How I'd approach Google Ads for an AV rental business

An audio visual (AV) rental business owner contacted me about running Google Ads.

His ideal customer is a business exhibiting at a trade show or putting on an event in Houston. They're looking for a few big screens for the booth or stage, and a sound system. They often come from other cities.

He doesn't want enquiries from:

• Consumers renting a television for their living room.
• People looking for repairs or permanent AV installations.
• Events outside Houston.

This means we need to solve two separate targeting problems:

• Location. The equipment is needed in Houston, but the person booking it could be anywhere in the country.
• B2B vs B2C. Someone searching for “TV rental” might be organising a trade show. That search could equally be someone looking for a TV for their living room.

Here's how I'd approach it.

I'd set up 2 campaigns

A nationwide campaign

The first would target people across the US. It'd have keywords that included Houston or an event venue in Houston.

For example:

• AV rental Houston
• Trade show TV rental Houston
• Conference projector rental Houston

That gives someone booking equipment for Houston from New York a route to our hero.

A local campaign

The second campaign would target people in the Houston service area. Its keywords wouldn’t have to include Houston.

For example:

• AV equipment rental
• Trade show monitor rental
• Corporate event sound system rental

For both campaigns I'd include the word Houston in the ad headline. This should reduce clicks from people wanting equipment in other areas.

I’ve used this geographical split before for an immigration lawyer where we had hit a ceiling on leads in his city. The nationwide campaign added a few more cases every month so it was worth doing. I don't know if it'll be worth doing here. We'll know once we've tested it.

The second problem is reducing consumer enquiries

Someone who searches for "large screen tv rental" could be planning a corporate event. Or they could be planning a Super Bowl watch party at home. (Insert your preferred sporting event here.)

I'd choose our keywords carefully and add negative keywords, but this isn't likely to be enough to stop all B2C enquiries.

What's helped for other B2B clients is:

• Emphasise that it's a B2B service in the ad copy. The goal is to stop B2C clicks before they happen.
• Emphasise that it's a B2B service on the landing page. The goal is to stop B2C enquiries.
• Optimise the campaign for qualified B2B leads using offline conversions. More on this later.

I’d build separate landing pages for each of the main services.

That way someone who searched for say "large screen rental" would see an ad for a large screen rental. If they clicked the ad they'd see a page about large screen rentals. Someone who searched for sound system rental would see a sound system ad and a sound system page.

When the search, ad and landing page all match what someone is looking for, more clicks tend to turn into enquiries.

But, we'd also have to have a generic page listing all the services. This one's for people who searched for something like "AV hire service Houston".

I’ve written plenty about building landing pages that turn clicks into enquiries. If you're interested here's a good place to start: https://pete-bowen.com/topics/landing-pages

Tell Google which leads are good

When you're looking for B2B leads in a market that also has B2C searches, it's important to tell Google which leads are good. That way Google can learn which kinds of enquiries we want more of.

In technical terms this is called optimising for qualified leads using offline conversions.

I normally work with the business to define what makes a good / qualified lead. In this case it'd probably be something like:

• a B2B enquiry,
• for an event in Houston,
• looking for the kind of service the business offers.

A qualified lead is a useful signal to Google because:

• It's unambiguous. The enquiry either ticks the boxes or it doesn't.
• It's fast. Five minutes on the phone and we've got the answer. This helps Google learn faster.

Even if the lead never turned into a sale, it's still the kind of enquiry we want more of.

We're still missing some information.

At this stage I've got a broad outline, but there are a few things I'd need to know before launching any ads.

• Are there any kinds of jobs they really don't want?
• How much can we spend to win a customer?
• How leads are handled. The ads might bring in the right people, but how they're handled will make or break the campaign.
• How much capacity they have for work.

And we also need to work out who is the most likely customer so we can write ads and landing pages that resonate.

• Is it the company that's exhibiting or sponsoring the event?
• Is it an event planner?
• Is it the venue?
• Is it the firm that's providing the infrastructure - the booths, the staging etc.?

These could be quite different customers. They might all need AV equipment, but they won't necessarily search for it in the same way.

Would I recommend Google Ads for this business?

Possibly. But I'm not ready to recommend going all in on Google yet.

We've got a reasonable idea of how to tackle the two targeting problems. We can reach people outside Houston who need equipment in Houston, and we've got ways to reduce consumer enquiries.

But that doesn't mean Google Ads is a good fit.

I'd recommend starting with a pilot campaign.

The pilot would let us test if we can generate enough of the right enquiries at a cost that makes commercial sense. We'd also learn which searches produce good enquiries, which services attract the most interest and where we're wasting money.

At the end of the pilot, we'd have some real data to help decide whether to continue, change our approach or stop.

The question isn't if Google Ads works for AV companies. I'm reasonably confident it would. We need to find out if Google Ads works for this company. The pilot would confirm this.

If the way I think resonates with you I'd like to give you a copy of my book Profitable Google Ads. You can download it here: https://pete-bowen.com/book

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