Google Taking Advantage of Small Business Owners Again

Was at it again, trying to make sure that they get their money always. For the last couple months and even year, I've been really pushing Google local service ads as a way to grow your business. Because it's a pay per lead model. It's a number one place on Google. If you don't know what Google local service ads are, when someone searches for H Vac near me or lawn care near me or whatever, this section right here is called Google Guaranteed Google sponsored. It's the number one place on Google. More importantly is you only pay for the lead when someone clicks this button to call you or message you. The reason that this is so important is because unlike traditional Google Ads, where it's like this, where it's just a black hole and you're not paying for leads, you're paying for impressions and clicks. This is literally paying for leads. Now, Google before, and it is kind of similar now, but there's something that's changing where now they're focusing on the branded side of things. So before what would happen is people would set a budget for this. Let's say this company set a budget at $1,000. Well, you only spend $1,000 if someone clicks this button a certain amount of times. So what happens to Google is that they have all this unfulfilled budget. So people are saying, hey Google, I want to spend $1,000 if you give me a certain amount of leads. And Google's saying, well, I can only give you a lead if someone clicks this button here. And so there's this back and forth, but Google says, wow, there's so much money that we can make. And if you don't know how much a lead costs in your area, this is where I typically would recommend starting. Let's say that you do H Vac in this area. What this is telling us is that for 25 to $38, you can get a H Vac lead in that zip code. Now that means if someone clicks this button right here, you're going to spend 25 to $38 on average. That's a home run for most businesses. The big issue though is Google's going to show the best company. So if you don't have a thousand reviews, let's say you only have a hundred reviews, they're not going to show you because they want to give the best opportunity to make money. All this has now changed. All this has now changed. Google now is rolling out. They're not just testing it, they literally rolled out branded local service ads with an opt out option. So what does this mean for your business? And why is this so important? What this means is if you say, hey, I want to pay per lead. I want a $25 lead. I want this. And you set up your budget. Shoot, you could set up your budget for a million dollars. And if they fulfill that many leads, then Great, you got $25 leads and you got a ton of leads. It's a simple way to get leads. Now Google saying, hold on, we need to make our money. And so what they're doing is they're actually rolling out what are called branded Google local service ads. What does this mean? When someone searched for your company by name, now they're going to be showing your Google local service ads just like this one as a sponsored post. So what they're doing is they're taking a branded search, and now they're saying, hey, look here, here's the company that you want. They're not just showing your Google business profile, which is what they should be showing because this is free. They're now showing this here. So what happens if someone calls and clicks or calls to click call, clicks to call you, or messages you? What's happening is they're going to ask them, are you a new customer? Returning customer is if you're a new customer, they say that's when they're going to charge you. If you're a returning customer, they're not going to charge you. The reason that I don't like this at all is because it's basically taking all of your brand recognition in the marketplace, Your TV ads, your billboards, your goodwill, your referrals, everything. Anytime someone's going to Google you to call this button now, they're going to be making money off that search for a branded keyword. Google didn't do anything to help you be found here. All they're doing is just taking advantage and making the money so that way you're seen when they can just show your Google business profile. So as you can see, it's a little slimy and grimy. And my recommendation and our recommendation to our clients is you got to turn this feature off. Because what's going to happen is, remember over here, we talked about setting your budget at a million dollars or whatever your budget is set at. If you have your budget set now, for every single time someone Googles your name, your business's name, they're going to show your ad here. And if they click to call this button, you're going to have to pay for that when before they could just click and Call your Google profile. You didn't have to pay. So it's going to jack up the amount that you're spending and it's not going to be on the customers that you're actually paying for that are going to find you, that they don't know your name already. All right, so what exactly do you do? So you go to Google local service ads on the back end. You go to your profile and budget and right over here you can see direct business search. You can check it on or off. Let local service ads highlight your business and results. When someone searches for your brand or business directly, you'll not be charged for leads from returning customers. Now they told us that it's going to ask them how can leads be charged from the search. They say Google screens calls that are connected via the ad. Callers will be asked if they're returning customer. If they indicate they are returning customer, you'll not be charged for the lead. Now you could leave this on. My thing is, if a customer is searching you by name, why would they be a returning customer? Aside from the fact why would they not show your Google business profile? They would be a new customer. If you've done all the other things outside, if you've done the branding, if you've done the referrals, if you've gotten the recognition and people then go to your Google business profile and they say, yeah, I am a new customer. And it doesn't make any sense why they would, why they would say if it's a new customer, clearly returning customers, there's no way you should be charged for returning customers. But that aside, if you do not turn this off, I think that you're doing a disservice to your company because you're spending ad dollars twice almost. You're spending it on the brand and recognition side, on the referral side, on all the goodwill side, and then you're also going to be spending it on Google local service ads, which Google local service ads is supposed to be meant for. When someone searches for a law group near me, you want them to find your Google business profile like that. And so that's really what they're meant for, in my opinion. I think Google's just trying to make more money because they see the potential that they could fill all of this budgets and they're trying to just figure out how to do that. So if you need help with this or you're curious about getting Google local service ads set up or your Google service has gone through the roof and you don't know what's going on. That could be one thing we do marketing audits. We can go through this with you on a call and kind of walk through best practice for your business. Put a link down below. If not, it's all good. If you like content like this, hit like and subscribe and we'll see you in the next video.