GBP posts vs Local Services Ads: which one you are actually paying for

Most plumbing, HVAC and electrical shops we talk to can say within a few dollars what a lead costs them from Local Services Ads. It is the number they know best, because it is billed per lead and it appears on a statement every month.

That number makes the rest of this easy.

Two different jobs

Local Services Ads put you at the top of the page with a Google Guaranteed badge. That buys the impression: you are one of the three businesses a homeowner is looking at.

Your Google Business Profile is what they look at next. The rating, the review count, the photos, the last time anything happened on it. That is what turns being seen into being called.

You are already paying for the first. The second is free, you own it, and it has not been touched since spring.

The comparison to make, with your own numbers

We are not going to invent a cost per lead for you, because it varies by market, trade and season by more than any average would tell you. Use your own:

• What did you pay for Local Services Ads last month, and how many leads did it produce? That is your cost per lead.
• Divide a month of profile maintenance by that number. If keeping the profile alive costs less than one lead a week, the question is settled before you look at any other evidence.

That is the whole argument, and it works whichever way your numbers come out, which is why it is worth doing rather than being told.

What “keeping it alive” actually means

Weekly posts from real jobs. Photos that are recent. Questions answered. Service areas and hours correct — all of it on the profile itself, and all of it documented in Google’s own help. Reviews responded to, at least the ones that need it. If yours has not been touched in months, start with what that is costing you.

None of that is difficult. All of it is a habit, and habits are what a shop running four trucks in August does not have spare.

The honest timeline

Profile activity does not move the phones next week. Google’s own numbers on the profile – views, call clicks and direction requests – move on a scale of sixty to ninety days, and they move for other reasons too.

So take a baseline before you change anything. Write down this month’s numbers. Then read them again in ninety days, and judge it on that.

Anyone who promises you a lift in two weeks is selling you something. We would rather show you a number that moved slowly and tell you honestly what else was happening at the time.

That is what PostIQ reports, and the posting itself is what we do so that the profile stops being the thing nobody got to.