Google Ads or Facebook Ads?

I have been wondering which one will be more beneficial for my company, I have a Google page which does bring m bew clients and my Facebook page also brings me new clients. I’m not familiar with the Google ads or Facebook ads I’ve been doing a lot of research and it seems like they both are pretty good but I don’t want to make a mistake and it cost me money. Does anyone else have any experience with using either what is your opinion on it? How is your Revenue with it?

The only advertising I was doing when I first started with no customer base was Facebook ads, thumbtack, and flyers. I got my first set of jobs from thumbtack mostly and I would get probably 1 to 2 a week from Facebook Ads. Crappy. Put the big boy pants on, made it a very appealing website, got it on Google, started running Google ads and I canceled Facebook ads. Made $10,000 in one month part time. I don’t do Paid Facebook ads because personally they’re targeting sucks. I instead join Facebook pages of the community like swap shops and buy sell trade and post in there about me and my services with before and after pics and a link to my website. I still use thumbtack.

If you had to pay for one or the other, I would personally choose to invest my money in a website and get your website onto Google and run ads there. Just make sure you have a good website, keywords, and SEO

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My pressure-washing client continues to have a lot of success with Facebook Ads. I published a Case Study on it last month, if you want it please send me a personal message. (I don’t think I’m permitted to post links publicly yet.)

@DJPWS Dustin, can you provide some insight on how you structured your first few runs of Google Ads, what service you were advertising, spending, etc?

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I’ll message you.

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Thanks!

I have only used Facebook for advertising so I cannot speak to other types of marketing. I have stopped all paid Facebook ads…I place ads in about 20 groups in a 50 mile radius. Using this method, I get a pretty good amount of views on the ads and some views of my Facebook page…but it is basically free. I stopped the paid ads last year because it was getting me almost no business and I could not see continuing to put money there, got tons of views and almost no serious calls…tire kickers. Now, I have to say that I am obviously in a POOR market…home or business cleaning just is not a priority to folks in my area…they may be driving new cars…but they are not spending money on getting their property clean. Matter of fact, if I had known how poor the market was…I would have never started this business. I am not trying to make a living at this…but I would like for it to be a decent part time business…and it is barely even that. I can do $15k between Mar 1st and Sept 1st…and that is it. So, from my experience in my poor market…I would suggest leaning towards Google…but, really, I am probably not one that should be recommending anything to anyone.

@JimLuke, is there no demand for your services from other property owners on the lake? I live near two lakes and we do a lot of work on both of them

Yeah…as a matter of fact I have been checking into that and I am going to pursue that. I am just trying to get some things taken care of their that are requiring attention before I get into that. It is 100 miles from home…but I can go stay there while working.

I really think that is a vast untapped market…the lake has about 500 miles of shoreline and thousands of properties. This satellite view is kind of my immediate neighborhood…lots of stuff out there.

Lot of money there

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I think every area has money, I don’t think Facebook is an advertising platform to grow a business, it’s a percentage but not a percentage that moves the needle. I personally don’t advertise anymore other than the stuff that’s been up for years but when I did google gave me more leads than I could attend to. Try your luck with google, everyone has a phone these days and not everyone looks at Facebook as a search engine for services. I would be surprised if you couldnt double or triple your turnover with google.

Google, they own about 92% of search traffic. Their customer support way better than FB, Google actually answers the phone. Write down a plan and monitor your metrics to know how to adjust when needed.

We did flyers at first and word of mouth was are best form of advertising but now we use google ads and let me tell you it’s pretty cool cause just yesterday we turned are ads back on after a couple weeks of having them off and as soon as we did we got 4 quotes and 2 jobs scheduled and that was one day when we had them off we would get like 1-3 a just from the flyers we put out like a year or 2 ago

Hi, I saw your post regarding the Facebook Advertising Case Study for Pressure Washers.
Can you please send me a copy of the case study? You can email to tmwalker.ga@gmail.com.
Thanks,
Tim

Hey bro! Any chance you could send me a copy of this? Would be a great help :slight_smile: Thanks

Here is the case study: https://lucyadigital.com/case-study-facebook-ads

Hope you like it!

Rich

same with me. Can you send it to markturcas@gmail.com thanks

yes, @DJPWS Id appreciate it if you can send me an insight as well of the Google Ads. Please email me at markturcas@gmail.com. thanks

Copy me on that also please

Google. You want ads on a platform where people are actively searching for your services. 98% of people do not get on facebook to search for a local service business.

Think of it this way, if you needed a plumber, pool guy, or even a mechanic; are you going to go to a social media platform and look for one? Probably not. You’re going to go to a search engine. People actively looking your services are hot leads, which are the leads you want. I feel like Facebook may only be beneficial if let’s say, someone got an HOA violation letter and forgot to get quotes for their driveway, roof, etc. They might see the ad and think, “oh crap, I forgot to get that scheduled”. 8/10 times that is not the case. Most people know there is a hefty violation fee if they do not solve the issue within the specified timeframe. I use that as an example because about 75% of my new clients are all because of an HOA violation. Google ads, door hangers, and yard signs are your best bet. Please, please, please, do not use thumbtack or Angi. They’re a scam, so is yelp. (In my experience) you might be getting leads, but how many of them are actually becoming a customer? And how much are you paying per lead? Let’s say you pay $100 a week for leads and you get 5 leads. Your cost per lead is $20. If only one person becomes an actual paying customer for you, you’re paying $100 just to acquire that client, that is way too much. Angi was also sued for creating “fake” leads just to generate more revenue for themselves. That being said, this was MY experience, yours may be totally different so far, if it has been, good! Maybe they’ve gotten better. Angi, thumbtack, and yelp will call you relentlessly and beg you to buy their services. They throw big numbers at you and get you all excited, offer $600-$1000 in free ad spend just for becoming a new client, blah blah blah. For me, that free $1000 ended up costing me a $1000.

I have been using google ads for three years and my total ad spend has been for all three years combined is $48,231 as of the time I’m writing this. Google ads is a whole different beast to learn. About $10k of that was wasted on me trying to figure out different strategies. I am in Florida, my current cost per lead is about $35 on Google ads. Which is great considering this area is very saturated with exterior cleaning services. About 70% of my leads on Google become actual clients of mine. My average ticket for each client was about $600 last year. I also spent $15k on ads. I did about $160k in sales last year. About 50-60% of my new clients come from some source of paid advertising. So since half of my new clients come from paid advertising and I spent $15k last year, then paid advertising brought me half of my total sales. I would gladly pay $15k for $80k worth of work. I’d pay you that all day long. Keeping your prices affordable, being honest, having good reviews, and having a good personality will get your leads to convert into customers quicker than anything.

If you do get into Google ads, optimization is key. This takes time, data, and money. Optimizing ads is not even something I’m going to touch on, it’s such a long process to learn, but it is the only key for success with Google ads.

I should also add, I’m not a paid advertising marketer and I do not work for Google. I’m literally just a small business owner trying to give you a thorough explanation on my experience. Because if I can help someone not waste $10k learning how paid advertising works, I would gladly do it. When you’re first starting out, that is a LOT of money. That wasted ad spend can get you some pretty nice equipment. Anyway, I hope this obnoxiously long post helps answer your question :joy:.

Here’s a link to some similar experiences as far as Angi/Home Advisor.

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