How HVAC companies can evaluate Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

If your HVAC company is investing in Search Engine Marketing (SEM), you need a basic understanding of each of the KPIs being measured so you can truly evaluate the success of your campaigns.?

Below is a quick guide to the main metrics to pay attention to for SEM:

Impressions

This is the number of times your ad was shown when someone is searching for your product or service.

Impression Share

Impression share is the number of impressions you've received divided by the estimated number of impressions you were eligible to receive. Eligibility is based on your current ads' targeting settings, approval status, bidding, overall budget and Quality Scores.

This is an indication of the size of the market for a particular search term and how competitive you are for the available searches. A low percentage could indicate that your overall budget is maxing out, or you are not bidding high enough to show up during times of increased competition.

If you are not close to a 100% impression share and you are getting conversions at a price that meets your overall target and you have the excess capacity – you should either increase your bids or your overall budget (or both). If you are approaching a 100% impression share for a search term and you still need more jobs, you will need to start bidding on other search terms as there is nothing to be gained by bidding higher or putting more budget towards this search term. Be aware that bidding aggressively to gain a higher impression share can cause your cost per conversion to increase, because each marginal click can be more expensive.?

Clicks

This is the number of times your ad was clicked.

Click-Through Rate?

This is the percentage of times your particular ad is being clicked vs how many times it is being displayed. This is not an indication of how often it shows up, just what percentage of times your ad gets clicked when it does show up.

The click-through rate is an indication of how well your ad speaks to the user and how well it relates to the search. Like all advertising, the importance of a strong and relevant headline and/or offer is important. The overall strength of your brand in the market also has a tremendous effect on your click-through rate.If you are a recognized brand - your click-through rate will be better than a lesser known brand.?

The click-through rate is particularly important if you are not maximising your overall budget or you have an unlimited budget. If you have a limited budget and you are receiving the number of jobs you require? - the click-through rate is not as important – however, a low click-through rate could be an indication of a poor ad and this could affect your conversion rate.

Cost Per Click (CPC)

This is the average cost for each click. This is the critical metric and it will directly affect the profitability of the campaign. The most important factor affecting the cost per click is your competition. For search terms such as furnace repairs, the competition will be fierce and the clicks will be expensive. For less popular searches the cost is usually less because the competition for those searches is usually less.

The further away you get from optimal keywords like “furnace repair”, the lower the conversion rate on the website will be, causing you to see a higher cost per lead.?

Website Conversions?

Once someone clicks your ad and lands on your website, you now need to convince that visitor to take action. The action is usually a phone call or a form submission or to engage in a live chat of some sort. Once they have taken one of these actions – this is considered a conversion. The only way to identify this metric is to use call tracking technology on your website, and then ensuring your website pushes events back to Google Ads when a phone call happens (ProfitFill can do all of this for you, by the way).?

Website Conversion Rate

The website conversion rate is the number of people who take action versus the number of visitors to your site. The conversion rate is primarily a reflection of how well your website is performing. Does it have the right offer and information to compel the visitor to take action? There are other factors that affect the conversion rate. A low conversion rate could also be an indication of a poor ad or irrelevant keyword that attracts the wrong type of buyer. Also, the level of overall brand recognition of the company will affect the conversion rate.? You need to examine all relevant factors when considering your conversion rate.

Cost Per Conversion

The cost per conversion is simply a combination of cost per click and conversion rate. If your cost per click is $10 and your website conversion rate is 10% then your cost per conversion is going to be $100. This is the one number that will tell you if your campaign could be profitable or not. I say it could be profitable because it is still too soon to tell. There are other factors still to come into play. It is the number that tells you how much it is costing you to get a conversion.

The important point to remember here is that the cost per conversion can be profitable for one company and unprofitable for the next company, based on the revenue they are able to generate from this conversion. In that sense, the value is only relevant in terms of how it relates to your revenue per conversion.

ProfitFill combines all of your website, marketing and CRM data into one dashboard to train our algorithm to bring in better, more profitable leads. Learn more about ProfitFill online.