Google Ads for a moving company [2022

In February 2022, I started working with a moving company based in Boston. When they contacted me, their website traffic mainly came from Organic Search and Google Local Services Ads. The client sought the initial setup and further Google Ads management services to boost leads and drive business growth through Google Ads.

The client’s website is well optimized and has numerous pages covering a wide range of services in the moving industry, including local moving, long-distance moving, packing services, and storage services.

What has been accomplished thus far

Any new project begins with keyword research, and this one was no different. It helped identify the main search terms and outline the account structure. It also provided an estimate of the approximate CPC.

The initial account structure was as follows, based on the collected keywords:

Non-branded search campaign for generic keywords such as “moving company” and “boston movers,” as well as local moving-related keywords.
Non-branded search campaign for long-distance keywords like “interstate moving” and “state-to-state moving,” as well as keywords with direction qualifiers such as “Boston to New-York movers.”

Having long-distance keywords in a separate campaign served two main purposes:

These keywords are significantly more expensive, so it’s useful to aggregate data for them separately.
The client had a specific budget for long-distance moving.

Initially we launched with two campaigns, but as we gathered more data and increased the budget, the account evolved.

To increase call volume from ads, we tried a call-only campaign targeting mobile traffic. Although we received more calls, the overall CPA increased. This was because the conversion data was divided between two campaigns, resulting in poorer performance of smart bidding strategy.
We initially used the phrase keyword match type, but later I conducted a campaign experiment to test the effectiveness of broad match. After running the experiment for a few months, we found that Broad Match performed better, so we switched to it.
We created a separate branded campaign to serve ads for specific search terms related to our brand. This helps prevent branded queries from affecting the performance of our non-branded campaign. As a result, our primary campaign now has cleaner data, and we have better control over branded terms simply by using the Manual CPC bidding strategy for the branded campaign.
Since the client’s website was already optimized and had many relevant pages, we launched a dedicated DSA (dynamic search ads) campaign. Later, we merged it with our generic campaign to aggregate data more effectively, providing Google with a larger conversion dataset to learn from in a single campaign.
We enhanced DSA by implementing a page feed and categorizing the landing pages as Generic, Short-Distance, and Long-Distance. This enables us to utilize more focused ad messaging for various queries, resulting in three DSA ad groups instead of just one.

In addition to strategic improvements, there were numerous other updates and fixes that were less significant but still extremely important. The moving industry is highly seasonal and requires ongoing adjustments to the budget and bidding. Throughout the year the CPA volatiles from $40 to over $100. I meet with my client once or twice a month to update them on performance, receive feedback, and make necessary adjustments based on their input.

It is essential to handle search query reports promptly and effectively. There are many nuances involved, and relying solely on a unified negative keyword list is not enough. For this project, I have personally developed a well-organized library of negative keywords, which consists of 9 lists. The total number of search queries is over 30K!

The ad copy is also crucial. We’ve been testing various ad variations and assets. The main challenge is the limited traffic, making it difficult to gather sufficient data quickly. To address this, I aggregate keywords into larger ad groups and utilize ad labeling to analyze results across the entire account.

Results

Since starting this project, my campaigns have generated over 3000 conversions with an average CPA of $73. Importantly, despite increasing competition, the performance in 2023 surpassed the first year of our work.

As of the beginning of 2024, we are still working with the client and have planned several implementations. These include switching to a new CRM, implementing offline conversion tracking to measure qualified and confirmed leads, and tracking the actual revenue generated.