← The Paid Search Podcast | A Weekly Podcast About Google Ads and Online Marketing
The Paid Search Podcast | A Weekly Podcast About Google Ads and Online Marketing
PPC for Home Services is Dying (Episode 496)
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Foreign. Hello and welcome to the paid Search podcast. My name is Chris and today I'm going to tell you why I think PPC for home services is dying. So I'm going to jump into my reasoning for this, my experience and where I think things can be improved and what hope I think there is potentially in the future to turn things around. But that's what I'm dedicating today's entire episode about why I think home services is a near useless PPC lead generation system. So let's talk about that and if you don't agree, if you I know there's a lot of agencies out there that manage home services exclusively. I welcome your emails to tell me why. Maybe if you are convincing enough and you have a well enough bullet point argument, maybe I'll have some someone on the on the podcast to discuss and debate and contest my my points here. But you know, I, I'm going to put up a pretty good argument here and I'm going to explain why I think it's pretty frustrating and pretty difficult to try and make a home services campaign successful in Google Ads. Before I do that, I want to tell you about my sponsor, opteo.com PSP as I've told you, PPC is really difficult and no matter what industry you're in, you're going to need help. And I find Optio is the best source to try and get those ads pushed a little further. There's a lot of tools out there that just kind of tell you what to click, do this, do that, let us optimize it for you. I don't find that to be useful. I find that to be rather robotic and doesn't give you a competitive edge. But optio.com PSP 28 day free trial and you can use a tool that actually helps you to make core decisions based on logic, core decisions based on what's important to you. You don't just go in and just apply everything. You go in and use the data, use the tool to help make core decisions about what you're doing. And I can tell you these guys don't stop. They continue to innovate in this space and we'll be talking about some new innovations they're working on coming very soon. Pretty exciting stuff. So try this for free. 28 day free trial if you go to opteo.com PSP okay, so let's jump straight into it. PPC for home services is dying. That's my opinion. I'm going to give you two main points about why I think this is happening. First, point number one, Google is killing paid text ads. All right, so My example, number one of this is the google.com search result page. When you search for something like plumber near me, home remodeling near me, you know, a home service, someone who comes to your home and works on your AC or does some type of remodeling, they replace windows, you know, maybe they, they mow your grass, anything that, that, that is a homeowner focused service. Not talking about products. I'm talking about home services done by a professional, by a company. That's where I think things are dying, if not dead. So here's, here's why I think point number one, Google's killing paid text ads. I think that the very first thing that makes this largely a failing point is because Most of the LSAs that show up, you know, these listings, these Google guaranteed listings that shows up in first position when you search for home services, it really dominates the scope of ads. It's the first thing that shows and it has a distinct advantage over paid text ads. There's images, there are star ratings. And these ads are much more appealing because they are, you know, uniform. They're, they're uniform so they're easier to just kind of look at that and then pick one that you like the picture. I like that picture. I like that company's name. Right. You kind of just browse these listings and just pick one and, and call them directly. You don't go to a website, you don't engage with their marketing in any way other than just a listing of businesses. Right. And to me as a marketer, I think this is awful. I mean, you reduce the personality, if you want to call it that of a business. You know, the creativity of a business down to everyone in the home services industry is 24,7. Everyone's fast, everyone's an expert, everyone's a professional. Everyone's going to do a great job. Everyone. I mean, that is all you see on the LSAs. 24 hour, 24 hour, 24. 7. 24 7. Over and over again. Everyone has a picture and goodness, it's not, it's never a real person. It might be AI generated. It's, you know, some, you know, photo shoot they did where they, they're acting like they're fixing an ac. They're all crafted to look bright and well lighted. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous, right? And there's no way to distinguish yourself above anyone else. You can't manage these LSAs. So this is what advertisers are presented with if they want to show up at the top, the real top of Google Ads. And therefore, because of the uniformity of these ads, the lack of creativity, leads can suffer because you have no way to distinguish yourself about the quality of lead, the type of lead that you get. You ask Google to get you leads in a specific home service industry, and here you go, we're going to shove some to you and you're going to pay for it. And, you know, hopefully it's a good, it's a good lead for you. If you can't close it, that's your problem. Pretty frustrating, right? So that's the very first thing that we're presented with on this search result page. As far as the sponsored ads go, we don't get to see normal Google Ads, text ads at the top of Google very much at all, if they even show up on the page. Okay, so what else is crowding this extremely complicated Google search result page? Well, now we have map listings, right? Map listings are again, very ubiquitous, very uniform. You can now go to the company's website. Hooray. You know, invested $50,000 on a website. And finally, now someone can go to my map listing and then click on a website button. But I can tell you from experience, a lot of people don't go to the website. They call the phone number directly or they do the most frustrating thing of all. They click on directions. You don't need to go to your plumber's office to have your plumbing fixed. You don't need to go to your AC repair shop to have your AC fixed. We're talking about homes. These are home services. Why are there directions? Why are there direction, call to actions. And these people potentially are paying for these. Right. In order to show up as a sponsored map listing, you have to run ads through the Google Ads system. So now you don't get to show your text ads that you delicately, creatively write these text ads. No. Now you show up in mass, show up in mass map listings, and people can click on, get directions and you pay for that click. Right. Google's, it's killing text ads because this is much more visible. There are images, it's much more engaging on these map listings. Right. And do we even talk about the last thing taking up the page? Remember organic search results or, you know, the natural search results, the search results of the index of the result of what you're actually looking for. Right. Remember that way down the page. Well, these are the most, these are the least engaging of all. Right. No image, the Same. Everybody's trying to optimize and SEO their website as much as possible. So they all end up being very uniform. They can't be creative in a way that paid text ads can be creative. I can write a text ad that stands out, that is unique because I can pick a keyword, write an ad copy that pulls attention to that. But with SEO you have to be very uniform. So of course they're going to follow certain standards and what happens? They all look the same, they're all the same. They all have the same messaging, the same kind of thing because they want to show up on the first page of Google and they're on the first page of Google because they followed this kind of standardized SEO process. And so now we have just uniformity. Vending machine. Here's a bunch of people you can pick from. Click on a picture that you, you think looks the best. Who has the coolest looking logo, who has the coolest business name. Because there's no, there's no creativity here. So I mean that's, that's my first point is that it's, it's, this home service industry is dying on, on, on Google because it has been completely taken over by uniformity, generic, non interesting, non creative ad space that is essentially from the advertiser's point of view, a vending machine. They just put their card in and say I'll pay for this many leads, I'm willing to pay for this. And it just kind of shows up and what we get is the business name and something that says 247 and something that says I'm professional, I'm fast, we'll get it done. Everybody apparently is amazing at doing that and they're willing to come to your house and fix your AC at 3am no they're not. No they're not. They have an answering service that answers the phone and then when they wake up in the morning then they'll look and maybe they'll, they'll come to your house. Then it's, it's not 24, 7. It's ridiculous, right? The answering service is not going to come fix your AC, but yet it's a 24 hour service for plumbers and AC repair. These home services oversell and under provide. But it's because this uniform, non creative messaging has been pushed. If you want to be successful, this is what you need to say. Say what everyone else is saying and there's a 3% chance that your ad will be clicked and you'll get a lead. Congratulations. So lack of creativity, lack of the ability. I mean, it's just become just a common place to just put your ad in. Put, put, put your ad into the system and then it might be clicked. All right, so that's, that's the first half. Here's the second half. The second point about why I think home services is dying on Google Ads is paid. Google Ads are a mess. And this is again another decision by Google that over time has robbed us. Taken the most important part about why paid traffic is valuable, why it's unique. If I've been around a long time, I've been doing PPC since 2003. And the unique part about Google Ads was always that you make the decisions, you control, you get the data, you get to see what's being clicked, and you get, you get to make the decisions for yourself. Okay? And it's, you name your price, you name how much you want to pay per click, you name the kind of traffic that you want, you make the decisions, you're in control. And largely that has been taken. And I'm going to give you specific reasons why that is. That is true across every single scope of Google Ads. Before I get into that, the, the important thing is why do I think it's. Why do I think that home services is dead and why am I not. Why am I not saying that Google Ads is dead in general, I don't think that, but I think in some industries it's dying or dead already. So what makes it particularly bad in Google Ads is that clicks are incredibly expensive in the home service space. Most small home service companies have absolutely no chance at having enough budget to get significant returns from ppc. This is not something that you've heard me say before for any industry. I've actually always said the opposite. Small budgets can succeed in Google Ads because they have a chance to grab a small percentage of the traffic. I do not believe that's true in home services. I do not believe that's true in home services because clicks are so expensive. They are an inhibitor to the ability for you to even get traffic in the first place. So we've talked about how your window used to be wide open. Anyone could put an ad in, write an ad, and you know, it's. It's based on your ability to be creative and pick the right keywords. There's a skill involved. And now you have a. The window is almost entirely closed. There's a sliver right between the LSAs and the map listings and the organic results. There's a sliver of sponsored text ads. Okay? And these cost 30, 40, 60, $150 per click and certainly higher depending on some things. This absolutely is exclusive and excludes most advertisers from even doing it. Because if your cost per click is $50 a click and you're willing to spend a thousand dollars a month, you can essentially forward, you know, five clicks a week, perhaps, you know, a few clicks a week. And let's say your conversion rate is really good. Maybe you have a 25% conversion rate. So now you know, you've paid for one lead that costs you $250, $200 and you only get one a week from that. You know, it's hard to feed the Google Ad system more money when the prices, the expense of it is so high that the click through rate is so low. And more to the point, the quality of the leads are so poor. I think that's what's really the killer. And I can tell you this from personal experience, my management with home service companies is, you know, they get leads, but that's just the lead. The actual qualif quality of the lead itself does not close very often. Why? Well, because there's not really, and I'll get into this more, but there's not really a lot of way to distinguish the quality of the lead when everyone's searching. Plumber near me, AC repair near me, lawn services near me, you know, hardscape builders near me. You know, I mean I actually, this was years and years ago, but actually wrote up a, I used to blog a little bit back in the day when I was in ppc just because I thought that was the way to do it before I started my podcast and I actually wrote up a blog post about how Google Suggest, which is the pop up whenever you start typing. I remember when that was introduced, this was like 2000, 2011, 2012, something like that. When Google Suggest was introduced. My, my theory was that searches on Google were going to be, become more, going to be, become more uniform, you know, more streamlined. So people start to type and then more people end up searching the same thing. And what we get is a bunch of near me searches, plumbers near me, things like that, lots of near me. And then this Google Suggest system leads people into a closing funnel of searches so you get more of the same thing and less of this outlying creativity on the searches. So then what are we forced to do? We're forced to search on the same keywords all the time. You know, plumber near me, home services, near me, things like that. And so therefore the the, the person that's doing the search, they might be looking for a whole, you know, they might be looking for an AC installation. They want to buy a whole new AC system. Theirs is old, they just bought the house and they want to do a whole new AC reinstall, you know, or they've added more square footage and they need to up their tonnage. But guess what? They search AC repair or AC companies near me. Or that could be some guy that wants someone to add fluid to their system or you know, whatever the heck AC people do. Right? You have absolutely no idea because these users are forced into this funnel of AC companies near me. And that click costs $65 and you get a sliver of a window to show up on your click through rate is absolute trash. So leads become poor because leads become again uncreative, ubiquitous. They're the same thing. Everyone does the same kind of search. But when it comes to actually generating quality leads, your ability to differentiate from these same searches over and over again becomes impossible. Really frustrating. So then we get into the last section here. This is much more personal because this involves my job, the management of Google Ads. And I think Google Ads is a mess now because management is so difficult. Management, I mean I even use that, that word cautiously because sometimes management of Google Ads is, is, is is like herding cats, a bunch of toddlers running around and you know, I'm managing these toddlers. No, I often feel like I'm not. Keywords mean nothing. The keywords that I choose don't get me the traffic that I intend. I'm punished when I try and use exact match keywords. When I say, okay, okay, I really want this traffic. So I'm then given low quality scores so my cpcs go up. My ability to even serve an impression goes down. I'm punished when I move outside of that uniformity box. Creativity is actively discouraged. Don't use unique words that are unique to your business. Don't write ad copy that goes against the standard editorial standards that Google wants you to write. You need to have 15 headlines. Oh my goodness. If you want to happen to pin and use just two headlines and only use those poor ad strength. Your ads aren't serving because you have poor ad strength. You didn't give us enough headlines to use. Creativity is discouraged. It is not welcome in the Google Ad system. You follow the rules, you do what Google says and you'll get your clicks when they come. And perhaps most frustratingly, the engine, the system that we use is the same for everyone. Maximize conversions, target cpa what real, what real advantage is Target CPA doing for you that it's not doing for someone else? Tell me that, tell me how Target CPA is somehow better for you than your competitors. And you say, well, it's because I've got lots of conversions over the past years and it's optimizing for those conversions and I've really pulled that in. It's the exact same system. It's the exact same system. So let's assume there's a competitor that's doing Target CPA and has done well and they have, you know, a good conversion history and the bidding system is working for them. And then there's another one that's doing the exact same thing. Those two are. They have no advantage over each other. They're both using the same vehicle, the same bidding strategy to no competitive advantage against each other. So here it is. Google Ads management is now less skill based. There is a significant amount of just vending machine lead generation, no skill required. Advertisers lose their itch. They have no ability to excel over someone else when every tool that we use has been dulled to the point of becoming useless. My tool is no different. It's no better than anyone else. My skill and ability to write, create design campaigns, keywords, ad copy, bidding strategies is near worthless because there is no skill value in Google Ads because these tools are, they don't work, they don't work anymore. So therefore the result of all of this is Google's losing its edge. Now, I think that there are plenty of industries that it can be successful, but I am specifically talking about home services to the point that I don't really accept new home services clients at this point. I'm not interested. I have taken my last, my last phone call with a client who's upset because they can't get the right kind of leads. They're not happy with the lead quality they're getting. And I am sitting here banging my dulled wrench against an engine that won't let me tweak it and adjust it and get what I want from it. So Google's losing its edge because Google is valuable because of its uniqueness in, in the, in the results that it can deliver. I don't believe that it's doing that anymore specifically for home services. And I think in the end, AI is a better experience. AI is a better experience. And quick reminder optio.com PSP to try their amazing tool to try and squeeze more out of your Google Ads. Regardless of the doling of the tools that we're talking about. I do think that there are tools out there that can still provide value. Optio.com PSP so in the end when it comes to home services, I think AI is a better experience. I think AI is a cleaner, friendlier way to find something in this uniform, boring system that has been re engineered to pull creativity, to pull skill, to, to force uniformity both to the users and the advertisers. So here's, here's my question. If that happens at home services, which is of course, you know, one of the largest industries, I mean everyone has a home, everybody needs these kinds of things. If you have a standard modern home in the United States, you have these needs, you have these things. And if that has been dulled to the point of uniformity to making it largely worthless and useless to many businesses, what industry is going to be next? I think there's ways to save it. But it really makes me worried for the future of Google Ads. And like I said, if you disagree, please. In fact those that disagree, I would prefer for you to email me those that agree with me. Thank you. I know I'm right. But for those that you that disagree, tell me why I'm wrong. I get a lot, I get a lot of, get a lot of emails from people that want to be on my show. Chris, you know, you should check out so and so. He wants to be on show. He's an entrepreneur. Chris, you should have this person, he can do an episode with you. And I'll tell you what, you guys have absolutely no chance of being on my show. I am not interested. You want to be on my show? Write me a reason, a well structured reason why I'm wrong that'll interest me because I don't think I am. I don't think I am. Show me I'm wrong. And we're going to leave it there. Thank you guys for listening. I'll catch you guys next week.