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4 Reasons Why Facebook Ads Results Can Look Different For Home Service Businesses

4 Reasons Why Facebook Ads Results Can Look Different For Home Service Businesses

by | Apr 20, 2020 | Client Tips, Facebook

Adding Facebook Ads to your marketing strategy can be a great way to grow your business, increase brand awareness, and engage with potential and existing customers. But one thing that can make business owners uneasy is how different results can be.

One industry — say ecommerce, for example —could see really high conversion rates and easily identify return on ad spend (ROAS), while another industry — say home services — could see lower numbers and have a challenging time figuring out ROAS.

What’s going on here? Do Facebook Ads just not work as well for some industries as they do for others?

If you’re running Facebook Ads for your home services business and you’re wondering why your results always look different from the results you’re hearing about from business owners in other industries, you’re not alone.

Facebook Ads are definitely worth it for home service businesses — but there are four reasons why your Facebook Ads results will always look different from industries like retail and ecommerce…

#1 Selling a Home Service Business Just Takes Longer

Think about it: the sales cycle for a home services business is not the same as the sales cycle for an ecommerce business or a retail shop. You don’t have to have a relationship with a brand to click the “buy now” button for a pair of shoes you’re drooling over. You just have to know how and where to buy.

So think about that in terms of Facebook Ads….a retail or ecommerce store may only have to get an ad in front of a potential customer one time before that potential customer becomes a paying customer. As a result, it can *seem* like Facebook Ads are really cheap for ecommerce and retail businesses.

It’s easy for customers to open up their wallets for low ticket items, but home service businesses are not typically selling low ticket items.You’re not typically selling products that provide immediate gratification or any of the other tangible pleasures that retail provides.

Buyers typically want to know more than just how and where to hire you before they make the jump from potential customer to paying customer. They want to have a relationship with the brand first, because…

#2 Hiring the Wrong Home Service Business Carries More Risk

It doesn’t take much convincing to get a potential customer to click the “buy now” button for a pair of shoes they can’t wait to slip their feet into — especially when there are things in place to reduce risk, like fast shipping and easy returns. Even if they haven’t purchased from the brand before, risk is minimal. They can always get their money back and life will be no worse than it was before they bought the shoes.

But as a home services business, you’re selling something less tactile and far riskier — a service.

When you hire a plumber you’ve never worked with before to come into your home and install a costly new tankless water heater, there’s a lot that could go wrong if you hire the wrong company.

The plumber could show up late, or not at all. They could damage the water heater or install it wrong. They could leave you with a massive bill that far exceeds the number you were quoted at the start. They could stop in the middle of the job and leave your home a total mess.

In other words, there are a lot of what ifs that you have to contend with when you hire someone to perform a service, that you don’t have with the shoe purchase. And that’s true for your customers, too.

They’re what if-ing their little hearts out, and they want to minimize risk as much as possible.

They want to know they’re going to be charged a fair price, that the work will be done right, and that their property will be taken care of. They want to know that the contractor will be clean, professional, and trustworthy. After all, they’re going to be in their home around their pets and kids.

And here’s another reason hiring the wrong home services company feels riskier than making an ecommerce purchase: Chances are, the work being done is out of the homeowner’s area of expertise.

They can look at a pair of shoes and judge their quality, but they wonder: Will I able to tell if a plumber does the job wrong, cuts corners, or tells me I need something I don’t?

This increased risk and lack of confidence is exactly why people will ask their friends and family for contractor referrals, but aren’t likely to ask where their friends or family buy their shoes. It’s why people check reviews before they pick up the phone.

The truth is: when we make a purchase — especially a high ticket purchase — we all want to know we’re making the right choice and that it’s going to be okay. And when it comes to a purchase that could affect the value, comfort, and integrity of our homes, we want to be extra sure.

For that reason, more ads are typically needed for a home services business to see a conversion on Facebook.

You have to get your name and business out in front of a potential customer multiple times to build trust and authority with your audience. They have to become familiar with your brand — because familiarity minimizes risk and increases confidence.

So, it’s not that you’re paying more for Facebook Ads as a home service business — it’s that you will likely need to run more ads over more time to turn a prospect into a paying customer.

#3 Home Services Are Not an Impulse Buy

One of my closets is filled with shoes, bags, and jewelry. That’s it. Do I really need another pair of black boots or another bag? Absolutely not. But will I justify spending money on both if I see an ad that catches my eye? Of course.

I don’t care who you are, getting new things that you absolutely love feels good. Spending thousands of dollars on a new plumbing fixture install for your home does not.

It doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy the benefits of the plumbing fixture — it just means the urgency, cost, and benefits are perceived differently than they are with an ecommerce product.

The service you provide is not something your customers expect to squeal with delight over. And it’s definitely not an impulse buy. So ad conversion requires more context and more frequency.

Let me explain…

If I see a new bag I love on sale for under $100, I’ll start doing the math. I’ll think, Well, I recently stopped drinking, so I’m saving X amount of money on wine each week, which adds up to $100 in X amount of time.

What’s that mental calculation come out to? I deserve that new bag and I should get it.

All the ecommerce company has to do is show me an ad once, maybe twice — then they’re done selling. I do the rest of the selling in my head.

As a home service business, you’ve got to work a lot harder and so do your ads. You have to convince them that they need your services as urgently as they need that thing they really, really want — the thing saved in their Amazon wish list.

You’ve got to convince them that you’re the right company for the job, and that risk is so low and the experience so stress-free that they have no reason to defer the decision to a later time.

You’ve got to convince them that the gain is greater than the loss — that they’ll be glad they called. And it’s not going to take one ad — it’s typically going to take many.

#4 ROAS Isn’t as Straightforward for Home Services Businesses

For an ecommerce business, ROAS can be easily calculated if the Facebook pixel is set up properly, because the pixel will trace the user’s ad view or click through to the point of purchase. When your sale happens on the website and you have a purchase event that is triggered, tracking is super simple.

But for service businesses, the return is a little harder to see — not because you’re not seeing a return, but because the end goal (a purchase) doesn’t typically happen on your website.

You’re asking the person who sees your ad to take the next step in the sales process, which is typically to visit your website or give you a call. But there’s no product to buy online, no purchase event to trigger, so that’s the end of easy ROAS tracking.

To figure out the ROAS of your Facebook Ads, you’ll have to:

  1. Look at attribution — If your customers have Facebook IDs and your Facebook pixel is set up properly, you should be able to tell if a customer saw one of your ads at any point in the customer journey. Attribution reveals what online and offline actions can be attributed to your ads, so you know if your ads are effectively getting people to take specific actions and become paying customers.
  2. Look at your call tracking — While call tracking won’t give you a complete or 100% accurate picture, it’s a key tool for evaluating the effectiveness of Google Ads and Facebook Ads. Just remember, you probably won’t see the same high numbers with Facebook that you might see with Google, because Facebook Ads are more focused on nurturing and getting customers earlier in the buying stage — not on those hot leads who need your services ASAP. But you should see calls coming from your Facebook Ads! Also, keep in mind that someone may have seen your ad on Facebook, but ended up researching and clicking to call on Google. It may look like the lead came from Google, when in reality, the ad played a pivotal role in getting the call.
  3. Look at this year vs. last year — Another great way to tell if your Facebook Ads are working is to compare the number of calls and booked jobs you’re getting this year vs. last year (assuming you weren’t running Facebook Ads last year). You should see an increase in calls and booked jobs if you’re using Facebook Ads, so if you don’t, there’s a problem. But when considering the numbers, take into account any and all marketing changes that you made in that time frame.
  4. Ask your customers —It also never hurts to ask your customers what made them call you. Ask if they remember seeing any ads on Facebook. It’s simple, but it can help you track ROAS!

Hopefully this blog post has been informative and cleared up some of the confusion you may have had around Facebook and ROAS for service businesses.

Paid Ads Meet The Local Pack: An Interview With Tom Smodic

Paid Ads Meet The Local Pack: An Interview With Tom Smodic

by | Jul 15, 2016 | Need To Know

It’s no secret that things are always changing with the Wild Wide Web, but if you feel like changes are happening at an accelerated speed as of late, you’re not alone. This week, we sat down with Tom Smodic, our Marketing Manager and former Lead Account Manager. His chosen week of vacation this summer just so happened to align with one of Google’s biggest recent changes: the addition of an Ad to the local pack. We’ve asked him to talk about how fast things are changing and what this change means for small business owners. Here are some of the highlights.

Tom: I was gone a week, and the biggest change I saw was that Google started to monetize the local pack, which is different than organic and different than Google Ads.

For those of you who don’t know, the local pack, which is an area specifically reserved for local businesses, was at one time a seven spot, then five, then three. Now, for all intents and purposes, it’s a two spot.

Tom: Two out of the three are based on whatever algorithm Google has for local service businesses, but then the third can be paid. Whether that’s going to impact people’s decision-making has yet to be seen because it hasn’t fully rolled out yet. Are people going to care that one of these is an Ad or are they just looking to see where things are located?

Were you surprised that Google took this step and sort of crept into the local pack space?

Tom: It was not so much a shock, not so much a surprise. We’ve seen Google looking at how to change that space, whether it was the “Request a Contractor,” “Request A Quote,” and things like that, or things like this. They’re always looking to deliver results. But what you have to remember is that Google is a Search Engine, but they’re also an Advertising Platform, and they’re in it to make money. They’re not in it for altruistic reasons, they’re in it to make money. And if they find a way to do that without disrupting everything that they’ve kind of built their reputation on, they’re going to do it. So, I think we’re just seeing that trend continue.

Do you think this trend has picked up any momentum or simply remained steady?

Tom: I think it’s accelerated since I’ve been working here, just the amount of changes. They’re looking to do some more things in real time, like updates and search results, as opposed to set updates and stuff like that. It’s not that you’ll have a change like this every week, but Google’s always looking. And it’s not like there’s going to be a huge announcement or anything like that. You’re not going to get an update on your phone telling you what happened, it just kind of does. And it’s up to us to stay on top of that as best we can so we can answer the questions that may come up from our clients. That’s part of the ongoing day-to-day thing that a lot of people don’t realize. Because it’s changing, we have to stay on top of the landscape. If we stopped reading two years ago and just said, “Well, we know how this works,” or “We know what we’re doing,” we’d be in trouble because a lot of it has changed since then. We have to keep up to date. I just happened to pick the one week where Google made a significant change, though it’s yet to be seen if people will even notice or care.

Until we see whether this affects people’s decision-making when searching for local services, what advice do you have for business owners?

Tom: It still boils down to having good reviews. If you’re running your company well and delivering good service – from the first phone call that the customer makes to your company to the final follow-up and anything beyond that – if you’re delivering the right customer service to them and are friendly, don’t overcharge, or do those things that customers don’t like, they’ll be more inclined to leave a good review. And you won’t be scrambling to keep up with somebody and keep reviews fresh. It all comes back to that. Are you delivering value to your customer base and are you doing a good job of it? Whether it’s online or offline, your customers are going to talk to people – whether they leave a good review or they go tell their neighbor. Run your company well and make sure your customers are satisfied. Let them know that you appreciate their business and that you’d really appreciate it if they shared their experience by writing you a review on Facebook or Google.

Unfortunately, most people aren’t going to just write reviews unless they’re dissatisfied, so you’ve got to ask. And believe me, reviews matter! BrightLocal just conducted a survey and showed users a mock-up of the new local pack with an Ad. The third business got more clicks even though it wasn’t first in the pack. Why? Because it had good reviews!

Google-local-pack-mock-up-with-map

Do you think a lot of the reasoning behind the acceleration of changes has to do with mobile?

Tom: Yeah, I think mobile is the reason for it. When I started, mobile was there, but there wasn’t that big of an emphasis on it. Google’s trying to create the same experience across both desktop and mobile. Searching on mobile, you’re looking for more real time results, especially when you’re looking for gas stations, places to eat, and things like that. Google knows they have a limited window to deliver the right service to the right person at the right time. So, whether it’s paid for or it’s just through organic search results, they know they have to get it right sooner. Whereas on desktop, it may be a little less time-sensitive.

But not only that, there’s less screen space with mobile. There’s just not as much real estate and they’re trying to put the most relevant result in front of the right person at the right time. So yeah, I think mobile plays into it and probably rightfully so. I don’t think desktop’s going to go away any time soon, but for these types of searches, time-sensitive searches, people on the go, Google knows they have to get it right. And I think that trend’s only going to continue.

Do you think we’re headed in the direction where business owners are going to have to invest in both organic and paid search?

Tom: I think there’s going to be a time when that is true, especially for the smaller guys. How much will need to be invested in paid, I’m not sure, but I think, just with the way Google’s moving, it could end up being a full front page of paid search results. That could just be it. Now whether or not, as that happens, people start to distrust the results is yet to be seen. Again, people might not even care. So, I think it kind of depends on where you’re located and your market. Every market is different. I think the thing to keep in mind is, people are not buying services or products from a company or a brand even, they’re buying from people. So, yes, you want to show up and you want to be in search results, and there might be a time where you have to pay for that, but there’s a lot that you can do offline. Like I said, focus on your systems, focus on your processes, focus on the people that you hire, because you can control those. You can’t always control Google’s algorithms – people think we can, but unfortunately we really can’t. Though I wish we could!

It’s hard to say what Google will really do, but the latest changes just suggest they’re looking to make money in any way they can. Just like any other business, you kind of have to adjust to where your customers are. But for people to go to another Search Engine would take a colossal fail on Google’s part – they’d have to really screw up the user experience to drive people away at this point.

However, I do think more people are going to start looking for businesses on Facebook, Yelp, Instagram, etc., in addition to Google. They’re going to look in multiple places to research a business beforehand. I think they’ll look to local groups and within local communities, paying more attention to the local area and wanting to stay within local. And that’s an advantage that local service businesses have that big brands don’t – they’re more personable & approachable, and you can leverage that by being a part of the community, being visible, being active.

Establish your brand and put yourself out there in your community so that people know who you are and want to do business with you specifically. It’s more than TV commercials and radio – be a resource for those in your area, sponsor little league teams, refer your customers to other local businesses.

There are ways it can be done, but I think in terms of pure search, there might be a time where you do have to allocate some funds for paid search. But then, what do you do after? What’s the experience like after the person finds you? I mean, these are the things you need to think about. They can find you, but if you have bad reviews, no reviews, or are perceived to provide a bad customer experience, then they’re going to go to somebody else, regardless of how far up or down on the first page of search results you are.

Even if you get lucky and capture that click or phone call because you’re first in organic and first in the maps, if the person picking up the phone has the wrong tone, you could lose the customer that way. So you have to be cognizant from the very beginning, all the way to the end of service, and be consistent. Like I said, you might get that click or that call, but what happens after that is ultimately in your control and will determine if they do business with you and come back to you. If you’re in business, you’re in the people business, regardless of your industry. Search may change, but that’s not going to change

So, we’ll just have to wait and see with Google.