Construction Pay-per-click ads on Google and a variety of social media are an effective way to reach your target customer with your construction business. You can show up in front of them when they are ready to make a purchase. Whether they are looking for an addition, home renovation or completely new home construction, you can make sure they see your business with PPC ads. Check out all of our construction marketing tips for PPC advertising:
1. Make Your Construction PPC Ads Localized
If I am located in Philadelphia, and I search for an excavation company in Philadelphia. Which of the following PPC ads will I click on:
- Pennsylvania Contractor | Landscaping, Excavation & Construction
- Philadelphia Construction | Expertly Building Homes & Apartment Buildings
- Philadelphia Excavation Company | Large To Small Excavation Projects In Philly
- PA Excavation Work | Excavator | Variety Of Excavation Services
Who would you pick? Definitely the last two, but most likely the third one. Why? They are who you are looking for. All of those construction businesses might provide the services, but the third construction company’s marketing took the time to focus on the customer.
2. Hyper Target Your Construction PPC Ad Campaign
Mentioned above is a way to hyper target your construction customers based on location. Most PPC campaigns do not hyper target customers. Why? Because hyper targeting takes more time and costs more money. PPC that does not hyper target your customer costs more long term.
Most construction PPC campaigns look like this:
- 4-8 campaigns broken down by your services targeting your service area.
- Each campaign has broad keywords you could come up with on your own rather than highering a PPC company.
- Your campaign location targeting is based on a radius around your location.
If you are doing the above, this is lame, and you should fire your PPC company immediately and hire me. What you see above is the most standard of standard PPC campaigns for construction companies. An effective PPC campaign hyper targets your customer.
What does hyper targeted PPC look like for construction companies? Here is an example of hyper target PPC campaigns for a local contractor in Central Pennsylvania:
- Each of the cities, towns, counties, states, and countries you serve with construction services should have campaigns with your different services broken down and localized to each location.
- Keywords should be both short and long.
- Keyword bids should be different (over time).
- Locations bids should be different (over time).
- Locations should be zip code based with small radius circles around towns and cities.
3. Make Bid Adjustments On Higher Converting Keywords & Locations
The reason we hyper target based on zip codes is because then we can place bid adjustments based on higher converting zip codes. Who cares if you get leads from New York or Philadelphia. If you get 10 leads for the price of 1 lead from New York (of equal size) you put your money into Philadelphia. If your marketing company was lazy and simply placed a radius around your business, you cannot perform that bid adjustment.
4. Pick Your Battles With Construction PPC Ads
If there is a lot of competition for specific services or locations, do not fight for it. Move your money within a PPC campaign that makes your business money.
Sometimes there are massive construction companies that are difficult to beat in PPC ads.
5. Place Ad Extensions On Your Construction Ads
Ad extensions are so crucial for a construction company’s PPC strategy. You can get a person to call you before they even see your website. An Ad extension can help your PPC ad’s personalization by providing options your customer is looking for. It can also lead them to call you directly. Always
- Phone Number
- Contact Us
- Related Links On Your Website
- Example: If you have a deck building page on your website and a PPC campaign built around it, and ad extension should be a link to your deck repair and renovation page. The person may be searching “deck builders near me” but they could actually be looking for “deck repair services”
6. Target Competitor Construction Companies With PPC Ads
A potential customer saw your competitor put up a new garage for their neighbor. They want a new garage that is better, or they talked to their neighbor who did not have a great experience with your competitor. Because let’s face it, your construction company is way better than theirs.
They search in Google for the business that put up their neighbor’s garage and bam! You are there with a Google ad above your competitor in the search results. Your ad of course, says why you are better than your competitor and totes your business’s key selling points.
Note: competitor based ads do have certain restrictions and legal requirements, so you should probably hire a professional Pay-Per-Click marketing company like Wes Web to do this.
7. Target Your Own Business Name With PPC Ads (Branded PPC Ads)
If I am already showing up in Google for my business name, why would I create ads? Because it is likely your competitors are targeting you with PPC ads. It is also vital you always show up when your business is searched in Google.
Not showing up for your construction business name on Google has a high likelihood of losing customers.
8. Add Negative Keywords To Your Construction Ads
Negative keywords are one of the most vital aspects of optimizing PPC ad campaigns. It lowers the amount of wasted money in PPC. What are PPC negative keywords? They are keywords we do not want to show up for in Google for.
What are some negative keywords we have added to construction PPC campaigns?
- Lego: Full search “lego construction”
- Amazon
- Craigslist
- Ebay
- Toys: Full search “construction toys”
- Worst
- Terrible
- Bad
- Keywords that do not match the services provided.
- There are so many negative keywords for construction companies we cannot list them all here.
9. Create Personalized Construction Service Landing Pages
It is awkward and annoying when you search for bathroom renovation, click on the first ad, and end up on a page talking about general construction with pictures of pole barns and decks. Make sure your landing page matches your customer’s search.
Having a smooth transition from search to ad to the landing page is such an impactful factor in effective PPC marketing for construction companies.
10. Continually Perform PPC Ad Experiments
One of the most significant opportunities with PPC ads is finding areas and niches of keywords and strategies that are underserved or unreached. PPC ad experiments are great way to widen your construction pay-per-click campaign’s reach. When an experiment fails, you can learn from it, and when it succeeds, you can reach more customers with it.
11. Continually Optimize Your PPC Ads
If you are not adjusting your bids, improving your targeting, and capitalizing on your PPC campaign, your competitors will be. PPC is only as effective as you make it, and the online results are constantly changing. A lot of construction companies create their PPC campaigns in-house and treat them like vending machines they can put money into and pull leads out of. If you treat your pay-per-click ads this way, it is likely you are paying anywhere from 2-20 times as much per lead.
12. Have A Professional Digital Marketing Agency Take Care Of PPC Ads For Your Construction Company
Optimize your construction PPC ads by hiring a professional digital marketing company like Wes Web. We have the tools and experience to get your PPC ads performing their best, and brining many new clients to your company. For PPC optimization for construction business, web design for your construction company, or construction digital marketing, contact us today to see what Wes Web can do for your construction company.