Google Local Service Ads other wise known as GLSA is a service provided by Google to help generate leads for many service professionals. It originally started to help primarily contractors who do not see customers in their office generate leads to help grow their business. GLSA has since expanded to include services like lawyers, dentist, and even veterinarians.
Getting Started
There are a few steps that company needs to take to get started on Google Local Service Ads. You'll be asked basic questions like the name of your business, contact information, and website. However there are a few more steps to actually go live on the platform:
The business will need to provide their business license
You'll need to provide you limited liability concerning how much coverage you have
If you're a dentist for instance you'll also need to provide your dental number for the respective state you wish to advertise in
Note if you border states you can only advertise in the state you have a license for
Lastly some of your employees will have to go through a 3rd party background check
Because Google guarantees the work they want to ensure the employee performing the work is certified
This is typically the biggest hurdle to over come when getting started with GLSA
Turning on GLSA
The next step once the business has all their ducks in a row is getting the ads turned on. This is a fairly simple process of choosing how much money the company wants to spend on a weekly basis, what time of day, and where they wish to target.
There are some items to consider when choosing these options though:
If your business only picks up the phone during business hours, the phone number is not routed to a cell phone, perhaps choose to only run your ads during that time
Start with a small budget, perhaps $500/week, just to get a feel of what your Cost per Lead is going to be and then increase from there
If your a contractor that travels certainly your target area can be larger maybe all cities encompassing a 50 mile radius of your local town. If your a veterinarian maybe people aren't willing to travel quite as far. Look at your patients, what cities seem to be driving the most patients and start with those cities.
Messaging is an option of ways people can get in contact with you
Note GLSA will certainly bringing a lot of messages because people do like to text, maybe even more so than call. Does your phone number go directly to a cell phone to handle these messages and is that person responsive? Your business will be shopped around so time is of the essence.
Disputing
Not ever call or text you get from Google Local Service Ads is a lead. There will be calls following up when the someone is coming to a customers house. There will be billing questions and unfortunately perhaps a sales call or two. Depending on your industry there are things you can do about this. If your a contractor doing work on a persons home there are several options to dispute the call and essential get your money back since you pay per lead automatically.
How do you know which leads to dispute? Google records all calls so you can go back and log into your GLSA account to listen to each an every call that happen. This allows you to dispute the "bad" calls but also gives you an opportunity to hears how customer service is handling the calls. Unfortunately due to HIPAA laws Google can not record calls to say a dentist and as such these calls can never be disputed. Though don't despair my dentist we've found for the most part you'll still see Return on Ad Spend even with the "bad" calls mixed in.
If your business needs help with Google Local Service Ads or perhaps even just regular Google Ads feel free to reach out and we'll be happy to chat about what your company needs to grow online.