Google Ads for contractors: search ads and Local Services Ads

Marketing For Construction is an independent referral service, not a marketing agency. When you send the form, your details go to an independent marketing agency that prepares any proposal and runs any campaign.

How search ads are placed

Every time someone searches, Google runs an auction for each ad location. It uses Ad Rank, which it describes as a set of values used to decide whether your ad is eligible to show and, if so, where. Ad Rank is calculated from several factors, including your competition, the context of the person’s search and your ad quality at that moment. A higher bid alone does not decide it.

Ad quality is summed up in Quality Score, which has three parts: expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance (how closely your ad matches the intent behind a search) and landing page experience (how relevant and useful your landing page is to people who click your ad). Each is rated above average, average or below average against other advertisers whose ads showed for the exact same search over the last 90 days.

What that means for a construction company

• One ad group per job type. An ad for roof replacement should send the click to a roof replacement page, not your home page.
• Landing pages that match. The page should say the same thing the ad said, show that work and make contact easy. See contractor website design.
• Search terms you actually want. Review what people typed before they clicked. Jobs you do not do, and searches for jobs rather than contractors, waste budget.
• Places you actually work. Google lets advertisers target countries, cities or a radius. Its broad setting, Presence or Interest, also reaches people showing interest in those places, so check which option your campaign uses.

Budgets and what you pay

You choose a daily budget for each campaign, and Google says you can change it at any time. If you think in monthly terms, Google suggests dividing the monthly amount by 30.4 to get the daily figure. What you pay per click is the actual cost per click: the final amount charged for a click, which Google says is often less, sometimes much less, than your maximum bid.

This site recommends no budget, because the right one depends on your trade, your area, the jobs you want and how many you can handle. A good proposal explains how a budget was arrived at and how it will be reviewed.

Local Services Ads

Local Services Ads are a separate Google product. Google says that with them you advertise on Google and receive leads directly from potential customers, which come in as phone calls and messages through the ad, and that you pay only for leads related to your business and the services you offer. The ad is shown prominently in Google Search results when people search for your services in the areas you have chosen, and customers can call, message or book through it. In select verticals, the ad can carry the Google Verified badge.

	Google Ads search campaigns	Local Services Ads
You pay for	Clicks to your website	Leads related to your business
Leads arrive	On your own site and phone	As calls and messages through the ad
You control	Keywords, ads, landing pages, daily budget, locations	Services offered and areas served
Worth knowing	Landing page experience is part of Quality Score	Regularly failing to answer calls or messages may affect your ad ranking

Not every trade is eligible in every area. Check eligibility for your trade and area in Google’s Local Services Ads sign-up before you plan around it.

Questions to ask whoever runs your ads

1. Will the Google Ads account be in my company’s name, with me as admin?
2. Which searches will we bid on, and which will we exclude?
3. Which page will each ad send people to?
4. How will we know which calls and forms came from ads?
5. How is your fee worked out, separately from the ad spend?
6. How often will we review the search terms and the budget together?

Some agencies say they belong to Google’s partner program. That program has requirements in three categories: performance, spend and certifications. Ask what the status means for your account in practice, and judge the plan on its own merits. Ads work best alongside the channels you own, so read contractor SEO and lead generation for contractors for the rest of the picture.

Questions owners ask