I Spent $1M on Ads. Here's What Won

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In this episode of Marketing for Tradies, Shannon breaks down the real difference between Google and Facebook, and which one actually belongs in your marketing strategy.

This episode covers:

◼️ The costly mistake of fishing for leads on the wrong platform

◼️ How to identify where your best customers are actively searching

◼️ The shift that changes how you attract urgent, needs-based work

◼️ A one-week challenge to measure the real quality of your leads

Timestamps

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:00:03 - Choosing the Right Platform

00:00:19 - Budget Allocation: Google vs Facebook

00:00:55 - Google Ads vs Facebook Ads

00:05:46 - Where Your Customers Actually Are

00:05:57 - Your One-Week Challenge

00:06:22 - The Results Will Speak for Themselves 

Stay Connected:

• Eastbound Digital Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eastbounddigital_/
• Shannon's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shannonbain1/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-bain-2a18b2105/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eastbounddigitalagency

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Choosing the wrong platform is like trying to fish in the middle of the desert. It doesn't matter how good your bait is. Think about your best ever customer, the most profitable job you ever did. Did they need your service urgently, or was it just a vague, nice-to-have idea? Using the right tool for the right job is absolutely critical. What percentage is going towards capturing high-intent leads on Google versus what's going towards creating awareness or prospecting for coldly baseball? Welcome to Marketing for Trading, the podcast where we help trades and service-based businesses with straight-up marketing advice to get more leads and put more jobs. I'm your host, Shannon, and my agency has helped over a hundred businesses go from inconsistent work and relying on word of mouth to getting a steady flow of jobs coming in every single week. In this podcast, I'm walking you through simple, practical strategies that actually help you grow your business without get sports. So let's get into it. Should you be spending your marketing budget on Google ads or Facebook ads? This is one of the most common questions I get. So today we are settling the debate once and for all: Google ads versus Facebook ads, specifically for Australian trades and service-based business owners. If you get this wrong, you will burn through your cash faster than you can imagine with nothing to show for it but a bunch of useless likes and leads that are never going to buy. Your ability to generate profitable, high-quality leads depends entirely on you putting your message in the right place at the right time. Choosing the wrong platform is like trying to fish in the middle of the desert. It doesn't matter how good your bait is. Now, most marketing gurus and agencies will tell you that you need to be everywhere. They'll try to sell you on complex multi-channel funnels that have you running ads on five different platforms. And for most businesses, this is terrible advice. You need to be on one platform where your customers are actively looking to hire you right now. Our team manages over$1 million in ad spend every year for businesses all over the country. We have tested everything, and the data is not ambiguous. There is a very, very clear winner for trades and service-based businesses. So in this episode, I'm gonna break down the fundamental difference between these two platforms. I'll explain why one is a tool for capturing demand and the other is for creating it. And I'll show you which one actually makes your phone ring with real paying customers. Let's start with the mindset of the user. The most important thing to understand here is the mindset of the person using each platform. This is what determines the quality and the intent of the lead you're going to get. Google is a hunter's platform. The user has a problem right now. Their roof is leaking, their hot water is out, their fence is blown over. They've gone to Google and they've typed in the service that they're looking for. They are actively hunting for a solution to their pain. This is what we call high intent, bottom of the funnel leads. They are ready to buy. Facebook and Instagram, on the other hand, is a farmer's platform. The user is relaxed. They're scrolling through photos of their friends' holidays, watching funny videos, looking at what their family is up to. You're out as an interruption. You're trying to plant a seed in their mind to create demand where it didn't exist a second ago. Nobody, I promise you, is scrolling through Instagram and suddenly thinks, you know what? I should really get that retaining wool I've been putting off for three years. It just doesn't happen. But they will 100% go to Google the moment that old wool starts to collapse into their neighbor's yard. So your first action step of this episode is to think about your best ever customer, the most profitable job you ever did. Did they need your service urgently, or was it just a vague nice to have idea? Your answer to that question tells you which platform people just like them are searching right now. Now, this doesn't mean that Facebook and Instagram and social media in general is useless. It's just that it has a very different job to do in your marketing system. Using the right tool for the right job is absolutely critical. For a trade, Google's job is lead generation, full stop. It's for getting the phone to ring with people who have a problem and are ready to pay someone to fix it. This is where the vast majority of your budget, your time, and your focus should be. This is the first step of the trade's marketing system for a reason. It's the most direct path to a paying customer. Facebook's job, on the other hand, is completely different. For a trades business, its primary role is retargeting and building brand. Retargeting simply means showing your ads to people who have already visited your website or landing page, most likely from a Google search. It's a follow-up tool, it's a way to stay top of mind because they've already shown interest. For example, how this works in real life practice. A roofer runs a Google ad for a search term, Roof Replacement Sydney. Homeowner clicks that ad, they visit the roofers landing page, but for whatever reason, they don't convert right away. Maybe their kid interrupts them or they get a phone call, but later that day they're scrolling on Facebook or Instagram and they see a video ad or a graphic ad from that same roofer. The video or graphic is a testimonial from another happy client who had their roof replaced last week. That is the correct way to use both platforms together. Google captures the initial intent. Facebook then follows up to build trust and close the deal. So your next action step is to go and look at your current marketing spend. If you have any. And if you don't have any, then starting paid ads is probably something you need to be considering right now. What percentage is going towards capturing high intent leads on Google versus what's going towards creating awareness or prospecting for cold leads on Facebook? If that budget isn't heavily geared towards Google, I can almost guarantee that it's upside down. And you're not going to be getting as many high-quality leads as you can get right now. So to wrap it all up, you need to fish where the fish are biting. So for urgent needs-based local services, which is what every trades business provides, your customers are on Google when they need you. That is where you must be. So your challenge for this week is really, really simple. If you're currently running ads on Facebook trying to find brand new customers, I want you to pause that campaign and just for one week, I want you to take that budget and put it into a tightly focused Google search campaign that targets your highest value service in your primary service area. And then measure the difference in the quality of leads that you get. The results will speak for themselves. Thank you for tuning in to the Marketing for Traities podcast. If you got something out of this episode, don't forget to like, follow, and subscribe, or leave us a review on whatever platform you're listening on. And if you're a service based business owner who'd rather have someone handle your marketing for you, book a call with my team using the link below and let's see how we can help.