Facebook, Google, Bing and any sort of PPC ad should have a strategized budget. There’s a fairly simple formula for that, which is what you’ll learn in this blog.

In order to get to your magic “should spend” number, you have to establish the basic system you’re working with. As you get the numbers right, you’ll want to start by asking yourself:

Will you do ads yourself or use an agency? 

This will actually be a huge factor for your budget.

Scenarios for Your PPC Budget With an Agency

Here are some scenarios.

SCENARIO ONE:

• $1,000/month for your PPC ad agency.
• $1,000/month for your spend.
• You get about 100 leads a month.

Sound good?

Sure, but make sure you see the real numbers here.

Your spend = $2,000 divided by 100 leads a month. That means each of your leads are $20.

SCENARIO TWO:

• $1,000/month for your PPC ad agency.
• $3,000/month for your spend.
• You get about 300 leads a month.

Your spend = $4,000 divided by 300 leads a month. That means each of your leads are $13.33.

The difference between scenarios one and two is about 33% cost reduction. This could be the difference between you being profitable and you not being profitable. If you are using an agency, you want to make sure that your spend is at least 2x or 3x more than that charge.

There is a very common thread with the companies I’ve worked with. The ones that have stood the test of time spend at least double the cost of the PPC ad service.

Scenario for Your PPC Budget Without an Agency

Maybe you’re not using an agency. Maybe you’re doing it yourself. Let’s run those numbers.

I’ll have to make some assumptions to create this illustration for you.

SCENARIO:

You’re a retail limo company in Los Angeles.

Your cost is $3 cost-per-click (CPC).

Red flag: if your barometer for success is your CPC number, you’re in trouble. Just like you can’t go to the bank and deposit clicks, you can’t go to the bank and deposit clicks. Clicks don’t matter. You could get a million clicks and no sales if they were all irrelevant sales.

Maybe your marketing rep is good: they understand landing pages, Google ads, etc. If they do understand those things well, it could be that ¼ of the clicks are a conversion. In this case, let’s refer to conversions as calls. (The word conversion is very common in internet marketing lingo – I want this to be real for you).

Calls may be one out of every 7 or 8 clicks. To keep the numbers easy here, though, we’ll say it’s one out of every four. 

This means that you’re averaging about $12/lead. But you have to take this further. How many leads do you want a day? That will directly impact your spend.

Your close rate may be different for calls or forms. You have to consider averages. Any time you do PPC, you look at 7-day or 30-day moving averages. The numbers will be all over the place. You need averages to truly understand how you’re doing and how much it costs you. 

Your spend = $1,080 a month to get those jobs.

What Are You Spending on PPC?

Understanding your real spend against your real conversion rate is the only way you have accurate understanding of your investment. Do you know this number?

Most people have no idea how much it costs for them to acquire clients. You can take these calculations and adapt them to your situation. If you do, you will get a baseline for your business operations. 

By digging into this, you can wrap your mind around how much leads actually cost you. That is going to incentivize you to convert them better and help you budget accordingly. You may also find that spending a little more has a huge return. Every situation is different. If you want personalized insight into your business and how to improve your PPC and ad strategy, contact us.

Additional Factors that Impact Conversions

Remember, there are a few key factors that directly impact your ability to turn calls into customers, or convert leads. These are:

• Following up right away
• Giving a quote and tracking it
• Following up after a quote with a text message
• Continue following up until you get a hard no

Your follow-up ability is more important than your sales ability. For many people, this is the most important thing you can do to change your business.

How to Improve PPC For Your Limo Business

The reality is that these concepts aren’t too difficult for you to learn. Whether you hire an ad agency or run these internally, you should understand what’s going on and how much it costs you. You would never let money run out the door or have unchecked budget items in any other department. Don’t let PPC be the dark horse that slips past your notice. There are plenty of ways to learn about paid ads and how they impact your transportation company. We have resources that can help. I encourage you:

• Bookmark this blog and check back regularly for new posts
• Subscribe to my YouTube channel
• Follow us on FB

At Limo Marketer, we help companies like yours succeed in paid ad campaigns. Dig around our site for plenty of case studies, articles and illustrations of how a service like this could transform your lead generation and conversion strategies.