The digital landscape has created a unique crossroad for HVAC companies, where the age-old methods of homeowner acquisition have evolved, and digital is dominating everything. It is here in digital media that pay-per-click advertising (PPC) has emerged as a practical form of marketing that connects potential homeowners with your business – and generates leads.
But how do you reach this audience, especially if you’re an HVAC company? If a person sits down at their computer or browses on their phone and begins looking for ‘HVAC company near me,’ how can you stand out? Appearing in the first position in search results usually involves paying for ads, which is where your HVAC company digital marketing budget comes into play.
So how much does it cost to be successful with PPC advertising?
As the Paid Media Manager at Freitag Marketing, I frequently receive questions about the ideal budget to allocate toward a PPC campaign. In this article I will highlight the important things to consider that will help you make an accurate decision regarding the allocation of your company’s marketing budget for paid search.
Budget Misconceptions in PPC for HVAC Companies
In my experience, I have come across two common misconceptions. First, there is often a request for achieving substantial results with a budget as low as $500 per month, with the aim of generating 5-10 HVAC jobs. Second, homeowners sometimes express a desire to invest the maximum budget possible to dominate the entire market within their region or area of service.
Both of these scenarios are not practically feasible.
Take the first scenario, where companies want to achieve the most with the lowest budget. First, let me clarify that I’m not suggesting that PPC advertising should cost an arm and a leg. However, it’s important to understand that HVAC stands as one of the most costly sectors within the PPC landscape. The cost-per-click (CPC) – for a single click – can range from $70 to $250, contingent upon the targeted locations and the level of competition in that geographic area, including competitive parts of New Hampshire. Emergency AC repair and furnace repair portfolios in PPC advertising are significantly more expensive too, with CPCs ranging between $150 and $500. Given this expensive cost-per-click, it is impossible to bring in 5 to 10 jobs from PPC ads with a monthly budget of only $500.
With the second scenario, putting an unlimited budget toward PPC, I always advise spending each dollar wisely instead of burning every single penny with the aim of obtaining every piece of the pie. It is impossible to dominate the entire market due to the presence of other competitors who actively bid on similar keywords. If you blindly allocate every dollar to PPC ads, you might unreasonably inflate the cost-per-click, cost-per-lead, and ultimately, the cost-per-job, without being able to capture 100% of the searches. For example, if you have an unlimited budget and allocate all available funds to PPC ads without careful consideration, you are essentially engaging in aggressive bidding on keywords with the aim of capturing every click possible. This approach intensifies competition, however, resulting in higher costs as you attempt to outbid your competitors.
Optimizing Cost-Per-Job with a Data-Driven Approach
Here at Freitag Marketing, we track every possible metric (impression, CPM, CPC, CTR, conversion rate, cost-per-conversion) for effective campaigns. And we strive for optimal cost-per-job in the market. For an HVAC company, this means how many jobs you’ve booked and how much money you’ve spent to get them. To reach this goal, we focus on both the quality and quantity of searches, clicks, and leads. Our PPC team has analyzed more than $2 billion dollars worth of marketing data to establish average cost-per-click, cost-per-lead, and conversion rate-related benchmarks. We apply these benchmarks to formulate strategies that result in successful PPC campaigns for the HVAC companies that partner with us. Our depth of experience in HVAC marketing also enables us to know how to allocate the right amount of budget toward specific campaigns related to HVAC, AC repair, or furnace repair.
Drawing from my experience, if you’re an HVAC company looking to venture into PPC advertising, it’s recommended to allocate a minimum of $8,000 in media spend for the first month, with the understanding that a management fee for the campaign is usually added on top of that. When managing these campaigns, we advise allocating a larger portion of the budget to generic search terms related to HVAC keywords, and a smaller portion to safeguarding your brand through a branded campaign for your HVAC company. We suggest gradually increasing the budget starting from the second month, based on the results you’ve obtained and the data analysis.
It’s important to note this is the ideal budget to set your HVAC company up for success in generating quality leads through PPC advertising. Multiple factors will come into play including your HVAC company’s size, digital marketing budget, objectives, or competition in your market – all things we factor to help you determine the right PPC budget to achieve your goals.
Maximize HVAC Company PPC ROI With Strategic Bidding & Budgeting
It’s a delicate balance to strike – underinvesting in paid search campaigns can lead to lower visibility or brand recognition, but overspending can waste valuable budget resources. The real cost of PPC is about weighing financial inputs against potential outputs. Meaning, developing a thorough understanding that each click is more than a numerical value for that click. Within PPC there are bidding wars, keyword strategies, and developing an understanding of user intent.
Deciding how much money to spend on PPC campaigns can be tough from a technical perspective. Freitag Marketing has extensive experience working with HVAC companies of various services and sizes and provides effective SEO and PPC strategies tailored to HVAC companies and other trades. Our expertise allows us to offer valuable insights that help shape your overall marketing budget, and our reputation has shown that our motivation is to get you jobs, not to artificially inflate your marketing budgets.
