Generator dealers along the East Coast and in the Gulf --- get ready for an “extremely active”...
How much you should be spending and what Ad type is the best to use?
We recently spoke with a Kohler Dealer who had a few of the same questions. Not just generator dealers, but most business owners think that Google Ads are expensive. Here's a few tips that may change your mind and give Google Ads another try.
We've been running campaigns for a few dealers and our budget is small. Less than $1,000 in 30 days. We ARE still testing the waters here so we think that budget should increase slightly over time, but it's not a permenant fixture in the marketing strategy.
Google Ads should only be used to ASSIST with any Google-based marketing strategy. (like the one we're always talking about) Google ads will give you a boost in ranking will continuously pushing for reviews, posting to your Google profile, Angie's List, etc. all at the same time.
Objective
The key here is to gain website traffic. You're showing a lot more on your website than what you can depict in your ad. Funnel all of your traffic to your website, and then tweak the website later to try to convert leads fast.
"Local store visits and promotions" redirects to Performance Max. Which we don't recommend for generator dealers with small budgets.
Ad Type
We tried Performance Max but this requires a bigger budget and more time. This type covers ALL ad bases, display ads, text ads, local, search, etc.. even mobile ads and more. Google's artificial intelligence will experiment with all ad types and learn which is most effective. We think an ad budget of at least $2,500 per month would be good for Performance Max.
Use Search.
These ads will only appear on the Google search page when someone is searching for a generator installation or service. This requires a much smaller budget and can be optimized closely to targeted keywords. There is a little bit of learning involved but you won't have to spend too much or wait too long.
Keywords
Managing keywords is easy, but know that Google will use your tracked keywords to assume matches with what people actually search, and boy, you should see what people search!
Here are some keywords we're tracking
Search Terms
You have to constantly monitor the search terms
Here's the most important part of this. Creating 'negative' keywords. People will not just search 'home generator installer near me'. They'll search for something much more broad like "whole house power for outages". Google has to make the match up to your keywords. So understand that when people are searching 'portable generators' your ads will come up there too. You don't want that. Kill the 'portable generators' keywords or get rid of ANYTHING involving 'portable' so you can spend more money on people looking for 'electricity when there's no power'.
A few other negative keywords to look out for (or eliminate from the get-go):
- Any search terms with the word "marine", "boat", or "portable"
- Any brand names you don't service or install like "honda", "westerbeke", or "briggs", etc.
- And finally, any size units you think are popular that you don't service or install either like, "8,000", "9,000", etc.
Quick Recap
- $500.00 per month spend to start.
- Website Traffic > Search Ad type
- Manage Keywords
- Install more generators, get more service contracts.
