A Melbourne roofing company, specialising in new roofs, re-roofs, and roof repairs, had been running their own Google Ads campaigns. They worked on all types of roofs except concrete, but didn’t offer roof plumbing, gutters, or emergency 24/7 repairs, and the key to keeping each job profitable was working in the right locations. However, their ads were bringing in calls from over an hour’s drive away, and for work they didn’t do. Unable to get a handle on their campaigns, and with Google Ads delivering a negative return on investment, they paused their campaigns for almost a year, and then contacted Calculate Marketing for a second opinion.

Summary

738% more enquiries, at a 92% lower cost per enquiry, for 29% less click spend.

How I helped

The previous account had 2 campaigns, 6 ad groups, and over 500 keywords, most of them set to phrase or broad match, since the business had assumed that the more keywords, the better. Ads were shown across all of Melbourne, with a mix of keywords which mentioned “Melbourne”, keywords which mentioned a suburb, and keywords with no location at all. About 20 suburbs had been excluded as negative keywords, but these appeared to have been added one at a time in response to unwanted searches, rather than as part of a clear location strategy.

Using Google’s keyword data (via the Google Ads API) and Calculate Marketing’s own filtering and theming tools, the types of searches being by people looking for roofing services were thoroughly explored. 83 suburbs were identified as viable and profitable for the team to service, and the campaigns were rebuilt around them:

• Number of campaigns increased from 2 to 28
• Number of keywords increased from 500+ to 9,099
• 6,590 ad messages, tailored to each search theme and suburb
• 83 target suburbs

Searches which included a target suburb name (such as “roof repairs [suburb]”) were shown to searchers anywhere in Melbourne, since the search itself showed where the job was, even if the searcher was at work in the city. Searches with no suburb, or which only mentioned “Melbourne” or “near me”, were only shown to people who were physically located in one of the 83 target suburbs. This meant the business stopped paying for searches from people over an hour’s drive away.

Campaigns were split by theme, such as problem-based searches (like leaking roofs), specific roof types, repairs, and generic searches for a roofer. Each theme was then split again by how the searcher signalled their location: a suburb name, “Melbourne”, “near me”, or no location at all.

Time of day and day of week bid adjustments were set using historical Google Ads and Google Analytics data, along with the business’s own insight into when customers were most likely to book. Different ad messages were also created for mobile and desktop searches, especially for repairs, since people tend to search differently on each device.

Over 200 negative keywords prevented ads from appearing for irrelevant searches, such as:

• Car, van, truck, caravan, and convertible roofs
• Concrete, slab, and glass roofs, conservatories, and skylights
• Jobs, salaries, apprenticeships, courses, and TAFE
• Cheap, discount, wholesale, and parts searches
• DIY sprays, sealants, paint, and Bunnings
• Insurance claims, rentals, tenants, and strata
• Asbestos
• Other cities and states, from Geelong to Perth
• Roof tents and camping
• Dream meanings, memes, news, and Reddit

Campaign results

With wasted clicks removed and clicks from the wrong locations cut out, the business paid for fewer, more relevant clicks. Comparing the first 12 months after the rebuild:

• Click through rate (CTR) rose by 171%
• Return visits from Google Ads rose by 345%
• Return visit rate from Google Ads rose by 636%
• Monthly click spend fell by 29%

Client results

Over the same 12 months, for 29% less click spend:

• Enquiries from Google Ads rose by 738%
• Cost per enquiry from Google Ads fell by 92%
• Enquiries rose from 1 in every 200 clicks to 1 in every 14 clicks

Over the full 17 months since the rebuild, results have held, with enquiries from Google Ads averaging 674% higher than before, at a 91% lower cost per enquiry.

The quality of enquiries, and the number which went on to become jobs, also rose significantly. With enquiries now coming from the right suburbs, and for the right types of work, the business could plan their team’s schedule more efficiently, rather than spending half the day on the road, which made each job more profitable. The team were also happier, since nobody likes spending half their day stuck in traffic.

If you run a trade or home services business and want more enquiries from the areas you actually want to work in, get in touch today for a free analysis and review.