Google’s Local Service Ad’s

What is Google Local Service ads and what is the Google guarantee?

To find out more check out my video below or keep reading for the full blog.

Google Local Service ads are ads that are based on a pay per lead basis, as opposed to pay per click basis, which is typically what Google Ads operates on. These have been around since 2018 and are slowly being rolled out worldwide. They’ve only recently been introduced within the UK. The types of industries you can use local service ads(LSA Ad’s) are the home service-based industries. Such as electricians, roofers, gardeners, carpet cleaners and so on. The biggest feature of local service ads is that they appear at the top of the Google page. They even appear at the top above the Google Ads listings. They also integrate with Google Assistant which means that they can be controlled via voice search.

Why use Google’s local service ads? Typically, what a user would do when they go to Google and start looking for a product or service is type into Google a search term such as electrician near me and Google will provide a whole load of listings. At the top of the page, you see Google ads, in the middle you see Google My Business and at the bottom you’ll see your organic listings. If the user clicks on the Google Ads listing and visits the website, regardless of whether that click converts into a customer for that business, the business will have to pay the advertisement fee to Google. However, with local service ads, what happens is that a user sees an ad and you will only pay Google when you’ve clicked on the link and you’ve physically contacted the end user. In other words, you’re paying for a qualified lead.

Best of all any business that’s appearing within the local service ads section holds something called a Google guarantee badge. In the case of a local service ad, when you click on the link, you don’t get taken to the end user’s website. You get taken to a page within Google, which shows you a whole host of information about the business such as the business name, the business ratings, the phone number, the description of the business and it confirms that they carry the Google badge as well as their contact details and so on. You can make a qualified decision as to whether you need to call that business. If you have called the business, then you’ve read all that information, it does meet your needs. Therefore, it can be a high quality, conversion that can lead to that phone call, or message that you’re using to get in touch with the business.

What is a Google guarantee badge? A Google guaranteed badge means that the business that you see when the local service has been vetted, personally by Google. Which means the company have went through an application process that Google undertakes. What that means in return is that if you hire someone by clicking on the local service ads which has got the Google Ads guarantee. If for any reason you’re not happy with the service that they delivered, Google will compensate you for $2,000. In order to qualify for the refund from Google, you must go through a process. It must be a valid reason and you have to fit the criteria that Google has specified in order for Google to give you the refund. The Google guarantee gives you a peace of mind that whoever’s coming to your house or property to carry out a service has been vetted by Google.

How do local service ads work? Well, they work in pretty much the same way as Google Ads whereby you sign up for a local service account. If you’re not sure how to do this, you can contact us, and my agency will help you throughout that process of getting your business listed within the Google Local Service ads. You go through the usual process of specifying your daily budget or your weekly budget, how much you want to spend and how you are willing to pay. Then what happens is when people search for your product or service, they click on the ad and they read your description. If they like it, they call you, at that point in time you are charged a pre specified amount. The cost per lead varies from I’ve seen anywhere from $15 up to $45. The way you’ve got to think about it is that what is the average profit margin of the service that you’re providing. If you’re an electrician for example going to wire a whole house and you’re going to make about $1000 profit. If each lead is costing you $20 and you get five leads. You come up with one of them, that means that it cost you $100 to get you that lead. If you’re making a profit of $1000, then you’ve made $900 profit overall. It is well worth considering local service but it’s not quick to get listed. It could take anything from a couple of weeks to months as long as you’ve met all the criteria. Which is why it’s good to get it done correctly first time around. Otherwise, it just adds to the delays. We’ve set up lots of businesses or local service ads, we know the process that people are going to go through and what works and what does not work. If you are interested, please get in touch with us and we can help you out.

In summary, Google Local Service ads gives you a peace of mind a degree of protection from Google, you know that everyone’s going to be vetted and you know you’ve got something to fall back on. But be aware, it can be a time-consuming process to get vetted, or get listed within Google in the first place.