Heinlein Supply, a Chicago industrial ventilation distributor, cut their Google Ads budget from $3,555 a month to $343. Since then, they’ve gotten more leads than at any time in the company’s 75-year history.
Spending less brought in more leads because of where the money went. That’s also why so many owners decide Google Ads doesn’t work for them.
Below is how I tell if ads fit your business, what they cost, and what working with me looks like.
Is Google Ads worth it for an industrial ventilation distributor or rep?
Yes, if your buyers search for the products you sell. Contractors and facility managers who need a make-up air unit, an air curtain, or a centrifugal blower fan this week type it into Google. Mechanical engineers and mechanical contractors search too. Reaching them means using the words they use and putting your ads in front of them.
What do you need before you spend a dollar?
You need 3 things: call tracking, a landing page, and someone who answers the phone during business hours.
A landing page has one job: get the buyer to take one action. In my experience, 9 times out of 10 that action is a phone call. One page can cover a whole range of products, like every make-up air unit you carry. Without one, the buyer lands on your home page, gets overwhelmed, and leaves.
Without tracking, you can’t tell a call from an ad apart from a customer who already had your number, unless you ask every caller.
How much does Google Ads cost?
Write Good Code charges $750 a month for Google Ads management, which covers up to 5 campaigns and up to $3,000 a month in ad spend. More than that moves you to a higher bracket. Setup is a one-time $199 that covers your landing page and call tracking. There’s no setup fee if I built your website. From my experience in this industry, you’ll need about $750 a month in ad spend on top of that, paid directly to Google.
Spending more rarely fixes a campaign. Heinlein spends $343 a month now because they also invested in SEO, so more buyers find them in Google’s unpaid results. That let them cut back on paid clicks.
“They have continued to reduce ad spend and increase the organic leads to our websites, month after month.” Ed Heinlein, Heinlein Supply, on Clutch
Should you run it yourself or hire someone?
The most common mistake I see is one campaign with 50 or more keywords for products that have nothing to do with each other. The clicks come in, and nobody can tell which product they came from. A dust collector distributor I work with couldn’t tell whether their leads came from ads or SEO.
Run it yourself if you’ll check it every week and your reports answer these 4 questions:
- How many calls came from the ads?
- How many of those calls turned into quote requests?
- Which keywords brought in real buyers?
- Which keywords wasted money?
If you can’t answer those today, your ads are spending money without showing you what it bought. That’s the point where hiring someone pays for itself.
What does Google Ads management with Write Good Code include?
First, I set up call and form tracking and build a landing page for the products you want to sell first. Then the ads go live, and leads usually start coming in within 1 to 2 weeks. Each month you get a short report that answers the 4 questions above.
There’s no contract. You pay month to month and can stop anytime. Your ads send buyers to landing pages on your own website, and you own all the data. More on the service at Google Ads Management.
Want to know if ads fit your business?
Book a no-cost call. I’ll look at what you sell and tell you honestly whether ads make sense. If they don’t, I’ll say so.