Running Google Ads? Here’s a trick to get more from your budget
👉 THE BOTTOM LINE:
If you're not running social media retargeting ads alongside your Google Ads, you're missing out on leads and sales. It's the key to maximizing your PPC budget. People don't just click once and buy, so retargeting helps qualify leads and fills every stage of the pipeline.
⌛️ Understand the Funnel for Better Ad Performance
Google Ads is a popular tool for landscapers looking to generate leads quickly. Why?
Well, let’s start with an important part of understanding how marketing works—the funnel. What’s the marketing funnel, you ask? Here we go.
Picture an oil funnel in your mind. The entire funnel top to bottom represents 12 months—the bottom ⅓ of the funnel is those leads that will convert in less than 3 months, the middle in 3-6 months, and the top in 6-12 months.
The large majority of companies, especially in the sub $3M segment of the landscape industry, live and die down in the bottom of the marketing funnel. “I need leads!” and then they turn on the marketing. “I have enough work for the guys!!” and then they turn off the marketing. Because of this yo-yo/reactive approach, Google Ads is a very popular lead generation strategy in the landscape industry. It’s a common progression for those wanting something better than the low-quality pay-per-lead services—i.e. the HomeAdvisor’s of the world. (Side note: HomeAdvisor is simply an SEO agency who saw that 90%+ of landscape contractors weren’t investing in their own digital marketing - so they swooped in, stole the Google rankings and are now selling them back to you. Landscape companies who scale past $3M say goodbye to this model and build out their own marketing over time).
But here's the deal: Most customers don’t click on a Google Ad and buy something—it isn't straightforward. It involves multiple interactions, requiring a smart strategy to maximize lead quality and ROI.
📲 The Buyer's Journey: The “Why” Behind the Strategy
Imagine this scenario: A homeowner in need of landscape maintenance services searches Google for companies in her area, and clicks on your Google Ad. She browses through your website for a minute, explores your services pages and a few reviews, but then leaves without calling or filling out a form. This is a common occurrence – potential customers bounce, get pulled away, forget, or delay in their decision-making process all the time.
This buying/research process is known as the buyer's journey—and it’s another critical thing to understand about how marketing works. The journey consists of three main stages: awareness, consideration, and decision. At each stage, potential customers have different needs and priorities. While properly run Google Ads are effective at getting website traffic and low hanging fruit conversions, most times they don’y lead to immediate sales leads. Without social retargeting in place, those that don’t convert (the large majority) are lost. Gone into the digital ether. FYI—your competitor who is running social ads to her newsfeeds is likely to get that sale.
💰The Power of Retargeting
Social media retargeting lets you swoop back in like a ninja and remind these hot leads why they should choose you. By leveraging the data collected from your Google Ads campaigns, you can create custom audiences on Facebook and show targeted ads to those who have already shown interest in your services. You're not just throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping it sticks – you're laser-focused on turning those leads into sales.
📈 Why It's a Game-Changer:
☑️ Stay Top of Mind: By showing retargeted ads on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, you can stay in front of potential customers who have already expressed interest in your services. This continuous exposure reinforces your brand and increases the likelihood of future conversion.
☑️ Maximize ROI: By targeting users who have already engaged with your website, social media retargeting helps you make the most of your Google Ads budget. Rather than solely getting the 5% or so conversion rate, you're optimizing your efforts to capture low-hanging fruit and drive future, higher-quality conversions from those warm leads you already paid to get.
☑️ Fill the Whole Funnel: Social media retargeting ensures that you're not only targeting prospects that are going to convert tomorrow, but also those that will be ready in 3, 6, 9, even 18 months from now. All the stages of that buyer’s journey funnel we learned about– from awareness to conversion. That is how you get out of the yo-yo cycle of spinning wheels, and move on to building predictable revenue growth beyond $3M. That’s right—less stress, higher quality leads, and more ROI from each dollar allocated to Google Ads.
Let’s look at how you can set this up on your own…
⚙️🛠️ TAKE ACTION:
Set-Up Your Facebook/Instagram Retargeting Ads Campaign:
Create Account or Log in: Visit Business.facebook.com and log in. Go to Ad Accounts & create an account. If you have an account, log in and go to Ads Manager.
Install Facebook Pixel: If you don’t have it installed already, start by installing the Facebook Pixel on your website. While it’s never a good idea to run ANY ads without it, it’s actually required to run retargeting ads. This small piece of code goes on your website and allows Facebook to track visitors to your site and their actions, enabling effective retargeting.
Create Custom Audiences: Navigate: Ads Manager -> Audiences tab -> Create audience -> Custom audience. Choose Website as Source, then -> All website visitors.
Set Up Campaigns: Create retargeting campaigns in Facebook Ads Manager targeting your new custom audience. Choose appropriate ad objectives, budgets, and scheduling options to align with your marketing goals.
Monitor and Optimize: Regularly monitor the performance of your retargeting campaigns.
