Due to the competitive nature of the carpet cleaning industry, companies need all the help they can get to surpass competitors. Running PPC ads is one way to do that.
This digital marketing strategy helps grow awareness and online visibility, so customers pick you over others.
Running a PPC campaign involves several moving parts. Companies must ensure they combine seamlessly to achieve the desired results.
To that end, we’ve used our experience building a solid digital marketing solution to explain every aspect of running PPC ad campaigns.
After reading this guide, you'll walk away with a better understanding of how to create a high-performing campaign, pick the right ad formats, and optimize for revenue.
What is Carpet Cleaning PPC?
Carpet cleaning PPC involves paying to display ads on search engines, social media platforms, and other digital platforms. This helps you appear on search engines whenever people search with relevant terms or on the news feed of predetermined audience segments.
Generally, digital platforms use a CPC (cost per click), CPL (cost per lead), or CPM (cost per impression) bidding system to determine prices, which are sometimes steep.
However, the return on investment for a fully optimized PPC ad can easily offset the costs. All you need to do is optimize the campaign according to the respective platform’s auction system and ad algorithm.
How does PPC differ from SEO for carpet cleaners?
PPC and SEO are digital marketing strategies that help companies appear on search engines. But their similarities end there.
While PPC has to be paid for, SEO is a free strategy for driving website traffic. Even the way they are displayed on search engines further emphasizes their dissimilarities.
At the top of SERPs are results created with PPC, labeled with the ‘Sponsored’ tag. Just below them are the familiar blue links that identify the organic results. If your SEO is good, your business will be among the highest-ranking organic links.
Furthermore, while PPC ads are primarily created for lead generation, brands use SEO strategies to create educational content optimized to rank for the right keywords. The major goals of SEO are visibility and brand awareness.
Despite their differences, it’s advisable to use both strategies together.
PPC campaigns can generate qualified leads and appear quickly at the top of search results. However, the associated costs make them unsustainable in the long term.
Therefore, use SEO to drive traffic to your website long-term and promote your business to a broader audience of potential customers seeking assistance with carpet cleaning issues.
What Are The Benefits of PPC for Carpet Cleaning Businesses?
With PPC advertising, carpet cleaning companies appear at the exact moment when customers are searching for their services. This generates quality leads, bringing a fantastic return on investment.
Brandon Doyle, director of marketing at Blue Corona (a full-service digital marketing agency for trade companies) says the home service companies he works with generate a large percentage of their leads from PPC advertising.
“Today, we see about 25 percent of our clients' qualified leads coming from pay-per-click search. So if you combine that with the approximately 30 percent coming from Local Services Ads, we're now up to 55 percent, roughly, of all contractor leads coming from paid advertisements on Google.”
Here are other benefits carpet cleaning companies enjoy from using PPC advertising:
1. Immediate results: With PPC advertising, businesses can get leads immediately after launching ads. This produces valuable customer insights that can be used to run effective campaigns on other channels.
2. Targeted reach: PPC platforms have precise targeting options. You can specify your target audience using filters such as demographics, interests, and location.
3. Measurable ROI: You can track the results of PPC ad campaigns using detailed performance reports provided by digital platforms. These reports display key performance metrics like clickthrough rate (CTR), conversions, and impressions.
4. Brand awareness: PPC ads grow carpet cleaning companies’ online presence, which increases visibility and brand awareness.
5. Competitive edge: Customers who consistently view your brand on search engines or social media feeds will think of you first whenever they need a carpet cleaning company.
What Platforms Do Carpet Cleaners Use for PPC?
Carpet cleaning companies use the following platforms to run PPC advertising campaigns:
1. Google
Although multiple PPC platforms exist, Google Ads reigns supreme. This is thanks to Google’s dominance of the search market and customers’ reliance on the search engine for local business evaluation.
Even better, 64.6 percent of participants in a recent survey say they have clicked on a Google ad when looking to buy something online. And WebFx reports a 200 percent return on investment for companies using the platform.
Advertising with Google Ads gives you the chance to appear on:
Google Search Engine
YouTube
Google Adsense websites
Search partner applications
2. Facebook
Advertising on Facebook allows carpet cleaning companies to target specific audiences using filters like age, hobbies, and interests. Ads typically appear in user’s news feeds, stories, and sponsored sections.
Facebook allows advertisers to select from different ad formats and track the performance of their campaigns using the platform’s intuitive dashboard.
3. LinkedIn
This platform best serves commercial carpet cleaning companies with large entities and a corporate demographic as clients.
You can target the platform’s one billion users and decision-makers using filters such as job title, company headcount and revenue, and industry. The platform also supports retargeting campaigns for reengaging leads.
The cost of running a LinkedIn Ad campaign usually exceeds that of other platforms. However, it’s perfect for promoting high-ticket offers since its users have twice the buying power of average internet users.
4. Instagram
Advertising on Instagram is an excellent way to expand your reach. According to Data Reportal, ads placed on Instagram reached almost half of the United States population.
Instagram offers advertisers various ad formats, including carousels, photos, stories, videos, and IGTV ads. Like Facebook, the platform also has targeting filters for reaching specific audiences.
5. YouTube
Promoting your carpet cleaning services with YouTube videos is an excellent idea, given videos’ proven impact on buying decisions. In a recent survey, 82 percent of customers said they had been convinced to buy a service after watching a video.
You can choose the CPC or CPV (cost-per-view) payment formats and pick from a variety of ad formats: skippable, bumper, non-skippable, overlay, and sponsored ads.
6. Bing
This is the second most-used search engine in the United States after Google.
Carpet cleaning companies advertising on this platform enjoy high visibility, low competition, and low ad costs since most advertisers prioritize appearing on Google.
Paying per click or impression on the Bing PPC platform puts your ads on the search engine and partner platforms affiliated with the Microsoft Advertising Network.
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What Are The Different Types of PPC Ads Carpet Cleaners Use?
Multiple PPC ad types exist. However, due to their unique characteristics, not all of them can be used by a carpet cleaning company.
That being said, here are the six PPC ad types relevant to the goals of carpet cleaning companies:
1. Search ads
These ads appear above the fold of search engine result pages (SERPs).
They resemble organic results, except that they have sponsored tags and various extra features from the linked website or landing page: meta descriptions, ad assets, titles, and favicons.
Search ads usually attract qualified leads since they only appear for high-intent search terms like near-me and location-specific queries. This makes them the perfect choice for landing new customers.
2. Display ads
These are digital images or banners with promotional messages that appear on websites and applications registered to the Google Display Network and Microsoft Advertising Network.
Display ads can be used to reconnect with people who have interacted with your brand without booking an appointment. However, they struggle to generate clicks and conversions, as they appear while people are engrossed in consuming other content.
3. Video ads
Featuring moving images, these ads appear in various placements on YouTube, websites, and applications belonging to popular ad networks. Because of their engaging nature, most marketers use them to generate leads and build awareness.
4. Local Services Ads
Carpet cleaning companies use Local Services Ads (LSAs) to appear for near-me searches by residents in their coverage area.
LSAs contain three top-ranking carpet cleaning companies selected by Google’s algorithm, alongside their key details: phone number, reviews, ratings, and pinned Google Map locations.
Carpet cleaning companies benefit massively from featuring in LSAs, as they attract high-quality leads.
People are also more likely to click on LSAs since they are the first visible search feature for near-me queries. Better still, LSAs are cost-effective as Google charges advertisers for leads generated, not just clicks.
Knowing the power of LSAs, we partnered with Google to create the Local Services Ads integration to help carpet companies generate more ROI from the ad offering. How?
The integration allows companies to add a click-to-book button to their LSAs so customers can book an appointment independently.
This eliminates the need to answer calls outside working hours, manually create records, and search for available appointment slots whenever customers contact you from LSAs.
Customers can enter their details and a full description of their issue using a smart Google form. After filling it out, they receive a summary of the details submitted.
Meanwhile, on the backend, the customer’s details are automatically saved in ServiceTitan’s CRM while the job booking enters your scheduling system. This allows CSRs to follow up with the customer and confirm the appointment.
This seamless booking process helps you maximize ROI from every dollar spent running LSAs.
5. Social media ads
These are PPC ads hosted on social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn. They offer carpet cleaning companies the opportunity to target specific audience segments based on demographics, interests, and more.
6. Remarketing
Carpet cleaning companies use remarketing ads to target internet users who visit their websites. For example, you can target people who interact with the services page without booking an appointment.
Remarketing ads are known to have high conversion rates since the people who see them usually need little convincing to book an appointment.
How Do I Create a PPC Advertising Campaign for a Carpet Cleaning Business?
Creating a PPC campaign can feel overwhelming, especially for non-technical business owners.
Here’s an eight-step process for creating effective PPC advertising campaigns:
1. Understand your customer
Rather than immediately creating ad campaigns, begin with in-depth customer research. This will give you sufficient knowledge to pick the right platform and create ads that will resonate with potential customers.
Questionnaires and surveys are great starting points for customer research. Discover the platforms they frequently use, their preferred content formats, and the carpet issues they struggle with.
Marketing software, social media, industry research reports, Google Analytics, and competitor analysis can help you gain more valuable customer insights.
2. Pick the right platform
Picking the right platform becomes a breeze if you’ve performed in-depth customer research.
Your platform should reflect your brand identity, target customer segment, and PPC ad format.
For example, a carpet cleaning company targeting mostly younger homeowners can use TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, or Google Ads. Conversely, one targeting large organizations and business owners would stick to LinkedIn and Google Ads.
3. Set your campaign’s goals
Goals provide an explicit success benchmark and align the campaign with achieving business objectives that contribute to the company’s growth.
Goal-setting also makes it easy to identify issues.
Let’s say your goal is to grow website traffic by 10 percent. Any result below that expectation prompts you to identify what’s wrong and fix it immediately.
To set the right goal, consider the results you wish to achieve that align with what your business currently lacks. Are leads decreasing? Is brand awareness dwindling?
Here are PPC ad goals, depending on your desired results and business needs:
Drive website traffic
Generate a certain number of leads
Grow brand awareness
Get a specific number of people to sign up for an offer
Generate free-estimate requests
Ensure your goals are explicitly outlined. This will make tracking success easier and align the campaign with other marketing efforts.
4. Set targeting criteria
PPC ads are only effective if the right people see them. Therefore, use the information gained from customer research to select the right targeting criteria.
Specify your target audience’s demographics, location, interests, and online behavior. If you’re running search engine ads, perform keyword research to specify the search queries you want to trigger the ads.
Follow this three-step process to perform effective keyword research.
First, find the right keywords. Free tools like Google Keyword Planner and premium tools like Ahref and Surfer SEO excel at this. Simply input your seed keyword and wait as the algorithm generates related keywords.
Next, pick keywords from the list generated with a transactional search intent (“hire carpet cleaner”) or a navigational one (“carpet cleaner near me”). People searching with such queries will likely need a carpet cleaner and, therefore, book an appointment.
To confirm a keyword’s search intent, simply use it to perform a Google search and notice the organic results displayed. For example, finding blog posts means the keyword has an informational search intent.
However, specialized SEO tools can be used to find the search intent and save time.
5. Define your budget
Your budget will depend on desired results, target keywords, and the season. Due to increased competition, ad costs tend to increase during holidays and other special events.
Before setting a PPC ad campaign budget, calculate the revenue generated for the previous period. Then, use it to define your marketing budgets, which experts suggest can be five to ten percent (for residential companies) or two to five percent (for commercial companies) of generated revenue.
After setting a marketing budget, decide on the amount you wish to dedicate to PPC ad campaigns.
Then, use Google Keyword Planner to find the estimated CPC of all the selected keywords, add them up, and multiply the result by 30.4 to get your monthly PPC budget.
Add a little markup to the final result to get your total PPC ad budget.
6. Decide on your bidding strategy
Bidding strategies determine how PPC ad platforms consume the budget.
PPC ad platforms offer carpet cleaning companies different bidding strategies from which to choose. This includes maximum CPC, automated bidding, maximized CPM, enhanced CPC, and smart bidding.
Your choice of bidding strategy depends on your campaign goal, PPC ad budget, and current season.
Here’s Blue Corona’s Brandon Doyle on how to determine what bidding strategy is best for you.
“If you're comfortable spending your entire budget, I recommend [you] maximize leads. But if you're saying, ‘Hey, I want to be sensitive to how much I'm paying for a lead,’ that's where you might take that max-per-lead play when it comes to your bid strategy.”
Learn more: Explore more strategies for picking an appropriate bidding strategy.
7. Create your ad
Now is where the work begins. Use everything you learned about your potential customers to design an ad to convert and fulfill business goals.
Before writing the copy, identify the approach you wish to take.
Do you want to highlight the benefits of signing up for the offer? Are you taking the problem-solution approach? Will you be using testimonials from real customers to prove credibility?
Once you’ve settled on the approach, create multiple ad variants and pick the best ones. Remember to incorporate keywords naturally and add callout assets (if you’re running search ads) to attract users’ attention.
Lastly, create an attractive visual (image or video, depending on the PPC ad type) that captures attention and aligns with the ad copy.
8. Monitor your campaigns
The work is not done after you launch your campaign. You still need to monitor its performance and make adjustments where appropriate.
For example, you might need to tweak the copy to increase the ROI. Or change the visual to boost impressions.
You can track the following key performance indicators:
Click-through rate (CTR)
Impressions
Return on ad spend (ROAS)
Cost per acquisition (CPA) or cost per lead (CPL)
You can track these metrics using free SEO tools such as Google Analytics and Google Ads.
However, such tools track only clicks and calls, a major issue since those clicks and calls don’t always convert into revenue. A customer can abruptly cut the call after discovering they called the wrong number, click on an ad, and fail to convert.
To make matters worse, Google may reallocate your budget to that campaign, especially if it didn’t cost more. Your campaign will, therefore, attract more low-quality leads who don’t convert.
Fortunately, we created the Marketing Pro – Ads platform to resolve this attribution issue.
The platform uses unique tracking numbers to recognize which campaign brings in each job booking. It also has an Ad Optimizer that uses artificial intelligence to optimize your PPC campaigns for revenue, using ServiceTitan conversion and Google Ads CPL data. This increases lead quality.
Recommended watch: How to increase your Google ads revenue with ServiceTitan’s Ad Optimizer.
Liz Soto, Account Manager at Proximo Marketing, says they recorded a 16 percent increase in lead quality after using the Ads Optimizer to run a PPC campaign.
“What I love about Ads Optimizer is that any jobs and revenue booked that were considered qualified leads can then be filtered back into the Google Ads platform,” Soto says.
“You can optimize toward that very specific type of transaction or [people like that customer].”
“Now, instead of optimizing toward potential calls, we're actually optimizing toward what you want, which is revenue,” she adds.
Recommended watch: How to increase your Google ads revenue with ServiceTitan’s Ad Optimizer.
How Can You Optimize a Carpet Cleaning Company’s PPC Campaign?
The digital ad landscape can change quickly. PPC ad strategies that worked yesterday may suddenly stop generating clicks or even conversions.
In such situations, you may need to reallocate budgets, re-optimize landing pages, tweak targeting criteria, etc.
Below are some PPC ad campaign optimization strategies:
1. Optimize your landing pages
The essence of a landing page is to convert the leads generated by the ad. But that won’t happen if it's poorly optimized.
Your landing page should reflect the ad’s content, fulfill the ad's promise, and direct visitors to take action.
Optimize the landing page for user experience to boost your ad quality score. The landing page must be uncluttered, load fast, and prompt action concisely.
Lastly, place the phone number and click-to-call button in a visible position, preferably at the top-right corner, in line with people’s natural reading pattern.
2. Include relevant CTAs
Use CTAs matching the ad’s content to prompt action. The text on the button should be clear so visitors know the next step.
For example, if your ad promises a discount, the CTA can read as “Get Your Discount Now.”
CTAs should also be designed with a color that differentiates them from the landing page’s background color scheme. This way, customers can find the button easily whenever they need to take action.
3. Hyper-target your audience
The more refined your targeting is, the greater the chances of meeting prospective customers’ needs, leading to conversions.
Hyper-targeting audiences can be done by including location filters or tailoring your ad to specific zip codes and neighborhoods.
You can also use ad scheduling or dayparting to display your ads at specific times when target audiences are most active.
4. Choose negative keywords when needed
Negative keywords are search terms or phrases you can add to your campaign setup so the ads don’t appear for irrelevant keywords. This saves costs and boosts conversions.
For example, let’s say your goal is to generate leads. You can add informational and DIY keywords to avoid appearing for non-revenue generating searches.
To identify negative keywords, regularly check the search term report in Google Ads to discover the phrases triggering your ads. Then, include the irrelevant ones in the negative keyword list.
5. A/B test your campaigns
A/B testing involves running two ads that differ in just one element to see which performs better. This can help you allocate resources to only high-performing campaigns.
When A/B testing, start with a hypothesis like, “Changing the landing page’s color scheme will increase conversions by X percent.”
Then, create the ad variants, launch them, and monitor their performance to determine which one to allocate more resources to.
Talking about performance monitoring, ServiceTitan’s Home Services Marketing software helps carpet cleaning companies monitor ad performance.
The software tracks revenue performance and displays the data using intuitive dashboards, showing the areas generating the most calls.
These data insights help you quickly improve campaign performance and identify customer behavior changes.
Back to You Now
It’s already clear that PPC advertising is an excellent digital marketing strategy for generating leads. However, it shouldn’t be used in isolation.
Combine PPC ad campaigns with other online and offline marketing channels such as organic social media, search engine optimization, direct mail, referral, and email marketing.
Manage the performance of all your marketing campaigns using our all-in-one roofing software, ServiceTitan, to prevent wasted ad spend.
ServiceTitan is a cloud-based software tool built to help home service companies automate and streamline their business processes. Thousands of HVAC, electrical, plumbing, garage door, roofing, and carpet cleaning contractors have used it to increase their revenue by an average of 25 percent in just one year.
Kickstart your business with carpet cleaning software.
