PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

Ian Robertson
Welcome back, everyone to Inspector Toolbelt Talk, home of the whopper. Not really, Ian Robertson, I’m your host. And today we have on Jason Bowings, who I have told many people is probably the best pay-per-click advertiser I have seen in the home inspection industry. And I’m super glad that he’s on the show here today. How are you, Jason?

Jason Bowings
I’m doing very well. Thank you for having me.

Ian Robertson
Yeah. So tell us a little bit about yourself before we get into the subject. Jason, where are you located? How long you’ve been doing Google ads, anything like that?

Jason Bowings
Sure. I’m located in southwest Florida. I started doing Google ads about seven years ago. I was looking for a change of industry. I was sort of lost at that point in my life where I didn’t know what I wanted to do, whether I went back to corporate America, or maybe picked up a hammer and started being a carpenter again. And I had a friend who told me about it, about Google ads. I didn’t know anything about it. Other than, you know, just using Google. I dove in, it was very interesting. I found it to be super interesting. And I thought that I could learn it easily. And then the rest is history. I’ve been doing it about seven years. I haven’t earned any sort of specialized rewards, or awards or anything like that. But I am fairly respected in the industry as far as online. People, you know, involve me in conversations, usually about how to market, troubleshooting things like that.

Ian Robertson
You know, it’s funny, seven years ago, doesn’t seem like that long. You must have found your niche because I pour over data. So I have data from hundreds and oh, man, man, I had to look at how many exactly all across the U.S. and Canada. And your numbers were always spot on, which kind of introduced me to you because I was watching a client. I’m like, crud, man, this guy’s Google ads are like killing it. And I think that’s how we kind of got introduced, you sent me over an email. Hey, my name is Jason, do you mind making these few tweaks? And I usually have to fight guys on tweaks. They’re like, oh, just do this and do that. And you know, change the entire website, so you know it, you know, the numbers flip, and all this. I’m like, this is weird. And then Google would even sometimes penalize a website for the changes that they were asking for. You’re like, here, here’s Google’s regulations. I want to do these three of those five things. Can you make that happen?

Jason Bowings
Sure.

Ian Robertson
I’m like, I gotta meet this guy.

Jason Bowings
The cool thing about Google ads is that it’s not based on budget, you know, if it was, companies like HomeAdvisor, now Angi’s, you know, their budgets would blow everyone out of the water, because Google has like a three prong way that they rank you, you can be competitive and not have the biggest budget. And back then, you know, 500 hours is about enough budget in every market. With 500 hours, I could turn an 8-time ROI, usually within the first 30 to 60 days. You know, as well as I do, that in marketing, there’s no guarantees, and seeing that kind of return that fast is almost suspicious. But I wasn’t doing anything other than using logic, reading the data and interpreting it and then making, I guess, what ended up being the correct changes for our clients.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, and I guess that’s what kind of drew me to you is you’re just doing the right things. And that’s it. Google doesn’t make it hard. I mean, it is complicated. I will say that, we have to get into that a little bit later. Sometimes we make mistakes, trying to do it ourselves. Because it is a complicated process with the bids and you know, following all the regular.. but it tells you just do this. Sure. But um, I will say that I was very impressed with your work. And that’s why I wanted to meet you. And we’ve worked together a lot over the years. And I’ve seen nothing but great work. So you found your niche, you really did.

Jason Bowings
I appreciate that.

Ian Robertson
Whatever your niche was before that, you found it. So before everybody listening in, before you turn off this podcast, because a lot of you, I’ll talk with you on the phone, say “Ian, I’m never going to do pay per click, I had a bad experience. I lost three grand in one month. Never gonna do it. It’s a scam.” Before you turn that off, just listen in for a little bit. I have personally grown my inspection companies using Google ads. And while the industry has changed from, man, 10, 15 years ago, when I, when I was using them really heavily, there are a lot of advantages, and even a program that Jason and I were just talking about before the show here, that could really help you. So give it just a quick listen. And let me ask you, Jason, I saw you shaking your head yes when I was saying that, why do so many guys say Google ads is a scam. I’ll never do it again. What causes that stigma?

Jason Bowings
Yeah, and I think the two most common categories that I notice is first of all, when people try to do it themselves, and I always tell my clients are like, oh, I’m not, I’ve never got anything off. I’m like, did you do it yourself? Well, you know, I’m like, did you do it yourself? No, I was like, yeah, so I don’t even do it myself. It takes so much attention. You have to pay attention to the bids, what changes there are. One client wasn’t paying attention. And he had, I don’t know what setting he had on, but it was auto-populating keywords for him. And then he didn’t have a limit set to his budget. And all sudden he gets a $5,000 bill for all sorts of keywords. First, let me say this. I do not work at an advertising agency anymore. So this is not a pitch to come to our agency. I work for a private company. They’re an HVAC company, I’m a marketing director. So this is in no way, shape, or form a pitch to get anyone to come to a particular service. As matter of fact, part of my job, one thing we used to laugh about was, when I was at the agency was not only utilizing Google to make as much money for my clients as I could but also protect them from the predations of Google, because Google doesn’t care about you. And that’s really comes right into what you’re talking about. Google does not care about your business. They don’t care if you’re getting calls, they don’t care if you’re getting business. All they care about is the click, because that’s what gets them paid. And all too often, what you’re faced with, as a small business owner, is a marketing company that wants you to spend x amount of dollars because their pay is based on how much you spend. So they can actually get you in the market for too much per month, too much budget per month that you’re not going to see a good return, no matter how well they do their job. Secondly, if you look at the online documentation for Google, it does seem pretty easy. So why can’t I sit down and watch a couple YouTube videos and do this for myself. And then thirdly, and worsley, if that’s a real word, is when Google was setting up people’s advertising forum, or then they switched over to what they call smart campaigns. And that, when you try that, I can understand from a business point of view, I go to Google, it’s their platform, they set it up for me, I’m not successful in the first 30 days, I start talking to them about, you know about it, they’re telling me that, oh, you need to spend more money. It’s the number one thing they usually tell you is you need to spend more money. Maybe you do spend $2,000 or $3,000 in a month, maybe you do it for few months, and you’re not seeing a return. Google swear up and down, you’re getting a lot of, they’re getting you a lot of business, you just must not be seeing it. And the people that I’ve spoken to that say the same thing, I’ll never use Google again, it’s such a ripoff. They usually fall into one of those three categories, you know, and a lot of them, they trusted Google, why wouldn’t you, it’s their platform. And you think that they would want you to do well, because then you’ll stay with them. But for every company that fails and drops off of Google, they’re probably signing three or four more companies up, whether it’s in your market or not, they don’t care what market you’re in. As long as you’re getting clicks, they’re getting paid. And the majority of the Google revenue comes from their ad, ad dollars. So… Right? The auto-apply feature that Google puts on, even with experienced marketers like myself, if I end up getting tricked into meeting with our Google Exec, that’s one of the things they tell me is well, you want to set the recommendations to auto-apply. No, I don’t. Because I work on a fixed budget. I don’t have unlimited money. And unlimited money doesn’t win this game for you anyway.

Ian Robertson
Yeah. And the same thing, I guess, auto-apply happens with the, you know, the people that set up your account for you at Google like, the other thing is, like you said, a client would be like, oh, man, Google set it up for me. It’s perfect. And I look at their keywords. I’m like, do any of these have to do with inspections, you know, most of the time, they’re gonna get confused about our industry. And you’re gonna see a lot of keywords that apply to code enforcers, or..

Jason Bowings
Building inspections, build, you know, X city building inspections, that typically has nothing to do with the home inspector, even if you’re doing commercial.

Ian Robertson
Or my favorite, food service inspections. That’s probably the most common one I see. As I’m like, are you inspecting? You know, like all these subways and see if they’re cheese is good.

Jason Bowings
Right. USDA inspection. Our negative keyword list to start an account is well over 600 terms and it has you know, you’re getting rid of terms like salary, employment, even terms like PDF, website, memes, anything you can think of that isn’t going to make you money, we try to get out of there immediately.

Ian Robertson
Just to translate what Jason said there. A negative keyword are keywords that you put in to tell Google, I don’t want to show up if this keyword is there. So you’re going to put in things like restaurant, municipal, all those things, and that’s where having an expert do it comes in. Google’s not going to do that for you, because that means less clicks for them. So that’s kind of where most people tend to get their stigma from. And the other end of things though, Jason, I’ve seen a lot of guy say, I don’t get any leads from it. I find what happens is a lot of guys will think well, there’s leads out there that I’m not getting. But if we live in a small town, or even sometimes a big town, but there’s a slowdown in the market, there might not be anybody searching out there for home inspectors. There might be three people in your city right now that searched in the past month. There’s no fish in the pond, it doesn’t matter how awesome your fishing pole and lure is. There’s no fish.

Jason Bowings
So again, that comes down to, I’ve been doing this for a while. And I’ve seen people get online and say, I have the magic code for home inspectors and Google ads. There’s no magic. Okay? This is what we do. We launch your ad. It’s an auction based system. So we’re bidding on keywords, keyword like home inspection, we’re bidding, so is your competitor. Any competitor that’s doing, that’s doing Google ads, they’re bidding on the same basic keywords. It’s not a lot of keywords out there, home inspector, house inspection, home inspection, you can use modified keywords like home inspection, Atlanta, Georgia and things like that. And then it’s how well you have it set up. It’s how much you’re bidding plus how well you have it set up. We’ll talk about how often, we’ll determine how often Google shows your ad, where they show it on the search engine results page or SERP page, SERP. That is important, where you land on the page is important. But I think the most important thing is is to understand what data you can see, which there’s, there’s 1000 points of data to see and what are important to you. I’ve debated with people online all the time, click through rates and impressions and, and a lot of the jargon that you can use, but ultimately, what a home inspector is worried about is cost per lead, cost per acquisition. How much should it cost me to get this lead in? How many of these leads are converting into good, or into full home inspections, that’s my cost per acquisition. That’s really what’s important. And that’s what I always strove for was to get the best cost per lead, best cost per acquisition. But back to what I’m saying, there’s no magic, we put your ad out there. We run it for x period of time, I’ve reviewed the data, that data tells me a story. If I look at the right, correct points, I can tell how you’re doing compared to your competitors. And then what changes we need to make. Being number one isn’t always the best thing. And I can go into that more later. It goes along with where you position yourself on the page and things like that. But you can end up overpaying, you know, if you’re paying $80 acquisition to get your job. But if I work harder, I can get you down to 60. What’s better for you, right, you’re getting your job to $20 less. And then it used to be that the better you did, the more Google seemed to reward you. So the more that you followed their best practices, the better, the more you worked on your account, the better you did, the better you could do. So I had a client in Miami that came to me, his competitors, I had seen into their accounts, because at one point or another, they had asked me if I would possibly run their ads, I never did. But I knew approximately what they spent. And my client in Miami was spending a half to a third of what they were, what his competitors were. But we were always number one. As far as how many options we showed for his cost per acquisition was fantastic. He’s and he’s a great salesperson. So you know, when the lead comes in, he closes. At other times, I’ve had clients where it doesn’t matter how many leads you send them, they just have a problem closing them. And as a marketer, you’re looking at your lead quality. So if I listen to the calls, and they’re good calls, but our guys are hearing our person isn’t selling them, we have to have that conversation. Nobody likes having that conversation. You know, they want to blame the marketer, it must be the leads and must be what you’re doing. But I don’t clo.. I don’t provide sales, I provide leads, hopefully good quality leads.

Ian Robertson
You know, it’s funny that you mentioned that. I, just two things real quickly, because the second thing that we’re going to talk about is, I want to rewind a little bit, because some of us may be listening and thinking, okay, what does all that mean? So we might rewind and just kind of explain the difference between SEO and pay per click and all that but just for a minute. But I think the weak wheel in the cog sometimes is us as the person hiring out the ad. So I had a guy call me one time, he said, “I don’t I don’t have any leads.” “Okay, let’s look at the data.” He had seven phone calls that month if I remember right, I’m like, “Oh, cool, you had seven phone calls? What happened to them?” “I don’t know. I only did one inspection last month.” I’m like, “Did you write down their names? Did you call them back? Did they leave a message?” “I don’t know. Some people ask for some price. There’s just price shoppers. I don’t want the price shoppers.” You know, and then I look at his website and I’m like, “Where’s your phone number?” “It’s on there.” I’m like, “Maybe put it towards the top. Maybe have a website that’s mobile friendly. What if they land on a mobile device? I can’t look at your website.” I’m like, “What about online scheduling?” “I hate online scheduling.” You know, all these things. So he would get these leads. And even some of them would turn into phone calls, even though they had to look for his phone number. And he just, he was just missing them all. So we need to have things set up, we need to have a nice website, nice online presence, good CTAs or calls to actions. When they land, do they see why they should hire us, how to hire us, or how to call us all within the first three seconds? That, those are important things. So there’s certain things that, Jason, you can’t do for them, you can create a great ad, but if they land there, and they find, you know, the equivalent of an internet turd, it’s not going to, not going to help them. If we get a phone call, have a script, answer, call back, chase that lead.

Jason Bowings
Treat it like it’s important, is what you need to do. You need to treat it like your business depends on it, is what I always said.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, and it does. And you know, if we’re just letting leads fly by, that’s on us. But that’s, that’s, rant over. But um, let’s talk, let’s step back a little bit cuz I get phone calls, and guys are like, you know, can you do, can you do Google Ad SEO for me, they’ll say things like that. Big difference between SEO and Google ads, I used the illustration with you earlier, Google ads is, I have a billboard out in front of the exit from my restaurant, turn left, go there, and you go right to the restaurant. Whereas SEO is completely different. It’s organic. It’s, you know, word of mouth, hey, I had this this great restaurant, you know, flyers and key positions and people talking about it, that leads back to the same restaurant. So you’re a paid ad, that somebody clicks on, goes and finds the person and is a, what we call a hot lead or a warm lead at the very least. Organic takes advantage of customer journey, and, you know, SERP, which is the search engine result page. That’s basically the list of websites underneath maps. And that’s where you’re shooting for. And then a different aspect of SEO is organically showing up in the map section too, which is a moving target. Big World. There’s literally college courses out there that you can take. So we’re not going to put it in a nutshell. But is that how you would explain it? Or would you like to add to that?

Jason Bowings
I’d go one step further. People would say, why would I do Google ads. Because Google Ads targets the audience that is actively searching for your service. So it’s not Facebook, right? When you’re on Facebook, and you’re using Facebook, you might be there wasting time, you might be there looking for pictures from your family, or funny memes or whatever it is, but you’re not, no one’s going to Facebook to find out who there, who does dumpster rental in their neighborhood, usually not. But you will turn to Google. And you type in dumpster rental, home inspection, whatever. And that is when you get those results, that is an audience, a person that is actively looking for your service, so you’re not going to get better leads and that other than a referral. So that’s why Google Ads has been so effective over the years, is that when I’m actively searching for you, maybe in my neighborhood, I type it in, if you can show for that, then you have a better than average chance of getting someone to contact you. If all of the other pieces line up. Like you said about the website, if you land someone on a website, or you give them an ad copy, that leaves them unsure. They’ll just scroll past and click on the next person. If they call you and you don’t answer the phone, they’ll just hit the back button and call the next person available. They have nothing invested in you. If they did, they would have searched you by name, not by industry, right. And when you said about the search engine results page, everyone hears use Google. So I searched for home inspection in my neighborhood. The first results now can be the Google guarantee or Google Local Service ads. That’s something different than Google ads. Then typically, you have one to three Google ads that show up and they’re the results of say, ad right next to it. Then you usually have the Map Pack, which if you’re running Google ads, and you attach it to your Google My Business, you also have the opportunity for your ad to show up in the Map Pack. But that’s not controlled by us marketers, that’s completely controlled by Google. Below the Map Pack, you have the organic listings, okay, that like that’s, that’s your specialty right there. I know. And what I used to tell people is we want to be above organic. We want our ad to show above organic because if I’m looking for a home inspection, and I look past three, Google Local Service ads, I look past one to three Google ads. I look past a map pack, I go through eight to 15 organic listings, and I get down to an ad at the bottom of the page. What is my value to you at that point? What can you provide me that the other 15 to 25 companies above you, above that ad, can’t provide me. What it probably means is that I’m paying, what I used to tell people all the time when I was talking to them was, I want a $100 home inspection with 1,000 year warranty is what I want. You know what I mean? I’m not a great customer. So when I worked for our clients, we were always looking to be above organic, maybe not the number one spot that you could end up paying for, you’re overpaying for your acquisition. But certainly I want to be up near the top. I want to catch that, that rich audience, that audience that is, hasn’t had, hasn’t went through five calls and said, no, no, no, no, no. What are they looking for that you’re going to provide? A lower price, a warranty? What, what could you, you know, what could that, what could that customer possibly be looking for? So positioning is really important. But the fact that they’re looking for you actively is what makes Google ads so, so effective. I’m actively looking for you, as opposed to Facebook or something like that.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, you know, it is funny, because it is effective marketing. But so many guys are afraid to spend the money because we hear horror stories. You know, I lost all this money or, you know, let’s be honest, we go on the Facebook groups anytime somebody mentions, hey, who does Google ads, and you’ll get a long list of angry comments from inspectors, because there are some unscrupulous, I mean, to be honest, you’re the only one that my clients have really stuck with for the most part. Because, you know, over the years, they go through a guy that says he’ll get them rich in three months, and everything falls apart, they lose a bunch of money, and they move on. But when it’s done right, it’s effective. I’ve done it right. And I’ve done really well. Some of my competition in my area do Google ads, and they’re like, man, this is fantastic. So let me ask you this then, Jason. Let’s say we are not PPC magicians like you are, PPC, pay-per-click. Average Joe, let’s say, assume that I have a great website. And not just thinking I do, but I actually do. It has a phone number. online scheduling, looks fantastic. And I answer my phone immediately, I have a script, and I don’t let any message get by. How do I start from scratch? What do I do to go start a relatively effective Google ad? Not the amazing ads you build, but just relatively effective to get my feet wet? What’s the process?

Jason Bowings
So that’s a good question.

Ian Robertson
It’s a big one. Explain everything. Jason, just do everything, explain it all, your whole life.

Jason Bowings
In two minutes, if you can, please.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, if you could condense it’d be good.

Jason Bowings
The biggest thing is, with Google ads is, you have to guide the internet user just like a website. You don’t get them on your website and let them mosey where they want. That’s what a call to action is. That’s why you funnel people through your website so that they’re doing, they’re moving in the direction you want them to. And the ad is no different. What are they searching for? Well, I, if I’m a home inspector, I want them searching for complete home inspection, full home inspection. So the first thing I need is, what words am I using? What words are people searching for me? It’s home inspection, home inspector, the word certified, and things like that, they’re not nearly as important as most people think. You’re really just looking for home inspection, home inspector, house inspection, and you want geographic modifiers. If you’re in Atlanta, Atlanta home inspection, things like that. And then whatever your words you’re bidding on, you want your ad copy to say the same thing right in the ad, right in the headline, the first headline. So a typical, typical ad copy for home inspector that I would run would be Atlanta home inspection, complete Atlanta home inspection. And I, you’ve run three ads for each, for each ad group that you’re using, or an ad group is when you have these words, home inspection, house inspection, they’re all lumped together, they all mean the same thing, real estate inspection, that sort of thing. And I’m trying different ad copies. So complete home inspection would be my first headline. In my second ad it might be Atlanta home inspection. Maybe I make Atlanta keywords, their own separate ad group. But basically, you want to talk to your audience with the right message. So what are they looking for? If they’re not looking for full home inspection, what are they looking for, and if that, if that’s not something you want to service, then you want that to be in your negative keywords so that you don’t show for that, because to make it valuable, to give you the return on investment that you want, you’re wanting complete home inspections. We’ve tried to advertise all kinds of ancillary services, radon inspection, well inspection, on all those. Down here in Florida, it’s like four point inspections and wind mitigations and things like that. Typically you don’t see enough return to advertise for those unless you’re getting a really, really great cost on that. The other thing you might have is a problem with volume. I remember working with a client in Kansas, and we tried radon. I mean, we might see 17 searches a week, 20, I mean 20 searches a month, that’s not very much volume. So you’re not really working with anything. So you want to, you want the right message to the right audience. If you’re looking for a complete home inspection, we’re your, we’re your company, and this is why. So it’s the same as when you land them on your, on your webpage, your website, your web page, your landing page, whatever it is, you want to tell them, what you do, why they want to do it with you, and how easy it is to do with you. You do that in the ad copy, you do that on the website, the landing page. And when all of these pieces match up, they’re congruent. And the message is the same. It builds what’s, what we call trust, trust and authority. Another thing that might build trust and authority is you’re running ads, and your website shows up organically, and you’re in the map pack, because as a user, and when I type in the Google Home Inspection, if I see your ad, then I see your listing in the map pack. And then I scroll down a little bit more. And you’re the fourth listing on the page, which I realize how hard it is to get there. But if that’s the case, I’ve now seen your company name three times in one page, whether I know it or not, subconsciously that builds trust with me. So I’ll call because it doesn’t seem like you’re a fly by night type of company. I go to your website and looks professional, you’re answering all the questions I have in a matter of seconds. Because I tell people all the time, you have five to seven seconds to influence somebody’s decision to make the call, look further on your webpage or hit the back button and go to your competitor. Right? So it’s always what do you do? Where do you do it? Why would I do it with you? Answer those questions in the first five to seven seconds, you give yourself a really good chance of getting getting a lead. Yep. And so that goes right back to website design basics of just give them the important stuff, you don’t need to give them everything. You just need to get them to scroll down a little bit more or consider you and build that trust. And you know, to talk to your point, keyword, keywords are really king. And a lot of times I see that’s where guys mess up. Go to Google Trends. So it’s a public facing tool that Google has given us that says, hey, you want to know what people are looking up? Here you go. So I had this one client that came to me one time, I’m ranking for 100 keywords. I’m like, wow, that’s amazing. So I looked, and he gave me the report. And there were all keywords that nobody in their right mind would ever look up. And I even went to Google Trends and said, just start typing them in with the guy, just start typing these in. And each one Google said we have no data on this keyword.. Anywhere in the country.

Ian Robertson
Not just in his area, because you can go anywhere in there. Like if you take the past year in the U.S. and Canada, we have no data.. Never look this up. And it was like that for all 100. Yeah, no volume. So if we’re thinking, oh, this would be a good keyword. A couple of good examples of where I see people mess up on their ads, is advertising things that take education, like pre-listing inspections. Most sellers aren’t thinking I need to get my house inspected, they need to be taught that. So if they need to be taught about that, they’re not going to look it up. Pre-listing inspections is a very, very low volume keyword set. Same thing with 11th month inspections. I’ve had lots of guys say, oh, yeah, let’s advertise that.

Jason Bowings
No volume. It’s not in the lexicon, it’s not in the public lexicon. And even if it is, a lot of times your way up in the funnel. Google Ads works best when you’re low in the funnel, meaning you are clear, you are advertising to the people that are ready to make a conversion. I am ready to purchase this house. I need to do my due diligence, I need a home inspection. So what are what are the key things to me for this home inspection, right? Time to service? Price of service? How reliable are you? And they could be in that order. They might be in a different order. But those are typically the three things that we bank on when we’re writing ad copy for that audience. I’m not talking to mostly sellers, because it’s not in the lexicon. You don’t see pre-listing inspection advertised very much. I had a conversation with Dave Klima a long time ago about, about that. And I was like, I just don’t think this is the right medium for you. The Google, the Google Search Ads was probably not the right medium because there wasn’t enough people searching for it to make it worth running.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, and I like how you put that low on the funnel. So if you’re listening, you hear funnels all the time. Marketers, we love to throw on buzzwords, it makes us sound smart top. Yeah, but low on the funnel means..top of the funnel is people are like, okay, I’m thinking about this. I’m in the realm. And what we do is we guide them down the funnel by saying, you need a home inspection, oh, you just bought a house, have an 11 month inspection, and you guide them down the funnel. But to get people at top of funnel, that’s typically going to be organic during customer journey time, if you’ve ever listened to our Customer Journey podcast. Low on the funnel is they’re ready to hire, and that’s the best part about Google Ads. Somebody’s giving a direct keyword, Atlanta home inspections. And if you look on Google Trends, I use it all the time for SEO, there’s really only two search terms I tell people exist for home inspectors. For the most part, “home inspections” is going to be the most searched volume. So “(city name) home inspections” in most parts of the U.S. and Canada. Second one is going to be “home inspectors”, “(city name plus) home inspectors”. In Canada, oddly enough..

Jason Bowings
In the U.S. also, in the U.S. also I see house inspections quite a bit as well..

Ian Robertson
In the U.S., yes. Canada seems to be a lot more from my experience anyways. But “house inspections” sometimes in the U.S. tends to get too much into the you know, code enforcer, I need electrical inspection kind of thing. But there’s really not a wide range of keywords. So I always wonder why home inspectors are going after other keywords. Another one is infrared inspections. So I had a guy up in, I don’t want to mention who it is, although it’s hysterical story. He called me one day laughing because I told him, I’m like, hey, you know, you can advertise infrared thermal imaging, but you’re gonna get a lot of wild keywords. So he didn’t clean it up, didn’t do any negative keywords. He said, Ian, I got a bunch of phone calls. I’m like, ah yeah, I told you, he’s like, yeah, yeah, but listen to this. So some lady called him wanting to have thermal imaging of her chest done. Because apparently, that’s the thing with with thermal imaging for tumors and stuff like that. And he’s like, it took me a long time. He’s like, I thought it was a prank at first. But it took me a while to get her off the phone, saying different kind of therma imaging.

Jason Bowings
Auto inspection, in some parts of the country, you have to have your vehicle inspected every X amount of time. And you know, in those places, you have to make sure that you keep all automotive keywords out of there, put them in your negatives. Truth is, some of the most important optimization you can do to your Google ads, if it’s set up correctly, is the negative keywords. Because no, no matter how long you’ve been running your Google ads, Google is steady trying to show you for inventory, they don’t want to see you pair your inventory down to the point where you’re hitting your target audience perfectly. That means less, means less money for Google, okay. So you have to get the search terms that aren’t relevant, or aren’t going to provide a good ROI, out of your, out of your campaigns. And that’s the reason why smart campaigns don’t work, because they won’t let you see what people are typing in, which are called search terms. They won’t let you see the search terms. They won’t let you add negative keywords. And if you can’t do that, you can’t optimize your account. And here’s the thing, as a home inspector, you’re not just paying me for leads. You’re not paying me anyway. I mean, you’re paying me to do the work, Google’s providing leads, but you’re not just paying for the leads, the value is in that data. Okay, the value is that data. So I can go through your campaign. And I can see all the bad search terms, or nowadays, it’s about 30, 40% of the search terms that you’ve shown for. And if as many as I can get out of there means you won’t show for them again. If you don’t show for them again, we’ve now made your campaign more efficient, you are now getting more value. So as a home inspector, you’re thinking, I just want leads, man, I want leads, I want phone calls, I want form submissions. But as the marketer, the way I’m going to do that better next month, than this month, is to make sure that we don’t keep showing for the same bad terms, getting the clicks and spending the money on it. So it kind of goes back to that smart campaign thing where, whether Google sets it up or whether they get you to set it up. When you start your Google My Business or your Google business profile. The one of the steps of that is, now run ads. And that’s what they want you to run as a smart campaign. I can tell you right now, don’t do that. It’s a, plenty of people have told me, oh, you wouldn’t believe how many leads I get from this thing. And I’m killing it. Maybe in Walla Walla, Washington, smart campaign might work because there’s so few searches. But if you try that in Atlanta, you’re going to spend a ton of money, you’re not going to see nearly the return. And you’re not going to understand why. And the worst part is, there’s nothing you can do to make it better.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, I have not heard anybody say good things about smart campaigns. Maybe you have, but I haven’t. But there’s something I really want to talk to you about before we run out of time here, but to summarize that, it’s best to have a professional set it up for us. Make sure we’re targeting our keywords properly. And stick to the keywords that Jason here presented for us. Stay away from all the other ones that we want to work in. That there’s just not enough search volume. Do not do smart campaigns. Do not have Google set up your campaigns. In my opinion, it’s best to have a professional set up our campaigns. And if we want to do it afterwards ourselves, always be watching. Okay, that was a bad lead, that was an automotive inspection lead. Let me put those negative keywords in, and just watch it. But one thing that I want to talk about that I’ve heard amazing things about and I have not done yet, but every inspector that I know that has done, it has been like this is great. And that is the Google Local Service ad or when we see Google Guarantee.

Jason Bowings
Okay that’s, that’s excellent. I’m glad you brought that up. This is the best DIY option besides Google My Business, Google business profile, which is free to you. And you certainly want to take advantage because that’s a way to perform well, organically. But these Google Local Service ads, they’ve been available in other industries. I’m the marketing director for an HVAC company, we’ve had it for a long time, we utilize it, it’s great ROI, we utilize it for all the ancillary services we have and everything else. For home inspectors, it hasn’t been available very long. What it is, is that when you’re on that SERP page, that search engine results page, the Google Local Service ads or Google Guarantee are three boxes that they put at the very top. These companies are vetted by Google. So to get signed up, if you go to, I don’t know the the URL, but it’s, you can type in Google Local Service ads, they’ll vet you for whatever your area needs. So if you need to be licensed or insured, or anything else, they’re going to vet all that stuff. Once you’re vetted, you have a very simple interface. It’s basically, what areas do you want to work? What phone number do you want them to call? What services do you want to advertise for? So for home inspections, you’re gonna see complete home inspections, you might see wind mitigations, you might see four point inspections, you might even see 10 months, 11 month inspections, but you want to choose the options that best fit what you’re offering, you want to put a budget that is much more than you think you’d want to spend in a week or a month’s time. And I’ll tell you why. I’ve played with this a lot in my current position. And what I found is when I cut the budget back to what I’d really liked to spend, I don’t get, my ad doesn’t get shown very often. You know, you have other companies, you have a lot of companies right now that are pulling back on their Google ad spend and putting it towards GLSA’s because they’re available. You get a pretty good fixed cost as far as what a lead cost, and you have the ability to dispute a lead. Let’s say they call you for a competitor, which is one of the big things that happens with Google Ads until you can get the competitor names out of your campaign through negative keywords, you’ll get a lot of competitor calls. They convert at such a low rate that they’re not, they’re just not worth it. Bidding on a competitor’s name is very stupid, in most cases, with the GLSA’s, if you get a call for a competitor, you simply go to the lead which comes in your email box, you get the call, then you get a lead in the emails, you click on it and you can go in, it’s three buttons at the top, top right, you hit it, and you can dispute it. And then it gives you a couple of different options, spam or bot call, competitor call, service that you don’t provide. And you dispute the lead. If it’s, if you are approved with your dispute, they give you the lead cost back. Your lead cost is going to vary. Your lead costs will vary by location.

Ian Robertson
How does that work? That’s important.

Jason Bowings
So I’m sure that in Atlanta, a lead is going to cost more than say, in the middle of Kansas. Okay. But this is the, besides Google My Business, this is the best option that Google has, it’s the best paid option for people to DIY themselves without having to spend hours and hours and hours studying how to do it. You’re setting your budget, you’re setting the key words, when the call comes in, you get a little ding a ling, it says this call is from Google. So you know that you have received one, then you can go back when you get home at the end of the day, check your email, if it wasn’t a good, a good lead, you can go in and dispute it. If it is a good lead, in our industry, the Google Local Service ads close at about 80, 85%. That’s a good close rate.

Ian Robertson
That’s a very good close rate. So that’s all the good stuff that I’ve been hearing about it because that’s, that’s the annoying thing about just pay-per-click, click, and it doesn’t matter where it’s from, who it’s from. But with Google ads, it’s a little bit more in depth. I love being able to dispute it. I’m also told they, they’ll record phone calls to ensure quality, you can go back and listen to it. That’s really great if you use a call center or you have like an office person and just go back okay, how can we fine tune our script? What worked, what didn’t? It just sounds awesome. And from what I understand, there are guys out there just killing it right now. Because when I, when I search for something, that’s the first thing I see, Google Guaranteed, and that, even just that word guarantee, Google doesn’t throw it out there. That that’s a trigger word that’s shown to increase clicks when you see guaranteed. Google guaranteed, average user, they’re going to be more inclined to click on your ad than almost anything else out there. So if you’re listening, that’s the thing to do right now, if you’re not doing it, do it.

Jason Bowings
Yeah, I don’t, I don’t hype up Google products that often. I know it sounds sort of counterintuitive. But again, part of my job as, when I was a marketer for the agency, was protecting my clients from Google, as much as it was to utilize that platform to drive leads, okay, because, again, I can’t say it enough, I can’t stress it enough. Google does not care about your business, they do not. What Google cares about is their bottom line, they need clicks, that’s where their ad revenue comes from. So if you decide after a month or two, that you didn’t like it, because it didn’t do anything for you, they’re not going to shed a tear. Okay, this Google Guarantee really gives you a fighting chance. I think the leads come in at a very good rate as far as when I look at how my Google Ads perform versus how my Google Guarantee performed, I would say that the Google Guarantee probably overall now has a better ROI, better cost per lead. But again, you want to, you want to go a little further than what you really want to spend. I think I have my budget set, Google Local Service ads, I think I have it set at like 1,600 and some dollars a week. And I ended up spending about $200 a week in Google Local Service ads.

Ian Robertson
Okay, that’s less heartbreaking, and would a home inspector set it at about the same, do you think?

Jason Bowings
I think it’ll probably be less. And it’s so easy to adjust that if you start getting too many leads, no one wants to pay for a lead they can’t service. So if you start getting too many leads, drop your budget down. If you’re spending too much money, which I don’t understand, I wouldn’t understand that, unless you can’t service the lead, I doubt you’re spending too much money. Because if you’re getting that business, and you’re closing it, and maybe you’re upselling, for your sewer scopes, and you’re this and you’re ancillary that, your average inspection is going to well make up for any money that you spent. I know a lot of people say you want to get the acquisition at seven, Google says 7%. In all the years I’ve used Google, I don’t, it’s been very few campaigns that have ever brought in 7%, usually, it’s about 10 to 12%, of the gross, is of the gross average. So if your average is 400, you’re probably looking at about $40, $45 cost per acquisition, I would think.

Ian Robertson
That’s about what I would think.

Jason Bowings
Yeah, I would think through Google Local Service ads, you’ll probably see it a little bit less. And again, that dispute feature, it’s way different. Because in Google, Google Ads, if someone calls, if I’m representing your company, and someone calls for another company, the best thing I can do is remove that other company from your, you add it to your negative keywords so we don’t show for that again. And you have to remove it in multiple different ways. Because Google, if it has an S on the end of it, Google will still show you. Right. So the GLSA is by far the best paid opportunity to do yourself. The Google My Business, Google Business Profile is the best exposure for free that you’re going to get on Google. And Google still, with all their problems and all the things they’re going through, Google still handles the vast majority of searches on the internet.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, oh, it’s like 86%.

Jason Bowings
Yeah. So it’s down a few, you know, used to be about 93, 94%. And even with Bing coming in with the Chat GPT and everything else, it’s going to be a long time before they can even compete and take double digit percentage away from Google.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, it’s only come down 7% over the past like 20 years,

Jason Bowings
20 years, right.

Ian Robertson
And only because now there are, there are tons of search engines, I’d say their 86% sharehold is actually pretty impressive still.

Jason Bowings
Right? Because there’s so much competition.

Ian Robertson
Yeah. But this has been fan..I could nerd out on this all day, Jason, you and me have had some long conversations about this. I love this stuff. But the big takeaway is, Google Ads are still good. But I would rather do the Google Guaranteed program at the moment, because that’s what’s hot right now. Not everybody’s doing it. Well, maybe everybody will after, after this podcast. But you really should be considering that. Because especially heading into the spring market. This is going to be a critical year for most of us as home inspectors. Think about doing that. Jason, loved having you here. We’re gonna have to have you back on because we could have gone all day on the subjects, and I love it. But thank you so much for your expertise. You didn’t have to do this. You’re not making any money off of this or advertising. You’re just a great guy that likes to help people. So thank you.

Jason Bowings
Thank you for having me. Ian, if it’s okay, I just like to touch on a couple points real quick before we go.

Ian Robertson
Sure.

Jason Bowings
If you’re going to do Google Ads, pay a professional to set it up. And you’re going to pay somewhere between five and $750. But I would rather pay that money upfront, get it set up correctly. And if you’re working with the right company that actually cares about you, they’ll tell you what you need to do to take care of the ads yourself. Every two, three months, you might have to pay somebody 100 or 200 hours to come in and optimize your campaign. But it is worth it. The Google Local Service ads, definitely worth it. Google My Business, take advantage of it, go out and read the information online about how to optimize your Google My Business. It is a, it’s free to you. So it just cost you a little bit of time. The other thing that we didn’t touch on, but I see is a huge mistake with companies, is attribution. Pay attention to what is bringing in your business, don’t just do it willy nilly. If you need to use call tracking numbers, or if you’re using multiple, if you’re running Facebook ads, and Instagram ads, and Google ads, and Google Local Service ads, and you have all these different branches, you need to know what is bringing you what, what is valuable, and what is just an expenditure that’s not bringing you, and guessing doesn’t count, it’s not getting you there. And then of course, your organic, people always say about organic, I’m not getting the leads right away or whatever. It’s a long game. So if you’re worried about your company being around in five and 10 years, you’re going to be using multiple channels. But to start with, especially if you’re new, take advantage of the free opportunities, take advantage of the Google Local Service ads, they’re available, so use them. You only spend money when, when you get the leads. And then as you build, don’t be narrow. So don’t put blinders on, start looking around. What works for one person, one company, might not work for you in your market. But if you’re tracking what you’re doing, and you’re tracking the results, it’s not gonna hurt you to give something a try. And do not under any circumstance, think that you can try, I’ll spend 200 on Google and see what happens. And if it works, then I’ll really commit, you’re either going to commit, or write that $200 check to Google and mail it to them, because the results are going to be the same. You’re not going to get into most markets for less than 500 a month in Google Ad spend. That’s a question I used to get all the time, how much do I have to spend in my market, it’s gonna be a minimum $500. I wouldn’t have touched you without 500. And there’s a lot of marketers out there that won’t touch you for less than 1,000. But not every market can handle 1,000. So if you’re going to commit, commit, do it. And you can find me on Facebook, my name is Jason Bowings. If you want to reach out and just send a message with some questions, I’m happy to answer questions. I don’t, I don’t work for the agency. I’m not taking on clients or anything like that. But I’m happy to try to help you out so that you’re not losing your valuable money.

Ian Robertson
That’s why we love you, Jason. I’ve always appreciated your insights and your kindness, you know, you know, expertise takes a long time to build and you, you give it to people. So thank you for that.

Jason Bowings
I really appreciate it. Ian, you’ve always been a joy to work with. I am so glad that we met. And for anybody who’s wondering what they should be doing with their website or SEO. You know, in the, in the years, we had our own website professionals at the agency, as you know, you work with our professionals, we worked with you, we shared information back and forth, all in the name of trying to get the best results we could for our clients. We weren’t competitors. And if any, obviously if they’re listening, they know who you are and what you do, but you get my biggest support. You’re one of the best I’ve ever met in the marketing industry, no matter what, no matter what niche it was in.

Ian Robertson
Aww, thank you for that. And I guess that’s a good way to end before you change your mind. Thanks a lot, Jason. We’ll talk soon.

Jason Bowings
Thank you, Ian.

Outro: On behalf of myself, Ian, and the entire ITB team, thank you for listening to this episode of inspector toolbelt talk. We also love hearing your feedback, so please drop us a line at [email protected].

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