Adwords in a college town?

[Russ T.]

This time of year we get a TON of "tire-kickers" and price shoppers coming from the students at Iowa State. Most of them care about 1 thing, price. This is okay and there's money to be made with them as clients BUT, they are eating up my Adwords budget! I don't want to spend much $ at all marketing to this group.

Do you just pull out of a market like this at this time of year? There are a lot of great residential jobs in Ames that I would like to gain but not sure how to go about it. Any advice?

Thanks.


The Clean Machine

 

[TomKing]

Russ

Set your campaign by zip codes. Cut out those zips for move out weeks. That lasts 2 weeks maybe 3. Then reinstate it for the zips. Should be pretty easy.

Why not market to the complexes that have the students? Maybe set up a deal that they can promote for you. This way the adwords would not have to be down for the homes. You could do EDDM to the homes you are targeting when adwords are down. Just a thought.

This way the complex gets you the high quality cleaner and the student gets the price they want.

Might be to late for this year but something you could do when the snow flies and you have plenty of time to cold call.

You could also set yourself up as the company to do the ones the complex has to deal with when students don't clean.

Call me I have 2 people you need to be friends with they are in markets just like yours and do very well.

 

[Shane Deubell]

What tom said...

Also you can use the radius tool and skip that area for now. Might be better if they are concentrated.

 

[your_good_sons]

I live near a large state university. Graduation is 5/17. I find them on Facebook, not Adwords. If you are an affluent town, that's +15 or +20% on the bids. If you are in a slum town, that's -30% on the bids. Same thing with the college town. If you are the fringe of my service area, that's -5 or -10%. If you are slightly better than average, you might get a +5 or 10%, but most likely 0%.
Zip codes don't work much for me. Town/City works and radius works for search. Radius seems to be the only thing that works for display.
In some cases demographics, such as 21-30 percentile earners get +10% and 31-40% percentiles get +5%, but that is by county and doesn't work for every county. If you are in the bottom 50 percentile, that's a -10%, use to be -5% but the rankings were too high. I like to shoot for 4-6 for my best keywords in my best markets, 5-7 for the average and 6-9 for the worst or the ones that cost more a lot.
Too many competitors click your ads in Adwords, I am almost certain of this. I generally snoop around competitors every 30-60 days myself, so I click on competitors ads once every 30-60 days too. I suspect I have one that clicks on me nearly daily. Even though his town is not a bad market, maybe even a +5% market, his town is a -15% and the clicks dropped significantly. His town used to be responsible for more clicks than any other town in this market, yet his population was not even in the top 5. I made the adjustment thinking let him have his hometown, I'll take the rest. He has left me alone since then.

 

[Russ T.]

There are safeguards built into Adwords that prevent your completion from being very successful at eating up your budget. I'm not exactly sure how it works but discussed it directly with Google and they pretty much convinced me it's not something I need to worry about. Adwords is an important part of us reaching new customers. We have been mostly successful. I have temporarily suspended (paused) my efforts in Ames for now. My competitors can have the price shoppers.

I am going to look into EDDM. I appreciate that recommendation from Tom and Chavez.

Tom, I will give you a call very soon. I'm interested to hear what you would say. For today, I'm done with work and the fam and I are off to the lake to go camping, Spring found Iowa! EJ (13) and I spent the night at Saylorville Lake last night and Mel and Max (4) are joining us tonight. A couple IPA's next to the campfire is exactly what the Kid needs after being trapped in the house all Winter.

I really do appreciate the help guys.


The Clean Machine

 

[Russ T.]

The Clean Machine

 

[jcooper]

Nice trailer, Russ! Looks fun... How often you get to use it? How old are the little guys?

Adwords - not sure how you can get the people you want and keep out the people you don't all in the same zip code. Maybe try settings under demographics? Try age groups or income, married and so on.

Also, google ain't THAT good at weeding out invalid clicks. Honestly, I'm surprised bad clicks don't add up to more than they do.

What time of day/night are the clicks from the kids coming? If late just shut the ads off at 11pm or so and turn on at 5am. Check it out.

 

[Russ T.]

Thanks Jerry,
The boys are 13 and 4. We just bought the camper last Summer and use it every chance we can. It's small (23 feet) but it's plenty for us right now. I'm able to tow it with my Honda Ridgeline.

Adwords is great but somewhat limited. It's not as if all the college kids live in a particular zip code. The city of Ames is mixed up pretty good. A direct mail campaign would give me more options so I'll be looking into that shortly.

Just had to get out while we had the chance! Just 4 apartments to clean anytime tomorrow makes it a good time to go!


The Clean Machine