Programmatic 101: What’s the Best Ad Format to Drive New Plumbing Business?

Any seasoned plumbing contractor knows that leads are key to keeping their business running smoothly.

You want to book more appointments, close more sales, and keep your employees busy. You want to position your plumbing business as a leader in an increasingly competitive marketplace. And to do that, you need a steady stream of leads to grow your business.

So, how do you reach new customers? It’s all about targeting the right people with the right message. Even when you’re marketing something that everybody needs (leak detection, drain cleaning—you name it), you want to reach the people most likely to pick up the phone and schedule an appointment.

Instead of draining your hard-earned advertising dollars on random media picks, it’s time to drive real results with a data-driven strategy. You work every day to build a business you can be proud of. Now, it’s time to make your advertising strategy work for you. That’s where programmatic will be your MVP.

Unlike traditional advertising, programmatic ads are delivered on an individual level. Advertisers can target users based on individual characteristics, behaviors, and interests, leveraging data to help you make the most informed marketing decisions. Combine that with attention-grabbing creative and you have a winning marketing strategy.

Ready to upgrade your digital marketing strategy with programmatic ads? Here’s what you need to know to reach new customers and maximize your ROI.

How Does Programmatic Advertising Work?

In a nutshell, programmatic advertising is a way to automatically buy and optimize digital ad campaigns instead of buying directly from publishers. By leveraging machine learning and AI optimization, programmatic helps advertisers boost their efficiency by buying ads through real-time auctions when a visitor loads a website.

With programmatic, you can rely on algorithms and AI to determine where your ad spend is best spent. Once you define your target audience and set your ad budget, you can use a demand side platform (DSP) to start buying ad space. 

Of course, if you don’t want to spend hours crafting an award-winning advertising strategy, you can hire a marketing agency to run your programmatic campaigns for you. This way, you’ll be able to spend more time getting your hands dirty, answering phone calls, and running your business.

Why You Can’t Afford to Ignore Programmatic

If you’re looking to stretch your advertising budget, maximize your return on investment, and connect with your target audience, it’s time to dive into programmatic. It’s the tool you need to get your plumbing business in front of a hyper-targeted, captive audience in your service area and start converting more leads into paying customers.

Programmatic ads can help you win new business because they’re:

• Fast. AI and machine learning algorithms are highly efficient, ensuring your ads get in front of the right people at the right time. When it comes to data, you’ll have access to metrics in real time. If something isn’t working, you can adjust mid-campaign to maximize your performance.
• Efficient. Programmatic reduces wasted ad spend by targeting your most qualified leads. If an ad is catching the interest of specific segments, you can optimize its targeting to reach them. This way, you’ll get the most bang out of your advertising budget—all while boosting your conversion rates and lowering your cost per acquisition.
• Targeted. Since you can build a specific audience profile to target, you’ll be able to laser-focus your programmatic ads to reach local homeowners actively searching for plumbing services.

Best Ad Formats to Win New Plumbing Customers

With programmatic ad platforms, you can create campaigns using different ad formats—also known as “creatives.” Each ad format allows you to reach new customers in a slightly different way. 

Of course, to maximize your campaign’s performance, you’ll want to choose the right combination of creatives for your company’s specific needs and goals. If you’re just getting started with programmatic, here are the ad formats you need to keep the phone ringing and your appointment book full.

1. Display

Google Display Ads run on the Google Display Network, allowing you to connect with your customers no matter where they are on the web. Even if they’re not directly searching for your products or services, display ads boost your online visibility so you can capture more leads.

The Google Display Network covers over two million sites and reaches 90 percent of people on the Internet. With Google’s targeting options, you can show your ads to specific audiences—from seasonal in-market segments to affinity audiences. To reach the right people with your display ads, check out our guide to building target audiences.

In a perfect world, your ads would only go out to customers who would ultimately visit your website, pick up the phone, and hire your company. Even though display ads won’t give you perfect conversion rates, they can help you create hyper-targeted ads, land leads on personalized landing pages, and take your conversion rate to the next level.

How to create the best display ads: Want to step out in front of the competition and get noticed by local homeowners? Personalization will be your secret weapon. It’s basically the Holy Grail of display advertising—and it’s easy to see why. It cuts through the digital clutter to send the right message to the right person at the right time.

Sure, bombarding users with the same message over and over again might work…to some degree. Static display ads can be a valuable tool for lead generation, but you want to drive the best results. That means you’re going to take a different approach with impactful, personalized, and dynamic display ads.

Here’s how you’re going to win at display ads.

• Segment your audience. Before you even think about building a personalized campaign, you need to get to know your audience. You need to tailor your ads based on knowledge of your target audience. For example, you might use geotargeting to target homeowners that recently experienced freezing temperatures—or you might use demographic information to target pain points among different age groups.
• Update your campaign in real time. Static display ads aren’t going to cut it anymore. You need to be able to update every element of your ad creatives in real time. That means having the capability to change your entire campaign in a click. If you’re too busy running your plumbing business to worry about creatives, an experienced marketing partner can optimize your strategy behind the scenes while you close the sales.
• Create ad variations at scale. Now that you know who your audiences are, it’s time to create personalized ads. With ad variations for different stages of the customer journey, you can target users depending on their stage in the sales funnel. This way, they’ll see customized messaging at each stage, allowing you to provide a seamless, personalized journey from start to finish.

2. Video

Video ads are one of the best ways to reach new customers—and they’re not going away any time soon. In 2019, programmatic video ad spend reached an incredible $26.24 billion, accounting for 42.8 percent of total digital programmatic display ad spending. In 2022, video ad spending will reach $62.96 billion. So, what are you waiting for?

Thanks to programmatic’s laser-focused targeting, you can effectively identify users who are most likely to connect with your plumbing business. Your programmatic platform will identify which videos your potential customers are more likely to watch. Then, it’ll put your video ads in front of those users.

The best part? With the right creative, leads will be much more inclined to connect with your brand through video. Your videos should evoke an emotional reaction to increase the likelihood that users will remember your brand later. When they’re ready to pick up the phone and replace their water heater, you’ll be the first contractor they think of.

There are a few different types of video ads:

• In-stream: In-stream ads play before you start a video (you’ve probably seen them on YouTube), the ads that interrupt you mid-stream (like TV commercials), and the ads that play at the very end.
• In-display: In-display ads appear at the top of your YouTube feed. Unlike in-stream and out-stream ads, they don’t autoplay, so your audience has to make an active choice to click on them.
• Out-stream: Out-stream ads are the video ads that play in the middle of the stream. Some people find these intrusive, so you’ll want to use them wisely. The right messaging can effectively boost your online visibility if you’re targeting the right audience.

How to create the best video ads: Most of the value delivered by video ads comes from brand awareness. Your programmatic platform takes your user data and shows ads to your ideal customers using real-time bidding, so you’re targeting a super-specific audience that is more likely to convert than your average Internet user.

In addition to watching your click-through rate (CTR), pay attention to your view-through rate (VTR)—the number of full views your video ad receives. This way, you’ll be able to measure how effective your video ads are at reaching your audience.

To win at programmatic video ads, you’ll also need to:

• Carefully consider your ad placement. Because not every video works with every ad type, it’s worth planning your video ads based on your placement. Something that works for in-display might not work well in out-stream. Don’t be afraid to experiment with A/B testing to figure out which placement works for different ads.
• Keep it short and sweet. Chances are, your prospects don’t want to listen to you talking about DIY plumbing fixes in the middle of a YouTube video. Less is more—and you want to get to your message quickly while being as clear as you can. Don’t forget to let your viewer know what to do next by creating a clear, customized call to action. Make sure your landing page is consistent and tailored to match the video ad that links to it.
• Make it entertaining. This is especially important for in-stream and out-stream video ads. Think about it: You’re fighting for the user’s attention with the content they’re trying to watch. You need an attention-grabbing opening to get the upper hand and entice them to keep watching.

3. Social

Social media is one of the most engaging, effective ways to connect with your target audience—and programmatic makes it easier than ever to take advantage of the reach of social media platforms. Because programmatic automates the social media ad buying process, you won’t have to sacrifice hours to create an impactful social campaign.

When you tap into the power of programmatic, you can easily target users based on their social media activity, along with their activity across other websites and apps. You can also account for offline data, such as their interests, demographic information, and purchase history, to create even more impactful ads.

Instead of just serving ads to people who like a certain Facebook page, you can choose precise, specific segments. Plus, you can reach users across multiple social platforms—and your DSP will make sure you reach the ones that are most likely to drive new business.

How to create the best social ads: The ideal social media platform for your programmatic strategy will depend on your target audience. You’ll need to meet your audience where they already are and consider which types of content work best for different platforms.

Some of the best social media platforms for plumbers include:

• Facebook: With nearly two billion active Facebook users each day, Facebook offers unrivaled reach potential. It also comes with versatile targeting options, making it one of the best platforms to reach specific demographics. To make the most of your advertising efforts, we recommend placing pixels on your website to target Custom Audiences. These audiences consist of website visitors with Facebook IDs, allowing you to retarget these visitors with ads across social media.
• Instagram: Want to boost brand awareness? Instagram can get your plumbing business in front of local homeowners with attention-grabbing photo and video ads. Instagram comes with similar targeting options to Facebook. It’s a great starting point for contractors thanks to its high user engagement potential.
• Pinterest: Because of its focus on home improvements and DIY, Pinterest is prime for contractor advertising. It offers the ability to target specific consumers and keywords, providing the perfect opportunity to increase your brand awareness and reach local homeowners interested in your services.

Make the Most of Programmatic

Mastering the art of programmatic isn’t going to happen overnight, but with the right approach, it can have a huge impact on your bottom line. Our clients tell us that programmatic advertising helps them capture more leads, book more appointments, and come out on top of the competition.

With that said, programmatic is only one piece of the puzzle. To maximize the ROI of your paid search campaigns, you’ll need to supplement them with compelling copy, user-friendly web design, and landing pages that convert. 

If you’re struggling to get started or need some extra support building your campaign, we’re here to support and serve your plumbing business with industry-leading digital marketing solutions. Contact us today to upgrade your paid search strategy and start winning new business.

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