The comparison is usually drawn between advertisements in a social feed and banners around the web. For a contractor that misses the option worth the most: bidding differently on people who already visited you when they search again.
Three things get called retargeting
They behave so differently that treating them as one choice is the reason the comparison rarely helps.
Social retargeting places your advertisement in a feed. The viewer was not looking for you or for anything. It interrupts, which suits work somebody is mulling over and does nothing for work somebody needs now.
Display retargeting puts banners on other websites. It is the cheapest of the three by a distance and the easiest to waste, because impressions accumulate against people who are reading about something else entirely.
Search retargeting is the one that gets left out. Rather than showing anybody an advertisement, it adjusts how you bid when a past visitor searches again. They have returned to the search box with intent of their own, and you can pay more to be there for them than for a stranger.
Why search retargeting suits a trade best
Home service demand is event-driven. Something breaks, or a season turns, and the household starts looking. A person who visited you last week and is now searching again has moved from considering to acting, and that moment is worth paying a premium for.
It also avoids the two problems the other formats create. There is no repeated exposure to fatigue, because you only appear when they search. And there is no risk of following somebody around with the private matter they were researching, the concern behind retargeting that starts to feel creepy.
The catch is that lists for search placements typically require a larger audience than display lists do, so a contractor with modest traffic may not qualify. The thresholds differ by network and change, so check the current ones.
Where social earns its place
Long-consideration work. A roof, a full system replacement, a repipe: jobs a household discusses for weeks and often defers. There, being visible during the deliberation genuinely influences the outcome, and the feed is where people are during the evenings when those conversations happen.
It is also the better format for anything visual. Before-and-after work photographs, a short clip of a technician explaining something: these belong in a feed and do not belong on a banner.
Where display is worth having
As inexpensive presence, and little more. It is a reasonable way to stay faintly visible to a large-ish audience at low cost, provided the expectations match that description.
The mistake is treating its low cost per thousand impressions as efficiency. Cheap impressions to people who are not thinking about you are cheap for a reason, and this is the format where the ninety-impressions-per-household problem does most of its damage.
Which to choose on one budget
- Mostly emergency and repair work: search retargeting if your audience qualifies, otherwise probably none of the three, put the money into ordinary search advertising.
- Mostly replacements and projects: social first, for the deliberation window, with search retargeting alongside if volume allows.
- Small audience overall: one channel properly rather than three thinly. Splitting a list of a hundred people across three platforms gives you three campaigns that cannot deliver.
Frequently asked questions
Is Facebook or Google retargeting better for contractors?
It depends on the work. Google’s search-based retargeting suits event-driven jobs because it reaches people at the moment they search again. Social suits long-deliberation replacements.
What is search retargeting?
Bidding differently when someone who already visited your site performs a search. No advertisement follows them around, you simply pay more to be there when they come back with intent.
Is display retargeting worth it?
As cheap presence, sometimes. Treating its low cost per impression as efficiency is the mistake; those impressions reach people who are not thinking about you.
Should I run all three?
Not on a small audience. Three campaigns that each fall short of the minimum audience size perform worse than one that works.
Where to start
Look at what you actually sell. If most of your revenue is work decided within a day, the feed is the wrong place and search is the right one, and if your audience is too small for search lists, the answer is more traffic rather than a different platform.
Real Time Marketing has worked with home service contractors since 2016: plumbing, HVAC, roofing, electrical and other trades, nationwide, from our office in Bradenton, Florida. Agreements are month-to-month. See our pay-per-click management or book a strategy call.
