Google Ads is one of the best advertising platforms for solar installers. And that’s because it’s packed with features to help you target your audiences across the Web and reach them at moments when they in the market for a solar installer.
Whether it’s a homeowner that’s looking for a basic solar installation service with a few solar panels, or a large business looking for the best solar solution, Google Ads can help you target these audiences – and more.
So, here are some actions you can take to create an effective Google Ads campaign for your solar installation company.
1. Campaign Objective
To set up your campaigns, click on the blue link on the campaign page to get started. This will then take you to the Objectives page where you’ll pick an objective for your campaign. There are several objectives to pick from as you will notice, and the best Google Ads objective for solar installers will likely be ‘Leads’, because you’ll focus on driving inquiries and leads for your business.
This objective will then provide recommendations for other campaign settings so you can achieve your plans. And some of these include campaign type selection, bid strategy, budget and so on, and we will discuss these below.
2. Campaign Type
After selecting your objective above, you’ll now need to pick the campaign type that will help you achieve your objective and goals. Fortunately, in Google Ads there are multiple campaign types to choose from for solar installers. And that means you can place your ads across the Google inventory, which represents thousands of websites and apps to advertise on, and not just Search.
So, you can create different campaign types including Search, Display, Performance Max, Demand Gen, and others.
However, Search is usually the best Google Ads campaign for solar installers. And that’s because it gives you much more control over where your ads appear, and you can target the specific keywords that are relevant for your business.
3. Campaign Budget
Choosing a Google Ads budget for solar installers can be challenging. It’s not always easy to know what to set it at and then to increase it. The advantage with advertising on Google is you can adjust it easily, so you can increase or decrease it daily and you have a lot of control over this.
Many solar installation businesses start with a small budget. So, they will start with a budget of at least $500 per month and then increase it as performance improves.
You can also conduct keyword research to get an idea of the right budget to set. Thus, research will show you what the average cost per click is for the keywords you select, and then you can use that to come up with a daily and monthly budget.
4. Bidding Strategy
One of the important features to set in campaign settings is the bid strategy. Because pay per click (PPC) advertising is an auction, bidding is a key part of it. And you can set your bids automatically or manually using one of the bidding strategies that aligns with your goals and objectives.
Like many other industries, the best Google Ads bid strategy for solar installers is one that will produce the best results early on. And an automated strategy like Maximize Clicks means you will get the most traffic possible for your budget.
And then later you can switch to a conversion strategy like Maximize Conversions when you’ve had at least 15 conversions per month over a few months.
5. Keyword Selection
As mentioned earlier, keyword research is important for budget setting. And it helps you find the right keywords to bid on before your launch – so you can achieve a good conversion rate. So, you want to make sure that you do it right and use a number of methods to accomplish this.
The first method is to use a research tool like the Keyword Planner tool in your Google Ads account. It’s a free tool, and you’ll use it to do some research and analysis and also use the forecasting tool to assess the level of competition and what your cost per click (CPC) rates are likely to be.
The second method is to use a competitor research tool. There are a few to choose from and one of the best is SERanking because it provides you with all the metrics and in-depth data on your competitors’ keywords. It’s not a free tool but is cheaper than others like Semrush.
6. Text Ads
People searching for a solar installer on Google will see your text ads in the results. These usually appear at the top, and above the Organic search results, so it’s important that you appear there as frequently as possible, so you can drive traffic to your website, which will lead to sales.
In your Google Ads campaign, you will create several ad groups, and each of these will have its own set of keywords and related text ads. And you’ll need to ensure that the keywords are mentioned in the ad headlines, so that you can achieve a high click through rate (CTR).
Other important things to add in your ad headlines and descriptions are benefits, features, calls to action, pricing and so on. And the ads system will guide you and provide recommendations as you create your ads.
7. Ad Scheduling
Knowing when to run Google Ads campaigns for solar installers can be a challenge. Naturally, many advertisers will run their ads throughout the week and at all hours, which is the default setting in Google Ads. And this will usually produce good results overall.
However, it’s important to monitor this and find out how the ads are performing on each day of the week and hour of the day. There are reports that will help you to analyze this and then you can adjust your ad schedule based on your findings.
And whether you’re targeting home or business solar buyers, you can make the adjustments based on the performance.
Conclusion
Google Ads is the leading advertising platform for solar installers. And this article has provided some guidelines on how to set up an effective campaign on this platform.
If you need help setting up a campaign for your solar installation company, contact me today to discuss. I’m a Google Ads freelancer with over 15 years’ experience.
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