Digital Ads Insights
Digital Ads Insights
Home Services Advertising Insights
Before we provide some insights into advertising for your trade company, we need you to realize that no market is the same and only take these points as general observations, not whole truths. Whatever you read about marketing data, always keep in mind that what works in the US might not play in Canada. And what works in Toronto, may not work in Ottawa. Always try to tweak things for your market and better yet your client base.
Let’s establish a knowledge base so you can understand where the insights were taken from and how you can turn around and use them in your advertising.
Creating the Ideal Customer Avatar
What will help you advertise to clients in your region is to create a profile of what you think they are interested in, how old they are, and where they live. To help answer the interests section, think of what they will buy or spend their time doing. To find this out we suggest you interview your top three clients to collect data about them.
Types of Digital Ads
Boosted Facebook Post
Your Ad is the channel post which is made up of a visual element and the caption you put along with it. The medium dictates the message, A boosted post should look like a regular non-boosted post. Do not shoe-horn a previous ad into a boosted post. Create a post with the end purpose of boosting it.
When a post is made on your Facebook page which is free, instead you pay Meta to increase engagement on the post. The post is boosted and then shown to audiences that are not following your page but may be interested in your company.
This is done by a literal button below the post called: Boost post. Clicking it takes you to a screen that details exactly how the post will be boosted and it is fairly intuitive. If you have your ideal customer profile created before boosting a post it will be rather easy.
When boosting a post, like most online advertising, you can tell Facebook what audience you are targeting by controlling for gender, age, location, and targeting. Detailed targeting splits into many, many options, but is organized by three main categories: Demographics, Interests, and Behaviors.
Meta Ad
Facebook is owned by Meta which owns several Social Media channels, creating an ad on Meta will advertise your product/services across the Meta network and reach a wider customer base.
To create this ad, you will need to go into the Meta Business Suite, which is found on the left toolbar. There are many types of ads you can run that all have different end goals in mind, for example, get more page subscribers, get more leads, promote your business locally, and so on.
Google Display Ad
Display ads are ads that are shown on the articles, videos, or websites that people browse. With Google Ads, you serve your ads on the Google Display Network which is massive. If a client is searching about gardening, your ad may appear next to information about how to best weed a flower bed. This ad is likely an image with short text attached to it or a text display that explains and links to a promo page on your website. You can control exactly what is served, in fact, you need to build exactly what the ad will look like and who it will appear in front of.
Google Search Ads
Search ads only appear to those who are already searching for your product or service on Google. If they are searching for an AC repair, and you are bidding for that search word phrase, then Google will serve your website to the searcher. However, to be one of the companies that Google serves the user, you need to be paying & participating in the rather robust and detailed Google Ads platform.
Google Local Services
A list of companies that are certified by Google and ranked according to 20+ different factors. With enough of a local presence, you can have your company name and Star rating displayed at the top page of the first page of Google based on certain search inquiries.
General Ad Insights About The Trades
The number of times a person sees an ad, the larger the chance they will read it and an impression will be made. Make a strong enough impression and they may reach out to your company. However, show the ad too many times, and they will ignore it.
For an impression to be made, you will need to show the average person 5 times within a four-week time period. After the fourth week of the same ad, it will typically be ignored.
Suggestion: Run digital ad campaigns for no more than four weeks and deliver ads to clients at least once a week.
Consider how much the average person knows about your home service. Chances are they are not at all familiar with the pieces of equipment in their home be it a sink, faucet, water tank, AC, or whatnot. For them, they work until they stop working but they couldn’t tell you the name of the actual replacement they need. Again, it is just an AC, maybe they know the brand, and if you’re lucky the type of motor. That means the client trusts you to offer them what they need. You are not selling an AC, you are selling the solution to their problem: cooling a hot room.
They do not care or know about the equipment you want to sell them, so what can motivate them instead?
What will help you advertise to clients in your region is to create a profile of what you think they are interested in, how old they are, and where they live. To help answer the interests section, think of what they will buy or spend their time doing. To find this out we suggest you interview your top three clients to collect data about them.
Add Language Insights
People are motivated by instant savings and offers that defer payments. Another variation of this is saving the tax since people do not like to pay tax in general. Ad campaigns with the following taglines yield results:
- Winter Savings Event
- No tax, No Payments for 12 months, 0% financing for 36 months.
- Save $700 on a ….
However, the following is far less successful:
- $10,000 in savings
- Low Monthly Payments
- $9 a week
Advertising that you will get a free item in addition to a main product line is an effective way to generate sales leads. Depending on your trade, the items will be different, but there will be one that seems to stand above the rest in terms of visibility. For HVAC, this item was humidifiers, in the ads run that offered various add-ons this item seemed to be the most popular.
When this was tested with specific named humidifiers it did not do well. The observation made tells us to be general rather than specific when advertising equipment. People do not have the knowledge base to distinguish different kinds of humidifiers even if there is a high-end or low-end version. This shows us there is a lack of knowledge about what the trades sell.
Boosted posts work best when they feature employees of the company doing work or showcase one particular worker. The customer details that yield the best engagement were females 25-35 and those interested in new cars, home & garden, food, and news.
As low as (price) works well in search ads and Facebook ads
Spring Special performed well in Google display ads
Don’t Pay Until Summer 2023 performed well Google search ads
Interest Free for 24 Months performed well in Google display ads
Don’t Pay until 2023 performed well in Google Search ads
The insight we can gain is simplicity that triggers curiosity and leads to a click. Let the landing page explain the details.
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