For those of you that have been readers since the beginning, you know I don’t ever really discuss paid ads. It’s not that I don’t like them, it just has never been a major focus of mine.
Back when I was running my first agency, SEO and web design dominated the game. Paid ads were low profit margins, and most businesses weren’t really savvy to the point where they understood how it worked and whether it was worth it.
Now, things are changing. More and more businesses are shifting marketing spend, and are much more willing to spend on ads now. Maybe it’s because they’ve been indoctrinated to digital marketing through numerous SEO companies over the years and they like the semi guaranteed results they can get.
Choosing Between Google Guaranteed and Adwords
There’s a ton of options out there, from Google, Bing, Facebook, outbrain and thousands of others to spend money to be seen. I’m only comparing Adwords and Google Guaranteed since I recently had a client that ran campaigns on both and have decent data from that.
It’s not necessary to choose between both services, you can certainly run both campaigns but here are some questions you need to ask yourself.
1.) Is Your Business or Client Local? What Ads Does it Trigger?
No point in going for local service ads if you’re not local. Obviously ecommerce sites or any site that isn’t reliant on local specific traffic. I feel dumb for having to point that out, but there’s people out there that are legitimately starting from 0 and have no idea what any of this stuff is.
Next, you need to do your own research on the business type and location. What ads are triggered? Is it adwords or the Google Guaranteed recommended providers?
If Google Guaranteed is what shows up, then your adwords campaign won’t really get great placement, and depending on how you set up your SKAGs your budget will get eaten up by poor converting variations of terms you’re targeting.
2.) Do You Have Experience with Google Adwords?
If you don’t have experience and don’t know how to run an effective campaign, you’re probably better off with local service ads / Google Guaranteed. Adwords is a money suck if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Some people think that doing adwords for local clients is an easier job than clients who rely on national organic. I think I’d prefer national clients that aren’t getting screwed by Local Service Ads, the incredibly high click through from GMB, and the huge home service competition in the space.
Anyway, point is, Local Service Ads / Google Guaranteed is the better option for those with less experience. But to be fair, even if you do have a lot of experience Adwords still doesn’t make sense a lot of the time.
3.) Can You or Your Client Get Approved?
Some people make a big fuss about how Google Guaranteed is a hassle. In my experience, and based on other experiences I’ve heard about, the approval process is pretty easy.
Generally speaking, you get approved with the following:
- Background check
- License Verification
- Insurance Verification
It’s pretty easy. Granted, if you’re a roofer and you don’t have insurance, you’re not getting approved. You probably shouldn’t be doing roofs anyway.
What’s The Advantage of Google Guaranteed?
It’s actually a brilliant marketing strategy to siphon more money from local businesses. Google pretends to step up to the plate to vouch for businesses and promising to refund X amount if people are unhappy.
Basically, Google says they will refund up to $2,000 towards the project cost.
Here’s what they WON’T refund:
- Doesn’t cover add on or future projects
- People unhappy with communication
- People unhappy with the price
- Damage to property
- Cancellations
So, consumers can’t get refunded through Google if the business is unresponsive, cancels, then shows up and damages the property and charges 2 times the initial estimate. I’m not really sure what Google actually covers here on the consumer side. and if you guys have ever had Google refund, then please let me know how.
Anyway, the advantage of a business being a part of the program is pretty huge. Sure it’s mostly a gimmick to consumers so they can justify another form of monetization with small businesses, but it definitely helps them convert.
There’s obvious benefit from a lead gen standpoint to get involved.
Lead Volume and Cost Adwords vs. Google Guaranteed
First off, I should disclose I’m not an Adwords expert. It’s not something I do every day, but I do consider myself effective enough to for this to be a decent comparison.
That being said, Local Search Ads / Google Guaranteed is definitely more beginner friendly in the sense that it’s much easier to run a profitable campaign.
This client spent $1,500/mo on Adwords and $1,000/mo on Google Guaranteed. Eventually the client shifted everything to Google Guaranteed, which I guess spoils the surprise of the numbers but you’ll see why.
Here are the averages:
Adwords – $1,500/mo spend, 16 leads, 2 customers.
Google Guaranteed – $1,000/mo spend, 41 leads, 8 customers.
It’s possible there’s a 3rd customer mixed into adwords, but the client wasn’t sure. Without the 3rd customer, he was almost at a break even point for a couple small repair jobs. This client was a roofer, so cost per click was pretty high in Adwords and wasn’t that effective.
Thoughts on the Outcome of Adwords vs. Google Guaranteed
I’m not sharing this post as some sort of definitive guide or absolute truth. Just sharing what I’ve experienced. Maybe these results aren’t typical, I’m not sure. It’s a small data set so it could mean anything.
I’ve already established I’m not an adwords expert. However, I do think there were some problems with the campaign. For example, the client wanted to show for competing brands. I think that led to a lot of irrelevant clicks that sent the cost up. Some of the leads generated were looking for a previous company they used.
Tons of clicks, a decent amount of calls but overall wasn’t great when it came down to cost per qualified lead.
I don’t think the Adwords strategy was effective. I wonder if we didn’t target competing brands, how that may change the results. Probably wouldn’t change them that much considering roofing keywords were triggering LSAs anyway and the quality of click was already diminished.
Why Did Google Guaranteed Perform So Well?
This doesn’t even fall into the adwords comparison. Isolating Google Guaranteed, the cost per lead is actually incredible. 41 leads for a roofer who is spending $1,000 is pretty big.
HomeAdvisor charges anywhere from $50-100 per roofing lead and sends the lead to multiple people. So with Google Guaranteed the cost per lead was $24.39.
Prominent placement, ease of access and communication, social proof and the guarantee by Google probably all helped the lead generation and conversion process. Probably a more trusted process than a landing page without the vouch from the big G.
My guess is this roofing company will start to spend even less per lead as time goes on. On the flip side of that, I guess as more people start paying up, that could increase the cost too but good history does seem to help keep costs low.
How To Optimize Google Guaranteed / Local Search Ads
Just like with Adwords, GMB, and your website, Local Search Ads have their own ranking algorithm to determine who to show and how often.
Here’s a few things you should know.
Proximity Matters, BUT Not That Much
People will usually talk about how proximity is an important factor and sure, it is to some degree but it’s not nearly as limiting as you see in Local SEO with GMB.
Local search ads will often display businesses in the suburbs, even when they’re targeting larger cities, or neighboring cities. In GMB, that’s kind of a thing of the past. Maybe it will be refined in the future but for now you’re free to target outside the city of your business.
Important Note: Don’t use an address for your GMB that isn’t legitimately your business address. People will often get addresses in other cities to establish a presence for local SEO. With the Google Guaranteed program, you will end up with your GMB suspended or deleted after your background check if the associated address is not real. You can still have secondary GMB’s. They just won’t be able to be used under this program.
There’s not even a need for it either since proximity restrictions aren’t that tight.
Responsiveness To Leads and Inquiries
In your dashboard you can see the leads generated. It will show you whether they called, or messaged. You can call back, respond, send a text, whatever.
Just make sure you respond.
Businesses that don’t make an effort to be very responsive to leads, usually have much lower ROI not just because they miss out on opportunities, but because their costs will be higher and their ad rank will be worse.
Don’t decline a job request unless absolutely needed. If you do, make sure to include the reasoning behind declining.
Reviews… It’s Almost ALL About the Reviews
This can not be overstated. If you want great results you have to be focused on reviews. Overall reviews are factored into your attached GMB. However, the reviews generated through Google Guaranteed are especially important.
Getting reviews is a pretty easy task.
In your dashboard, you’ll see an option to email completed jobs and ask them for a review. Can send a default message or a personalized one. Google also will email asking for the review, so harvesting reviews for this should be pretty easy.
Make sure you, or your clients understand the importance of reviews here. Treat these customers like they’re your only customer. Deliver what was promised and more.
It’s not just review rating averages, and quantity. If you find yourself getting a few complaints, don’t be surprised to see your lead numbers go down. If customers are complaining, you’re gunna get the short end of the stick here. Be proactive with your service.
And Don’t Forget To Respond To Your Reviews!
There’s a few GMB ranking factors that seem to cross into LSA / Google Guaranteed. I believe responding to reviews, especially of those from Google Guaranteed, will provide an impact in your costs and how many leads you’re able to get.
Good or bad, always respond. Don’t use cookie cutter templates either. It doesn’t have to be a lengthy response but write a genuine response and thank them for the review. Make them feel special.
This will help with your LSA ad rank, and probably give your GMB a bit of a boost too.
Make Sure Your GMB is Fully Optimized
Everything you can do, from hours of operation to special notes about the business, to google posts. All of it is supposed to help your ad rank.
Since local search ads are essentially tying your business to your GMB, you want to make sure you’ve completed the most basic steps of optimizing your GMB.
Decide on hours of operation. There’s some debate about whether it actually helps you or not, but extending your hours of operation could get you more visibility and at a cheaper rate.
On the other hand, it could piss off customers trying to reach you if you’re not actually open. Remember, reviews are important so you don’t want to piss people off.
If you don’t actually offer emergency services, then don’t claim to be open 24/7.
If your business is eligible to use google posts, then do so regularly. It helps.
Dispute Leads for Even Higher ROI
Google Guaranteed is a pretty good ROI strategy out of the box and requires very little experience.
That being said, there’s always a way to improve that ROI. For example, if you’re getting calls from other companies, or spam / scam type stuff then you need to open up a dispute with those leads, and do it quickly.
Google has been pretty good about not charging you for leads that are actually not leads.
If you stay on top of it, you easily save a few hundred a month and get more bang for your buck.
Final Thoughts on Local Search Ads vs. Adwords
Most people will tell you to not choose one over the other. Based on my experience, Google Guaranteed is the clear winner at the moment.
Adwords is still useful, but I think the most effective thing would be using Google Guaranteed, and then running retargeting and going for more of a budget solution on the display network.
Adwords search display doesn’t compete very well with the local search ads. Maybe if you’re some adwords guru you might have better results, but with how easy Google Guaranteed is to manage and get running with positive ROI, it’s hard to beat.
Any tips you think should be added in here? Have your experiences been different? Let me know in the comments below!
Coming from a niche that dominates in Google Guaranteed, I can say that its a no brainer for someone to shift marketing dollars from Google Ads to Google Guaranteed however what I see is simply lower volume in Google Guaranteed so its not a case of what one should you choose but how much of your budget is used towards each.
In our niche of “house cleaning” we get leads from Google Ads from 15ea-30ea so we are playing in the same field as GG, now is just about our fee and what your budget is because you don’t have to pay a management fee for GG, of course, maximize your budget there as much as possible.
With lower budget’s spend it on GG till you have maxed your budget out, and then start focusing on GA. The budget you can spend will be determined by the amount of competition and the volume of searches in the area.
The higher budgets, simply do both!
Thanks for the comment Ray! You’re definitely right, if you have the budget, just do both! With GG though people can charge management fees imo, there’s things that can be done to optimize the ad rank as well as having someone on top of asking for reviews and responding to reviews. Basically the most successful way is to charge for GMB optimization on a monthly basis, and include GG.
I have been using LSA (used to be called Google Home Services) since it’s inception when it was very limited to certain areas. A few things that I noticed:
Getting reviews thru LSA only shows them on LSA, and if you stop using LSA you lose them. Or at least that is the way that it was, it may have changed but I don’t think so. So I always ask my customers to leave reviews thru GMB instead of LSA.
People are much more concerned with price when they call thru LSA. It’s like Craigslist, the first thing that they ask for is how much it will cost. That tells me that they are not good leads, they are just price shoppers. When people call thru Google maps or organically thru my website, they almost never mention price, they talk about the work. I consider those better leads, since my prices are not low. I sell on quality of work and service, not low prices. If someone wants a low price for a cheap job, having to pay for the lead on top of it does not work out.
Because of what I mentioned above, I don’t check off most of the services that are available. I only have higher priced services selected, such as panel upgrade or car charger installation. Because of this, I can screen the calls. People still call for all kinds of services, but if it is a price shopper looking for a cheap job, I can get out of it.
For example, if its someone who just wants to know how much I charge to install a light, I can tell that they are calling around shopping for the lowest price, so I can say “We don’t offer that service, we only do larger renovation work”. Then I can dispute the call with Google so that I don’t have to pay for the lead. But I can always take the lead even if I don’t have that service selected. So if it was someone looking to have a nice chandelier hung in a nice town and I could tell they were less worried about price, I could take it.