The definitive guide to pay-per-click advertising for contractors

Pay-per-click advertising campaigns are among the most accessible means of marketing for contractors in need of swift online visibility for their businesses. When done right, your advertising efforts could result in your business receiving quality traffic that’ll help you achieve your success goals.

This comprehensive guide breaks down PPC for contractors. Whether you’re a new construction company or are established and looking to expand, it can help you create an effective PPC strategy.

What is pay-per-click?

PPC is an online advertising method that’s closely associated with display advertisements and sponsored links. It involves using money (i.e., your marketing budget) for an advertising service to get ad space on online traffic sources such as search engines, websites, mobile applications and social media platforms.

The quality that makes PPC advertising unique is how you pay. Money only gets deducted from your advertising budget when the potential clients click on your ad. Hence the term “pay-per-click.”

PPC campaigns typically fall into two categories:

• Search ads (ads on Bing or Google)
• Display ads (ads on social media, websites or mobile apps)

For reasons discussed below, PPC is one of the most effective digital marketing strategies for builders.

Why contractors should invest in PPC advertising

It pays to invest in PPC advertising for the following reasons:

Immediate visibility

Unlike other digital marketing techniques (e.g., search engine optimization), you don’t have to play the long game. You can advertise your construction services to potential clients the moment your ad goes live and quickly win construction leads.

Other marketing methods will have you spending months creating content to attract organic traffic. That content will then need to earn the trust of search engine algorithms before it can rank well in organic search results.

Targeted advertising

Some forms of PPC marketing (e.g., social media) offer unrivaled precision targeting based on demographic and psychographic data. If you know who your ideal client is, you can target them based on characteristics like their gender, location and net worth.

The significance of this benefit is that you can ensure your ads bring in qualified traffic for your contracting business. Unlike traditional advertising, you won’t be casting a wide net and hoping for the best.

Cost control

PPC marketing campaigns give you full control over your costs, including how much you budget for the ads. Some advertising channels like Google PPC don’t impose minimum amounts for marketing budgets, meaning you can set an advertising spend you’re comfortable with.

Additionally, you have full control over when your ads run and can pause them at any time. This control ensures you won’t needlessly lose advertising money on a poor-performing campaign.

Local targeting

PPC is also excellent for local targeting and bringing in location-relevant traffic. You can show ads to clients who include your local service area among the search terms they used to seek out construction companies like yours.

Measurable results

Because you only pay when a prospect clicks on your ad, it’s easy to measure your results. For example, you can calculate your cost-per-conversion to determine your campaign’s effectiveness.

To figure your CPC, you can simply divide the total cost of your campaign by the number of conversions it produced. Let’s say your total ad budget is $500, and your campaign resulted in 10 conversions. Your CPC for that campaign will be $50. You can then compare that figure to the sale value for each lead to decide whether to make any adjustments to your campaign.

These benefits make investing in PPC a must if you want your construction business to succeed.

Exploring the inner workings of pay-per-click advertising

So, how does a PPC ad campaign work exactly?

Since there are tons of platforms you can run PPC campaigns on, all of which work differently, we’ll limit our explanation to the Google Ads platform. Specifically, how it works for search ads.

On Google Ads, PPC campaigns revolve around bids on keywords.

You begin by using Google’s Keyword Planner, a keyword tool for PPC campaigns, to build a list of keywords related to your construction business. The tool provides information about a keyword’s competitiveness and the highest and lowest amount other companies have bid on it.

Google decides ad placement based on the company that places the highest bid for the keyword. If that’s you, it’ll place your ad higher than your competitors (and vice versa). When someone enters that keyword into Google’s search bar, your ad will show up as one of the first search results.

If the searcher clicks on your ad, you’ll pay the amount you bid for each click. That’s it!

Best practices for optimizing PPC ads for contractors

If you want to run a successful campaign, you’ll need to optimize your PPC ads. Here are some best practices:

Research and select relevant keywords

Research and choose target keywords that are relevant to your contracting business. Long-tail keywords are among the optimal keywords because they aren’t as competitive. Prioritize them. Also, don’t forget to choose negative keywords during your keyword search.

Write compelling ad copy

Compelling ad copy is among the top B2B strategies that’ll have a positive impact on your conversion rates. When writing, your aim should be to convince your target audience to patronize your construction business. An effective way to do that is to highlight what sets you apart from your competition. Finally, you’ll want to end all your ads with a call to action.

If you don’t have the time to write, you can always use technology to your advantage. Generative AI can help you create content that is more likely to engage your target audience. The tool can even ensure the generated ad copy aligns with your own brand guidelines.

Set up location targeting

As a contractor, you can’t afford not to set up location targeting. It’s one of the best ways to let your prospective customers know that you’re in the area. Target local keywords.

Take advantage of ad extensions

Leverage Google Ads extensions when creating your campaigns. Include extensions like site links and phone numbers to make it easier for searchers to contact you right from Google’s search page.

Design and optimize landing pages

Create a well-optimized website for your ad to get users to take your desired action. An optimized landing page design should also have a visible call to action. As a rule of thumb, everything on the page should exist to lead the customer into your sales funnel.

Follow these best practices to increase your chances of PPC campaign success.

Grow your contracting business with PPC advertising and Buildertrend

PPC advertising can provide several benefits for your contracting business. These include immediate visibility, targeted advertising, full control over your costs and measurable results.

You learned best practices that can ensure success in PPC advertising as a contractor.

Choose keywords that have the highest relevance to your business and write copy that wins you leads. Take advantage of location targeting and Google’s Ads extensions. Build a landing page and link it to your ad.

As a final tip, use Buildertrend’s construction management softwate to get the most of your PPC budget. Buildertrend can help you turn those leads you generate from your PPC ads into clients. With Buildertrend, you can also manage your construction projects, control your financials and communicate with your team – all in one convenient platform.

Schedule a Buildertrend demo today!