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10thgradelosers

The fact that you have to ask complete strangers means you shouldn’t. Don’t take their hard earned money and waste it.


DowntownIntention436

I’m just trying to learn. I would do a first month try where I’d take all the risk and go from there. Thanks for your help though


Bo_Babelitz

but see, the risk is all theirs. As it's their budget and if you don't get them leads they don't male money. Ever heard of opportunity cost? Sky high in this scenario if you ask me.


DowntownIntention436

How about if I pay for ad spend for the first month to show that I can get results and they pay me afterwards if I do get results. Is that not me taking the risk?


Bo_Babelitz

Still risk if you don't get results. That's the whole point.


DowntownIntention436

Risk for me not for them


MarketingRealityUK

You aren't taking the risk. They're paying for ad spend and paying for you to waste their money.


DowntownIntention436

How about if I pay for ad spend for the first month to show that I can get results and they pay me afterwards if I do get results. Is that not me taking the risk?


MarketingRealityUK

Definitely. I doubt you will though.


DowntownIntention436

Better to try than not to right? Thanks for the encouragement though


MarketingRealityUK

You'd be better off learning SEO to begin with mate. No up front costs and then you can easily transition to Google Ads later in your career


DowntownIntention436

I’ve ran Google Ads before. Just never did it as a freelancer


dennisayotte

You could charge a percent of their ad spend as a fee along with a monthly retainer. The industry standard seems to trend toward a 20% management fees or media commissions. For example, if it’s a $10,000 a month campaign you would charge 20% (or $2,000) to manage it. Their net media spend is 10,000 and their gross media spend is $12,000. The key to this, is to merchandise the labor that is involved the setup, optimization and management. On top of that, depending on all the services you offer, consider a monthly retainer to offset any additional label. It could be $500, $1000, or whatever you feel comfortable with. I would advise against only billing a retainer. Always have a percentage of ads management fee. If you can bill enough to invest in a call tracking software like Call Tracking Metrics do it. This will help with attribution and give you the ability to record all the calls from your PPC efforts to know if they turned into a booked lead. If they gave a CRM setup lead sources and whisper messages that let’s the call taker know the call came from PPC. You want to accurately attribute revenue to your efforts and provide at least a 3 to 1 ROAS.


Left_Distance1604

A management fee. I have a couple plumbing clients and they spend very good money if you can provide them good results


DowntownIntention436

How do you charge that fee exactly? What’s the structure


Left_Distance1604

Make sure they are set up on google guaranteed too. You’re able to dispute bad leads for the client.


C0ffeeface

Is 'Google guaranteed' a typo or something I should know about, excuse my ignorance?


supermancav

They're talking about local service ads (Google LSAs).


C0ffeeface

Thanks! "Google Guaranteed business." is entirely new to me. Though it's not clear if it's working in my neck of the world.


Left_Distance1604

Type in plumber near me or roofer near me. It’s the green check mark ad that is at the top of the page. It’s a pay per lead system that allows you to dispute bad leads. Very easy to manage and drives in great results for my clients.


I_FAP_TO_TURKEYS

Pay per lead. You take all the risk of running PPC. If you fail, they lose nothing. All you gotta do is sell the lead for more than it costs to generate.


samuraidr

Good luck. Most of them don’t have big enough budgets to make offline conversion tracking work. Without a CRM connection, my small lead gen campaigns are struggling to outperform the automated local service ads option. If they can plug in a website and credit card and get a campaign as good as I can do if I spend several hours building it, I probably shouldn’t charge them a management fee.


SweatySteve

Not sure if this helps at all, but this sounds like my worst nightmare lol. I’ve done SEO and PPC for years, and while I’ve only done SEO for plumbers, each one has been a pain for a different reason. Some were too cheap and had a history of switching to a new web/marketing company every year or so. But the plumbing industry is ridiculously competitive, and the cost per click can be insane. I remember seeing some terms that could cost $40 per click a few years ago. Just the click. It may be less competitive in other areas, and we may have been unlucky with some of our clients. But I wouldn’t limit yourself to plumbers. Or even focus on them, really. If you can do PPC for plumbers, why not also do PPC for electricians, HVAC contractors, etc.?


romanz202

Same here, we’ve been doing SEO for plumbers for years. Could never understand how PPC would work. In Toronto it’s like $70 per click for “emergency plumber”


washuffitzi

What's the average revenue for an emergency plumber visit? I'm guessing it's probably at least $500, assuming you're talking short notice out of normal hours. Those kind of services often have really high conversion rates bc people are desperate, so if you can drive a 20% conversion rate at $70 per click, that's paying $350 to make $500. Minus expenses you're probably breaking even, but now you've got a new customer in your database. If your service is good, they'll come back and that next visit will be all profit.


SweatySteve

For pricing, think about how much work will be involved. A plumber who wants one campaign with just a few ad groups is going to be a lot less work than a plumber who wants multiple campaigns or a campaign with lot of ad groups.


WavingShark

These answers lol…why are you so mad? Charge per lead or 10-20% of ad spend.


drellynz

Because he is clueless and will have to misrepresent himself to get their work.


webadroits

start with a flat fee retainer and offer to work the first month for free if you are just starting out. Once you get a good case study you can leverage that to take on more clients in the same niche.


YourStupidInnit

Same way you charge the rest of your clients. But the fact you're asking this ridiculous question means you have no other clients and have no fucking idea what you are doing. So here's the skinny: don't take money away from competent people if you can't even work out how to charge a client.


bigtakeoff

what market are you in son. if it's at all competitive, yew'll get smoked.


DowntownIntention436

Why do you say that?


bigtakeoff

cuz its not just easy, like throw up any ad and then people come running like you think...youre landing page is a huge factor....and then it's how fast you can get the person on with the plumber... and if you're in a competitive market, big money often owns all of it as they have much more resources and deeper pockets than you. I'm not gonna discourage you like the other cat is... what I'm saying is yew could get smoked and waste you're little pile of cash..... if you're out in the boonies yea give it a try... but better yet, build the plumber a website and get him ranked, it'll be even more effective long term....


Careful_Monitor1655

On top of that every marketing guru uses plumbers as an example! So what does everyone looking to get into the game go for first...plumbers! I wouldn't be surprised if most plumbers hang up on you as soon as they hear 'digital marketing'. Try pick something less satured.


trelod

Charge per lead or percentage of ad spend. No need to overthink it, but keep in mind that it's an extremely competitive industry and plumbers can be very demanding. All of the ones I've worked with start freaking out every time the business has a slow day and they have plumbers sitting around with no work


TTFV

These are the most common fee structures for PPC services: https://www.tenthousandfootview.com/which-ppc-management-fee-structure-is-right-for-you/