Google PPC for a service rather than a product?

[chris424uk]

Hi,

Just looking for some advice mainly. I'm looking into starting a Google PPC campaign for my services (wedding photography). Now, I understand that PPC could be beneficial if you are selling a product - customer clicks ad and then buys the product = immediate return on your money.

However, for a service I'm not sure it's a good idea yet. For example, customer clicks the ad, and my call-to-action is for them to contact me for a quote, so depending on the results of this, I would not get an immediate return for my money.

Any advice or experienced users of this?

 

[MASSEY]

Customer clicks and buys the product? Maybe in certain scenarios but for most i would imagine it is a click, browse of product and then hit the back button to see whether or not there are cheaper places to buy or to research the company to see what their reviews are like and maybe even check out the delivery terms to see if they suit!

You can only try and see. If you have never done adwords before you''ll get a free voucher. Set up some exact match terms for [wedding photographer area] and see what happens. But your keywords may be low search volume so you might have to do what i have started to do which is a bit more complicated but not rocket science.

It does work for services and i can't see why it wouldn't for you - provided your website is 'decent'

 

[Annoying Donkey]

my call-to-action is for them to contact me for a quote

Better to try and grab their email address to you have more than one chance to sell to them and get a better ROI on your PPC spend. Offer a freebie, "Guide to choosing a wedding photographer", or even "Guide to creating the most fantastic wedding ever - on a budget". Then you have the possibility to sell other complimentary services or advertising/advertorials in your guide - as well as future services - Photos of your first born, annual birthday photos, graduation, wedding, grandchild... In other words, lifetime customers...

 

[directmarketingadvice]

For example, customer clicks the ad, and my call-to-action is for them to contact me for a quote, so depending on the results of this, I would not get an immediate return for my money.

By the same logic, you'd reject every single form of marketing.

In which case, how do you intend to promote your business?

Steve

 

[PIers Ede]

Works fine for wedding photography, we've run a number of such campaigns. Phone tracking is important, so you can optimise to conversion. And yes it takes time and effort to get your money back. But with a good wedding photographer charging several thousand for a day, it's not too hard.

 

[Nochexman]

I'm looking into starting a Google PPC campaign for my services (wedding photography). Now, I understand that PPC could be beneficial if you are selling a product - customer clicks ad and then buys the product = immediate return on your money.

However, for a service I'm not sure it's a good idea yet. For example, customer clicks the ad, and my call-to-action is for them to contact me for a quote, so depending on the results of this, I would not get an immediate return for my money.

Yes, it works, but you need to have a better idea of what constitutes success for you. If you only think in terms of click = immediate return then you probably won't think that any result could be successful. A click might just be the first step in a successful process.

 

[PugDigitalUK]

I've run many campaigns for clients who offer a service and suffice to say if done effectively then you'll see ROI.

You are correct, you're not going to get an immediate return, as you'll simply be generating leads. You will naturally need to invest your time in following up viable leads.

You'll need to make sure the landing page is optimised with a clear call-to-action, such as the form to capture leads. However, there will need to be a clear incentive for a potential customer to want to leave their details. This is why you'll have to differentiate yourself from the rest in a rather competitive market.

Creating an informative guide that prospective customers would wish to download is another great way of generating email leads.

 

[LukeF]

Hi,

Just looking for some advice mainly. I'm looking into starting a Google PPC campaign for my services (wedding photography). Now, I understand that PPC could be beneficial if you are selling a product - customer clicks ad and then buys the product = immediate return on your money.

However, for a service I'm not sure it's a good idea yet. For example, customer clicks the ad, and my call-to-action is for them to contact me for a quote, so depending on the results of this, I would not get an immediate return for my money.

Any advice or experienced users of this?

By the same logic, you'd reject every single form of marketing.

In which case, how do you intend to promote your business?

Steve

I completely agree with Steve. You're selling a service, so what other marketing method would give you an immediate return? Facebook ads, SEO, referrals etc will all get traffic to your website but no one will purchase straight away.

If someone phones you up without even going to your website are they going to buy straight away? No. I don't want to patronise you, but surely you understand there's a process to closing a sale?

You have to understand that with a service you don't generate sales straight away, they have to be turned into leads first. Then from here, you begin the closing process.

 

[makeusvisible]

The most important thing for you from day one, is to understand your conversion rates. In order to do that, you are going to have to consider that some people will phone, and some will use the form on the website.

The form on the website is an easy one....and you should setup conversion tracking so that you know exactly how many people contact you via a campaign....and then you can start drilling into which specific adverts and which specific keywords are working/not working, and thus target your budget accordingly.

In terms of phone conversion....you can assign a phone number to your Adwords account, and then with a little bit of code, display that number on the site when someone has clicked on your advert....in place of your normal phone number. If someone calls the number the call still gets routed to your phone...with the added benefit that you can track it as a conversion with Adwords.

 

[Shopclicks]

However, for a service I'm not sure it's a good idea yet.

You might want to do both but I'd be spending time and money on Social Media (Instagram in particular), before spending money on Google PPC.

 

[boring-friday]

just seo it, will be easy

 

[chris424uk]

Boring-Friday, can you describe in more detail what you mean? Do you mean, just optimise the website on-page and off? This is proving a long and arduous affair, so I'm focusing on PPC as a quick-fix for traffic (it's prime time for booking weddings right now).

But you guys have given me food for thought, so my considerations are now;

• Google PPC?
• Facebook Marketing?

Any recommendations on what would be cost effective for wedding photography? Depending on how specific the targetting is, I'd be looking to target the newly engaged and people asking for recommendations on their Facebook walls for photographers.

 

[boring-friday]

Boring-Friday, can you describe in more detail what you mean? Do you mean, just optimise the website on-page and off? This is proving a long and arduous affair, so I'm focusing on PPC as a quick-fix for traffic (it's prime time for booking weddings right now).

But you guys have given me food for thought, so my considerations are now;

• Google PPC?
• Facebook Marketing?

Any recommendations on what would be cost effective for wedding photography? Depending on how specific the targetting is, I'd be looking to target the newly engaged and people asking for recommendations on their Facebook walls for photographers.

On site is simple, just make sure its not over optimized, add in 2-3 citations and business listings per day, couple of profile links then order a gsa blast on fiver to them, 500-100 contextual links to each and then find some pbn posts to drip feed. Boom rank 1

 

[chris424uk]

Order a GSA blast on Fiver? I'm not down with the jargon I'm afraid :S

 

[boring-friday]

Order a GSA blast on Fiver? I'm not down with the jargon I'm afraid :S

Its just a bot that builds 1000s of links per minute, obviously if you build 1000s of links to your own site then google chucks your site in the dustbin.
So you make a link on a dofollow site thats popular like some of the big citation sites and send 100s of links to each, because those sites are a 'authority' to google and popular they have millions of inbound links so its normal and google thinks 'oh this page is popular' instead and then because that page links to your site it passes on the link juice to your site.

Have a read about tiered link building or private blog networks and make sure you don't fall into the white hat pothole

 

[Annoying Donkey]

Its just a bot that builds 1000s of links per minute, obviously if you build 1000s of links to your own site then google chucks your site in the dustbin.
So you make a link on a dofollow site thats popular like some of the big citation sites and send 100s of links to each, because those sites are a 'authority' to google and popular they have millions of inbound links so its normal and google thinks 'oh this page is popular' instead and then because that page links to your site it passes on the link juice to your site.

Have a read about tiered link building or private blog networks and make sure you don't fall into the white hat pothole

That advice should come with a health warning...

 

[boring-friday]

That advice should come with a health warning...

If you say so lol, I've about 15 websites, only 2 of which are completely whitehat, want to guess which 1 got penalized? 1 of the whitehat ones, paid £500 for a infographic, went viral, boom penalty for unnatural link building. All the ones with 300-1000 pbn links are fine though

 

[Danielfoley]

Remember the saying keep it simple stupid, some tips for you:

1. Before you do ANY PPC, know your marketplace (your geo region, search keyword volumes)
2. Understand keyword intent (are people looking for pictures, a service, guides?)
3. Make sure your landing pages are of good quality, good engagement, simple, responsive
4. Create your adwords campaign, break adgroups down so they are very granular
5. Use single keyword adgroups (SKAGS) and make sure you use the correct match types
6. Create negative keyword lists to filter out the wrong intent or garbage
7. Make sure you alternate and adjust ad text and use dynamic keyword insertion
8. Use sitelinks, call extensions etc.
9. Make sure you setup goal tracking and make sure it is working in adwords

DO NOT let Google manually bid for you (A lot of people will tell you otherwise), set your bids manually and adjust based on the quality scores.

8, 9 and 10/10 big high, you'll pay a much lower CPC, 7/10 bid recommended est of top of page bid and below 7 / 10 bid cautiously

Hope that helps

 

[neils3]

I do some PPC work also for a wedding event related service and they get one sale from approx every £30 spend on Google adwords. Average sale is £300 and big percentage is profit, so they're in the money!

The key to PPC is making sure you're not just taking a short term view, you got to be patient and tweak it to find the sweet spot.

 

[Elliottc26]

PPC is good when done well but as others have said it's not a quick money making scheme. The buyer process depending on the service/product can be from 1 week, to 6 months or more.

Conversions could be viewing your fees page or going to the contact page, or the contact form success page, or the sale complete page, or a combination (a funnel) as it's all showing an interest and a potential buying behaviour: 1+2+3=conversion.

It takes time, tweaking, research, etc.,. So as it's a funnel, you may have figures like 200 clicks, 20 conversions, 10 calls, 5 sales (as an example of a funnel). A click in March may not be a sale until August. Just depends.

 

[Deleted member 233498]

Now, I understand that PPC could be beneficial if you are selling a product - customer clicks ad and then buys the product = immediate return on your money.

However, for a service I'm not sure it's a good idea yet. For example, customer clicks the ad, and my call-to-action is for them to contact me for a quote, so depending on the results of this, I would not get an immediate return for my money.

Any advice or experienced users of this?

I certainly can.

All I do is financial lead generation via PPC - I get paid for each LEAD I generate such as an insurance quote, a loan application or a Debt Management inquiry. These are all leads/quote based, but my ROI and Profit is a heck of a lot higher than if I were to promote sales based products.

The same goes for the merchants and brokers. Their entire business model is built upon customers looking for a quick online quote ... and then following up with a phone call trying to sell their policies.

So in certain markets such as finance, you may find it's still an extremely lucrative business to include LEADS into your sales-funnel

Nick

 

[StevePoster]

Just looking for some advice mainly. I'm looking into starting a Google PPC campaign for my services (wedding photography). Now, I understand that PPC could be beneficial if you are selling a product - customer clicks ad and then buys the product = immediate return on your money.

It seems that you are focusing only in PPC for your services and limiting the other opportunities to expand your influence. Consider other possible mediums like SEO - establishing your site in the related field and it will take time but worth it in the long run. Joining in active online community that are related to your services will help a lot in targeting your audience.

 

[Whitefish Marketing]

For any service based business, this is the nature of the beast. You are looking to get lead enquiries, not immediate sales. Google PPC is still just as useful for a service as any product. Put yourself in the position of your client, looking for a wedding photographer. They will want to meet you, like your personality, discuss options, then get a quote. No customer is likely to make an instantaneous purchase - they will all want a quote first.

 

[Nochexman]

Just looking for some advice mainly. I'm looking into starting a Google PPC campaign for my services (wedding photography). Now, I understand that PPC could be beneficial if you are selling a product - customer clicks ad and then buys the product = immediate return on your money.

However, for a service I'm not sure it's a good idea yet. For example, customer clicks the ad, and my call-to-action is for them to contact me for a quote, so depending on the results of this, I would not get an immediate return for my money.

Any advice or experienced users of this?

What did you decide to do in the end?

 

[Sam Richards]

There is no reason why PPC shouldn't work for you, however it is a skill that requires time and patience.


I can point you to plenty of companies where their call-to-action is only a phone number or contact form.

 

[devidweb]

Facebook ads, SEO, referrals etc will all get traffic to your website but no one will purchase straight away.