The Best Pay Per Click Strategies for Contractors

When we think about marketing, contractors are generally not the first industry that comes to mind. We typically think of glamourous name brands. However, the digital marketing landscape offers contractors a way to market their services while precisely measuring their return on investment. Pay per click advertising, known as PPC advertising, is a fantastic way for contractors to improve their digital presence. Businesses can utilize Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising to boost their visibility across the web.

At Blue Corona, we utilize three core PPC strategies for contractors to produce more qualified leads for the businesses we work with.

Here’s a rundown on three PPC strategies for contractors that are proven to generate results.

Generate Qualified Leads With Contractor Search Ads

Search ads are the primary PPC strategy for contractors that are looking to generate qualified leads. The advantage search ads have over other contractor PPC strategies is the ability to put your service in front of a user at the point of booking. Search ads provide contractors with the ability to target their ideal customer narrowly with keywords and specific demographics.

Search ads begin with a keyword that lives within an ad group. If a user enters a search term that encompasses your keyword, your ad may be eligible to show.

Here’s an example of a keyword we would use for a residential remodeler in the Seattle, WA, area:

Here are search terms that triggered ads for this keyword:

Here’s an example of the same contractor’s ad:

It’s best practice to include your keyword in your ad copy to increase your ad relevance. This will give it a better chance of outranking competitors.

With this strategy, we can target prospective customers who are actively searching for home remodeling contractors.

There are three main areas contractors should focus on when setting up their search campaigns.

• Keywords – Make a list of your priority services and what keywords you want to bid on. Certain contracting services may be more competitive than others. For example, if the keyword “AC Installation” has an average cost per click of $20, but your daily budget is $15, you may want to look at cheaper services that your business offers.
• Location targeting – Narrowing in your service area will help eliminate wasteful spending and improve your ROI.
• Measure your results – The key to this strategy is providing a conversion action on your site. This can be a quote form, phone call, consultation request, etc. These can be counted in Google Ads so you can measure the ROI for your contracting business.

In summary, search ads are a great way for contractors to increase qualified leads and sales. Businesses can target their ideal customer and direct them to the specific service they are looking for — ultimately leading to more booked jobs.

Display Prospecting: Target New, Prospective Customers in a Compelling Way

Display ads differ from search ads because we target customers utilizing an audience instead of keywords. For contractors, display prospecting is a fantastic way to engage with new, prospective customers by utilizing relevant audience targeting.

For contractors of all kinds, we primarily utilize three types of audiences:

1. In-Market – Goggle offers “In-Market” audiences based on customers who are actively browsing or researching your services.
2. Custom-Intent – These audiences are built off of keywords, so you can target users who are actively searching for keywords related to your service. For example, we can create an audience of people searching for keywords, such as “home remodeling contractors,” “electrical contractors,” and “general contractors,” and serve display ads across the internet to people searching for these terms. This is a great targeting method for businesses that typically have a longer buying cycle.
3. Demographics – Demographic audiences can be applied to narrow your targeting. You can adjust your targeting based on age, income, life events, and much more.

Here’s an ad we would use for a display prospecting audience. It’s important to include your unique selling proposition since these are going to be customers you have not yet reached, like one HVAC contractor below:

Display Remarketing: Nurture Unconverted Website Visitors

Remarketing ads are a way of re-engaging with and nurturing users that have visited your site in the past but didn’t convert into a lead. Much like prospecting ads, these are display ads that are served across the web to users within a given audience. Remarketing ads are an excellent option for remodeling and construction contractors since these services tend to involve a lot of research.

At Blue Corona, we generally start out with four standard audiences:

• 7 days
• 14 days
• 60 days
• 90 days

These audiences are based on time since the user has visited your site. With this, we can keep engaging with customers who are still deciding which contractor to work with. These audiences can also be more granular.

For example, if your business is struggling to generate kitchen remodel leads from its website, a remarketing audience comprised of only users who have visited the kitchen remodeling page on your website is an efficient audience to serve ads to over the next 90 days.

This is an ad we would use for a remarketing campaign. Since these website visitors haven’t completed a conversion action (call your business, fill out a web form, etc.), we include ad copy that differentiates the business from others.

Grow Your Contracting Business With Blue Corona

We know there are tons of types of contractors trying to grow their business. It’s difficult to stand out in a market with so many competitors. These three PPC strategies for contractors are proven ways to boost your digital presence and drive traffic to your website.

Looking for new ways to grow your business? Send us a message to schedule a free marketing consultation!