Have you noticed a new type of badge showing up in Google search results? Hi, I’m Christian and with Spark Marketer, and today I want to talk to you about why you should be using Google’s local service ads.
So first up, what are local service ads? Google’s local service ads are a new type of advertising platform that is pay-per-lead, and that Google has been introducing since about 2017. It’s important to note that Google’s local service ads aren’t available for all cities and all industries. We’ll include a link in this video that you can use to see if your business is eligible to get started.
Google’s local service ads are pay-per-lead, not pay-per-click like in Google Ads. You don’t get to choose what keywords to target. You don’t write ads or select landing pages for users to land on. Instead, you select categories and job types that you offer. Google decides what keywords to match with your category or your offerings to show to customers. This makes local service ads a great choice if your business and city are eligible. Local service ads appear above Google ads. So if you’ve already seen local service ads, you may have noticed that they appeared not only above Google Ads, but the Google map local pack and organic results.
Since local service ads and Google Ads are completely separate from one another, that means if you’re on both platforms, your business may actually show up for local service ads, Google Ads, and then of course, if you’re showing up on maps and organic, then those are essentially four spots that your business can show up for relevant keywords to your business.
And finally, there’s no cost to sign up. Similar to Google Ads, there’s no cost to actually sign up for the platform. You just end up paying for, in this case, the leads that you get. You can start and stop local service ads at any time you’d like, and just like Google Ads, you’re only paying for the leads that you’re receiving.
However, even though there’s no cost to sign up, there is a bit of an onboarding process that each business has to take. As part of the onboarding process, each business must submit license and insurance proof and any person, whether it be technician or other staff member that will visit a customer’s home will need to be background checked, and this is done through Google’s partner, the Pinkerton Company.
So hopefully those are enough reasons for you to start using local service ads, if you are eligible. Again, those reasons are, it’s a cost-per-lead model, not cost-per-click. They appear above Google Ads results, and there’s no cost to sign up, but there is a little bit of an onboarding process.
If you have any questions on signing up or using local service ads, feel free to reach out to us, and we’ll see you in the next one.