If you want more leads for your moving company, there’s one marketing channel that can deliver results faster and more effectively than any other: PPC (Pay Per Click) Advertising.
Although different networks offer PPC advertising, including Microsoft, Facebook, and more, it’s Google Ads that towers over the rest. And with a 92% market share of searches, it’s not hard to see why.
Put simply, if you want to get customers to notice your company, you need to be advertising on Google. But, that’s not the end of the story.
PPC is not a simple set-and-forget service. It requires a lot of skill, expertise, and constant optimization to make sure that you’re getting the best leads and returns from your investment. To help out, we’ve put together the top Google Ads tips for moving companies to get you started and on your way.
First up, let’s give some context into why Google Ads for moving companies is a critical strategy to take advantage of.
The simple answer to this is that when potential customers require a moving company, the place they turn to is search engines such as Google to find out which moving companies are in their area or will move to their new location.
For customers that are planning their move, the companies they see on that search will ultimately influence who they go with. If you can get your business in front of them during that search, then you’re in a great position.
Now, you can rely on only SEO tactics to get your business up the search engine rankings. But that’s a very time-consuming and long-term strategy that can take months or years to pay off.
PPC puts your business on the search results page (pretty much) immediately. Done right, it guarantees instant results – but you can’t win if you don’t play the game.
Now it’s time to learn the rules with our top Google Ads tips for moving companies.
Without further ado, let’s dive into some of the tips that you’re going to need to know to master Google Ads for moving companies.
Keywords are the backbone of any Google Ads campaign – not just for moving companies. They’re what ensures your adverts show up at the right time and in the right place, so it’s one to spend extra time on getting it right.
If you’re looking for free keyword research tools, you may want to consider:
When researching keywords, there are a couple of factors that you’ll need to consider.
The first is keyword intent. This is the reason that someone would enter that search time in Google in the first place and what they expect to find from the search. For example, someone searching for “best moving companies NYC” would be a customer who knows what service they want, but is looking for a provider within their price range, which would fit into your keyword plan.
However, someone searching for “packing tips for movers” is more likely to be looking for help to carry out their move themselves and thus wouldn’t be interested in the services of a moving company. This keyword shouldn’t make it on your list.
Secondly, you need to look at the search volume of your keyword. When doing this, more does not always equal better. If you’ve found a term with a very high search volume, you might face more competition from other companies to get your ad to show on that search. With more competition, comes a higher CPC (cost per click). Generally, you’ll want to aim for keywords with a mix of volumes.
Lastly, you’ll need to look at the cost. Some keywords will cost more than others because more companies are bidding on them. If you have a limited budget, you may want to keep away from keywords such as [top rated moving company in NYC] and target the more broad and cheaper alternatives.
Now you’ve got your list of keywords you want to target, we need to talk about how to prevent your adverts from getting caught out on the wrong searches with negative keywords.
For example, if you have the keyword moving company as a broad match keyword, it will show up for searches that use any word in your search, in any order. So that means, you could end up appearing for searches like:
These searches aren’t relevant to your company and could waste your budget. So, to prevent your adverts from appearing on these searches, you’ll want to add a list of negative keywords to prevent this from happening. Using the above examples, adding the following negative keywords “complaints”, “headquarters”, “jobs” and “picture” will exclude your ad from those searches.
Negative keywords such as “cheap” or “sale” are also good examples to include, as they will stop people looking who aren’t prepared to buy from clicking on your adverts.
This is a good place to monitor, as you may be surprised what searches your adverts end up on. For example, it’s been known for moving companies to appear on searches such as “how to move on” or “move on up lyrics”.
If you’ve followed the above tips, you should have a pretty solid keyword list that’s ready to roll. But before you go crazy with your keywords, you must organize them into tightly focused ad groups for best performance.
For moving companies, these ad groups could be location-based, such as:
Or, you could group ad groups based on the services you offer, such as:
With specific ad groups, the easier it will be to tailor the message in your ads to those specific keywords. This will give you more relevant and higher performing adverts, which could also have a positive impact on your Quality Score.
Location is so important to get right when it comes to Google Ads for moving companies. I mean, at the core of your business you have someone in location A, that needs to move to location B.
To make sure that you’re targeting customers in the right locations, you need to get both your keywords and location settings right.
For example, if you’re based in Atlanta and offer moving services outside the city, but not to Atlanta, you need to make sure that only people in your physical location can access your adverts.
Inside Google Ads, you have two location main settings:
For the Atlanta example, you would want to serve those adverts for location setting one.
If you offer moving services to specific cities, you’ll want to have the second location setting. This is because people aren’t physically there right now, but are actively searching for services related to that city.
Strong CTAs (Call To Actions) are short, snappy commands that tell your customers to take action. For Google Ads adverts, it will be these CTAs that inspire your customers to click on your ads and convert.
To show you the power of CTAs, let’s compare these two hypothetical adverts.
Ad 1:
Ad 2:
Ad 1 didn’t have any CTAs. Although there’s nothing wrong with the advert, it doesn’t inspire action. It doesn’t tell users what to do next, which could mean that they just move right on to the next advert.
In contrast, Ad 2 has CTAs in the headline and description. There’s no doubt as to what users need to do next and it inspires them to go reach the next stage of the customer journey to get their quote.
Like any industry, testing is the backbone of successful Google Ads campaigns for moving companies.
PPC is not a set-and-forget solution. You don’t knock out of the park on your first try and leave it to constantly hit home runs in your absence. It requires a lot more time, analysis, and testing to get the best results from your campaigns.
However, this isn’t as daunting as it might seem. Google Ads is a goldmine for data. Once your campaigns are running, you’ll be able to see metrics for nearly every single situation. You won’t just get how many people clicked on your ads or booked your service, you’ll get all sorts of information like:
The more data you unlock, the more you can optimize your ads to the best-performing audience.
What’s more, you can use the data to uncover which specific campaigns, adverts, and keywords are your champions. Then, directly put them against new entries to see if you can outperform them.
It’s like having a personal best for your 5k run, then continually trying to see if you can smash that PB. The more you test, the better your campaigns will become.
The first tip to master Google Ads for moving companies may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s an important one to mention.
You are not going to get the same results from your campaigns all year round. Moreover, you can’t use the same strategy year-round.
In the US, over 40 million people move each year. But 80% of those moves happen between April and September, creating a peak season for moving companies. We’re sure it’s something that you’re used to and should play into your Google Ads strategy.
During peak season, your volume, clicks, and conversions will be at their highest because of the sheer demand in the market. Offering the opportunity for the best return on investment, during these months you should set your budget higher to keep up with demand. The last thing you need is to waste all your spend early in the day and not appear in front of your customers.
Similarly, if you’re fully booked during your peak months – you’ll want to cut back spend so they’re not going out on leads you’re unable to fulfill.
During your slower months, you’ll want to operate at a lower budget as your click rate and impressions are likely to drop.
But the budget isn’t the only thing that you should consider when it comes to seasonality. You should also make sure that your campaigns are tailored to your season, for example, during peak season you should emphasize benefits like easy to book, available spaces, and instant quotes, as they’ll be wanting to secure a spot as soon as possible. During your off-season, you could promote discounts, advanced bookings, or other add-on services that you may offer.
At Declare, we’ve worked with a range of moving companies to increase their ROI (Return On Investment) and get the best results for their budget. Combining years of PPC experience with specialized knowledge of the moving industry, we’ve got everything you need to transform your campaigns without spending hours learning and testing campaigns yourself.
Recently, we helped a moving company in Metro Detroit achieve a massive 38% conversion rate for their campaigns, with a low cost per conversion of $29.37 using the above Google Ads tips and more. This was a company who did $131k their first year in business and then began working with us and have hit their first $100k month and are on track to do almost ~$750k in revenue (year 2).
Here’s a screenshot of their $100k month in August:
Interested in earning those returns for yourself?
Get in touch today to find out how we can get your campaigns to deliver big and help grow your moving business. Call us today at (646) 419-5496 or contact us online.
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