn needs mowing, retaining wall is crumbling, yard requires maintenance, plumbing is broken, water heater needs replacement, circuit breaker is busted, roof is flooding and septic needs digging up you aren’t likely to spend weeks or months vetting and interviewing dozens of home services companies to whittle down your list. You’re going to immediately ask your friends who they can recommend or, more likely, conduct a quick Google search for “best landscaper in your area” or “landscaper near me” and get sorted!
Even if you’re planning to purchase a higher end or more expensive home service, such as large scale landscape design, landscape lighting installation or even a commercial service such as strata maintenance, you’re still likely to kick-off this process starting with Google.
A final (and amazing) benefit to Google Ads is that they catapult you to the top of the search engine, above all organic listings. This is their advantage over organic search. You pay for that #1 spot for the exact search keyword you want to rank for. And being in that top spot pays!
3. Google Ads Works Great For Local Targeting
Google Ads are particularly useful for local market targeting.
If you service a well defined geographic region (a specific city, suburb or municipality) you can add another layer of precision to your advertising and save precious marketing budget.
With Google Ads, not only are you able to hone in on your desired target city (for example, Vancouver or Toronto). You can further target specific service areas that may be more efficient for your business/vehicle logistics (for example, Richmond or Markham) and even as granular as postal code areas that may be ideal for your desired audiences (exp. post code regions that contain the largest % of upscale detached homes for services such as landscape design or sprinkler/irrigation installs).
Finally, you have a nice little ancillary benefit of being able to use the Google Ads geo data to help inform other aspects of your business. Which areas convert to leads and business more readily and why? Should you build a dedicated landing page focused on these specific high converting areas? Are there specific services you offer that resonate and convert better in different regions?
4. Google Ads Is Flexible
We love the flexibility Google Ads offers our Landscaper clients.
More than likely, there are services you offer that have huge variance in seasonal demand (exp. Snow Plowing). There are also likely certain seasons/months/weeks where you may be unpredictably busy or quiet.
With Google Ads you have the ability to quickly adapt to these changing business needs by adjusting spends, pivoting focus to different services, changing location targets, switching up ad scheduling and more much more.
You can even adapt to external factors, such as your competitor’s behavior, by “buying” clicks cheaper when competition is lower.
5. Outperform & Outrank Your Competitors
Last but not least, we really like Google Ads as a differentiator for Landscaping businesses that have multiple competitors, offering a very similar service in the same service area.
Google Ads can be a fantastic supplement to help you gain market share when your competitors are either not using Google Ads at all or underperforming/inexperienced on this platform.
We’ve found that most Home Services companies that approach us have either not tried Google Ads or have been running them inefficiently. This offers a great opportunity to get ahead of your competition and own your local market!
More Resources
Ready to dip your toes in the water and find out more how we can grow your landscaping business? We offer a free strategic consult or give us a ring at 604 283 7306
Our Landscaper Marketing Team
We pride ourselves on providing our clients with a comprehensive suite of services that can help them achieve their goals. Whether you’re looking for someone to help you produce high-quality video and image content, rank you higher in search engines, curate a social media marketing strategy, or need assistance with paid search advertising, we have the experts who can help. Our team of landscaping content marketing experts can create digital marketing assets that will make you shine online. And, our backend advertising wizards know how to leverage these assets in the most efficient way possible. So, if you’re looking for a complete solution to help you achieve your objectives, look no further than Landscaper Marketing.
Start Growing Your Landscaping Company Now!
Reach out today for a no strings attached consultation with Chris, our very tall and friendly Director of Client Relationships, and learn how we help landscaping companies grow.
Learn how we helped a landscaping company grow to 1 million in revenue per month from online sources alone.
See how we helped a permeable hardscapes company become an online juggernaut.
Or check out how we helped a landscape company reach the coveted 10M a year mark.
We help grow Canadian landscaping companies that currently make 2M+ per year in revenues. Need some more proof?
Check out our Landscaper Marketing Machine, Blogs, or reach out today for a free, no strings attached consultation to see if you qualify for our Canadian Landscaper Program.
Whatever you do, don’t forget to leverage the power of Google My Business when developing your landscaping company’s online presence. With it, you can boost organic visibility and local search rankings with relative ease. So make sure to include this powerful tool in your overall digital marketing strategy. Good luck!
