May 28, 2025 • 33 mins
In this episode, Janet and Caitlyn break down the 10 most common PPC advertising mistakes replacement contractors make—and how to avoid them. From weak ad copy and mismanaged budgets to overlooked geographic targeting and missing conversion tracking, this is a must-listen for contractors who want better ROI from their Google Ads campaigns.
Whether you're running ads yourself or working with an agency, you'll walk away with smarter questions to ask, critical fixes to implement, and the confidence to improve your paid ad results.
Want to find out how we can create a custom digital marketing game plan for your contractor business? Schedule a call with us at fatcatstrategies.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Caitlyn (00:01):
Welcome to Digital Marketing for Contractors.
This podcast is brought to youby Fat Cat Strategies, a
full-service digital marketingagency based in Raleigh, North
Carolina.
We specialize in helping homeimprovement contractors just
like you grow their businesses.
Janet (00:17):
Today, you're listening to a series called Build, Grow,
Dominate, marketing strategiesfor every stage of your home
improvement business.
Every Wednesday, we take a deepdive into the lessons that
we've learned from supportingsome amazing business owners.
in the home improvementindustry.
Caitlyn (00:34):
In part one, we'll cover the essentials from
startup to your first fivemillion.
In part two, we're shiftinggears to focus on what it takes
to scale your business to asuccessful exit and or how to
dominate your market.
Now let's get into it.
Janet (00:49):
Hey, I'm Janet, the founder here at Fat Cat
Strategies, and today I amjoined by Caitlin Noble.
Caitlyn (00:56):
Hey, I'm Caitlin, head of client services and partner
here at Fat Cat Strategies.
Janet, what are we diving intotoday?
Janet (01:05):
So today is the last in our series, and we are diving
into a topic that could be thedifference between burning money
and printing it, and it is PPCadvertising.
So
Caitlyn (01:20):
PPC advertising, pay per click, or PPC, is one of the
fastest ways to generate highquality leads for your business.
But here's the thing, even thebest campaigns can crash and
burn if you don't avoid somevery common mistakes.
So let's talk about 10 PPCpitfalls that replacement
contractors just like you canoften fall into, and most
(01:42):
importantly, how you can avoidthem.
Janet (01:45):
The first mistake, and this is true for PPC campaigns,
but really I would argue it'strue for any marketing campaign
that you set out to tackle, isyou need to clearly define your
goals and your expectations.
If you don't have clear goals,how will you know if you've
achieved them?
So if you're working with anagency partner and you're not
(02:06):
having a conversation about whatsuccess looks like, then how
could you possibly expect themto deliver it?
And so defining goals andexpectations in our world
usually ends up translating todefining a certain number of
leads that you need thatcampaign to generate in a month
(02:26):
at a specific cost.
So, you know, defining goalsand expectations could be 50
leads in a month from thiscampaign at a cost per lead
under $100.
Caitlyn (02:38):
I love the more calls from a specific zip code.
We get that a lot.
Yes.
You know, you're wanting togrow into this town that you
haven't been in and you're justwanting to make sure you have
the phone ringing in that town.
That's a great goal.
Yeah.
Janet (02:53):
And so, you know, just saying, oh, I'm going to do a
PPC campaign without taking itthe next step to say, what do
you want that campaign to do?
Do you want the phone to ringfrom that affluent area that's
north of a specific highway?
I mean, that's how our clientstalk to us about it.
(03:14):
They're like, well, thishighway is north of town.
And we want these areas whichcomprise, you know, some bedroom
communities and some outlyingsuburbs.
And I've never sold up thereand I want to sell up there.
Then that could be a goal of aPPC campaign to break into a new
geography.
Another goal could be this veryspecific, you know, your
(03:35):
existing tried and truegeography.
And you need to generate acertain number of leads for
that.
one of your services.
Another goal could be somethinglike, let's say you do roofing
and siding, and you want moresiding leads.
And up to now, all of your PPCcampaigns have been targeting
roofing leads.
(03:55):
Or if you add on gutters ordecks or something like that.
So that's kind of the bigpicture about a big picture
conversation about starting witha clear goal and expectations
in mind.
So that's the mistake is notdoing it and how to fix it is
sit down with your agency anddefine those SMART goals.
(04:17):
And everybody knows thisacronym SMART.
It stands for specific,measurable, achievable,
relevant, and time bound.
So that's mistake number oneand how to fix it.
Caitlin, what is mistake numbertwo?
So
Caitlyn (04:30):
mistake number two gets more into the weeds, but that's
the point of this podcast.
It's neglecting keywordstrategy discussions.
So PPC isn't about just beingseen.
It's about being seen by theright people.
Too often contractors leavekeywords, the keyword decisions
entirely up to whoever's runningthe campaign.
(04:51):
Sometimes you can set up asmart campaign yourself through
Google Ads and it'll just pickkeywords off of your website.
And if you listen to the firstepisode in the series about SEO,
you know how important havingthe right keywords on your
website is.
Janet (05:05):
But what if your website doesn't have those keywords and
somebody just sets up this quoteunquote smart campaign?
Then it ain't that smart, is
Caitlyn (05:13):
it?
No, it's not.
I mean, or your website couldbe flooded with content because
at one point you were dealingwith storm recovery or repairs
and you no longer do thatanymore.
The smart campaigns will pickup on those keywords and then
all of a sudden you're going toget a ton of repair leads.
That's a really good example.
(05:34):
Yeah, that you don't want.
So I think having thediscussion, and this is
something we do as an agency,every time we meet with our
client when we're making surewe're on the same page about
what we're advertising is we'reoutlining, hey, you're good with
citing, okay, great.
You're good with specificallyJames Hardy citing, great.
Repairs, no repairs, great.
(05:55):
So having that keyworddiscussion is absolutely
important.
So the mistake is not havingthe keyword discussion and
neglecting that strategy.
How to fix it is obviouslygetting involved, like I said,
making sure your agency isproviding that conversation
conversation with you as well.
Talk about high intent phrasesthat your customers are actually
(06:19):
using.
If they're using long tail,you've probably heard that
before, long tail keywords likevinyl window replacement in
Cary, North Carolina, that'ssomething worth bidding on
instead of just bidding onwindows.
That's going to blow yourbudget, just bidding on windows.
Be more specific.
Use those long tail keywords.
(06:39):
Have that discussion.
What's mistake number three?
Janet (06:42):
So the Mistake number three is to ignore discussions
about budget and budgetadjustments.
We keep saying discussions.
I guess we're kind of packagingthis episode with the
assumption that you haveoutsourced this, whether it's an
independent contractor there inyour town, it's your cousin,
(07:05):
it's Google, a Google rep hastalked you into something, or
you're working with a smallagency.
if you're not having reallygood conversations around the
budget and budget transparencyand adjustments that can be a
mistake so you know, we haveseen clients come to us who've
(07:25):
been working with another agencyand they kind of blindly
trusted that the budget would bemanaged well until it's not.
And so, you know, what doesthat look like?
You know, if the budget's notbeing managed well, you can blow
through your entire budget,your month's budget in a week.
Or on the flip side, weactually get quite a bit of
(07:46):
calls where our clients orprospective clients ask, They've
set aside an advertising budgetand they want to spend a
certain amount of money andthey're just not able to spend
it.
Yeah.
understanding budgets mistakeis to make sure that your agency
(08:15):
provides you real time accessto dashboards that show what
you're spending and how far youare through the month on that
budget or at the very least theygive you some weekly updates.
So the fix to this budgetmistake is just to have some
sort of system in place whereyou can know that somebody's
(08:35):
monitoring it and in an idealworld that the The agency or the
person who's monitoring it willhave a strategy in place or
some ideas in place toreallocate the budget based on
performance.
So that reallocation could looklike this.
Right.
Right.
(08:58):
case the agency should contactyou and say hey I know you do
(09:28):
you know roofing windows andgutters we didn't know it but
like for whatever reason thisgutter campaign is taking off or
this window campaign is takingoff are you okay if we move some
money around and so thatreallocation It's got to be a
two-way street.
It can't be just to spend PPCdollars.
(09:49):
It has to be aligned with whatyou need as a business.
If you don't want more gutterleads, but that gutter campaign
is doing great...
then you don't necessarily wantto optimize the campaign for
leads that you don't want.
So it's just this wholeconversation around the
transparency about how yourbudget is being managed and how
(10:10):
it's being adjusted.
So Caitlin, what's mistakenumber four?
Caitlyn (10:13):
Yeah, mistake number four is weak ad copy.
which goes along this mentalityof just setting it and
forgetting it.
Generic ads, they're not goingto convert.
If your ad says something like,get Windows today, it's not
doing you any favors.
It's just not.
I mean, This weak ad copy issomething that, if you've
(10:39):
outsourced this, you should beworking with an agency or
another partner who definitelyunderstands the ad copy should
align with the messaging on yourwebsite.
And we'll talk more about thatin a minute.
But that being said, A lot oftimes, back to that keyword
(10:59):
mistake that we were talkingabout a second ago, these smart
campaigns on Google and evenjust the way Google Ads sets up
campaigns now will automaticallypull in headlines as you're
building out these ads.
And if you don't have somebodyoverseeing what that copy looks
(11:20):
like, it could be some prettygeneric, no call to action,
headline that just is nevergoing to get any clicks unless
you by chance have nocompetitors at all.
Janet (11:32):
Yeah, that ain't gonna happen.
Caitlyn (11:34):
Yeah.
Janet (11:34):
So Caitlin, you've mentioned a couple of times
these smart campaigns.
What is that?
Let's not assume that ourlisteners know what Google smart
campaigns are.
So I'm
Caitlyn (11:50):
trying to figure out the best way to explain it.
So isn't it kind of like theeasy button?
It is an easy button.
And honestly, if you've neverset up Google ads before, it's
probably going to give you thatoption first and foremost, and
you may not even realize thatyou've clicked on it.
Janet (12:05):
So like day one, I set up a new account and I'm clicking
through all the welcome screens.
And at some point I mightaccidentally click into setting
up what's called a smartcampaign.
Caitlyn (12:15):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
It definitely happens like atthe initial start of building
out this account if you havealready built out your account
and you haven't activated itthere's nothing to worry about
but I'm you know I don't want toassume but a lot of you who may
be considering PPC you may bebrand new to it you may be brand
(12:38):
new to it and just be hesitant
Janet (12:40):
and let's be honest if you see something that says do
you want to set up a smartaccount your answer is probably
going to be like heck yeah doplease please please please yeah
well You want my account to besmart?
Yeah.
The mistake is, no, you don't.
Caitlyn (12:52):
You
Janet (12:53):
don't.
They're automating a bunch ofstuff.
They're using AI.
They're crawling your website.
And as you said earlier,Caitlin, like, let's say, for
example, you had informationabout some storm cleanup or
something that was very timely,very seasonal, kind of a one-off
content.
I mean, we have seen...
We have seen things get pickedup from maybe an owner's about
(13:17):
us page.
Exactly.
You don't necessarily want thatto be your Google ad copy.
So those smart campaigns aretrying to take some work off of
your plate and automate it.
But what you end up with areeither generic ads or weird ads.
Weird ads, totally.
And so
Caitlyn (13:34):
a way to fix, you know, let's say you haven't done the
smart campaign, you may have,whatever.
Don't settle for weak copy.
Don't set it and forget it.
What you should be doinginstead is making sure you have
calls to action that are verystrong.
Like instead of get windowstoday, why don't you say
(13:56):
something along the lines oflifetime warranty on your window
replacement, free window quotein 24 hours, time sensitive,
offer something a little moreattractive than just get your
windows today.
So don't make the mistake forweak ad copy.
Janet (14:14):
Number five, Janet.
Okay, so mistake number five isoverlooking landing page
optimization So these mistakeskind of go hand in hand.
You know, Caitlin was justtalking about weak ad copy.
You know, the ad that someonesees needs to match the content
and the intent of the landingpage.
(14:35):
So, you know, it's a journey.
Someone sits down to search.
to find a solution to aproblem.
So they're gonna use whateverwords they use to search on it.
Then they're gonna be presentedads.
Those ads need to becompelling.
And then if they click on thead, then it needs to go to a
landing page that delivers onthat promise.
(14:57):
And so if the landing page isslow to load, it's cluttered,
it's not mobile responsive, itdoesn't match the ad's promise
or intent or copy, then usersare gonna see it for just a
second They're going to bounceright out of there.
You know, something I've seen alot of times when we inherit an
(15:17):
account, a Google Ads account,that is, from...
Usually this happens whenpeople have been kind of DIYing
it.
Caitlyn (15:26):
Right.
Janet (15:27):
They've set up a bunch of ads.
They spend a bunch of timelooking at keywords.
They might have done a prettygood job of geographic
targeting.
But then they send every singlead to the homepage.
Wrong.
So...
If you're doing, like, let'ssay you're building decks,
you're installing fences, andmaybe you do painting.
(15:49):
Yeah.
then you should have a bunch ofpages on your website about
decks.
You should have separate pagesabout painting and separate
pages about your fence options.
So your fence ad should go toyour main fence page.
Your deck ad should go to yourmain deck page and so forth.
But when we're talking aboutlanding pages, you don't want to
(16:12):
just send all your ads to yourhomepage.
And again, I'll repeat it.
You want to make sure that thepage loads really fast.
It's not cluttered.
It matches the ad um and itperforms really well and looks
really good on mobile devices sothat's the fix to that one
awesome number
Caitlyn (16:32):
six um not using negative keywords what do you
mean huge mistake what arenegative keywords like well it's
a silent killer ugly like youugly
Janet (16:42):
is that negative
Caitlyn (16:43):
exactly no um Negative keywords could be things like
free.
It could be things likecleaning.
So let me go into more detail.
Yeah, explain what
Janet (16:56):
you mean by negative keywords.
Caitlyn (16:57):
You keep interrupting me.
Janet (17:00):
I'll
Caitlyn (17:00):
stop interrupting
Janet (17:02):
you.
Caitlyn (17:02):
You've defined this beautiful list of keywords that
you're gonna advertise and focuson for that month or whatever
that you need in terms of yourservices.
That being said, that's justnot where the buck stops because
you may have said you want togo after window replacement or
vinyl windows in Cary, NorthCarolina, or you wanna go after
(17:25):
roof replacement near me.
If you don't have a negativekeyword list in place, Google is
going to still, depending onyour budget, pull up your ads
for because you just have theword roof in your ad or your
keyword.
It's going to pull up thingslike DIY roof repair.
(17:46):
Yes.
So because you may have likehow you have a weird match type,
which we'll get more intolater.
But because of that, if youhave roof replacement near me
and you don't have a negativekeyword set up for DIY or
repair, you're gonna be gettingclicks that you're paying for
(18:06):
for people who are trying tolearn how to DIY their roof
repair and God bless thosepeople.
Another common one that we alsosee is like cleaning.
So like siding cleaning, windowcleaning.
Anytime you're going toadvertise sighting replacement
or window replacement orsomething along those lines,
(18:30):
please make sure you've excludedthe word cleaning.
Add that to your negativekeyword list.
Otherwise, you are also goingto be getting clicks that you're
paying for for people who wantto learn how to clean
Janet (18:42):
their windows.
So that negative keyword list,correct me if I'm wrong, it's
telling Google, hey, don't showmy ad for these words.
Caitlyn (18:52):
Exactly.
Janet (18:53):
Okay.
Exactly.
Caitlyn (18:54):
Jobs is another common one.
Careers.
Sometimes, you know, you'llhave somebody who might be
searching, you know, for asighting career or like a
sighting installer and sightingjob.
Estimator.
Estimator.
Like they might be doing areally specific job.
Exclude careers.
(19:16):
Otherwise, you're going to begetting clicks onto your PPC
landing pages for people who aretrying to apply for jobs.
So how to fix this?
Review your search term reportregularly.
That is an actual report withinGoogle Ads.
If you're not reviewing it,your agency definitely should be
and building out a negativekeyword list regularly.
based off of some of thoserandom searches that you will...
(19:39):
It can be funny.
I mean...
Janet (19:41):
Oh, yeah.
The list of things that weexclude end up being kind of
comical.
Caitlyn (19:45):
I mean,
Janet (19:47):
babies in a bathtub.
Caitlyn (19:49):
Like...
I forgot about that one.
Dog...
Dog...
Dog, dog washing, dog, um,something like, like showers for
dogs, like really off the wallsearches.
Don't pay for those clicks.
Janet (20:03):
Can I, can I add to your mistake?
Number six, you're calling itnot using negative keywords, but
I just want to tag onto whatyou're saying.
I think we could expand thismistake to say, well, first of
all, mistake number one is notusing negative keyword.
And then like, The follow-onmistake would be to not keep
that negative keyword list up todate.
(20:25):
And so you're laughing aboutseeing people search on showers
for dogs.
Well, if you're a bathroomremodeling contractor and you're
doing one-day bath installs,you don't want to pay for your
ad to show up when somebody'strying to figure out how to wash
their big old dog.
Right.
And
Caitlyn (20:45):
so- Free shower.
Oh my God, free showers.
That's a really common one.
Like free public
Janet (20:49):
showers.
Oh, for like people living intheir car?
Totally.
Oh my God.
Yeah, so, you know, if you'relistening to this and you're
trying to run your own Google adcampaign, yes, sit down and use
your own brain and try to comeup with a list of negative
keywords.
But I'm telling you, your brainis not enough.
Caitlyn (21:07):
We may have a list of negative keywords- somewhere a
download bait.
I will try to link that in theshow notes.
Yeah.
If you're interested in a listof commonly used negative
keywords, negative keywords,
Janet (21:19):
I will find that.
But, um, but if you are runningyour own campaign or you're
working with an agency, makesure that they are periodically
going in to look at all of thesearch terms that people put
into Google that ended uptriggering your ads.
Because if you regularly, it'salmost like, um, list hygiene.
(21:40):
You go in and you're like, oh,I would have never thought that
someone would search on XYZ.
Well, let me make that anegative keyword.
Because there's no way you'regoing to come up with that full
list keyword.
Just off the top of your head.
Never.
So you've got to go in thereand maintain it.
Caitlyn (21:58):
And you won't.
Don't be scared.
You're not going to spend anegregious amount of money on
some of these dumb searches thathave nothing to do with your
business.
So just keep an eye on it.
Mistake number seven.
Janet (22:09):
Okay, I got this one.
It is underutilizing or notutilizing ad extensions.
So ad extensions are a featureof the Google Ads search
platform and they're like sitelinks or call outs or structured
snippets which may not meanthat much to you if you've never
(22:33):
really dug through a Google adaccount or thought about it but
what an ad extension is is let'ssay and I know you're familiar
with this let's say you're I candescribe it better on a desktop
you're on a desktop you searchfor something on Google and you
see the main ad or business nameand kind of in indented under
(22:54):
that will be a list of otherthings like our locations,
contact us.
If they've got a product orservice that is the thing that
most people need when they go tothat website, that will be an
ad extension.
So ad extensions, you can kindof handcraft those sublinks
(23:19):
under your main ad and they canbe really powerful and really
optimize your account.
So the mistake is not usingthem or under utilizing them and
how to fix it is just work withyour agency to make sure that
you're using every available adextension that's relative to the
(23:39):
service that you provide.
Caitlyn (23:41):
And I would say on the non-desktop version that's
absolutely critical and it doesnot happen automatically is that
the phone number, the call,like the call now extension,
which I think, you know, we justtalked about, but like, Oh
yeah.
On a mobile, on a mobile, likeplease make sure you have the
call now extension with a phonenumber configured, a working
(24:03):
call center phone or whereverconfigured.
Um, okay.
So Caitlin hit us with mistakenumber eight.
Number eight is just neglectingyour data, like not looking at
it and not looking at thereporting.
Um, Running blind isn't astrategy.
If you're not reviewingreports, you have no idea what's
(24:23):
working and what's wasting yourspend.
This is loaded.
We could have a whole episodeabout this.
I guess the main point here isyou need to make sure that you
have somebody, like we've talkedabout earlier, keeping an eye
on your budget, reporting on howthat spend is going.
(24:47):
Also, see if those conversions,as you get into the weeds, as
those conversions start to rollin, make sure you are able to
match those conversions back towhether it's a phone call or a
form submission and let youragency or whoever's running your
ads know, yeah, that was a badlead.
(25:08):
That was somebody looking forwindow cleaning.
Or let them know, oh my gosh,that was a great lead.
So close the loop.
Yeah, close the loop.
They should be able to thenfind that, okay, that lead came
through a campaign that I hadrun on window replacement, et
cetera.
This was the ad copy thatworked, and this is what
(25:30):
converted.
You can get all of that throughreally good reporting.
So conversions, conversionrates, lead quality, and more
should just be some of thethings that are in your reports.
Always, always, always feelfree to ask why behind the
numbers that you're seeing.
There are no dumb questions.
Whoever's managing your accountshould be able to answer those
(25:52):
questions.
Mistake number nine.
Number nine.
It
Janet (25:57):
is ignoring geographic targeting.
So, you know...
This is so important.
It is important.
Google Ads and Bing Ads andmany other platforms will allow
you to be really specific withthe geography that you target.
So...
if you think about how far youwant your guys to drive to do a
(26:20):
job.
So you can set up a radiusaround your shop.
You can target specific,they're called DMAs in Google.
You can target specific townnames, city names, zip codes,
and you can exclude town names,city names, and zip codes.
(26:41):
So a lot of times our clientswill come to us and they will
say, you know and when we're onthe call with them we'll pull up
a google map on our computerand we'll look at it together
and and they'll say okay you seethis this highway that circles
the city well you know north ofthat highway is a great it's a
great target area for us andsouthwest but any sign anything
(27:06):
inside of that this urban areamaybe that's not a great target
or maybe it is a great targetbut look at a map together with
your agency and set that geogeographic targeting for where
you know you want to beinstalling jobs.
And that way you're running adsto those areas that you want to
target and not running ads thatare 100 miles away from you or
(27:28):
200 miles away from you.
Yeah, that's a really, really,really good point.
So
Caitlyn (27:32):
bring it on home.
What is mistake number 10?
I mean, this is the most fancyone of all of them.
Maybe.
Not setting up conversiontracking.
Oh my gosh.
I mean, so I I just mentionedconversions as a way to go back
and see if you have leads and soforth, and looking at that as
one of the stats.
(27:53):
It's easy, man, you can justclick, you know, on enable your
ads and you're running ads andyou're off to the races and you
have no idea if like you may seean increase in traffic to your
website but without conversiontracking being set up you're not
going to be able to find out ifyou have specific form fills
(28:14):
phone calls booked appointmentsyou're truly flying blind there
is a whole i'm going to call ita module um in the google ads
platform where you can set upconversion tracking.
It sounds more complicated thanit is.
It's really not.
Please, please, please, please,please do it.
It's so you'll be able to goback and find those data points
(28:37):
that you should be referring to,which are conversions.
If somebody only reports toy'all on clicks and cost per
click, you're missing a hugedata point.
So please make sure conversiontracking is set up.
So as I said, how to do it, howto not do it, don't set it up,
(29:00):
but how to do it, make sure youhave it fully set up, whether
it's through Google Ads, GoogleAnalytics, or your CRM, even
some of our own, we useWhatConverts to do call tracking
form submission tracking, itall integrates with Google Ads.
So just make sure anythingyou're doing through Google Ads
(29:22):
is set up in terms ofconversions.
Track what actually matters,don't track clicks.
was a lot of tips.
There are a lot of mistakes youcan make.
Janet (29:31):
There are a lot of mistakes and we just hit on 10
of them.
Only 10.
There are more mistakes thatpeople can make.
We're joking.
Okay.
So there you have it.
Those are 10 of the most commonPPC mistakes that we have seen
home improvement contractorsmake when they come to us and we
get inside their account.
And we've given you some tipson how you can steer clear of
(29:52):
each and every one of them.
If you have made some of theseerrors in the past, do not
worry.
You are not alone.
Others have made similarmistakes.
It's how we know about them.
But now you've got theknowledge to fix them and you've
got the knowledge to ask youragency partner or the freelancer
or maybe your office manager ishelping you manage your Google
(30:13):
ads.
You've now got better questionsto ask so that you can make
sure your campaign stays ontrack.
Caitlyn (30:22):
Yes, okay y'all, this is concluding part one of our
part two series, Build, Grow,Dominate, Marketing Strategies
for Every Stage of Your HomeImprovement Business.
For the last six episodes, wefocused entirely on that first
phase, the build step in yourbuild, scale, dominate journey.
We broke down the essentials ofdigital marketing in a way
(30:44):
that's clear, actionable, andbuilt for where you are right
now.
If you are ready to getstarted, Visit
fatcatstrategies.com backslashlevel hyphen one to learn more
about our level one digitalmarketing foundations package
pricing.
And we have a ton of otheramazing content, including other
(31:06):
episodes that are related tothis, blog posts.
I mean, the list is endless.
The main thing, though, like ifyou're interested and ready to
get started, we have an amazingpackage.
Go to fatcatstrategies.combackslash level one.
to learn more.
Janet (31:21):
Okay, cool.
So next week, we are going tobe starting part two of this
series that we're calling Build,Grow, and Dominate.
We just finished the build.
Now we're moving into the growstage.
So we've got tons of greatstuff for that scale phase of
your journey.
(31:41):
At that point, you're in thatsweet spot between, say, $6 and
$18 million, and you are scalingfast.
In our experience, this is whenwe see business owners switch
gears to play a new anddifferent game.
At some point, if you haven'talready, you will realize that
you have to stop working in thebusiness and get serious about
(32:03):
working on the business.
So you shift from thinkingabout the leads that you need
today to thinking about how tobuild your own lead generation
system.
This is the stage where we'veseen clients do things like hire
their first sales manager.
Maybe they switch from one CRMto another or they beef up their
call center this is also thephase where you diversify your
(32:26):
lead sources so that you canstop being quite so dependent on
lead aggregators so again thankyou so much if you've listened
to every episode of this firstpart the build part we're so
thankful if you haven't caughtevery episode we encourage you
to go back and go through all ofthose all of that level one
(32:48):
content and This is the end ofthe level one content.
The next episode you're goingto hear from us is the beginning
of that part of that growsection.
We're just so excited to bringit to you.
So Caitlin, take us on out.
Caitlyn (33:04):
Thank you so much for tuning into this podcast series.
If you have found this contenthelpful, don't forget to share
it with other contractors whocould use a digital edge.
And we would love, love, love,love if you could leave us a
review on whichever platform youare streaming this podcast on.
Thank you guys so much.
Have a great one.
Janet (33:22):
Digital marketing for contractors is created by fat
cat strategies.
For more information, visit fatcat strategies.com.
Welcome to Digital Marketing for Contractors.
This podcast is brought to youby Fat Cat Strategies, a
full-service digital marketingagency based in Raleigh, North
Carolina.
We specialize in helping homeimprovement contractors just
like you grow their businesses.
Janet (00:17):
Today, you're listening to a series called Build, Grow,
Dominate, marketing strategiesfor every stage of your home
improvement business.
Every Wednesday, we take a deepdive into the lessons that
we've learned from supportingsome amazing business owners.
in the home improvementindustry.
Caitlyn (00:34):
In part one, we'll cover the essentials from
startup to your first fivemillion.
In part two, we're shiftinggears to focus on what it takes
to scale your business to asuccessful exit and or how to
dominate your market.
Now let's get into it.
Janet (00:49):
Hey, I'm Janet, the founder here at Fat Cat
Strategies, and today I amjoined by Caitlin Noble.
Caitlyn (00:56):
Hey, I'm Caitlin, head of client services and partner
here at Fat Cat Strategies.
Janet, what are we diving intotoday?
Janet (01:05):
So today is the last in our series, and we are diving
into a topic that could be thedifference between burning money
and printing it, and it is PPCadvertising.
So
Caitlyn (01:20):
PPC advertising, pay per click, or PPC, is one of the
fastest ways to generate highquality leads for your business.
But here's the thing, even thebest campaigns can crash and
burn if you don't avoid somevery common mistakes.
So let's talk about 10 PPCpitfalls that replacement
contractors just like you canoften fall into, and most
(01:42):
importantly, how you can avoidthem.
Janet (01:45):
The first mistake, and this is true for PPC campaigns,
but really I would argue it'strue for any marketing campaign
that you set out to tackle, isyou need to clearly define your
goals and your expectations.
If you don't have clear goals,how will you know if you've
achieved them?
So if you're working with anagency partner and you're not
(02:06):
having a conversation about whatsuccess looks like, then how
could you possibly expect themto deliver it?
And so defining goals andexpectations in our world
usually ends up translating todefining a certain number of
leads that you need thatcampaign to generate in a month
(02:26):
at a specific cost.
So, you know, defining goalsand expectations could be 50
leads in a month from thiscampaign at a cost per lead
under $100.
Caitlyn (02:38):
I love the more calls from a specific zip code.
We get that a lot.
Yes.
You know, you're wanting togrow into this town that you
haven't been in and you're justwanting to make sure you have
the phone ringing in that town.
That's a great goal.
Yeah.
Janet (02:53):
And so, you know, just saying, oh, I'm going to do a
PPC campaign without taking itthe next step to say, what do
you want that campaign to do?
Do you want the phone to ringfrom that affluent area that's
north of a specific highway?
I mean, that's how our clientstalk to us about it.
(03:14):
They're like, well, thishighway is north of town.
And we want these areas whichcomprise, you know, some bedroom
communities and some outlyingsuburbs.
And I've never sold up thereand I want to sell up there.
Then that could be a goal of aPPC campaign to break into a new
geography.
Another goal could be this veryspecific, you know, your
(03:35):
existing tried and truegeography.
And you need to generate acertain number of leads for
that.
one of your services.
Another goal could be somethinglike, let's say you do roofing
and siding, and you want moresiding leads.
And up to now, all of your PPCcampaigns have been targeting
roofing leads.
(03:55):
Or if you add on gutters ordecks or something like that.
So that's kind of the bigpicture about a big picture
conversation about starting witha clear goal and expectations
in mind.
So that's the mistake is notdoing it and how to fix it is
sit down with your agency anddefine those SMART goals.
(04:17):
And everybody knows thisacronym SMART.
It stands for specific,measurable, achievable,
relevant, and time bound.
So that's mistake number oneand how to fix it.
Caitlin, what is mistake numbertwo?
So
Caitlyn (04:30):
mistake number two gets more into the weeds, but that's
the point of this podcast.
It's neglecting keywordstrategy discussions.
So PPC isn't about just beingseen.
It's about being seen by theright people.
Too often contractors leavekeywords, the keyword decisions
entirely up to whoever's runningthe campaign.
(04:51):
Sometimes you can set up asmart campaign yourself through
Google Ads and it'll just pickkeywords off of your website.
And if you listen to the firstepisode in the series about SEO,
you know how important havingthe right keywords on your
website is.
Janet (05:05):
But what if your website doesn't have those keywords and
somebody just sets up this quoteunquote smart campaign?
Then it ain't that smart, is
Caitlyn (05:13):
it?
No, it's not.
I mean, or your website couldbe flooded with content because
at one point you were dealingwith storm recovery or repairs
and you no longer do thatanymore.
The smart campaigns will pickup on those keywords and then
all of a sudden you're going toget a ton of repair leads.
That's a really good example.
(05:34):
Yeah, that you don't want.
So I think having thediscussion, and this is
something we do as an agency,every time we meet with our
client when we're making surewe're on the same page about
what we're advertising is we'reoutlining, hey, you're good with
citing, okay, great.
You're good with specificallyJames Hardy citing, great.
Repairs, no repairs, great.
(05:55):
So having that keyworddiscussion is absolutely
important.
So the mistake is not havingthe keyword discussion and
neglecting that strategy.
How to fix it is obviouslygetting involved, like I said,
making sure your agency isproviding that conversation
conversation with you as well.
Talk about high intent phrasesthat your customers are actually
(06:19):
using.
If they're using long tail,you've probably heard that
before, long tail keywords likevinyl window replacement in
Cary, North Carolina, that'ssomething worth bidding on
instead of just bidding onwindows.
That's going to blow yourbudget, just bidding on windows.
Be more specific.
Use those long tail keywords.
(06:39):
Have that discussion.
What's mistake number three?
Janet (06:42):
So the Mistake number three is to ignore discussions
about budget and budgetadjustments.
We keep saying discussions.
I guess we're kind of packagingthis episode with the
assumption that you haveoutsourced this, whether it's an
independent contractor there inyour town, it's your cousin,
(07:05):
it's Google, a Google rep hastalked you into something, or
you're working with a smallagency.
if you're not having reallygood conversations around the
budget and budget transparencyand adjustments that can be a
mistake so you know, we haveseen clients come to us who've
(07:25):
been working with another agencyand they kind of blindly
trusted that the budget would bemanaged well until it's not.
And so, you know, what doesthat look like?
You know, if the budget's notbeing managed well, you can blow
through your entire budget,your month's budget in a week.
Or on the flip side, weactually get quite a bit of
(07:46):
calls where our clients orprospective clients ask, They've
set aside an advertising budgetand they want to spend a
certain amount of money andthey're just not able to spend
it.
Yeah.
understanding budgets mistakeis to make sure that your agency
(08:15):
provides you real time accessto dashboards that show what
you're spending and how far youare through the month on that
budget or at the very least theygive you some weekly updates.
So the fix to this budgetmistake is just to have some
sort of system in place whereyou can know that somebody's
(08:35):
monitoring it and in an idealworld that the The agency or the
person who's monitoring it willhave a strategy in place or
some ideas in place toreallocate the budget based on
performance.
So that reallocation could looklike this.
Right.
Right.
(08:58):
case the agency should contactyou and say hey I know you do
(09:28):
you know roofing windows andgutters we didn't know it but
like for whatever reason thisgutter campaign is taking off or
this window campaign is takingoff are you okay if we move some
money around and so thatreallocation It's got to be a
two-way street.
It can't be just to spend PPCdollars.
(09:49):
It has to be aligned with whatyou need as a business.
If you don't want more gutterleads, but that gutter campaign
is doing great...
then you don't necessarily wantto optimize the campaign for
leads that you don't want.
So it's just this wholeconversation around the
transparency about how yourbudget is being managed and how
(10:10):
it's being adjusted.
So Caitlin, what's mistakenumber four?
Caitlyn (10:13):
Yeah, mistake number four is weak ad copy.
which goes along this mentalityof just setting it and
forgetting it.
Generic ads, they're not goingto convert.
If your ad says something like,get Windows today, it's not
doing you any favors.
It's just not.
I mean, This weak ad copy issomething that, if you've
(10:39):
outsourced this, you should beworking with an agency or
another partner who definitelyunderstands the ad copy should
align with the messaging on yourwebsite.
And we'll talk more about thatin a minute.
But that being said, A lot oftimes, back to that keyword
(10:59):
mistake that we were talkingabout a second ago, these smart
campaigns on Google and evenjust the way Google Ads sets up
campaigns now will automaticallypull in headlines as you're
building out these ads.
And if you don't have somebodyoverseeing what that copy looks
(11:20):
like, it could be some prettygeneric, no call to action,
headline that just is nevergoing to get any clicks unless
you by chance have nocompetitors at all.
Janet (11:32):
Yeah, that ain't gonna happen.
Caitlyn (11:34):
Yeah.
Janet (11:34):
So Caitlin, you've mentioned a couple of times
these smart campaigns.
What is that?
Let's not assume that ourlisteners know what Google smart
campaigns are.
So I'm
Caitlyn (11:50):
trying to figure out the best way to explain it.
So isn't it kind of like theeasy button?
It is an easy button.
And honestly, if you've neverset up Google ads before, it's
probably going to give you thatoption first and foremost, and
you may not even realize thatyou've clicked on it.
Janet (12:05):
So like day one, I set up a new account and I'm clicking
through all the welcome screens.
And at some point I mightaccidentally click into setting
up what's called a smartcampaign.
Caitlyn (12:15):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
It definitely happens like atthe initial start of building
out this account if you havealready built out your account
and you haven't activated itthere's nothing to worry about
but I'm you know I don't want toassume but a lot of you who may
be considering PPC you may bebrand new to it you may be brand
(12:38):
new to it and just be hesitant
Janet (12:40):
and let's be honest if you see something that says do
you want to set up a smartaccount your answer is probably
going to be like heck yeah doplease please please please yeah
well You want my account to besmart?
Yeah.
The mistake is, no, you don't.
Caitlyn (12:52):
You
Janet (12:53):
don't.
They're automating a bunch ofstuff.
They're using AI.
They're crawling your website.
And as you said earlier,Caitlin, like, let's say, for
example, you had informationabout some storm cleanup or
something that was very timely,very seasonal, kind of a one-off
content.
I mean, we have seen...
We have seen things get pickedup from maybe an owner's about
(13:17):
us page.
Exactly.
You don't necessarily want thatto be your Google ad copy.
So those smart campaigns aretrying to take some work off of
your plate and automate it.
But what you end up with areeither generic ads or weird ads.
Weird ads, totally.
And so
Caitlyn (13:34):
a way to fix, you know, let's say you haven't done the
smart campaign, you may have,whatever.
Don't settle for weak copy.
Don't set it and forget it.
What you should be doinginstead is making sure you have
calls to action that are verystrong.
Like instead of get windowstoday, why don't you say
(13:56):
something along the lines oflifetime warranty on your window
replacement, free window quotein 24 hours, time sensitive,
offer something a little moreattractive than just get your
windows today.
So don't make the mistake forweak ad copy.
Janet (14:14):
Number five, Janet.
Okay, so mistake number five isoverlooking landing page
optimization So these mistakeskind of go hand in hand.
You know, Caitlin was justtalking about weak ad copy.
You know, the ad that someonesees needs to match the content
and the intent of the landingpage.
(14:35):
So, you know, it's a journey.
Someone sits down to search.
to find a solution to aproblem.
So they're gonna use whateverwords they use to search on it.
Then they're gonna be presentedads.
Those ads need to becompelling.
And then if they click on thead, then it needs to go to a
landing page that delivers onthat promise.
(14:57):
And so if the landing page isslow to load, it's cluttered,
it's not mobile responsive, itdoesn't match the ad's promise
or intent or copy, then usersare gonna see it for just a
second They're going to bounceright out of there.
You know, something I've seen alot of times when we inherit an
(15:17):
account, a Google Ads account,that is, from...
Usually this happens whenpeople have been kind of DIYing
it.
Caitlyn (15:26):
Right.
Janet (15:27):
They've set up a bunch of ads.
They spend a bunch of timelooking at keywords.
They might have done a prettygood job of geographic
targeting.
But then they send every singlead to the homepage.
Wrong.
So...
If you're doing, like, let'ssay you're building decks,
you're installing fences, andmaybe you do painting.
(15:49):
Yeah.
then you should have a bunch ofpages on your website about
decks.
You should have separate pagesabout painting and separate
pages about your fence options.
So your fence ad should go toyour main fence page.
Your deck ad should go to yourmain deck page and so forth.
But when we're talking aboutlanding pages, you don't want to
(16:12):
just send all your ads to yourhomepage.
And again, I'll repeat it.
You want to make sure that thepage loads really fast.
It's not cluttered.
It matches the ad um and itperforms really well and looks
really good on mobile devices sothat's the fix to that one
awesome number
Caitlyn (16:32):
six um not using negative keywords what do you
mean huge mistake what arenegative keywords like well it's
a silent killer ugly like youugly
Janet (16:42):
is that negative
Caitlyn (16:43):
exactly no um Negative keywords could be things like
free.
It could be things likecleaning.
So let me go into more detail.
Yeah, explain what
Janet (16:56):
you mean by negative keywords.
Caitlyn (16:57):
You keep interrupting me.
Janet (17:00):
I'll
Caitlyn (17:00):
stop interrupting
Janet (17:02):
you.
Caitlyn (17:02):
You've defined this beautiful list of keywords that
you're gonna advertise and focuson for that month or whatever
that you need in terms of yourservices.
That being said, that's justnot where the buck stops because
you may have said you want togo after window replacement or
vinyl windows in Cary, NorthCarolina, or you wanna go after
(17:25):
roof replacement near me.
If you don't have a negativekeyword list in place, Google is
going to still, depending onyour budget, pull up your ads
for because you just have theword roof in your ad or your
keyword.
It's going to pull up thingslike DIY roof repair.
(17:46):
Yes.
So because you may have likehow you have a weird match type,
which we'll get more intolater.
But because of that, if youhave roof replacement near me
and you don't have a negativekeyword set up for DIY or
repair, you're gonna be gettingclicks that you're paying for
(18:06):
for people who are trying tolearn how to DIY their roof
repair and God bless thosepeople.
Another common one that we alsosee is like cleaning.
So like siding cleaning, windowcleaning.
Anytime you're going toadvertise sighting replacement
or window replacement orsomething along those lines,
(18:30):
please make sure you've excludedthe word cleaning.
Add that to your negativekeyword list.
Otherwise, you are also goingto be getting clicks that you're
paying for for people who wantto learn how to clean
Janet (18:42):
their windows.
So that negative keyword list,correct me if I'm wrong, it's
telling Google, hey, don't showmy ad for these words.
Caitlyn (18:52):
Exactly.
Janet (18:53):
Okay.
Exactly.
Caitlyn (18:54):
Jobs is another common one.
Careers.
Sometimes, you know, you'llhave somebody who might be
searching, you know, for asighting career or like a
sighting installer and sightingjob.
Estimator.
Estimator.
Like they might be doing areally specific job.
Exclude careers.
(19:16):
Otherwise, you're going to begetting clicks onto your PPC
landing pages for people who aretrying to apply for jobs.
So how to fix this?
Review your search term reportregularly.
That is an actual report withinGoogle Ads.
If you're not reviewing it,your agency definitely should be
and building out a negativekeyword list regularly.
based off of some of thoserandom searches that you will...
(19:39):
It can be funny.
I mean...
Janet (19:41):
Oh, yeah.
The list of things that weexclude end up being kind of
comical.
Caitlyn (19:45):
I mean,
Janet (19:47):
babies in a bathtub.
Caitlyn (19:49):
Like...
I forgot about that one.
Dog...
Dog...
Dog, dog washing, dog, um,something like, like showers for
dogs, like really off the wallsearches.
Don't pay for those clicks.
Janet (20:03):
Can I, can I add to your mistake?
Number six, you're calling itnot using negative keywords, but
I just want to tag onto whatyou're saying.
I think we could expand thismistake to say, well, first of
all, mistake number one is notusing negative keyword.
And then like, The follow-onmistake would be to not keep
that negative keyword list up todate.
(20:25):
And so you're laughing aboutseeing people search on showers
for dogs.
Well, if you're a bathroomremodeling contractor and you're
doing one-day bath installs,you don't want to pay for your
ad to show up when somebody'strying to figure out how to wash
their big old dog.
Right.
And
Caitlyn (20:45):
so- Free shower.
Oh my God, free showers.
That's a really common one.
Like free public
Janet (20:49):
showers.
Oh, for like people living intheir car?
Totally.
Oh my God.
Yeah, so, you know, if you'relistening to this and you're
trying to run your own Google adcampaign, yes, sit down and use
your own brain and try to comeup with a list of negative
keywords.
But I'm telling you, your brainis not enough.
Caitlyn (21:07):
We may have a list of negative keywords- somewhere a
download bait.
I will try to link that in theshow notes.
Yeah.
If you're interested in a listof commonly used negative
keywords, negative keywords,
Janet (21:19):
I will find that.
But, um, but if you are runningyour own campaign or you're
working with an agency, makesure that they are periodically
going in to look at all of thesearch terms that people put
into Google that ended uptriggering your ads.
Because if you regularly, it'salmost like, um, list hygiene.
(21:40):
You go in and you're like, oh,I would have never thought that
someone would search on XYZ.
Well, let me make that anegative keyword.
Because there's no way you'regoing to come up with that full
list keyword.
Just off the top of your head.
Never.
So you've got to go in thereand maintain it.
Caitlyn (21:58):
And you won't.
Don't be scared.
You're not going to spend anegregious amount of money on
some of these dumb searches thathave nothing to do with your
business.
So just keep an eye on it.
Mistake number seven.
Janet (22:09):
Okay, I got this one.
It is underutilizing or notutilizing ad extensions.
So ad extensions are a featureof the Google Ads search
platform and they're like sitelinks or call outs or structured
snippets which may not meanthat much to you if you've never
(22:33):
really dug through a Google adaccount or thought about it but
what an ad extension is is let'ssay and I know you're familiar
with this let's say you're I candescribe it better on a desktop
you're on a desktop you searchfor something on Google and you
see the main ad or business nameand kind of in indented under
(22:54):
that will be a list of otherthings like our locations,
contact us.
If they've got a product orservice that is the thing that
most people need when they go tothat website, that will be an
ad extension.
So ad extensions, you can kindof handcraft those sublinks
(23:19):
under your main ad and they canbe really powerful and really
optimize your account.
So the mistake is not usingthem or under utilizing them and
how to fix it is just work withyour agency to make sure that
you're using every available adextension that's relative to the
(23:39):
service that you provide.
Caitlyn (23:41):
And I would say on the non-desktop version that's
absolutely critical and it doesnot happen automatically is that
the phone number, the call,like the call now extension,
which I think, you know, we justtalked about, but like, Oh
yeah.
On a mobile, on a mobile, likeplease make sure you have the
call now extension with a phonenumber configured, a working
(24:03):
call center phone or whereverconfigured.
Um, okay.
So Caitlin hit us with mistakenumber eight.
Number eight is just neglectingyour data, like not looking at
it and not looking at thereporting.
Um, Running blind isn't astrategy.
If you're not reviewingreports, you have no idea what's
(24:23):
working and what's wasting yourspend.
This is loaded.
We could have a whole episodeabout this.
I guess the main point here isyou need to make sure that you
have somebody, like we've talkedabout earlier, keeping an eye
on your budget, reporting on howthat spend is going.
(24:47):
Also, see if those conversions,as you get into the weeds, as
those conversions start to rollin, make sure you are able to
match those conversions back towhether it's a phone call or a
form submission and let youragency or whoever's running your
ads know, yeah, that was a badlead.
(25:08):
That was somebody looking forwindow cleaning.
Or let them know, oh my gosh,that was a great lead.
So close the loop.
Yeah, close the loop.
They should be able to thenfind that, okay, that lead came
through a campaign that I hadrun on window replacement, et
cetera.
This was the ad copy thatworked, and this is what
(25:30):
converted.
You can get all of that throughreally good reporting.
So conversions, conversionrates, lead quality, and more
should just be some of thethings that are in your reports.
Always, always, always feelfree to ask why behind the
numbers that you're seeing.
There are no dumb questions.
Whoever's managing your accountshould be able to answer those
(25:52):
questions.
Mistake number nine.
Number nine.
It
Janet (25:57):
is ignoring geographic targeting.
So, you know...
This is so important.
It is important.
Google Ads and Bing Ads andmany other platforms will allow
you to be really specific withthe geography that you target.
So...
if you think about how far youwant your guys to drive to do a
(26:20):
job.
So you can set up a radiusaround your shop.
You can target specific,they're called DMAs in Google.
You can target specific townnames, city names, zip codes,
and you can exclude town names,city names, and zip codes.
(26:41):
So a lot of times our clientswill come to us and they will
say, you know and when we're onthe call with them we'll pull up
a google map on our computerand we'll look at it together
and and they'll say okay you seethis this highway that circles
the city well you know north ofthat highway is a great it's a
great target area for us andsouthwest but any sign anything
(27:06):
inside of that this urban areamaybe that's not a great target
or maybe it is a great targetbut look at a map together with
your agency and set that geogeographic targeting for where
you know you want to beinstalling jobs.
And that way you're running adsto those areas that you want to
target and not running ads thatare 100 miles away from you or
(27:28):
200 miles away from you.
Yeah, that's a really, really,really good point.
So
Caitlyn (27:32):
bring it on home.
What is mistake number 10?
I mean, this is the most fancyone of all of them.
Maybe.
Not setting up conversiontracking.
Oh my gosh.
I mean, so I I just mentionedconversions as a way to go back
and see if you have leads and soforth, and looking at that as
one of the stats.
(27:53):
It's easy, man, you can justclick, you know, on enable your
ads and you're running ads andyou're off to the races and you
have no idea if like you may seean increase in traffic to your
website but without conversiontracking being set up you're not
going to be able to find out ifyou have specific form fills
(28:14):
phone calls booked appointmentsyou're truly flying blind there
is a whole i'm going to call ita module um in the google ads
platform where you can set upconversion tracking.
It sounds more complicated thanit is.
It's really not.
Please, please, please, please,please do it.
It's so you'll be able to goback and find those data points
(28:37):
that you should be referring to,which are conversions.
If somebody only reports toy'all on clicks and cost per
click, you're missing a hugedata point.
So please make sure conversiontracking is set up.
So as I said, how to do it, howto not do it, don't set it up,
(29:00):
but how to do it, make sure youhave it fully set up, whether
it's through Google Ads, GoogleAnalytics, or your CRM, even
some of our own, we useWhatConverts to do call tracking
form submission tracking, itall integrates with Google Ads.
So just make sure anythingyou're doing through Google Ads
(29:22):
is set up in terms ofconversions.
Track what actually matters,don't track clicks.
was a lot of tips.
There are a lot of mistakes youcan make.
Janet (29:31):
There are a lot of mistakes and we just hit on 10
of them.
Only 10.
There are more mistakes thatpeople can make.
We're joking.
Okay.
So there you have it.
Those are 10 of the most commonPPC mistakes that we have seen
home improvement contractorsmake when they come to us and we
get inside their account.
And we've given you some tipson how you can steer clear of
(29:52):
each and every one of them.
If you have made some of theseerrors in the past, do not
worry.
You are not alone.
Others have made similarmistakes.
It's how we know about them.
But now you've got theknowledge to fix them and you've
got the knowledge to ask youragency partner or the freelancer
or maybe your office manager ishelping you manage your Google
(30:13):
ads.
You've now got better questionsto ask so that you can make
sure your campaign stays ontrack.
Caitlyn (30:22):
Yes, okay y'all, this is concluding part one of our
part two series, Build, Grow,Dominate, Marketing Strategies
for Every Stage of Your HomeImprovement Business.
For the last six episodes, wefocused entirely on that first
phase, the build step in yourbuild, scale, dominate journey.
We broke down the essentials ofdigital marketing in a way
(30:44):
that's clear, actionable, andbuilt for where you are right
now.
If you are ready to getstarted, Visit
fatcatstrategies.com backslashlevel hyphen one to learn more
about our level one digitalmarketing foundations package
pricing.
And we have a ton of otheramazing content, including other
(31:06):
episodes that are related tothis, blog posts.
I mean, the list is endless.
The main thing, though, like ifyou're interested and ready to
get started, we have an amazingpackage.
Go to fatcatstrategies.combackslash level one.
to learn more.
Janet (31:21):
Okay, cool.
So next week, we are going tobe starting part two of this
series that we're calling Build,Grow, and Dominate.
We just finished the build.
Now we're moving into the growstage.
So we've got tons of greatstuff for that scale phase of
your journey.
(31:41):
At that point, you're in thatsweet spot between, say, $6 and
$18 million, and you are scalingfast.
In our experience, this is whenwe see business owners switch
gears to play a new anddifferent game.
At some point, if you haven'talready, you will realize that
you have to stop working in thebusiness and get serious about
(32:03):
working on the business.
So you shift from thinkingabout the leads that you need
today to thinking about how tobuild your own lead generation
system.
This is the stage where we'veseen clients do things like hire
their first sales manager.
Maybe they switch from one CRMto another or they beef up their
call center this is also thephase where you diversify your
(32:26):
lead sources so that you canstop being quite so dependent on
lead aggregators so again thankyou so much if you've listened
to every episode of this firstpart the build part we're so
thankful if you haven't caughtevery episode we encourage you
to go back and go through all ofthose all of that level one
(32:48):
content and This is the end ofthe level one content.
The next episode you're goingto hear from us is the beginning
of that part of that growsection.
We're just so excited to bringit to you.
So Caitlin, take us on out.
Caitlyn (33:04):
Thank you so much for tuning into this podcast series.
If you have found this contenthelpful, don't forget to share
it with other contractors whocould use a digital edge.
And we would love, love, love,love if you could leave us a
review on whichever platform youare streaming this podcast on.
Thank you guys so much.
Have a great one.
Janet (33:22):
Digital marketing for contractors is created by fat
cat strategies.
For more information, visit fatcat strategies.com.
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