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By Simon Olszewski
3 Critical Areas That Matter for Floor Retailers, Contractors, and Refinishers
Two competing flooring stores, in the same local market, with the same advertising budgets, have staggeringly different results using Google Adwords. One company loses or barely breaks even on their online advertising program, while the other is profitable and growing their showroom floor sales or contracting business by 35-40 percent year-over-year.
What dictates the varying results these two advertisers experience?
Below are three simple, yet critical, strategies you can implement today to be on the right side of the equation.
Where You Send Paid Traffic Matters the Most
Online advertising success hinges on the premise that people who click your ad will call or respond to your offer once they reach your landing page or website. The statistics on how the average advertiser fairs on this simple metric are very low. In the home services sector, a 5-6 percent conversion rate is standard. This means for every 100 clicks advertisers purchase, it’s common to see 5-6 real tangible inquiries or store visits. Those inquiries still need to result in a sale, which we have to reduce down further. These stats prevent most advertisers from seeing true success.
Advertisers who have properly designed and architected their landing pages see much better results. We often see clients get between 15-30 percent conversion rates once they realign their most-important asset. These increases can quadruple your top line almost instantly.
There are two things to focus on when rebuilding your page(s):
Page Speed and Mobile Responsiveness. More customers are using smart phones every year. You need lightning-fast page speed and an attractive mobile design to convert at 15-30 percent. Check your page speed with Google’s free speed check. If your page takes longer than 3 seconds to load, you might be wasting ad spend because customers won’t typically wait more than a few seconds before pressing the back button. You’ve already paid for the click and they haven’t had the chance to see your offer.
Is your phone number, service area, and ad offering front and center on the top of your page? Countless advertisers omit their phone number, what they do, and what area they service from the front (top of page) and focus instead on their brand, logo, or clever slogans. If you want clients to respond to your offer, let them know they came to the right place within the first two seconds after they click. You want phone calls. Make it easy for them to reach you. Don’t hide your contact information.
Lead Tracking is Critical — Install Call Tracking Today
If you sell engineered and hardwood products or services that include refinishing, stairs, or installations, how well do you understand what part of your ad budget is going to these individual areas? And, which of these categories are getting the desired call response?
With today’s call tracking technologies, you can easily and affordably track which ad campaign, product or keyword generated a phone call. Installing call tracking is cheap and a must for advertisers that are determined to succeed. How else will you know your conversion rates?
The Right Keywords — Targeting the Right Clients
Google offers three types of keyword variations, plus negative targeting. This part of online advertising can be daunting. If you get this part right, your leads will call about the actual products and services you intend to provide. One simple deviation and you could be wasting thousands of dollars a year on targeting the wrong customers.
Google offers free ad certification programs. If you plan on running your own ads in-house, get certified so you understand how keywords and negative keywords will impact your results. The time you invest in getting certified will pay off quickly if you get this part right.
If you work with an agency that uses call tracking on your behalf, review the call recordings for the last 30-45 days and ensure that the calls coming in are relevant to the services or products you are advertising for. There is nothing more annoying than paying for ‘wide plank flooring” ads and receiving “commercial carpet” calls.
Simon Olszewski grew up in the flooring business, has more than 20 years of successful floor marketing experience, and is the owner of Tru Digital Flooring, a full-service Pay Per Click marketing agency and Google Partner. Simon can be reached for consultations at simon@trudigitalflooring.com or 416.219.9713.